OrbitalManeuvers

This mission, with the new Proton parts .... * chef's kiss *

I've always wondered about tech tree mods: do you have to make decisions on every part that appears in the tree? And does that require looking at the part or at least knowing what it is/does? I'm wondering how much tooling you have to help, or if it's just hardcore manual labor?

Hi - thought I'd give this a go. Thanks for sharing your work with us. I think you might also have an incompatibility with HideEmptyTechTreeNodes. Screenshot shows my tree with it installed. Seems ok once I removed it.

you guys, this mod is really great. it was already great at beta 1 and it's just gotten better and smoother. thanks to all of you for sharing this hard work with err1 If I may ask about a couple things: I remember landing on top of the heat shield in the water in the early betas, which didn't seem ideal and I meant to ask about it. The last couple of betas I've noticed there's much better separation between the capsule and the heat shield. I'm using all the auto-deploy/jettison features at the default altitudes, it just seems like it's working better now in 7/8. Did you guys change something? Or maybe I finally got something right? either way it's working well. Last q ... (and I kinda have the same question about the Kane capsule) what is the right altitude to jettison the parachute cover? Do I want more atmo pressure or less atmo pressure? Sometimes it comes back and bonks into my docking port or whizzes by at disturbing speeds ... and sometimes it just disappears silently into the blue sky. Please help me achieve the no bonk scenario.

Yeah, in KSRSS from the Cape, this one ain't gonna happen. It's at least a few hundred m/s short. I am currently not fluent in direct ascent from the Cape with the inclination mode set to Default. If I'm not mistaken it can only be done once a month with a very small launch window at night. There was a time when I didn't know how to get to an equatorial geosynchronous orbit either, and I do now, so maybe there's hope for direct ascent. I also know that even with Default inclination, the relationship between the moon and the earth in KSRSS can't be precisely correct without axial tilt, so that makes me a little meh about direct ascent missions in KSP. That said, Pioneer 4 is entirely possible in JNSQ. I just tried 3 times and was able to get to a munar PE of 800k, so it would just take some tweaking to the timing/ascent angle to get it closer. But I did get to escape velocity, and my solar orbit was lower, so I'm calling that one a ... whatevs. Also, check out this old NASA video of the Pioneer 4 launch, around 50 seconds. Interesting - might need to bury some prograde RCS jets in the bottom of the guidance unit ... someday ... if I ever try this again

But if we take on Pioneer 1 ... you in? No suicide burns! Luckily the rest of it is horrible enough to make up for it.

there is nothing bundled in the KSRSS Reborn download from Gitlab. I dunno what you got there but here's a picture of a minimal KSRSS install. If you just do this, and nothing more than this, then you should have a working KSRSS, which you can then add the rest of your mods onto. But it's best to start a solar system change from scratch instead of adding it to an existing install. That way you can do just this much, test it, make sure it's good, then continue adding others if you want.

Do you have the latest SharedAssets too? https://github.com/benjee10/Benjee10_sharedAssets

Ah, yeah stuff is a little chaotic with this mod. What's happened is that you've downloaded the old release. I can give you a correct link, with a caveat. There are two (that I know of) branches of new stuff. One is called KSRSS Reborn, and at this moment, it's my belief that this is the most compatible with other stuff. There's also another branch that I know people are using but I don't know anything else about it. I'm using Reborn, and the link for it is here: https://gitlab.com/ksrss/KSRSS/-/tree/reborn?ref_type=heads There's a control on the page for switching branches - the other (even newer) one is the EarthHomeWorld branch - maybe someone will comment about it. Anyway, download it with the blue Code button, unzip it somewhere temporary, and then find the KSRSS folder within the unzipped folder tree. That's the folder that goes into your GameData folder. Also please take note that for this to work, you will need to remove everything KSRSS-related that you have already installed. The only folder you should have is the single KSRSS folder embedded in the download zip. If you want clouds and atmo effects you can install the most recent Eve and Scatterer - without any other "visual" configs like Spectra, etc - KSRSS has built-in configs for both Eve and Scatterer.

You might really like Reentry, if haven't already looked at it. For switch flippin' flip switchers there's nothing like it.

Here's one way I've used it:

You must be using Real Names? For me the ZE-3 also has 1.8 units of solid fuel, and by itself shows 100s ISP/Thrust 2.66kN/5 seconds burn. I turned the thrust limiter down to 23 for a vacuum TWR of 2.36 for the flight - otherwise the TWR is over 10.

Well, here's my story ... KSRSS, default scale/inclinations. I did a test launch after building the craft to make sure I'd built it correctly, and cut off the Agena when my Ap was 500km. Lo and behold, my lunar DN was coming up, and the timing was perfect-ISH to get an encounter, so I quickly just made a node 1 minute ahead and got an encounter. Since this was a hack job and I wasn't even intending to actually go to the Moon, my trajectory was meh, so I cheated myself a 3rd ignition on the Agena for a single MCC to get the landing trajectory you see in the video. This was highly illegal and the mission would have failed if I was using EngineIgnitor but alas I was not and thus I have cheated badly. Ish, maybe, idk. The video is totally raw and unedited, so you'll want to skip. Overheating indicators were unexpected. The video starts at a quicksave point I made on the 1st attempt, and this is attempt #5 from the quicksave spot. The numbers can never be used by another human since this mission is incredibly sensitive to velocity and angle and lunar wind direction. Impact velocity is 45m/s ... survivable but should have been better. The only mission less fun than this one is Pioneer 1.

Helloooo this is a neat idea - thanks for sharing your work with the community. If anyone would like KSRSS Reborn, I have done the planets and the moons all the things. The file in the google drive folder is called ksrss-reborn-orbit-icons.cfg which you can place anywhere under GameData. Then just install this mod as distributed. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nj-stO5XIIRXmbe-_7iZwNr8QiUVLu76?usp=sharing Before anyone @'s me about Triton, I picked T and not AT because the cfg says vacuum but you can do whatever Small request: comet icon? KSRSS has 67P and Halley Edits: I updated to add all the tracking station objects (I think!), and renamed it ksrss-reborn-orbit-icons.cfg, because KSRSS has other branches, and RSS is different still.

I have a video of doing this on JNSQ, and I just noticed that the ball + SRM have about 800m/s in the video from 4 years ago. But today in the VAB, the ball + ZE-3-LYC "Zeus" have 1929 m/s. I wanna give this another try tonight on KSRSS. You're using default scale, and what about inclination? And are you doing a true direct ascent (i.e. launching at night?) or Earth orbit first? Just wanna match situations so we can compare notes!