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I often find that turning off the SAS once the brakes are on is helpful. There are still phantom forces acting on your craft, but at least your own reaction wheels etc. are not trying to correct them, over-correcting, and actually making things worse!

Interested to know if this really applies in KSP, when the lift generated by a wing is not a function of its shape, just a number assigned by the devs?

So, disclaimer 1) I don't know much about the workings of propellers, and disclaimer 2) I know nothing about atmospheric flight on Eve. That said, if the propellers aren't getting you to take off speed, I would presume you need either more of them (if that's how they work), or more lift to weight. I can't see any amount of optimization getting you to 15km! Be very interesting to see how you get on with this - no plans to try anything as ambitious, but I'm certain you are going to make some interesting discoveries on the way that will be relevant to us all!

Once it's in the air, what is the slowest speed it can fly straight and level at a couple of hundred metres? And, can the propellers get you that speed on their own?

It's almost certainly enough wing to get you off the ground, so not being able to take off easily is probably down to something else. The first two things I would try would be moving the rear landing gear forwards, so you are pivoting nearer the middle of the craft than the tail, and also considering whether the gear you are using are chunky enough for the weight of the craft (in my experience, a heavy craft squashing it's inadequate gear out of line is the second most likely cause of veering on the runway, after the one described by viewing). Whether it is enough wing for your eventual goal...

Many and varied are the life lessons KSP has to offer!

What communications relays do you put in place when planning to visit another planet? I've planned, and occasionally even launched, elaborate constellations for previous planned visits, but in my current career save I've got the funds rewards turned right down, and I'm wondering what little I can get away with, with my first Duna window coming up. I was considering launching one powerful relay, which can reach back to Kerbin, into and eccentric orbit above the north pole, with a smaller in-system relay to detach and put into a similar orbit below the south pole. Then my main science probe/lander can go into an equatorial orbit, and drop off a similar small in-system relay to run around an equatorial orbit. I think that should mean that the three relays will always be able to see each other, and between them they will cover most of the surface most of the time. Is that already over the top? Have I missed something that I'll regret instantly when I try to land? Thanks

Or at least, the first 3 minutes of it! Interesting stuff.

If you don't mind installing a mod, this might be what you need?

Yes, which was a very helpful response - thanks to Shpaget and especially DDE for their posts. I've re-phrased the question a little though, a few posts later, as I didn't do a good job of posing it originally.

Hey folks, I don't post much in this sub-forum so I don't know how the rules are usually applied, but could I respectfully ask for this thread to stay on-topic to answering the question posed? Apologies if there is an answer to the question posed in the discussion being had, I may be have missed it - if so, some explanation to link it to the question would be appreciated to help me learn. Thanks

That's interesting, I guess I'd always imagined it being less of a straight-line-ish sort of thing, even over the timescales involved. Ok, lets phrase it another way perhaps. Assuming that all the measurements are available over the millions of years as above, but no-one has bothered to crunch the numbers (Dude 1's ancestors were in charge, and preoccupied with taking pretty photos of sunsets). Which sets of data is Dude 2 going to run back to the lab to start crunching? What instruments are we currently using to monitor the sun's luminosity, and the characteristics of Earth's magnetosphere? What other physical characteristics of the Sun/Earth would he be looking into?

Let's suppose for a moment that our descendants in 1 billion years have forgotten that the sun was expected to become a red giant. Perhaps they lost all the astronomy text books in a freak yachting accident, who knows. At any rate, they have access to all of the scientific instruments that we have sent into/pointed at space, and also to the results that we have obtained by using those instruments in our time. Which instruments and observations would be the first to suggest to them that something was happening to the sun?

Nertea grants your wish with the Space Station Extended parts mod (or whatever it is called, typing on a tiny old phone screen after my toddler dropped mine on the kitchen tiles the other day...)

I think it looks interesting - sort of ETT like but with a bit more grouping. Also, any tree that moves the stupid goo experiment away form the start node gets automatic bonus points! My only two thoughts at the moment would be: 1) seems a little harsh to have dropped the thermometer from the tree entirely 2) it might be worth thinking ahead of time about what mods you may eventually want to include, and make sure you have nodes available for them - e.g. an extended string of nodes for space station parts of different sizes, nuclear power/engines, ion engines etc. Might be easy to add later, or might not be something you see happening anyway, but could be worth blocking these in at the planning stage so you don't find yourself wishing you'd done it differently later

Does anyone know what the approximate comparison is between the drag characteristics of the mk2 parts, the mk2.5 flat bottomed parts in the ragicaucasian/linuxgurugamer mod, and the size 2 parts in the Airplane Plus mod? I know, I'm being lazy, I could test them out for myself... Thanks

It's possible - though virtually unmanageable - to do this in KSP, as long as you are happy for them to be "in front"/"behind" each other, rather than "side by side". As in, if they are side by side and one is closer - even microscopically closer - to the body you are orbiting, it won't work, but if they are in front/behind each other in their orbit, but otherwise in an identical orbit, they will stay the same distance apart. Think of two keostationary satellites for example - they are in the same orbit, above two unmoving spots over Kerbin, and must therefore stay exactly the same distance apart. As mentioned though, it's nigh impossible to achieve without cheating them into position. This is the slightly simplified version of the above, the craft will drift slowly towards and away from each other by the same amount each orbit, but never end up moving further apart. It's still almost impossible to do though, as the level of rounding on the orbital period figure will mean that even if you match them exactly, they will still be out by a tiny amount of decimal places, and so will eventually move away from each other. This is why a lot of people, in the absence of station-keeping computers in KSP, fly their relay constellations out to where they need to be to show that they can get them there, and then replace the real ones with cheated-into-place versions which have *identical* orbital parameters.

Do a lot of people make spaceplanes from mk2 parts then? Again, coming from a position of no experience whatsoever, I would have thought that if you have made a successful spaceplane from mk3 parts, you wouldn't want to "downgrade" it (remove the capability of taking 2.5m station parts as payload being the thing I would have thought would hurt most). I'm sure I'm missing almost all of the finer points here though! That would be outstanding, but don't feel you have to, I'm a long way off needing to use mk4 parts yet and it sounds as though you have an update planned for the not-too-distant future!

That's interesting, because I've always looked at the mk2 and seen an SR71 Blackbird, which would make it 70s tech - and before the mk3. As I say, I've never really tried for a spaceplane before, and have only used the mk2 parts to make a Mach 2-3 aeroplane to fly around on Kerbin to quickly fulfil contracts! The main thing that spurred me to ask this was that I've just installed Nertea's mk4 spaceplane parts, and now under TETRIX I've got a few mk4 parts in tier 4, mk3 in tier 5, mk2 in tier 6 and the more "experimental" mk4 parts in tier 7. Not saying it's wrong, it just confused me a bit!

I don't know if it has already been discussed, but can I ask what the rationale is behind having the MK2 spaceplane parts arrive after the MK3? I am a perpetual re-starter, and despite many hours in KSP I'm only really starting to dabble in spaceplanes, so the likelyhood is that there is something I just don't know yet...! Thanks

Once you get close to the stranded Kerbal, or their pod, you can switch vessel to them (use ] to switch between vessels in close range), and then you will be able to control them and EVA over to your rescuing ship. Remember to turn on RCS with "R" to activate their jetpack.

Thanks - and you!

Since NF Aeronautics is not up to date, is there a recommended mod that gives 2.5m RAPIER equivalents to power Mk IV spaceplanes? Thanks

Perfect! And easy! Top marks for you Thanks