fulgur

Thanks @Kerballing (Got Dunked On). However, please bear in mind the next chapter's title: And Now For Something Completely Different. Tune in next time for orbital logistics! We are going to transfer crews around. Also we are going to do some rescues because we are dangerously low on funds. On another note, I would like some advice on whether to get MkIV Spaceplanes by Nertea. It's a really cool mod which adds gigantic spaceplanes, capable of lifting 3.75m things to orbit. I would also like advice on whether to get his Stockalike Station Parts Expansion Redux, which adds loads of cool parts to make space stations and space ships. Also I am on the fence about getting Kerbal Atomics which adds (wait for it...) 2.5m nuclear engines. I don't really like adding part mods, but on the other hand these are all very stockalike.

That ship looks like a cross between a derelict space station and a modern interplanetary explorer. Oh wait, that's because it is. The Memory of Speir! No, wait that sounds awful. Baile Tomorrow? That sounds like the madkerbs are in jail. Um...

My plan to make all forum-goers trawl through hundreds of pages of comments on the great epics of KSP fanfic appears to be working! Have you read Emiko Station? (256 pages of commentary on 100 chapters?) Or every comment on the Jool Odyssey? (251 pages). What about all the chapters of Long Term Laythe? Or Project Intrepid? Bua-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha *echoes*

I built a propellor seaplane, the Swan I. I might outfit it with science instruments in my career mode Someday(TM) and send it Somewhere(TM). Seats three and flies at 200m/s comfortably on Kerbin. And took off again! Then I [ALT]+[H]'ed it to Eve. It seems to get pretty draggy on Eve, topping out at 120m/s as opposed to almost 200m/s on Kerbin. I found a nifty trick for slowing down. You can change the blade pitch until the lift points backwards and you slow down. You can even go backwards. Used it a lot on this craft, it allowed me to slow down to only 30m/s just above the water, too low for any negative consequences, and then I landed without breaking things. I also used it to stop when on the water. In case you were wondering, the only modded thing is the panels. NFT offers a version without the truss, which is flush with the wings without me having to offset :-).

Have you been reading Forgotten Space Program by Cydonian Monk?

In this tutorial I am going to attempt to explain a method of building propellor aircraft. I am going to assume you can build yourself an aircraft; if not, consult @keptin's guide to Basic Aircraft Design. Here is the plane I am going to use. This is the Kestrel. Here I have retrofitted it with Juno engines. Here you can see that it is flying pretty well, for a propellor aircraft I just retrofitted with Junos. If your propellor aircraft flies horribly, replace the propellors with engines and see if it still flies horribly. It may be a problem with your aircraft, not your propellors. Here is the Kestrel with propellor engines. This is how I have set up my craft. The two engines rotate in opposite directions, which cancels the torque. (You can also mount it on a freewheeling servo, like Brikoleur did.) You do this by right-clicking one and clicking the button labelled Rotation Direction. The propellors have been set up so that they are deployed - this means if I change the authority limiter I change the angle they are at. However, they are still at the default position (producing no lift) as the limiter is set to zero. The engines are bound to the throttle and the propellor deployment is bound to [K] and [I ]. Here is the first problem you may encounter. One set of blades is deploying in the wrong direction. This is a simple fix, you just change either Deploy Direction to inverted, or you invert the controls in axis groups: Another problem you could encounter is engine torque, which makes one wing hit the ground. Either you re-design your plane to limit the effects (moving gear further out etc.), or you can counter the torque. You could mount the engine on a freewheeling servo like in Brikoleur's guide to helicopters, or you can go the MOAR POWER route and add a counter-rotating engine. If you find yourself running out of power, you can add fuel cells, RTGs or solar panels. Panels are very good as unless you fly really, really far from Kerbol you will produce way more power than the motors need. This craft draws about 6EC/s and the panels output 30EC/s. If you want to fly at night, fuel cells are very powerful but they do have the downside that you have to refuel eventually. RTGs produce power indefinitely but are very heavy. For info on flying your propellor aircraft check out my other tutorial!

This was actually yesterday. I made a propellor plane! It has 2 counter-rotating props which can get it up to over 225m/s in level flight. Over that, drag and lift get a bit weird, but I have got it up to 250m/s in a shallow dive. It's 100% solar powered and can fly forever. Plus a pair of fuel cells to fly at night, though I haven't actually tried. Flying over the ocean, for what seems like hours. Slightly faster in a very shallow dive. It has lots and lots of wing for its 6.3t of weight... extremely maneuverable. All in all, a pretty good aircraft! Available on KerbalX. Edit: I got it up to 250m/s in level flight! At which point the drag whatsits got really big.

Cool! I love orbital negligence! For example, in one of my favourite stories of all KSP (PI) the author leaves a SRB-powered rocket on an Eve-intercept trajectory and knocks one of his motherships out of orbit with it!

I tried to make a Whiplash/Dart SSTO for a challenge. Ended up in orbit with 150m/s dV. That is why I love RAPIERs.

I like building SSTOs. They're more interesting than rockets, and I find my rockets are often more brick-like and harder to fly than some of my SSTOs. I don't really use planes that often on Kerbin, but I will fly little explorational aircraft to Laythe and other oxygen-atmosphere planets. I guess that now we have props, I'll be able to send those to Duna & Eve. Although I am having a lot of fun with the prop planes and flying around.

Yep, definitely Laythe. You can tell by the unbroken, featureless blue sea and the total absence of clouds. Of course, if you had visual mods, it would look much better. Stock water looks horrible. Especially when you're cruising slowly over the endless expanse of ocean that is Laythe. *Quietly pushes for better stock visuals, as people have been wishing for for years. Note that SciFiVE doesn't make your computer slow down that much at all, and that Gameslinx has made a planet pack which runs faster than Stock (!!!) with its built-in visuals* Also, did you mean to make the title Orbital Negligence? Or did you mean DSA: Orbital Negligence?

I believe Tomfurt the Mad Space Pirate deliberately landed on Eve in Project Intrepid. But he is the exception to the rule, as confirmed by Harfielf in TSoES and Bob & Tedus in E:O0. (Although TSoES cheated as Harfield escaped via a spooky Magic Boulder green glowing floating rock thing). EDIT: Wait a minute, those pictures are blue! You sure she isn't falling on Laythe?

Here are some more pictures of me launching and docking things! They would have been up earlier, but I spent ages fiddling with CTT because it de-unlocked parts I'd already unlocked. Grr. So I deleted it and I will re-install it when everything is launched. That's all the pilots I have on the ground. Guess I'll have to do some rescues. Tune in next time for the launch of the HMII!

Maybe it's just my craft then. And about ROCs, Kerik_Balm (author of Rald planet pack) said in the Kopernicus thread that he is having trouble putting copied ROCs on his mod planets, let alone new ones, so I think that Somebody will have to find & share a solution.

Those folding wheels are seriously awful. In any craft I have built, they are no better than the tinfoil ones. That rover looks quite cool though.

In fact, I think he got his username from the randomly generated name. Of course I had to rescue Hanson Kerman.

Thanks for the compliment! Here are 2 more panels for your enjoyment. EDIT: I am aware that on the 2nd page, some of the landing legs had broken off. I reverted but that was still the best screenshot. I liked writing Hanson. He's very wordy and I think he thinks about himself in 3rd person. (""Oh no!" he thought. "I've just realised I'm talking about myself in 3rd person!" he realised" he thought. et cetera, et cetera.) Tune in tomorrow for the Volito I launch!

There was a post somewhere I read which says that if you do turn it off (and it provided instructions how) and use KER / MJ instead, you get much faster play, confirming the OP. But I can't find it.

I like BG when playing in sandbox, but so far (in my mission report ↓) I have been using MH parts more. To be honest, I never really used 1.25m core boosters unless I had to and in early Career I find the 1.875m parts really useful for wide-base (ie not falling over) landers. But that may be because I have only got halfway through the tech tree.

Thanks, but I already fixed it as evidenced by the picture at the beginning of Ch2. I did it by changing the position of the docking port, to a side-dock. And in other news, I have done a panel about launching the KSS Eki I to orbit! Note that Eki I is a working title and as Gene says, the Captain (Val) will name the ship. Tune in next time (which could be in 10 minutes, or tomorrow) for the launch of the Lyra II and the Volito I! Then the Hastae Multi II, then the refuelling missions! And then we leave for Eki! And then... we get on with other bits of the plot, including a Rald window we may or may not take advantage of while the other ships are orbiting Kerbol.

Reader 5 (counting you, Demon_313, Kerballing (Got Dunked On), Geschosskopf and Jost), thank you for your compliment! Although the format is stolen off Kuzzter's wonderful Kerbfleet series. Go have a read of those. And in other news, I am almost done with the panels for the Eki launches! I basically spent ages fiddling to find rockets which didn't look utterly awful (I really really want to get to 5m parts) and ending up with only slightly overwrought asparagus designs. So unless someone else posts here, I will edit this post later with the launch of the KSS Whimsical Name.

I remember that in Project Intrepid Ultimate Steve designed a Jool lander using a stock prop. And from the adventures of Brikoleur in designing lightweight EAVs, it should be possible to have a velocity of 0 while at Joolian 'sea level'.

This would be a good idea, but be aware that that would be hard to code.

Laythe SSTOs are actually easier than I expected. The need for lots of wing area is compensated for by the ability of ships to get out of the atmosphere on jet mode. This little craft got to orbit with several hundred m/s left, having got a 60km Ap just on jet mode. Observe the fact that the wings are slightly inadequate and that it requires more control. Also observe the fact that it has a parachute for landing and I essentially drove off a cliff for takeoff.

I think that you should keep all images the same size (I save all mine as separate images) but other than that, I don't think it matters how many panels per page. The spoilers are done with the eye button. You get a box and can type / paste into it.