AHHans

A single MK1 command pod, a crew cabin, and a heat-shield (plus appropriate parachutes, solar panels, RCS thrusters, batteries, etc.) can be held straight during re-entry without the help of additional reaction wheels - i.e. with only the reaction wheels in the command pod. (With two crew cabin on a MK1 pod this doesn't work anymore.) If you set the navball to "surface" and tell your pilot to keep retrograde, then he will do his/her best to keep the heat-shield facing straight into the oncoming air. It helps if you use up any remaining fuel in your final stage to slow down (without lowering your PE too much) before re-entry. I haven't tried if it also works if you add a payload bay into the mix, but in this case you could add a small reaction wheel in there. It does not work with two crew cabins. It probably is. (SCNR) But it would help to know what that problem actually is.

Well, I keep the PAW of one of the propeller blades open during flight, and manually adjust blade pitch as needed (via an action group, of course).

Well, parts in symmetry (mirrored or radial) usually stay in symmetry, i.e. when you move one part the other part(s) move too. Are you sure that KJR-next is compatible with KSP 1.8.1? (I've only seen 1.7.3 mentioned in the readme, and there was a big change in KSP between 1.7.3 and 1.8.)

Hi @_alphaBeta_, welcome to the forums. I think we've all been there where you are at the moment. One way to go on would be to download / copy existing designs from other users and use them. If that's what you want and are looking for relevant designs, then please say so. But IMHO it is more fun (and a better learning experience) to design your own rockets. Some comments that may help you: The step from the larger diameter to the smaller diameter from the payload bay to the nose of the MK1 command capsule adds a large amount of drag, so better avoid that. (Putting the MK1 command capsule on top and the crew cabin below it would be better.) Do you actually need the crew cabin for your exploration of the Mun? Did you do all the experiments that are available to you already? (In particular: have you done the science junior experiments in all situations already?) If you use the solid fuel boosters (SRBs) to get your apoapsis to 80 km, then you are probably not doing an efficient ascent. We recently had a discussion about ascent profiles, see here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/190914-the-launch-profile-challenge/ You can add more stages, either in-line (so that they start one after the other) or side-mounted (that they start at the same time, but the outer stages burn out first). These stages can be SRBs or liquid fuel stages. If you turn on "advanced tweakables" in the settings (from the main menu) then you get to set autostruts on the parts (in the right-click menu of the parts, the PAW). ""root" and "heaviest" can have some dangerous side-effects, but "grantparent" is usually safe. That would e.g. allow you to reduce the number of extra struts. My general rule of rocket design is to design top-down. E.g. for a direct ascent(*) Mun lander: Design the Mun lander payload first. Think hard if I need everything in that lander. Is there anything that I do to loose weight without compromising the mission? Design the stage that will get the lander back from the Mun's surface to Kerbin. Think hard if I need everything. Is there anything that I do to loose weight without compromising the mission? Keeping in mind that I need a healthy margin in dV to correct for steering errors. Design the part that will get the lander from Munar orbit to a safe landing. Do I make it an extra stage, or use the same stage that will launch me back to Kerbin? Do I use drop-tanks? (Do I have the technology for drop-tanks?) Think hard if I need everything. Is there anything that I do to loose weight without compromising the mission? (You may notice a pattern here.) Add the additional vacuum stages: capture into Munar orbit, transfer from Kerbin orbit to the Mun, circularizing the orbit around Kerbin. Do I use one stage for this, or do I use multiple stages? Drop-tanks? For these parts the TWR is not so important as all of this happens in orbit. (O.K. yes, the TWR can be too low so that it does mess things up, but that is rare.) Add the lifter to get everything into LKO. (As you can see: saving extra weight at the "top" of the rocket is important, saving extra weight at the bottom not so. Balancing weight against safety-margin is the high art of mid-game KSP rocket design.) (*) "direct ascent" = everything launches in one go, there is only one main craft (crew-capsule) that will land on the Mun and return to Kerbin. No in-orbit rendezvous around Kerbin or the Mun is done. Once you managed to orbit: while orbiting the Mun is easier than orbiting Minmus, landing on Minmus is easier than landing on the Mun. (Well, landing in one piece.) That's actually a fairly good design. It is definitely capable of getting into orbit around the Mun and back with dV to spare. It may or may not have just enough dV to land on the Mun and get back with optimal flying, but I was a 200 m/s or so short of getting back to Kerbin. So it should have enough dV to land on Minmus and return. (Although you may want to redesign it for that so that it doesn't topple over so easily.)

Well, you are not alone in wanting to do that... ...and also not alone in not being able to do that. Sorry, but any input into a KAL-1000 only comes (directly or indirectly) from user input. There is not way to feed any kind of sensor input into the control. (Well, no way without using user interaction.)

Hi, @JayWhizz Welcome to the forums. I'm sorry, that you have problems with your KSP installation. But loading "old" savefiles should not (and does not on my Linux installation) cause actual problems. The only intentional issue is that old savefiles don't have the BG surface features enabled. Blue screens on a PS4 sound to me more like a problem with the hardware or due to corrupted files (either from the PS4 "OS" or from KSP itself). But I believe you are more likely to get real help in the Technical Support (PlayStation 4, XBox One) subforum. P.S. Or you could e-mail the tech support.

The change of the unity engine from 1.7.3 to 1.8 did change the aerodynamics. Quite a bit of that was then reverted with the change from 1.8 to 1.8.1 (i.e. my planes fly better in 1.8.1 than in 1.8), but it is (still?) not the same as 1.7.3.

After the small hiccup of last week, the engineering department reworked the long-range exploration plane and gave it significantly larger vertical stabilizers. I also sent the flight crew to more simulator training, and then continued my quest to visit all anomalies on Kerbin. My intrepid crew found a few more DSN antennas, a mysteriously green monolith on the southern ice-cap: and another monolith, that is perched on top of a small peak: Remembering what happened last week, Pamon Kerman just said "Nope!" and decided that just taking a few pictures out of the cockpit window is enough. Another crew - with a craft more suitable for vertical landing - can give that one a try. This time the craft returned to the KSC is perfect condition. Our engineer Lizlorf Kerman inspected the plane and then gave the green light to forego the usual maintenance work, and just refuel the plane and send it on its way again: The final target turned out to be in a rather narrow valley. Emboldened by 5 successful landings in a row, Pamon Kerman decided that with an approach from the north a successful landing should be doable, and gave it a try (well, actually three, but who's counting). She managed to put down the plane on a ledge above the monolith, taxied as far as she dared, and then sent Hudford Kerman to walk up to the edge, to inspect the monolith and plant the flag. Taking off was then comparatively easy: taxi to a position where one has a clear run to the edge of the ledge, open up the throttle, and once airborne pull up the nose until we can say goodbye to sheer rock cliffs and narrow ledges:

I assume you mean in the situation like here: To empty or fill the tank: First right-click on the tank that you want to empty or fill: 1 That will open the part-action-window (PAW): 2 In there you'll find one ore more green slider(s) that shows how much fuel the tank has at launch. Left-click on the slide to change its setting: 3 Tanks with rocket-fuel behave just like the tank(s) with monopropellant, except that you have two green sliders: one for "Liquid Fuel" and one for "Oxidizer". For "normal" rocket engines (like the Terrier or the Swivel) you need both.

Well, if you look in the save-file for the entry of said Kerbals, then there is is a section called "CAREER_LOG" (and "FLIGHT_LOG", but I think for dead Kerbals that's empty) that lists all career related events of the Kerbals. That should at least tell you on what kind of mission they were (which CBs they visited) and in which SOI they were for their fatal mission. E.g. if the last entry before their death was "Suborbit,Kerbin" then they probably had a fatal accident during re-entry.

Well, my knowledge about RTGs in particular comes from wikipedia and Scott Manley videos. But I have a degree in physics and a cheeky mouth, the former helps in putting things in context and the latter may make me seem smarter than I am at times. Yupp, see the linked video by Scott Manley. The short version is: NASA prefers to use (and AFAIK it is the best choice) Plutonium-238. This doesn't exist in nature (well, duh!) and cannot be extracted economically from nuclear waste from power plants, so it needs to be manufactured on purpose. Making Plutonium-238 is a process that is very similar to making Plutonium-239, the isotope that is commonly used for nuclear weapons. So the USA used to make Plutonium-238 at the same facility where they made the Plutonium-239 for their weapons. And when they finally decided that they had enough nukes to destroy the world a few times over and stopped making more nukes they also stopped making Plutonium-238 for NASA... But recently they started making Plutonium-238 again, so that shouldn't be a deal-breaker for new missions. TL;DR: it used to be that the production of RTGs was partially cross-financed from the production of nuclear weapons. Since the USA has decided that they have enough nukes this doesn't work anymore, so NASA had to shake enough money out of congress to get the production started again. (Well, that's my interpretation of the issue.) Well, the planning doesn't take that long: Juno got it's funding approved in 2005 and launched in 2011, and New Horizons got approved in 2001 and launched in 2006. What does take long - and cannot be changed - is the travel to the destination. I've heard that there have been a number of "Cassini Babies": scientists (in particular women) worked on designing and building the experiments for the Cassini mission, then took some times off to have kids while the probe was in transit, and by the time Cassini arrived at Saturn - and they had plenty to do with actually running the experiments and analyzing the data - the kids were in school and they had more spare time. (Yes, that also says something about our society, but that is a topic for another forum.)

Hmmm... I could start nit-picking that real RTGs of course don't stop generating heat just because they reached 10000 K, but considering that they explode at 1200 K anyhow I guess I'll let that slide.

Have a look at the "target position at Xnd intercept" marker in the map screen. That should answer the question. IIRC it is the current orbit, not an orbit after any planned (or not so planned) maneuvers of the target.

Well, like in real life RTGs generate some heat all the time. In a "normal" construct where the RTGs are spread out somewhat, connected to other parts, and open to the environment this is not a problem: their temperature and the temperature of the surrounding parts rises somewhat, they radiate more heat away, and that's it(*). But when you cluster them all together, connect many of them to the same part, and put them in a closed service bay where they cannot radiate heat away, well, what do you expect? You have something that will generate heat, no matter what, and you have taken all ways to get rid of that heat away from it. Ask the people at Fukushima Daiichi how such a situation ends. So when you opened the service bay doors and let the poor RTG have some fresh air ...errr... look at empty space, they could start radiating heat away and could cool down. (*) If you use a Thermal Control System - which actively pump heat out of every part that is warmer than standard - on your craft then you can see that this gets hot (or at least warm) because it is cooling something even if there is nothing running except the RTGs. P.S. If it wasn't clear: nope, this is not a bug.

[Waaaahhhh! This is so simple in my mind, but hard to explain when I don't understand where exactly your problem is.] What the navball shows you is the force that something (or someone) inside the craft experiences. This is due to the combination of acceleration - as in change of movement - and the attraction due to the mass of a nearby CB (e.g. Kerbin). Please keep in mind that movement is always relative to something (the surface of Kerbin, the CoM of Kerbin, a selected target, you know the drill). Please also note that the speed indicated on the navball does not include the direction, so if you fly in a turn and change the direction of your velocity vector (say relative to the surface) but not the length, then you can have arbitrary high g-forces without the speed displayed on the navball changing. When you are in a stable orbit, then there is a force (Kerbin's gravity) that pushes you inward, but also a change in movement relative to Kerbin's CoM (the curvature of the orbit) both cancel each other out and you are in micro-gravity. What do you mean with "free falling"? When you are close (less than one Kerbin radius away from the surface of Kerbin) to Kerbin you always have the the 1g from Kerbin's gravity. But if this only results in a change of your movement (like keeping you in orbit) then you don't feel that inside the vessel, so the navball shows 0g. If you don't have a change of your movement - either because you are still on the surface, or moving at constant speed in a straight line (e.g. falling down at constant speed, flying through the air with constant speed and direction - not being in a stable orbit, that movement is curved) - then you feel that 1 g acceleration inside your vessel, and the navball will show 1g. So if you mean with "free falling" that you don't have parachutes deployed and your speed (as indicated on the navball) is not changing much, then this could be: a) you are nearly in orbit, in the outer fringes of the atmosphere. In this case the little air resistance there is slows you down a bit and most of Kerbin's gravity is used to curve your velocity to keep you in orbit, so the navball shows only a small g-force. Or b) you are at relatively low speed, deeper in the atmosphere, and moving mostly downwards. Then Kerbin's gravity mostly pulls you in the direction that you are already going, but air resistance keeps you from accelerating faster downwards. This is essentially like hanging from parachutes, so the navball shows you essentially the 1g of Kerbin's gravity. This is what I think is happening in the screenshot above (in the first post), the air resistance pushes you with slightly more than 1g at a 15 deg angle from straight down. So most of that force is offset by Kerbin's gravity and only a few m/s2 change your velocity. Inside the capsule you feel the somewhat more than 1g that is displayed on the navball.

Ermmm.... You are probably sitting on a chair right now. Are you in micro-gravity? But are you moving - relative to that chair? Do I need to say more?

Depends on what you want to do. Nuclear engines are heavy, next to useless (well, not that bad, but sill bad) in an atmosphere, have on engine gimbal, but have very good vacuum efficiency and decent thrust. They also only burn liquid-fuel and will leave any oxidizer untouched. Spark engines are lightweight, can gimbal, and have decent efficiency in atmosphere and vacuum. So the unexpected readout is because you probably have the delta-Vee displayed for being at sea-level on Kerbin (this is the default) and because you are using the rocket-fuel tanks which contain both Lf and Ox - so the nuclear engines have less than half the fuel mass that they will use with the left-over mass adding to the dry weight of the craft. If you click on the "delta-V" tab on the bottom right-panel, select to display all parameters, set the environment to "vacuum", and then "show all" (stages that is), then you can see that: the ISP (roughly translated the "rocket efficiency") for the nuclear version is much higher, that it's TWR (thrust to weight ratio = how fast the rocket accelerates) is higher, but also that its start mass is higher (because the engines are heavier), and that the end mass is much higher than on the spark version. So nuclear engines are great for transfer stages, that only need to work in vacuum and where high dV is important (when fed from the right kind of fuel tank). Spark engines are good for small, lightweight craft (probes, landers) where their small size and low weight is important and the low thrust and lower efficiency (than e.g. the terrier engine) doesn't matter. You probably have an idea how to go on from here, if not then please ask.

For me docking is also easy by now. Landing a rocket at a certain spot also isn't too hard if you have the dV to spend to hover for a while. (I.e. if I have 2 - 3 times as much dV as I would need for a simple landing...) But landing a plane? In one piece? I do manage that now more often than I used to, but it still goes wrong often enough.

See bug report #24282. (Feel free to upvote that report.) Apparently you can still fulfill the contract by using two telescopes: one outside of Kerbin's orbit ticking off the check marks, and one inside Kerbin's orbit actually doing the observations. P.S. Btw. Welcome to the forums!

Well, the craft is powered by rapiers, which don't generate electricity. So I switch off the reaction-wheels during flight to save battery power. (Yes, there's an action group for that.) During the landing it set down a bit hard and wobbly, bounced, and turned sideways in the air. And at 40 m/s the aero-surfaces don't have that much authority...

I was continuing my quest to get to all anomalies in the solar system, this time by flying around Kerbin to visit what turned out to be a DSN antenna. Not to self: when trying to land a high-speed aircraft in rough terrain at low speeds, it might be useful to switch the reaction wheels on again. (Landing sideways doesn't work too well most of the times.) But, well, any landing that you can walk away from...

That doesn't sound like a gameplay related question to me. How about you ask this in Add-on Development or Add-on Discussions? (Or ask the moderators to move the question.) I believe you'll get more helpful answers there.

I have: "Low Kerbin Tanker"(*), "Gate Station", "Mun Station", "Minmus Station", "Duna Station", "Gilly Station", "Eve Station", "Dres Station"(**), "Jool Asteroid Station"(**) (*) Not really a station, has a probe core but no space for crew. (**) Currently in transit to their destinations. Does anyone notice a pattern?

I noticed that the wobbling depends a lot on the type of capsule / cockpit / cabin the crew is in. So: use a different part to put your Kerbals in? But I think there is no way to reduce that wobbling for a given part, short of modding the game.

Well, that's true if you only look at the funds expended vs. funds gained. But if you look at the satisfaction of rescuing a Kerbal in peril vs. the knowledge that you abandoned a fellow astronaut to her (I think) death, or just the satisfaction of getting a really hard mission done, then it's a lot different. It's in the first post: AP: 53,476,467,987m; PE: 41,561,681,152m; Inclination: 177 deg.