strider3

It is with great regret that the Duna Mining Company announces that it is halting all operations. The higher gravity on Duna makes the fuel mined/fuel used ratio, in bringing the fuel into orbit, extremely uneconomical. After consultation with experts that actually know what they are doing, we are reforming the organization as the Dres Mining Company (Sheesh!). We are being assured that the inclination of the Dres orbit will not hamper it's location as a mining and refueling station for exploration of the outer planets and that it's low gravity will make transferring of fuel into orbit very economical. Larger mining facilities will be used to increase the speed of production. The concerns of the SMWU have been addressed in this statement from the DMC CEO: "The beatings WILL continue until moral improves!" Look for future developments in a new thread.

I do have Advanced Tweakables enabled, Espatie...and it is visible...just not the "on/off" that bewing speaks of.

AFA the steering direction changing...it only does it on the "left" front wheel...and it only does it once...and NOT every time (LOL!). I can live with it. Your suggestions for checking the drive direction for each pair were spot on...found several wheels going the wrong direction. Since fixing it the fuel rover is MUCH more responsive! A note though...these rover wheels were attached one at a time during construction...still need to learn more about VAB construction tools. That being said, I cannot open a context menu for a "pair" of wheels...only single wheels. I do not have a Traction Control or Friction Control "on/off"...both only have "auto" or "override". Keep in mind I'm on KSP 1.4...don't know if that changes things? Still waiting on my preferred mods being updated to 1.6. That being said, I took the traction control slider to 0, and my rover is much more responsive now. If I hear you correctly, I still needed the probe core to safely land the UNMANNED rover on Duna...wheels down. I don't feel too bad about that, then. As always...Thanks gang!

Thanks! The rear pairs are drive wheels only, no steering. When I say link, I do mean the KAS pipe connectors...the docking port on top is only there to control the craft for landing on Duna, wheels down. An update, also... the steering direction is changing even without linking. I press the 4 number key and the front wheels turn left. I press it again, a bit later and the front wheels turn "in", negating any steering...very weird. As far as the naming priorities, I assume that, even though the articles deals with naming multiple parts, setting the priority as mentioned for one of the "control" parts should work. You will notice that I have both the RC-L01 remote guidance unit and the MK1 inline cockpit. My assumption here was that an engineer would not be able to pilot the craft from the cockpit, therefore a remote guidance unit was required? The cockpit being nothing more than a place for the engineer to "ride along". Am I wrong in this thinking? bewing, I will follow your tip for checking wheel direction and also the traction setting...but I need a bit more info on the traction setting...by "turning off" traction control, do you mean taking the slider to zero? I have "auto" and "override" available as a setting for traction control and the slider, of course...sorry to be so "dense"

In the attached pic you will see my "Duna Fuel Rover". It's purpose is to bring mined and converted Fuel/Lox/Mono to a ship, landed near by, which will transfer these to an orbital Duna refueling station. I have 2 questions: 1. How do I determine if all rover wheels are "pulling" in the same direction? 2. Every time I "link" this rover to the mining facility or the transfer ship, and then unlink when transfer of fuel is done, the steering and wheel direction seem to change. Is there a way to stop this behavior? OK...3 questions ;-) 3. Every time I link and unlink, as stated above, the craft type and name changes. I realize that it has a "plane" cockpit on it (to carry my engineer for linking/unlinking), but I have to try and find "it" every time I unlink...is there a way that this craft will always be a "rover", named "Duna fuel rover", after linking/unlinking?

Then I will look at building a seaplane SSTO for Laythe exploration. I will probably keep the lander, above, for the other Jool moons and as the repository for all science gathered in the Jool system. This should be fun! A new ship construction challenge!

I am trying to make a science gathering ship for the Jool system but, Laythe is making it hard. I'm wondering if this thing will float? Are the inflatable heat shields re-useable (like parachutes) with an engineer on board? Will this contraption even work to get to different water biomes on Laythe? It doesn't look very stable. I have a feeling this is an exercise in futility and I will have to build 2 landers for Laythe exploration...one for dry land and one for water. I have absolutely no idea how to go about the water thing, however. How do you get a "boat" to all the far-flung Laythe water areas? Is it possible to build a boat that can take off of the water, enter an orbit for refuel and science transfer, then re-land elsewhere? This one is going to be interesting!

Yep, 1.4.3. Was getting ready and gathering mods to update to 1.5...and then 1.6 came out . SO now waiting on 1.6 mods. Thanks guys!

This seems to happen to me when going to a high time warp, about 50% of the vessels. I live with it as it's barely a minor issue...aesthetics only. Anybody else have this happen?

I'll have to make sure my fuel hauler lands downhill from my fuel rover, LOL! That way I return to the mining colony uphill...and empty!

By "giant wheels" I'm assuming your talking about the RoveMax XL3's? I also wonder about steering a vehicle with many sets of wheels...will the turning radius be affected? Will the mass of my fuel rover affect the power? IOW, will my empty rover go better than if it was full of fuel?

How would you guys go about increasing the "power" of a heavy rover? I have a "fuel rover" landed on Duna but it is very weak and can't make it up mild inclines. I used this same model on Minmus but that is "apples to pineapples" (forget oranges) when compared to Duna. Maybe extra sets of rover wheels? Here's a picture of the original, Minmus, model. Only difference is added parachutes for landing on Duna and removal of the ventral engines in exchange for a buttload of Twitches on the girders: Here is the Duna version landing:

Phase 3.2... Time to bring the rest of the mining colony down and get them connected: The ISDU getting ready to land: Again, this definitely ain't Minmus! It was much harder to get the parts close to each other. Here's the final stationary part, the "base" unit with a couple of Kerbals, S-L-O-W-L-Y and carefully making its way to connect to the drill and ISDU. Another issue I hadn't given enough thought to, the increased gravity on Duna (compared to Minmus) made the rover wheels very weak...I had to pick my way around small hills to get to the colony. Finally got all the parts connected and making fuel/Ox: And the last part...the fuel transfer "hauler" in the background, to bring fuel to the orbiting Duna Station. Not nearly as close as I would have liked and I'm hoping the fuel rover will make it back to the mining operation, up the slight incline, when it is empty:

To be honest, Rauko, the only reason I tried SCANSat was to create new biome maps with different colors and a "legend". I really hate the "50 shades of brown" biome maps that exist for, say, Duna? I was hoping to create new biome maps, to share with the community, that had very different colors for each biome (like the Mun biome map), which would make it easier for us to differentiate the biomes. Then I found out that I cannot change the colors for each biome in a SCANSat created biome map...it will always use the default colors of the current biome map. SO SAD. Other than that, I have no real use for SCANSat, the standard KSP scanning does well enough and is simple to use. I just wish we could adjust the overlay in 5% increments.

Phase 3.1 or, "I'd rather be lucky than good". I chose my first area for the mining operation based on this criteria...it had to be on the Duna equator, directly or near the Duna fuel station orbit, to make it easy and economical to rendezvous the hauler with the fuel station...and back again. It had to have a good concentration of ore and it had to be relatively flat. Nailed it first try! I decided to try this area first...not the highest concentration of ore but a huge target. You can see some higher ore concentrations in this shot...but they are very small areas. Decoupled the last unneeded stage and started down. You can't see it here but I have a docking port on the top center of the rover to allow me to "control from here" and have the rover land correctly. Getting this fuel rover to land on Minmus was easy...not so much on Duna. It took several attempts to get it down, wheels down, on Duna. Here you can see where the rover ended up...directly under the Duna fuel station orbit: A nice, flat area on the first try! Next up: bringing the mining drill, ISDU and Base (with engineer) to this location.

Thanks for the info, gang.

Is there an issue with using a lot of autostruts?

Phase 2: Put all the "birds" into Kerbin orbit and refueled, as necessary, from my Mobil1 station. Duna fuel hauler refueling: Orbital separation, prep for Duna departure using 1 copied maneuver node (with tweaks): All vessels on the way: The area I plan to set up the mining operation: Duna drill orbital insertion, with the magical "sliding" shroud in evidence. This happens to me, occasionally. Unloading excess fuel to the Duna fuel station: All the excess fuel, not needed for landing, has been transferred to the Duna fuel station. Now the fun part...getting the mining base parts landed. I was originally going to land the drill unit first because it is not "ground mobile", but then I thought about how uneven the surface of Duna can be. Now I will land the Duna fuel rover first as it can drive around and find a relatively flat area to set up the mining operation on. Next: Phase 3...landing and base set-up.

I have tried SCANSat and removed it after trying to do a Duna resource (Ore) scan. Maybe I need to read up more, but I found the mod to be...unwieldy...for a simple surface resource scan, at least in it's latest KSP 1.5 compatible version? I used it in previous versions of KSP with no issues. I may revisit it, at some point, but it's too late for this mission.

True, but debris is easy to get rid of in the Tracking Center?

I pretty much use Autostrut on all my ships. So far, I've used only "Grandparent part" for all my autostrutting needs, with excellent results...and that keeps it simple. I'm not saying "GP" will work for every autostrut/vessel situation...but I have yet to run across a situation where GP type autostruts did not work. Cheers!

Is there a way to tweak the Resource Overlay "cutoff" of a celestial body to show 5% increments? The picture below shows Duna "ore" overlay at 80% cutoff. If I go to the next available cutoff (90%) I show nothing in the overlay. If I could get an 85% cutoff, I could really "hone in" on the highest ore concentrations, in this situation.

That would probably alleviate the problem of goofing up construction.

You are the MAN! That worked completely as you advertised. In hindsight...I should always look for bewing answers. I looked at "Kaboom"...2014?...really? LOL. I'm in a very low Duna orbit...so burning the thing off is not an option. You, Sir, are the Bomb! Thank you, bewing...I promise to pay more attention in my future vessel construction.

I accidently installed the decoupler in the screenshot in the wrong direction...you can see the arrows needed to point the other way. I am a long way into a multi-ship mining mission to Duna and all craft are orbiting Duna...I'm hoping I can edit the save file (persistent.sfs) to remove this decoupler. I have located the ship in the save file but when I tried to delete the entry for this part it jacked up my ship completely. I went back to a backup SFS I made before changing the original (PHeew!). I'm hoping I don't have to go all the way back to the start of this mission. Can anyone help with what I need to edit to remove just this decoupler?