jimmymcgoochie

When the game hangs at 'loading expansions', it's almost never due to the expansions- it's just that the expansions are the last thing to be loaded in before the code compiles, and any exceptions during that process cause the game to hang at the last part of the loading screen, which happens to be about expansions. Make sure you have the right version of FMRS for your version of KSP, and the right version of Module Manager too. Alternatively, try using Stage Recovery instead- it can work with parachutes and simulate powered recovery too, with plenty of configurable stuff to choose how much you get back for each recovered part, how slow it needs to be going to recover it and also simulates parts burning up if they're going too fast. It's a matter of preference really, but you can use both FMRS and SR at once- as long as you set them up right to play nicely, otherwise stuff just crashes into the ground!

You can't get that close to the Sun without everything overheating, so orbital surveys are impossible. Besides which, what little science you'd gain from it won't outweigh the colossal cost in delta-V needed to get into an orbit that low even if you turn on the 'ignore part max temperatures' cheat.

Orbital slingshots only affect the craft's trajectory relative to the parent body. It makes absolutely no difference to the orbit of the body you're inside the SOI of at the time and braking into orbit prograde and retrograde will cost essentially the same delta-V. If you're getting a gravity slingshot from the Mun, your angular velocity is being changed relative to Kerbin- the Mun doesn't care either way as you'll leave its SOI at the same speed you entered it due to conservation of momentum. Think of it this way: If you make a transfer burn from a fixed orbit (e.g. 80km by 80km prograde equatorial LKO) to the Mun, the delta-V required to elevate your apoapsis to intersect the Mun's orbit is the same no matter when you make the burn because the Mun's orbit of Kerbin is perfectly circular. If you change when you make the transfer burn, that will put your periapsis either in front of or behind the Mun when it intercepts; the velocity is exactly the same, so the capture burn will require exactly the same delta-V at the same periapsis altitude. It's only when you let the craft carry on out of the Mun's SOI that the trajectories will be different- going retrograde will slow you down relative to Kerbin, which is how you get a free return trajectory back to Kerbin without any further fuel use, but going prograde will quite probably slingshot you clear out of Kerbin's SOI. And the TL;DR version of all that- just stick to prograde orbits unless there's a very specific reason to go retrograde, like free return trajectories, sun exposure for ion craft, contract parameters, or if you're using something like SCANsat where retrograde orbits cover more ground faster.

@R-T-B nah, I like the ultra shaders, so pretty and my PC can take it (well, it hasn't caught fire yet!)

There's a version of Kopernicus for 1.9.1, find it here: So far I've used it with OPM, Grannus and JNSQ in 1.9.1 and all worked fine for me. The only issue I've had is that it forces terrain shader quality to Ultra, that might not work for everyone but I've had no issues with it. There's also this more experimental version which might work in 1.10(.x):

One thing I would say about questions 2 and 3 is this- for most planets and many moons, it makes a lot more sense to enter a prograde orbit (i.e. come in 'behind' them so your orbit is counter-clockwise when viewed from the north pole) if you plan to land, and to launch into a prograde orbit when leaving*. For something like the Mun, Ike or the inner 3 moons of Jool, which are all tidally locked to their parent, the rotation of the moon is pretty slow so the difference between surface and orbital velocity is relatively small; however for other moons and (almost!) all planets you'll end up spending more fuel when trying to land retrograde as you have to cancel out twice as much speed as the moon/planet's rotation to bring your surface velocity to zero. Not significant on Gilly, a minor irritation on Minmus, but a bit more of a problem for somewhere like Eeloo or Dres. Moho is the odd planet out in this case as its rotation speed is so slow (much like Mercury). If that didn't make sense, look at your next rocket on the launch pad. Zero surface velocity, but 175m/s orbital velocity. To launch into an equatorial orbit retrograde will take 350m/s more delta-V than a prograde equatorial orbit because you have to make up for that speed difference twice over- once to 'stop' your orbital rotation relative to Kerbin and the second time to apply it again in a retrograde direction. This effect is reduced the further from the equator your orbit is, but retrograde orbits require more delta-V to land from and launch to on every planet or moon; it makes no real difference when transferring from another planet or moon as the difference in velocity will be negligible and orbital velocity is the same going prograde or retrograde. Regarding direct vertical launches- they are theoretically less efficient than orbiting and then leaving as you're fighting directly against gravity the entire time rather than coming at it from an angle, plus it's pretty hard to get your landing site right on a tidally locked body or to time your launch right anywhere else. Not impossible, but difficult enough that you should really aim to launch into orbit first. *The only reason to launch into a retrograde orbit from Kerbin to go somewhere else is to allow ion-powered ships to stay in the sun when aiming towards a destination further out from the sun; prograde orbits mean that your ideal departure point is in the shadow of Kerbin which isn't any use for solar panels, and ion drives use quite a bit of power. The situation is reversed when aiming sunwards- prograde orbits are best for staying in the sun when burning towards a target nearer the sun with ion drives. (The best solution is of course to use a non-ion powered thrust system when leaving Kerbin, as ions are really wimpy and you'll get terrible burn accuracy with loooooong burns as a result.

If you're trying to mirror parts which are attached to other mirrored parts, the best way I know to do it is this: Your first level of mirroring could be something like a side booster, and the second could be some fins on the sides. To make the fins mirror across all the boosters, attach the booster to the core of the rocket via a stack node, then attach the fins using the mirror mode of your choice, then take the booster and attach it radially in the mirror mode of your choice; all the boosters are mirrored around the centre, and all the fins are mirrored around each booster- just don't touch the fins with the move or rotate tools or it breaks the layers of symmetry and they'll switch to being the same symmetry as their parent (the booster in this example) and you'll end up with one fin per booster. I hope this is clear, if not let me know and I'll try to explain it better.

A slightly different suggestion to what has been said before: Simple Logistics allows resources to be shifted between nearby landed vessels. Just launch a new tanker vehicle full of fuel, park it vaguely near your rocket and plug it in to the SL network, use SL UI to transfer fuel to the rocket. No additional parts required as SL works with pretty much every part with a control point and no need to connect the two together with anything so it reduces the kraken factor. It can also be done anywhere you like including other planets so it's beneficial for mining fuel on other planets/moons; I used it to mine fuel on Ike and refuel a Duna/Ike interplanetary ship by leaving the mining ship on Ike permanently and using drone fuel ships to carry the fuel to the main ship.

I don't know of any solar panels that have two axes of rotation. Given how many mods there are that add solar panels, maybe the reason that nobody has done it is because it isn't possible? What specific applications do you have in mind for this specific solar panel design? It might be possible to build your own using the robotic parts, some static panels and a scripting system that automatically moves the robotics parts to try and get maximum power generation, but it's not something I've ever tried and would probably require quite a bit of coding know-how and quite a lot of trial and error. I know that Near Future Solar has some static and deployable (but not rotating) curved solar panels which can capture light from many angles, maybe those will do what you need?

Advanced Audacious Aerospace Research Group: DUUUUUUUUNAAAAAAAAAAA! We chucked the third mining rover (which was actually number 1, contrary to what we said last time - 2 arrived first, then 3, then 1) at Duna. It crashed too... We parked a spare lander in Duna orbit. It wasn't needed... But most importantly of all: WE LANDED A KERBAL ON DUNA!!!! We can now report that the first words ever spoken by a Kerbal from the surface of another planet were as follows: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IN YOUR FACE FRODO!!! KEEP YOUR SCABBY MUN ORBIT BECAUSE I'M LANDED ON DUUUUUUUUUUNAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" We think that this means Val has finally gotten over the bitter disappointment of having the first Mun orbit stolen from her on a technicality (namely, not actually completing an orbit), and we might just send the DEV back to Kerbin as soon as she returns to it to ensure she's the only Kerbal to stand on another planet's surface, for the forseeable future at least. The trip out to Duna was long and boring, however we were alerted by our favourite- and so far, only- young space fan, Martina D. Kerman (yet another plug, see my forum signature ), that the Breaking History expansion had just been released for Terrin Space Program and were able to transmit the code out to the DEV for the Big Four to while away the long hours pretending to run their own space program, only they seemed to do a better job than the Board ever could. Final milestone achieved: Land a Kerbal on Duna: Valentina Kerman, achieved after 4 years, 120 days, 10 hours and 45 minutes. Full album is here: https://imgur.com/a/la0HYwe AAARG's space program has been running for 4 years, 121 days, 4 hours and 52 minutes. All our objectives have been completed! Which is just as well, as there seem to be helicopters buzzing around overhead and a lot of blue flashing lights outside and a lot of black-clad Kerbals with 'KBI' and 'POLICE' in yellow letters on their backs- hang on, they're stealing all our Kerbonauts! And all our computer equipment too! And they've arrested all the Board! Jeb, Bob, Bill, Val- if you get this message, you'll have to make your own way home as it looks like the Advanced Audacious Aerospace Research Group is being closed down by the authorities, repeat, we're being closed down- hey, don't touch that- get your hands off me!- [message ends]

I say stick to what you've got rather than going through the hassle of trying to upgrade. Unless the version you're on is causing you problems, better the devil (or in this case, version of KSP) you know than the one you don't.

You can change the classification of any object in the tracking station- click the object to select it, click the ‘i’ button on the right then double click the orange banner with its name and it should give you the standard vessel renaming pop up. Call it a ‘base’ or something like that and it won’t be deleted, so you can collect it later. You could also try using this mod as it makes things much easier (and is really useful for keeping track of things if you have many missions on the go at once):

Advanced Audacious Aerospace Research Group: Just another day at the office! Greetings, fans of the Advanced Audacious Aerospace Research Group! We are pleased to report that the faked footage of some of our Kerbonauts alleging 'false imprisonment' and 'being launched into space without consent' has now been taken down from all web domains and the hunt for those responsible continues apace. Our entire Kerbonaut corps are absolutely fine except for a minor outbreak of food poisoning, so they won't be available for interviews in the near future, and our employee satisfaction ratings remain at 100%! And now, on to our latest update! The Duna miner 2 was dispatched towards Duna without any real excitement, as it's the same design as the first one that crashed. More interesting was Duna miner 3, which arrived into Duna orbit then made its landing attempt. Sepratrons that were meant to cushion the landing were fired too early meaning that it landed a lot harder than intended even with the air brakes and parachutes, something big went boom, but it was only when the sun came up that we realised the extent of the damage- the probe core and everything attached to it were gone. Only the inclusion of a tiny Luciole cubesat, stuck on the side with superglue, meant that the miner could still be controlled and has started mining ore, but without any fuel tanks to store fuel/oxidiser we can't use the ISRU. Blast! The sample return probe arrived back at Kerbin too and so we sent up an upgraded Mk-33, designated "Quintus" as it's the fifth one we've used, to collect it and bring it back again. Our entire roster of Kerbonauts- minus the Big Four who are on the DEV- ended up in the cockpit by nefarious mysterious means (we're sure that cockpit only held 4 before, must have been an upgrade) so they all got a free trip into LKO and back. Everything was going fine until we noticed that inexplicably, there was a fuel tank hanging out of the bottom of the spaceplane and we had no idea why it was there or how nobody had seen it until it was already at 30km altitude. Other than that, it was a straight forward mission- rendezvous, dock, deorbit, land. Even with that stupid extra fuel tank hanging off the bottom, the "Quintus" had a flawless landing on Welcome Back Island's runway, although there were some hairy moments on the way down as aerodynamic instability tried to rear its ugly head but was beaten down by RCS and frantic button mashing by the pilot. One sample from Duna's surface, delivered to Kerbin. For health and safety reasons, we have now quarantined all our Kerbonauts as we have no idea what exposure to Duna has done to that mystery goo and we can never be too safe, now can we? One more milestone falls: Sample returned from Duna's surface: Sample return express, achieved after 3 years, 64 days, 6 hours and 51 minutes. Full album is here: https://imgur.com/a/ZDcl12A AAARG's space program has been running for 3 years, 64 days, 6 hours and 51 minutes. Now, finally, it's time. DEV, prepare for Dunar insertion burn!

Advanced Audacious Aerospace Research Group: PLEASE HELP WE ARE TRAPPED IN A Mk-33!!! "...is it on? Is it working? HEEEEELP! Our lunatic employers have trapped us all in this Mk-33 "Quintus" and we can't get out! We were all sure that we were never using the Mk-33 again after the first four had various control problems and minor crash landings, but apparently some WBI reps showed up and showed off some upgrades and next thing we knew, we were all waking up inside it with splitting headaches and that horrible chloroform-y aftertaste. The worst part is, they're sending this humongous spaceplane just to scoop up the tiny little 0.625m diameter sample return probe and bring it down to the surface! A simple rocket could do the job without- wait, was that the engines starting oh no it's launching heeelp AAAAAAAAARG-" [message ends]

Advanced Audacious Aerospace Research Group: Even we don't know what we're doing any more... So, we fired some stuff into space. And dropped some stuff out of space too. We're barely keeping up with this stuff any more (OOC: I did this one over two days and forgot everything I did yesterday...) A Duna lander to carry 3 Kerbals, but the DEV (Duna Expedition Vessel) already has two landers on it so it'll be parked in Duna orbit as a spare or rescue ship. Somehow three Kerbals ended up on that one and we had to evacuate them shortly before the launch then tell them to hide behind some concrete while a whole rocket went off right above them. They're fine, really, that humming sound is perfectly normal after falling thirty metres and landing on your head... A third mining rover for Duna, improved with engines that actually connect to fuel tanks, added sepratrons for slowing down more and some big wings stuck on hinges to act as air brakes. That was stuck to the spare nuclear booster and is hurtling its way towards Duna right now. And Bill, who was sent up to the DEV to join the rest of the Big Four on not one, but three rockets! For some reason, the Orbiter 2 design we used to perform the first crewed docking- wow, was that really over 2 years ago?- failed to reach orbit on two separate occasions and it took a third launch with an upgraded rocket to get him to the DEV. Weird... There are two uncrewed missions waiting for the next Duna transfer window, one already on its way to Duna and the sample return probe hurtling back towards Kerbin. All we have to do now is wait... Full album is here: https://imgur.com/a/2nwKJNI AAARG's space program has been running for 2 years, 192 days, 6 hours and 56 minutes. All of the Big Four are onboard the DEV and waiting for the sample return mission to return its sample before they burn for Duna.

Check these things: Is the probe core hibernating? Switch it to active mode. Do you have battery power in the rover? Deploy solar panels (or enable infinite power in the cheats menu ). If you only have limited control but have a signal, those are the two biggest causes; try those and see if it starts working.

@maja what exactly has been added for Kerbalism compatibility?

Advanced Audacious Aerospace Research Group: The probe now arriving at Platform 4... Duna. That red speck in the sky, familiar yet mysterious. Or some such rubbish- we at AAARG have no need for that type of meaningless frivolity when there's serious space stuff to be done. First up was a strange contraption consisting of a 2.5m docking port on one end and a grabbing claw on the other, which was put into orbit and docked to the spare nuclear booster for reasons we can't quite think of right now. Still, any excuse for another rocket launch to keep the Board happy during the long, long wait before the Duna missions started arriving. Speaking of which- Heads up, Duna! You're about to get orbited, scanned, landed on twice (well, we say 'landed'...) and have your buddy Ike landed on for good measure. Turns out, there's a small but critical flaw in the 'Duna mining rover' design that we only discovered when it was already plunging into Duna's atmosphere: four of the eight 'Twitch' rocket engines are bolted directly to the probe core at the heart of the rover, which unfortunately means they're not connected to any source of fuel. Despite our best efforts, the mining rover made what could generously be described as a "hard landing" on Duna's surface- and amazingly, it survived! Not all of it, not most of it or even a small proportion of it, but it can be driven around (at least until the batteries run out as all the solar panels and RTGs were lost) so that's a win in our books. Compared to that, the Ike lander worked flawlessly, even surviving an unplanned trip through Duna's upper atmosphere after its Ike transfer burn was poorly planned. Remember, kids- always check your periapsis! Ike lander landed, the Duna SCANsat arrived to map out suitable landing sites for the crewed mission (and a second mining rover, which will need some upgrades!) followed by the most audacious mission we've tried to date- a sample return mission to the surface of Duna and back to Kerbin again! This required some careful planning, delicate fuel transfers, setting the max persistent debris to more than zero as the nuclear transfer stage has no control point on it (oops...), frantic drogue chute cutting as they destabilised the craft on descent, and then finally we managed to put a rocket on Duna's surface in one piece and pointing the right way up. Mystery goo sample obtained and stored, the rocket took off again, burning the excess fuel in the descent stage to save delta-V in case it was needed, before the little probe linked back up with its transfer stage and blasted back to Kerbin right away thanks to a favourable alignment. Two big Phase 4 objectives were completed: Land a probe on Duna: Duna miner 2, achieved after 1 year, 329 days, 4 hours and 41 minutes. Land a probe on Ike: Ike lander, achieved after 1 year, 334 days, 8 hours and 56 minutes. Additionally, the Duna sample return rocket landed on Duna after 2 years, 74 days, 0 hours and 24 minutes. We're not sure if this actually counts, or if the time only counts when it gets back to Kerbin's surface, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Full album is here: https://imgur.com/a/1mhYCYv AAARG's space program has been running for 2 years, 74 days, 5 hours and 41 minutes. Uncrewed landers are now on the surfaces of Duna and Ike (the Duna one on a much larger area of the surface than planned!) and the sample return mission is on its way back to Kerbin, due to arrive in just under a year. A separate craft will be launched to meet it and carry its precious cargo down to Kerbin's surface to be recovered, after which it's footprints on Duna time!

I think you need to reduce your wingspan for your planes, but increase your thrust- a single SRB on the back throttled back to about 30 percent with a pair of Wheesley jet engines either side should be enough to get you up to the required altitude at least once per flight; you don’t need that many air intakes, just one radial intake per engine is usually enough and the rest will add parts, mass and drag; making narrower but longer wings (more front to back span and less outward span) will help with stability and prevent the ‘flappy plane’ issues. I also suggest that you leave the Juno jets behind, they’re underpowered and inefficient, and you’re better off using 2 Wheesleys instead. You should probably take a look at how you’re setting up your parachutes and adjust the minimum pressure values for your main chutes to around 0.6, which will make them open at an altitude where your drogues (or just air drag) have slowed the pod down enough for the mains to survive. That removes the risk of forgetting to trigger the chutes in the first place as you can stage them even while in space and they’ll only open once the pressure threshold has been reached. I’m enjoying this series so far, keep it coming!

Just being able to sort Kerbals by type and experience in the AC or crew selection panel of the editors would be enough for me. Courage and stupidity make little difference (except for their facial expressions in flight, apparently) and while custom groups would be nice it would also be more work than using existing parameters to add filter and sort functions.

Try doing the opposite of what real subs did- use an electric propeller while on the surface (the props must be fully in the air so put them on the top of your sub) and then use a jet engine to propel yourself underwater. Solar panels, RTGs and the jet’s alternator will recharge the batteries while submerged and ore tanks are great for ballast as you can fill the, up by mining and drain them using an ISRU, a fuel drain valve or by just dumping the entire contents if you want to surface RIGHT NOW. If you’re worried about range, just build a really really big sub with a huge reserve of fuel or bring some drills and an ISRU along to make more as you go.

Can you please use a normal font? I find that calligraphic one really hard to read especially on a small screen. If the game stops loading at ‘verifying expansion’ then that usually means some kind of exception has occurred and the game will stop at that point- it is almost never due to the expansion! Check the log files, either KSP.txt in the KSP directory itself, or (on windows) in C:/users/your user/AppData/LocalLow/Squad/Kerbal Space Program/Player.txt (or Player.log), upload them to a file sharing site then post the links here so someone can take a look at them. It would also help to know your KSP version and what mods you have installed. Specifically, any mods that you just added, as these are likely to be causing the problem either directly or by breaking another mod you were already using.

I would definitely be interested in more space telescopes, but limited to infrared (sentinel type for spotting comets and asteroids), visible light (for pretty pictures and some science points, though not quite to the extent that TST does with science awarded for pictures of every body while orbiting every body- Kerbin orbit, solar orbit and orbiting other stars would do; it could also find nearby stars as the first part of going interstellar) and maybe some kind of huge multispectral contraption to find and categorise exoplanets, which would only work at a specified distance from the sun (or other stars)- a bit like research bodies but only for other solar systems. Going down into great detail would be too much for the stock game, but would probably make for a great mod.

Flying a plane with normal wings in KSP: pull up too quickly, half of the wing bits fall off, but the remaining pieces are just enough to limp back to the ground and salvage a landing you can walk away from. Or at least, enough to keep it airborne while you bail the crew out. It also works better for building things that aren’t planes and for aerial combat, if that’s something you do with KSP (I still don’t really get it but it looks like it could be fun as a multiplayer thing). Flying a plane with procedural wings in KSP: pull up too quickly, the entire wing snaps off, nosedive, boom. All or nothing is fine if you have ‘all’, but not when you have ‘nothing’! If there was any kind of ‘procedural’ element to wings, I would prefer it to be like stock fairings- draw the outline of the shape then change the angles if you want. Or maybe that physics trick of counting groups of parts as one single part could be applied to wings, similar to the ‘merging’ idea others posted earlier, but that also runs the risk of losing a whole wing instead of a single part if you hit something or overstress it. Trying to balance a game with a distinct set of parts is relatively easy; trying to balance a game made of free form parts that can be created in any shape and size you like is far more difficult. Getting a new player to design their own rocket by subtly tweaking the size and shape of each component is only going to confuse them; telling them ‘pod, parachute, rocket, launch’ is faster and more intuitive. Foisting a wilfully complex system onto everyone to appease a small but shouty minority won’t make KSP2 sell more copies or make the majority of players happy, so wait for the procedural mods or just don’t buy the game.

I don’t think you need any gravity assists at all to punt something into solar orbit beyond Eeloo. A cluster of NERVs and some big Mk3 liquid fuel fuselages will give you oodles of delta-V even if the TWR is low. The question I have is- why are you putting relays outside of Eeloo’s orbit? The signal strength will be really low trying to relay from there unless you throw a lot of RA-100 relay dishes (or have the signal strengths turned up really high) and it would make much more sense to put a relay or two in a high polar orbit of each planet instead.