jimmymcgoochie

I didn’t have time to add this part earlier… If you’re willing to consider mods, there are a few that can make base building much easier: Simple Logistics, a simple and easy to use mod that allows resources to be shared between nearby (inside physics range) landed vessels even when they aren’t connected, but only when you’re looking at them- it doesn’t work in the background. Saves a lot of the hassle of connecting stuff up but you have to babysit it a lot. KIS/KAS (Kerbal Inventory/Attachment System), aka EVA construction before it was stock but with hoses. You can use KAS hoses and attachment points to connect vessels up so they become one craft, just like docking, but with a lot more flexibility. My experience doing this was a bit mixed though, even on the Minmus flats things had a nasty habit of bouncing into the air or just completely breaking apart when the vessel(s) loaded so if you choose to use these mods, save regularly! I think MKS (Modular Kolonisation System) has both a system to share resources across an entire planet/moon and flexible connector parts to hook different modules together, but it’s not a mod I’m familiar with so I can’t say for sure. The Breaking Ground DLC’s robotics parts can be helpful to connect stuff up on uneven ground, but they’re also prone to drifting out of position and/or adding unwanted forces that can build up and shake the whole thing apart. I tried a modular base attached this way and eventually gave up after it kept shaking itself violently within ten seconds of loading it, plus having so many parts in physics range at once really hurt the frame rates. A single monolithic miner has an advantage in that respect- a lot fewer parts needed since you only need to land one thing not several- but regardless of how you build your miner, do not use the miner to haul fuel to orbit! All that mining stuff is dead weight that’ll hurt the delta-V and reduce your payload (fuel for other vessels); instead, build dedicated fuel tankers so the mining base can keep on mining 24/7 (or 6/428 in Kerbin time).

If you’re going about it in an entirely stock (i.e. no mods) then you have a few options: The monolithic mega-miner: a huge, heavy lump of a machine that has drills, ore tanks and ISRU converters all in one place. Easiest to design since everything’s there, but hard to get where you want it due to the sheer size and mass. Very expensive craft and one failure will lose the entire thing, but only needs one (admittedly LARGE) rocket to get it there. The modular mining base: why send everything at once when you can break it down into bitesize pieces and send them all separately instead. Send the ISRU converters, drills, solar panels etc. separately and then stick them together on site. Assembling a mining base on the surface isn’t easy with just stock parts because the terrain is rarely smooth and flat, but you can usually find a reasonable area (or one of Minmus’ flats) and connect them up by using wheels to drive them into each other. Multiple vessels that all need some parts (command, power, control, rockets to land, wheels etc.) and multiple launches make it a more expensive option overall, but it’s a lot more flexible and lower risk as losing one module is only part of the total and a replacement is cheaper to build. Requires precision landing skills to land within close proximity of previously landed modules, but since you’ll need wheels to attach everything on the ground “close proximity” can be a few kilometres away. You can also expand it if you need e.g. more drills or more power generation. The featherweight fueller-upper: Make one small mining module with the bare minimum of equipment to operate the system. Cheap, easy to launch and land, but the small drills aren’t as efficient and the 1.25m ISRU converter is horribly wasteful (it has a 10% fuel yield from the same amount of ore compared to the 2.5m) so it’s more of a prototype/baby’s-first-mining-base option to dip your toes into off-world fuel production. Make it a rover and add a surface detector and it would make a good prospecting vessel or a mobile fuel station to fill up other small vessels to extend their operational life. The space-assembled super-base: much like the modular base, but you attach everything together on orbit before landing. Only really feasible for places with low gravity and no atmosphere since the assembled base will likely have centre of mass/thrust/drag imbalances that would make controlling it much harder on larger bodies, but docking in space is much easier than docking on the surface especially with 1.12’s rotating docking ports. It might be hard to judge how much fuel you need to land though.

You used up all the helium firing the RCS on the top because that tank is misconfigured, hence the capsule’s RCS was unusable. It would be a lot more sensible to set that RCS to use the same propellant as the capsule’s own RCS so they both use the same propellants, or set it the same as the SM’s RCS instead (but with the proper tank setup). Station contracts are easy money, send a crew up and you can complete three or four contracts at once: new crew, expanded capacity, power module and (if there’s a crew there already) rotate crew. You could also leave the mission modules behind each time you visit to give subsequent crews more room- I haven’t looked at the D-2 but the Apollo Block 4 module has a lab in it. The CBM port on the end of Dawn 2 isn’t very useful, it got scaled up like the other SSPX parts but now it’s too big and heavy so normal vessels can’t use them; send up an adapter with another hub to dock to that so you have multiple ports (and different types?) on both ends of the station.

Do the modules have to be connected together or do you just want to share resources between the different sections? If it’s the latter, SimpleLogistics could solve that problem by allowing all vessels within physics range to pool their resources so that, say, a power module can supply power to everything else, though you still need at least some storage for everything you need on each section e.g. ore on an ISRU module. It’s less glitch-prone than attaching everything with KIS/KAS hoses but doesn’t work in the background as the vessels are still separate.

The welsh word “Saesneg” (English, the language) and the Scots word “Sassenach” (English, a person from England) both derive from the Saxon part of ‘Anglo-Saxon’, whereas English and England come from the Anglo part (Angle-land > England) as do words like Anglophone (someone who speaks English).

Mk2 parts have very high drag because they’re also considered “wings” and generate lift. To keep drag down, angle your wings by a few degrees so the front (leading) edge is higher than the rear (trailing) edge- this will make the wings generate lift when the fuselage is level and so generating minimal lift. Rapiers work better the faster you go so build up speed before climbing, you can easily hit 1500m/s in air-breathing mode and then climb to space. Four Rapiers are a bit overkill for a plane that size and you definitely don’t need four shock cones, try two engines and a single shock cone on the nose- switch to the in-line Mk2 cockpit for that- and ditch the wingtip nacelles to save weight and reduce drag. Canards near the nose might make the plane handle a bit better by giving it more pitch authority and would also balance the increased lift from angling the main wings. Removing two engines would also move the centre of mass forwards though which might mean canards are less useful. You should also look at any parts you don’t absolutely need (the docking port perhaps? and/or swap to an unscrewed design using the Mk2 drone core and a mk2-1.25m adapter instead of a cockpit) and remove them to reduce mass and so increase delta-V; even removing any unnecessary propellants can help, with the NERV running solely on liquid fuel you only need enough oxidiser to boost your way out of the atmosphere and unless you’re docking you don’t need any monopropellant.

Weird that nobody has mentioned this yet…

Perhaps if you did your departure burn so you were leaving prograde relative to Vall’s orbit of Jool instead of going almost straight outwards, you’d need a lot less fuel. Which, coincidentally, would also have been a departure near the ascending node and so would have greatly reduced the effects of the inclination.

Just when I thought your Tylo ascent was the worst I’d ever seen, you went and did that. Aiming at about 290-300 degrees on lift-off and pitching aggressively towards horizontal is the way to do it.

You can sort your mods by install date in CKAN to undo the most recent changes. Click ‘install date’ at the top of the list twice so it sorts them in descending order, newest first, then downgrade to older versions or uni stall as applicable. Not sure why you’re using KSP 1.11 with RO/RP-1 since they’ve never been properly supported and you’re more likely to get weird issues by doing so (I know because I did it before RO/RP-1 were updated for KSP 1.12, would not recommend), is it a really old save or did you just use the wrong version of KSP? If it’s the latter then I recommend creating a new copy of KSP 1.12.3, adding RP-1 and dependent mods and then copying your save over to it.

Stock delta-V is disabled by RP-1, use MechJeb’s instead because that one actually works.

If you have less than 1km/s then you don’t have enough left to attempt a landing *in one piece and with a functional craft afterwards rather than explosions and scattered debris* Better?

Logs and either/both of a mod list and/or screenshots of KSP/GameData please. Did you install the mods through CKAN or by yourself? Do you have all the required dependencies? The error message tells you how to find KSP.log, the ModuleManager cache and the Kopernicus logs, without those it’s almost impossible to say why it isn’t working.

I’ll throw in a couple of card games: Dobble: it’s like Snap on steroids- each card has ten different things on it and has at least one in common with every other card, you just have to get your card in first and say what you’re matching. Works better the more people you have. Jungle Speed: Again super-Snap but with a greater chance of staved knuckles- see a match, grab the wooden totem in the middle, hand highest to the top wins in the event of a draw. You might not have all your fingernails when you’re done, but it’s good fun nonetheless, reaction times dependent. Many players. Dutch Blitz: Another one where fast reflexes are key, it’s possible to play it with regular playing cards but you’ll need two packs. Two piles in the middle, you can play a card one higher or lower on top and the aim is to get rid of your cards as fast as possible and then pick a pile for the next round- pick the smaller one! First to empty their entire hand wins, so it gets very tactical near the end. Two players only.

You need to shed weight to land, which in this case probably means fuel. Point normal or antinormal ( or ) and burn until your TWR goes above 1 or you go below 1000m/s of delta-V; if your TWR goes above 1 first you have a chance of landing, but if you have less than 1km/s then you don’t have enough left to attempt a landing. A single ion engine may not be enough for a Moho landing since Moho has relatively high gravity and ion engines are pretty weak. If you get a high enough TWR and have the fuel left to attempt a landing, lower your periapsis to just skim over the surface at periapsis, then brake hard at periapsis to slow down for landing. Try to control your vertical speed so you don’t crash, but remember that pointing away from retrograde will cost you more delta-V and hovering is just wasting fuel.

Fun fact- adding a power module is as easy as docking a crewed spacecraft, the fuel cells plus the station’s own power systems will be more than enough to tick all the contract boxes. Swapping crew, adding more capacity and adding a power module can all be done in one flight with pretty much any crewed spacecraft for a tidy profit. The upper tank on the DOG3 look totally wrong, it has UDMH/NTO for the booster engines not NTO/Helium/(Aerozine50 or MMH) for the RCS and the SPS engine. RCS always needs a pressurant like helium or nitrogen as they’re pressure-fed, so if you don’t have that then you’re clearly not configured right. Once an engine fails in TestFlight, it’s gone for good. TestLite lets you restart them if they fail but TestFlight does not. You just got unlucky and rolled a 99.9% for the failure chance.

Tylo: has 0.8g gravity. @seyMonsters: decides to hover 3km above the surface. Also @seyMonsters: launches vertically to 200m/s, swerves around all over the place trying to match planes long before reaching orbit, and then wonders why he ran out of fuel. RIP Jansey

I’m no expert on orbital mechanics, but this is not Oberth effect- you’ll see a similar effect orbiting any body at any velocity, from tiny objects like Deimos (orbital velocity of 4m/s or so in RSS with patched conics) to stars orbital velocities in the tens or even hundreds of kilometres per second. Orbits aren’t linear and gravity decreases exponentially with distance, so applying a linear acceleration at periapsis will have an exponentially greater effect as you get closer to escape velocity until you go too fast for gravity to bring you back again.

I updated to WM 2.8.3.4 again and the earlier issue has not re-occurred. I'm going to chalk this one up to just running RO/RP-1 for a few hours which brought on some strange behaviour which I wrongly attributed to updating this mod.

To me, the structure in the bottom right of the image looks like the really big launchpad that's been shown in earlier videos/images- see 1:21 in the original KSP2 trailer, for example, or this image from the KSP2 page linked in the banner at the top of the forum home page: I'm sure I've seen shots of the same pad with a circular moat around it before too.

"Why didn't you tell us about this before!?" Gene's incredulous shout drew everyone in Mission Control's attention towards him- and Mortimer, who looked suitably abashed. "I put them in the wrong drawer when the deal got signed and forgot they were there." Gene sighed. "Well, at least we have them now, though how we're going to manage to build the thing when we have no parts left at all-" "Actually, about that." Wernher interrupted. "We might have a way to build something on the ground, but it's going to involve dismantling a lot of the ground facilities across the KSC." "Like what?" "Oh, nothing important- the Astronaut Complex games room, the cookers in the VAB canteen, some of the consoles in Mission Control, maybe a Tracking Station dish or two, nothing too important." He ignored the increasingly indignant grumbling from the onlookers in the room. "If it gets us back into space- and back into proper contact with everyone on Lua- I say it's worth it." Gene watched the onlookers' expressions change to grudging agreement. "Alright, let's do it," he said. "But this better work!" Much facility dismantling and one desperate but unsuccessful attempt by Linus to save the karaoke machine in the R&D rec room later, their newest creation was ready. Unfortunately... "What do you mean, we don't have anything to launch?!" "We didn't think that far ahead! Just stick a big box of rocks in it as a mass simulator or something." And that's what they did. Jeswell, Tatiana and Panand weren't too thrilled by having their first flight into space be in a new spaceplane of dubious construction ("Why do all the light switches ping like a pinball machine when I turn them on and off?"), but Mortimer assured them all that the design was tried and tested with only a single minor mishap in its otherwise blemish-free service; he refused to elaborate what said mishap was, which did nothing for the crew's confidence. "This is, uh, Independent? Ready for takeoff." Pilot Jeswell reported. "Cleared for takeoff, Independence," the tower controller replied. "Here goes nothing..." Jeswell muttered, pushing the throttles to full power. "This thing is quick!" Flight engineer Panand exclaimed as they broke through the sound barrier. "The engines are producing more thrust the faster we go!" In what felt like mere seconds they were well on their way to orbital velocity and climbing high into Rhode's atmosphere, the four Broadsword engines straining in the tenuous air to keep on accelerating. "Switch to closed cycle mode." Said Jeswell. Moments later there were a series of ominous bangs from behind them. "What was that?" "Oh. Oops..." Mission scientist Tatiana muttered. "Wrong button. I think I just folded out the solar panels instead of switching over the engines." "And the engines?" "Oh. Right. I should probably do that." Jeswell and Panand gave their crewmate dirty looks as she finally(!) switched the engines over to burning onboard oxidiser, producing another surge of acceleration. "MECO in three, two, one..." The cockpit fell silent. "Circularisation burn plotted, rig for space operations." The aircraft's cargo doors opened, the docking port on top of the cockpit extended and the solar panels- were scattered over an unexplored continent far from the KSC, torn off after being deployed into hypersonic airflow. Oh well, better make this a quick mission then. Cargo erectors rotated from stowed to deployed, the forty tons of miscellaneous dirt, rock and minerals were released into an orbit that will definitely never hit anything else that happens to go to a low equatorial orbit of Rhode, ever. Let's just blame it on the fact that the mission planners had to do their planning sessions while kneeling at their desks because someone stole all the chairs from the Administration Building to make spaceplane parts. Don't even ask what parts they went into though, it's probably better not to know... The re-entry burn was performed nominally, however a brief aerodynamic anomaly (read: wild flip-flopping and pointing backwards due to an imbalanced CoM before dumping all excess oxidiser and a lot of excess fuel too) meant that they fell well short of the KSC and had to fly the rest of the way back using the engines in air-breathing mode. Low-speed handling was described as "like pushing a shipping container through treacle" but Jeswell still managed to set it down on the runway in one piece. Well, apart from the solar panels, but that goes without saying. Great success! And fully reusable too, assuming the crew presses the right buttons at the right times *scowls at Tatiana* and with a huge delta-V reserve it should be capable of handling much heavier payloads. Maybe.

For a launch site that has a latitude below or at the Moon's inclination around Earth (around 28 degrees, so Cape Canaveral and Kourou both count but somewhere like Baikonur does not) you can launch directly into the plane of the Moon's orbit. If you're a few degrees out (e.g. Woomera or some of the other US launch sites) then you can probably launch east then do a dogleg to fix the inclination, but otherwise your options are either a) launch to the inclination of your launch site's latitude and with the same LAN as the Moon and do your transfer burn at the relative ascending/descending node, or b) launch into a polar orbit and do the transfer burn when the Moon is in the right position; in both cases you'll get two windows of a few hours where the transfer is straightforward per month, so timing matters a lot more. If you're struggling to launch to orbit consistently, you should use MechJeb's Primer Vector Guidance mode in ascent guidance. This is only available on the dev version of MechJeb, which you can find in CKAN by clicking Settings > CKAN settings > metadata repositories > new > add MechJeb2-dev. I recommend you set the pitch start to 50m/s, pitch rate to somewhere between 0.5 and 1 depending on your rocket's TWR on launch (higher TWR = faster pitch rate) and use the "launch into plane of target" option to time your launches to the Moon from a low latitude launch site, or "launch to target LAN" for a high latitude launch site.

If you can get within 1km of the target, the easiest way to dock is just point both vessels at each other and thrust towards it at a couple of metres per second, gradually slowing down as you get closer. There’s a mod that adds new SAS modes to point parallel or anti-parallel to the target which means they’ll point the same or opposite directions, or MechJeb’s Smart ASS can do the same thing. If you don’t have the SAS modes to point at the target due to an unskilled crew or low-tech probe core, pointing one vessel to normal and the other anti-normal will also keep them pointing in opposite directions which will make docking easier. Also remember to press caps lock to engage fine control mode which will save propellant and also make the controls much less forceful, making it easier to do precise adjustments for docking. You should also disable pitch/yaw/roll controls on your RCS thrusters as reaction wheels are more than up to the task of attitude control and using RCS for it will only mess with your trajectory. During the final approach, switch to camera locked mode and look down the length of the vessel doing the docking, rotating the camera as necessary so that the translation controls (IJKL) match what’s on the screen (i.e. pressing I moves you up, etc.). Move your prograde marker so that the target marker is between prograde and where you’re pointing and the target will move closer to the middle of the navball: (centre of navball) -> , if the target goes too far then move the prograde marker to the other side and bring the target back to the centre. As with many things in life, practice makes perfect. Put two probe cores with RCS and docking ports on them into orbit together and practice your approach and docking (use the set orbit cheat and infinite propellant if you want ) until it makes more sense and you can reliably dock them together. It took a lot of clever people doing a lot of number-crunching and at least one failed mission before docking was achieved in real life, so don’t worry if it’s not immediately intuitive- it is rocket science after all!

As long as they’re docked (or klawed) together, they’re treated as one vessel and you can strut away. You can’t attach struts between two different vessels in EVA construction though.

Use the gravity assist! Plane change to be flat compared to Tylo (even if it’s a retrograde orbit) and you save yourself a ton of fuel for the capture by letting Tylo’s gravity slow you down on the first pass and then the second pass is much easier. Brute-forcing it with the heavy lander still attached is A Bad Idea.