jimmymcgoochie

Good news- after much save file hacking using KML (and a few gratuitous explosions) I finally freed the stuck docking port by setting it to 4000 degrees Kelvin and blowing it up, then replacing it with a new part which I copied from another part of the same mission and then fixed with a bit of EVA construction. After all that effort, actually landing on Eve should be a doddle, right?

To clarify: The problem docking port is NOT attached to another docking port. It's attached directly to another part (an NFLV 5m cargo bay) on the top node (the end that docks to other docking ports).

Go to wherever you've installed KSP, open the KSP root folder and you'll find a text file called KSP.txt or KSP.log, then follow the guide above to share it. Try deleting the problematic part's config and see if it loads after that, or reinstall ROEngines. Are you installing mods in the Steam copy of KSP by any chance?

Deploy the ladders and MOVE DOWN!

In the middle of a mission I've suddenly realised that a key piece of hardware- an ion-powered space tug- is attached to the mothership by a small docking port which is surface attached. The Ion Space Tug was attached as a subassembly in the VAB when the mothership was launched but now it can't be decoupled, undocked or otherwise detached; the undock button does nothing and there's no option to decouple in the PAW or via action groups. Is there a way to get this docking port to let go, or do I need to resort to dubious save hacking to either forcibly detach it or else destroy the docking port and fix it afterwards via EVA construction?

Try this: Huge relay dishes up to 7.5m wide, extremely expensive and heavy but also extremely powerful. There are configs for a 10m dish too, but you’d need to re-enable them by editing the file to uncomment the configs.

I don’t think so. The exterior models alone cause a noticeable drop in FPS for me, let alone adding detailed interiors.

Advanced tweakables enables an additional feature of parachutes- spread angle. You can set this higher to make all parachutes in a symmetry set spread out more, or less so they cluster together, but it only affects chutes in one set, placed together using symmetry in the editor.

Maybe this will help?

Might as well use the infinite propellant cheat since using ISRU without drills is effectively conjuring fuel out of nothing. Alternatively, make a ModuleManager patch based on an RTG and set it to generate either ore or fuel, or use the negative thrust KAL-1000 exploit to generate free fuel.

A few things that might help: Enable advanced tweakables in the main menu settings. Much of what I’m about to say requires it and it’s worth having that switched on anyway for the other abilities you gain e.g. autostruts. Turn down the friction setting on the front wheel(s) of your planes. The nose wheel tends to ‘dig in’ especially when using jets at the rear of the plane, meaning any slight deviation from straight ahead will be exaggerated as the engines keep pushing forwards but the front wheel acts like an anchor until the plane pivots sideways, drops a wing and ends in a long chain of fiery explosions. This can also affect rovers, though to a lesser extent as they generally lack high-power thrust and don’t go nearly as fast. Swap the wheel controls to different keys. By default, wheel controls are set to WASD, the same as pitch and yaw control, which causes a lot of interference and can lead to poor controllability especially on low-gravity bodies like Minmus. Set your wheel controls to use the arrow keys instead and you’ll completely bypass this problem without having to faff with reaction wheel settings or losing the ability to control the rover’s attitude at the same time as driving. Balance your brakes to be more rear-biased by reducing the brake force on the front wheels and increasing it at the back. It’ll increase your stopping distance a little bit, but decreases the risk of face-planting into the ground. Avoid braking and turning at the same time as this can lead to skidding and then flipping. Increase the suspension spring and damper strengths to keep the rover/plane stable when turning and to reduce the risk of clipping the ground with something other than a wheel which can easily ruin your day. If you can provide some screenshots- or better yet, a video- of the problem then we can give more specific advice.

Can you post the game logs? Here’s how: Which file is getting stuck?

Sometimes radiators have a bug where they effectively heat up by pulling heat from each other and overheat, which causes the other radiators to overheat and so on. ISRU is overrated, just build a more modular system with a lander that can handle Vall, Bop and Pol and a booster to land on Tylo (1.875m using a Cheetah is good, or 2.5m with a Poodle but that’s heavier) then use an SSTO spaceplane for Laythe (I can send you some craft files..? or look at the Indefatigability Grand Tour mission report in my profile signature) and send the whole lot out to Jool in one go.

I feel obliged to point out that jet engines exist and are a common way to get to orbit with an initial TWR well below 1. There are also motors and propellers which technically have no TWR at all since the game can’t calculate them, which could be used to artificially reduce the average TWR for a spaceplane. I’m sure I’ve heard of someone using only propellers and ion thrusters to fly an SSTO to Kerbin orbit using some serious physics exploits.

The Making History Mastodon is pointless. Less powerful and less efficient than the Mainsail in atmosphere and vacuum, the only possible benefits are the (slightly) lower mass and (a bit more than slightly) lower cost. It’s supposed to be the F-1 engine, so why is it so puny when the Rhino, an analog of the M-1 which had comparable thrust to the F-1, has 2MN vacuum thrust? Giving the Mastodon at least 1800kN vacuum thrust would make it worthwhile.

“Why won’t the engines gimbal? Why won’t the RCS fire?” It sure would be nice if there was a warning that flashed up on the screen whenever you didn’t have enough avionics to control the craft…

New series- SeyMonsters Does EVAs Until He Knows Which Button Is Which. The smaller 1.25m ISRU is a complete waste of time, it wastes almost all the ore fed into it whereas the larger one uses it all. I’d suggest redesigning that lander so the ISRU stuff could be dumped for the Tylo ascent and doing that one last, filling up on one of the other moons before attempting a Tylo landing because Tylo needs A LOT of delta-V.

Do you have control of the vessel (powered, signal to the ground, avionics can handle the vessel mass)? Did you put the right propellants in the right type of tanks- unless you’re using a gas like nitrogen or helium, most RCS propellants need a pressurant such as nitrogen or helium as well as the ‘real’ propellant, and all RCS options require high pressure tanks which can be selected for conventional (separate) and integral (isogrid) structure tanks and are standard for all service module tanks.

1- How exactly do you plan to get quadrillions of tons of water into the middle of the Sahara desert? 2- Fake sea-ice will still melt; if using fresh water it’ll create a cold layer at the top of the ocean that can cause all sorts of problems, while pikrete would need huge quantities of wood and would then dump that wood into the ocean and any ice-making system would require huge quantities of power. 3- Just drop nukes on volcanoes to make them erupt, you’ll get vastly more atmospheric aerosols than you’ll ever get from contrails. 4- Mmm, giant algal blooms spewing toxins everywhere, deoxygenating the ocean and killing all the marine life (and plenty of terrestrial life too if it washed up on a coastline). 5- Steel making is a huge source of carbon emissions, plus who’s going to make that much steel just to throw it into the sea? And where is the power coming from? 6- Trees. Two things that we know will reduce global temperatures: volcanic eruptions and large numbers of nuclear explosions. Drop some nukes into semi-active volcanoes and set them off to trigger huge eruptions and cool the planet by sheer brute force; Krakatoa cooled the entire Earth by about a degree for a few years and there are thousands of old nukes lying around and plenty of remote volcanoes not erupting enough…

I should have posted this link earlier.

The only way to avoid this is to move the part into position without symmetry enabled, then set the symmetry there. If you hover over a part at e.g. 4x symmetry, the game will detect that the prospective parent part is at 4x symmetry and switch to match that since it can’t suddenly start attaching stuff in, say, 6x symmetry.

Longitude of Ascending Node is the point at which the orbit crosses the equator heading north. Argument of Periapsis is how far around the orbit the periapsis is from the LAN; 0 means the periapsis is on the LAN, a value between 0 and 180 means the apoapsis is below the equator and between 180 and 360 means the apoapsis is above the equator. For contracts, the target orbit line should be visible on the map which makes it easier to aim at it; there’s a bit of wiggle room on the exact numbers too. Can you screenshot the contract window to show what items on the list are ticked or not? Make sure you’re going in the right direction, have all the required extra components (power, antenna, docking port, science experiments and/or survey scanners depending on the contract’s specifics) and if you meet the parameters then the orbit line on the map should disappear.

Screenshots please? To my knowledge, SVE is pretty old and if you’re using newer versions of things like EVE and scatterer (and KSP) then try a different visual pack like Spectra or AVP instead?

Download ProbesPlus master branch from the GitHub (link on the forum page or via CKAN) and not the release which is very out of date. If that doesn’t work, post logs please: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/83212-how-to-get-support-read-first/

Try deleting the settings.cfg file inside the KSP folder, then it’ll recreate it with the default settings after reloading the game which may fix the problem but will also undo any changes you’ve made to the settings ever.