jimmymcgoochie

Current mod list is below, I don't think I've added anything new recently but did a few updates when they came out. I don't have the craft files any more but from memory there was one EL smelter, one Sandcastle printing arm and I was getting ore and metal ore concentrations of around 3%. Metal and metal ore work in RR 1.33, but neither metal/metal ore or metals/metallic ore worked in RR 1.40.

You can't re-root in EVA construction mode. If only someone hadn't said "nah, we won't need docking ports on this one" a couple of episodes earlier...

That rocket is massively overbuilt for going to the Mun- you don't need two Mainsail-powered stages to get there unless your base is absolutely huge, plus the Mainsail is pretty inefficient in space and heavy to boot. Without seeing any pictures of the craft in question it's hard to give concrete advice, but I'm pretty sure that you don't need a Poodle to land your base on the Mun, and you definitely don't need two Mainsail-powered upper stages to get there. Reasons for difficulty controlling a vessel are usually one of: No power. This will not only disable the reaction wheels, but also disables probe cores and can result in a complete loss of control on an uncrewed vessel. Add power sources (solar panels, RTGs, fuel cells) and/or storage (batteries) to mitigate against this. No usable control point. Aside from a lack of power, probe cores will also stop working properly if they're in hibernation mode. Crew pods will only provide control when there's a Kerbal inside them to operate the controls. Make sure your probe cores aren't set to hibernation mode (hibernate in warp is fine and is a good idea to save power) and if crew are aboard, that at least one of them is in a command pod rather than a Hitchhiker or lab module. No signal to Kerbin, which prevents most manual controls with probes- SAS and full/zero throttle will still work unless you have 'require signal for control' switched on in the difficulty settings. Add more/larger antennae to mitigate against this (all antennae can co-operate to boost the total communications range on a vessel, apart from the Communotron 16S which doesn't), establish relay networks to cover blind spots when a direct signal to Kerbin is unavailable. If you're playing with CommNet switched off, you can ignore this point. Insufficient control authority, often because you're using a small reaction wheel (e.g. built into a probe core) to try and turn a large, heavy rocket. Add reaction wheels to improve control authority, RCS is an option but uses finite propellant whereas reaction wheels use electricity which can be generated for free, firing the engine at low throttle may also help thanks to engine gimbal but will also use fuel and alter your trajectory in a potentially undesirable way. No SAS, either because you're using the Stayputnik probe core that doesn't have it or because your crew aren't pilots, who are the only Kerbals who can use SAS. A scientist or engineer can still operate the controls, but it's a lot easier to fly with a pilot. Use a probe core with SAS built in to counter both problems (a probe core with SAS will still provide SAS when a non-pilot Kerbal is at the controls) and/or make sure a pilot is flying.

An NTR using water as its propellant would get worse ISP than a hydrolox chemical rocket (at best, ~410s ISP versus >450s that hydrolox engines can already achieve). Water also has the unfortunate tendency to dissociate into hydrogen and oxygen at very high temperatures, such as those found inside a nuclear reactor for an NTR; you really don't want hot oxygen inside a nuclear reactor, and you especially don't want hydrogen gas in there too! You'd still be better off using that nuclear reactor to power an electrolysis cell, then liquefy the hydrogen and oxygen produced, with the waste heat from the reactor used to melt the ice before it gets electrolysed. You could then use the liquid hydrogen in an NTR and enjoy the benefits of neutron moderation and cryogenic cooling that come with it- more hydrogen directly increases the fission rate, but also cools the reactor more- or with most of the oxygen in a hydrolox rocket, with the excess oxygen used to keep the crew alive. Most hydrolox rockets burn fuel-rich to help with cooling, increase ISP by lowering the average molecular mass of the exhaust gas and also because hot oxygen is really reactive and is just as bad for the inside of a rocket engine as it is for the inside of a nuclear reactor.

Some people here clearly haven't worked in software development, and as someone who does, it shows. The project I'm working on right now has been going for over three years now; initially everyone thought it would be a 6-9 month job, but then the realities of user needs, legal requirements and making the new system better than the one it was meant to be replacing, rather than just the same but different, set in hard. New people were brought into the team, some of whom did more harm than good and all of whom needed considerable time and a lot of help from existing team members to get up to speed, slowing the project down in the short term. Some people left and were replaced, slowing the project down again. Business requirements were changed repeatedly, at one point causing the team to spend the better part of a year developing a system to tie in with another team, only for said other team to be reprioritised onto something else and all our work ended up unused. And then 2020 happened, lockdowns started and suddenly everyone was trying to figure out how to work from home, trying to get hold of the right equipment along with hundreds of other employees and generally being disrupted from normal working. Two years later, we're still working from home and have been in the office a total of five times in that time for days full of planning meetings. The team grew, then split, then shrank, then merged again, then shrank some more; objectives kept changing, business requirements kept changing, budgets got cut, people got moved to other teams, contracts were cut, and all the while we kept on doing our best to meet all the deadlines (pretty successfully, I might add) even when the goalposts were actively moving. We're still nowhere near done on this first part of the project, still getting reprioritised to different parts of the system as the higher-ups change their priorities and have years left before anyone will even think about switching off the old system we're meant to be replacing, but that's nothing to do with not wanting to complete the project or doing a bad job. Look at KSP2 objectively: Take Two is a business, which wants to make money. Would they be funding years of KSP2 development if they thought it wasn't going to recoup those costs? Would they have hired all those people from Star Theory if they thought they were doing a bad job? Bringing Squad and modders like Nertea on board wouldn't have happened without someone pitching a business case to justify the costs involved either. Even now, nearly three years after the trailer first released (no doubt after a lot of development time had already gone in from Star Theory) they're still willing to fund the game's development for nearly a whole year before the projected release date, and most likely for a long time afterwards. Enough with all the doom and gloom! Look at all the feature videos, the show and tells and showcases that have been done over the last few years, then think that everything that's been shown so far was in a good enough state at that time that it could be shown publically- meaning there will undoubtedly be a lot more work in progress stuff that wasn't ready to be revealed but which will be to the same standards. Rushing a release never ended well- remember the Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco? After waiting for three years so far, surely you can manage a few more months?

Good news- save is not broken. Good-er news- Parallax! Blue Violin 2 launched about a minute too late for a direct rendezvous, mostly because I forgot the orbiting return probe was in a retrograde orbit and so misjudged the launch time. A couple of orbits later, it approached its target and- Hang on... WHERE'S THE DOCKING PORT GONE!? *one short burst of cheating later* Ah, there it is. The return craft took the sample and then headed for Earth at the next opportunity, leaving the lander in orbit to gather what science it can. Those craters are definitely a lot more pronounced now thanks to Parallax. A successful, profitable and scientifically valuable mission all around. The design has been demonstrated and more will be launched in the near future, at least until the crewed landings start- hopefully in 1966! A couple of months go by and science keeps coming in, giving more free KCT points and so more upgrades. A change to the Blue String rocket was tested, swapping out the solid boosters for a sixth RD-253 and stretching the tanks slightly (from the minimum possible within tooling limits to the maximum) which will reduce costs without impacting performance. The current design overburns the engines a bit, but this new one doesn't which should also reduce the chances and impacts of failures. It's almost a Proton first stage at this point, though no Proton ever used a huge hydrolox stage on top. This "Block 2" Blue String will be put into service for all future missions, except for Blue Violin 3 which was too close to completion and so went ahead with the old design. The launch went flawlessly- or so I thought... By the time it got to orbit, something was way off in the numbers. The RL-200 engine had suffered a performance loss, its ISP dropping by about half and taking the thrust and delta-V with it, ruining this mission's chances of success. By burning the rest of the second stage for what little it could muster, then the third stage, then some fuel from the lander itself and dumping the return stage after draining its tanks, Blue Violin 3 might be able to limp to the Moon's surface- and stay there. This failure isn't quite as bad as Blue Violin 1, but the RL-200 has caused problems on two of the last three Blue Violin missions despite its relatively high (claimed) reliability. I might switch to the J-2 if the numbers stack up in its favour. While that mission was en route to the Moon, Green Ilama 1 arrived at Venus. As expected, there was insufficient fuel to circularise into the low orbit required for scanning, with an apoapsis of just over 2Mm when the scanners can only manage 500km and 1000km at most, but it's not as bad as it could have been and the radar altimetry contract only requires 25% coverage, which this orbit should be able to achieve. One contract completed just by making orbit, with at least one more still to come. A future mission will still be needed to complete the other scans and to deploy a lander (and maybe even a rover?) to the surface, but the next transfer window is still a while away. Final scores: Green Jackfruit 1 is just the return craft part of the Blue Violin missions attached to the same rocket used by the Green Apple lunar relay mission; if Blue Violin 3 can land and return to orbit, it'll get launched to send the sample back, but if not then it might end up as a docking target for Yellow Glockenspiel 1's crewed lunar orbit flight. Coming soon: I should probably check the upcoming transfer windows and active missions, then design new vessels accordingly.

That docking port couldn’t be removed because after undocking it became the root part of the vessel and EVA construction can’t remove root parts.

I had a Jennie (male) and a Gerald (female) in separate saves, and a Herman Kerman that I rescued from being stranded in orbit.

Gilly’s gravity is so weak, anything can land on it. Ike is one of the smaller moons and while it has more gravity than Gilly, it’s still not much. Put some landing legs on the back of your mothership, surrounding the engines but positioned so they deploy further and you don’t bonk the engines on the ground. Alternatively, use some small vernier thrusters (e.g. Twitch) for the last stretch of landing if you want to do a belly landing design, the high gimbal will help to control a large vessel and you can tuck the mining gubbins inside a cargo bay. Upward-facing probe core recommended to make landings easier.

Kerbalism does tell you how long your battery will last even without a signal, just hover the mouse over the battery icon and it’ll give you the power status. And the first lander’s problem was nothing to do with MechJeb and everything to do with not switching on SAS. Re. the unbalanced probes, it’s probably engine variance that the RCS has to counteract since there’s no reaction wheel or engine gimbal to do so. (One more reason why ProbesPlus is a must for RP-1, it adds a 500N-class thruster with a scruple of degrees of gimbal that means you don’t need to use RCS during burns. It also has tiny reaction wheels for probes and tiny radiators that can dramatically reduce Cryo boiloff.)

Soundtrack Editor is probably the best mod I’ve ever used in KSP as it lets you add music into the in-game player. I’ve added a lot of music by Kevin MacLeod, who wrote some of the music for KSP’s soundtrack and has a mildly ridiculous amount of music available for free. There’s also a nice selection of music available via the Astronomer’s Visual Pack forum page called Astronomer’s Music Pack, which also has links to more sources. I’ve also added some music from other games, primarily Dyson Sphere Program. Sometimes I mute the game music and play music from something like Interstellar, First Man or Oblivion, or some of the less popular (but IMO more interesting) Planets by Holst.

Making History has Kerbal-y versions of the Apollo SM and engine (the 2.5m service bay and Wolfhound engine), while something like BDB or FASA will have more realistic versions. If you’re going down a more stock-ish route with Making History, the mod KeR-7 has a lot of Soviet stuff to build a more accurate R-7 rocket and also has service modules and other parts to make a Vostok or Soyuz when used with the KV-series pods from MH.

Some people will still have it because they haven't updated their mods- which can sometimes break saves, and if you're doing a video series you don't want to break anything at all. The express install is still the recommended way of doing it. The stock dV displays were often wildly inaccurate with RO rockets and MechJeb's delta-V window can be configured to show only the bare minimum of information you need (delta-V and TWR in vacuum and atmosphere and burn time for each stage) which doesn't take up much space at all.

I leave for a week and there's a dozen mod updates waiting for me when I get back. Hopefully none of them will break this save...

KSP is hard- it’s literally rocket science! With no prior background in physics or anything particularly space-y, trying to fly a rocket into space is a daunting challenge: getting the right combination of thrust, fuel, aerodynamics, flight profile etc. to make it to space (rather than a smoking crater where the VAB used to be) isn’t something you’ll get right on the first attempt, or even a few after that. The rocket equation isn’t immediately intuitive, has some strange units in it and requires some information that you won’t find easily in stock KSP, while the concept of velocity as a measure of range is totally unlike any other activity, such as driving, that people might be familiar with. History is full of situations where space didn’t work they way people thought: a real-life Gemini mission that attempted an orbital rendezvous eventually gave up and went home because they kept trying to fly towards the target but ended up further away instead; it took a great deal of work by some very clever people to figure out why, so it’s hardly surprising that people (including me!) had similar problems in KSP even with the tutorials doing their best to explain how to do it. KSP itself can make some problems worse: the tutorials are old and sometimes broken; information can be both overwhelming and inadequate at the same time; and the tools for more advanced flight planning are either limited or non-existent. Mods can fix these problems, but bring their own. KSP2 aims to flatten the learning cliff curve with a greatly improved tutorial system, explaining all the concepts you need to know in a more understandable way so that new players have a fighting chance of making it to orbit before quitting in frustration, and from there to more interesting destinations- just getting to the Mun is a challenge too far for many new players, let alone going interplanetary and forget all that interstellar stuff. However, there’s only so much that can be done to make the game more accessible to new players as at the end of the day it’s still a realistic physics simulation and has to be treated as such.

Stock KSP: attach the two vessels using a Klaw, engineer attached external fuel duct between the attached vessels, transfer fuel as normal. EVA construction only allows parts to be attached to a single vessel, I’d imagine to prevent convoluted part tree messiness, but once attached I see no reason why you couldn’t attach a hose and transfer that way (note- not tested so I don’t know if this really works). Alternative option- docking ports attached to robotic pistons that can move the ports to the right height to dock on the surface (breaking ground DLC required). Modded KSP: You could do the whole KIS/KAS hose thing, but instead I’d recommend Simple Logistics as it’s both faster and easier- just land near the refinery, request resources from the local logistics network and leave again without docking/attaching of any kind. It only works with vessels that are loaded though, so you’d need to babysit the mining operation if you wanted to do it in a modular way without attaching them together a la KIS/KAS, or use a more complex resource sharing mod e.g. MKS.

Duna is a bit of a nuisance for landings- the atmosphere is too thick to ignore but too thin to use for a fully parachute landing, plus normal parachutes might not even open at all if you land in higher terrain due to the very low pressure. Drogue chutes are a good bet to slow down most of the way to landing, with small rockets to cushion the impact. Drogue chutes will open earlier than mains and will both slow the probe down and make sure it points the right way up. Duna’s thin atmosphere actually helps out for rockets as they have only a very small performance loss compared to vacuum, plus with relatively benign 0.3G gravity you don’t need a whole lot of thrust to land- Ants or Spiders, or even linear RCS ports set to “fore by throttle” in their actuation toggles, would be enough if you had parachutes to do most of the work. Ants have the best ISP but Spiders have better gimbal control and are better suited for skycranes or attaching to the sides of the probe rather than the bottom. You could attach your engines and tanks underneath; put the tanks and/or the engines on the sides; or even put the whole lot (plus chutes) on a detachable skycrane that can be jettisoned after landing, Curiosity/Perseverance-style. Fuel at the bottom might help slightly for weight distribution, but that doesn’t matter much when you have parachutes and reaction wheels to sort that out, while a skycrane would make the lander neater by getting rid of all the landing gubbins after they’ve done their job. Oh, and make sure you position the solar panels so they won’t collide with the ground on landing, or clip into a skycrane that you’ll jettison before opening the panels out.

Slap some landing legs on the side of the Mun station you just launched, move the solar panels around and you’d be good to go with a “base” that’s at least vaguely functional rather than totally useless.

You need to upload your pictures to an image sharing site (e.g. imgur) and then use the “insert image from URL” button to embed the images in your posts. You can only remove parts that have nothing else attached to them and which are not the root part of a vessel. This can mean some docking ports become the root part after undocking and so cannot be removed, but usually it’s fine.

The jittering issue can be easily solved- update to the latest scatterer, open the menu in space centre view (alt+F10) and then disable temporal antialiasing (TAA), use SMAA instead. Completely solved the jitteriness for me.

Yes, it can be done. Some planet packs e.g. Beyond Home have bases on other planets/moons using Kerbal Konstructs, but you can also make your own using the KK menu in flight; they might not persist after switching vessels or reloading the game though.

You should be able to remove them if you go close to them and use a bit of camera clipping trickery to see ‘inside’ the structure of the station. As long as there’s nothing attached to the fuel tanks you want to remove, they should be removable; I’m assuming stock parts only, but which tanks in particular? Screenshots of the station in orbit would also help.

This Dres design has ended up in a mass spiral, requiring progressively more mass to be added to each stage to counteract the greater mass of the one above. Lighten the payload by removing extraneous mass and everything becomes easier. I think you’re also overestimating the range of a 2G antenna with the hard mode debuff. A 15G would be a much better choice.

Right… That design is really strange and also hugely overbuilt for merely going suborbital. There is no situation that will ever require you to stick a dozen Swivels (or possibly Reliants?) in four sets of three to the side of your rocket as a second stage like that. The drag from that will be massive even without the very draggy KV-series pod which also adds much drag, plus it all adds more weight which then needs a bigger first stage. It’s also a bad idea to put engines in the centre of a stage like that as their gimbals will be far less effective and stability will be adversely affected; the KV-series pods have no internal reaction wheels either so you need good control from other sources to make it flyable. You don’t need nearly that much rocket just to do a suborbital flight- use the pointy Mk1 or Mk1-2 (Gemini-like) pods instead to make the aerodynamics easier, or put a fairing over the KV pods if you really want to use those. Once you have your capsule, put a single stage rocket underneath it with around 2000-2500m/s of delta-V and a TWR of at least 1.3 at sea level (a Swivel might do, or a Reliant and some controllable fins, if not then slap some SRBs on the sides) and you should reach space without any real issues. Fly slightly sideways to increase your descent time back through the atmosphere, reducing the chances of crashing into the ground because your parachutes either failed to open or broke from the stress of opening at too high a speed.

This might be a bit late, but… There’s only one i in Minmus. Have you unlocked the “Project Eeloo” engine yet? It’s an absolute doozy for SSTOs as it uses the air itself as propellant, then switches to liquid fuel for rocket mode, though it’s also huge, heavy and very expensive. Worth the effort to get it though as you can get effectively infinite range in any atmosphere regardless of whether there’s oxygen there or not.