miklkit

Many decades ago the science fiction authors got interested in our future. They correctly predicted the population boom and global warming. Then they split, with some predicting a transition to fusion power and some predicting Mad Max. I am leaning towards our future being Mad Max.

Go to youtube and look up a guy called VAOS. He did a series about SSTOs and drag.

Hmm, might have to look into them then. I have never been able to get chemical powered SSTOs any further than the Mun and Minmus. Of course, after refueling at Minmus they could go quite a bit further.

I was testing an experimental spaceplane and it went well enough for me to foolishly try to land it on the Mun. I wasn't really paying attention and as it was coming down to the last 2000 meters an eclipse happened. It was a bit of a brown shorts time, but it all came out in the wash.

If all you want to do is get into LKO, then that is true. If you want to actually get anywhere, then NERVs are needed. I have been trying to get some range out of a Dart powered spaceplane and it just ain't happening.

Ah, then Rapiers and NERVs it is. Work on your ascent profile then. My first SSTOs made orbit with Panther and Reliant engines.

The ascent profile depends on the craft. A light one like a MK1 based SSTO can climb and accelerate quite well while a heavy MK3 based one can struggle to get up to speed and has to stay low until it does build up enough speed to make the climb out of the atmosphere. You should start off with the MK1 as it is easier to fly. You probably do not have rapiers yet and that is not a real problem. Whiplash and rocket combinations do just fine but tend to have short ranges. Rapiers and NERVs are the best overall, but I got a Whiplash and rocket MK1 to the Mun and back. Barely.

Thanks. Apparently it isn't needed as the game works fine now.

While your method did work I do not have any idea what B9 is/was. I first noticed this after installing restock so figured it must be something that happened then. Anyway, thanks as it's all good now.

Forgot to mention that they have to return before they get any XP gains.

I am in the process of upgrading new hires and I just send them to Mun. plant flag, Minmus, and plant flag, and so on. Landing and planting a flag is all it takes.

I recently installed restock with CKAN and it works and looks good except for one minor irritant. Many of the vehicles now now have a tag saying 2 things are missing. They all still work normally and there have been no crashes but I would like to see the warnings go away. The parts missing are: module B9 partswitch and module B9 partinfo. I have no idea what they are or what the do and would just like the warnings to go away.

Yeah, I had to DL a new dot net thingy before it would work, but it was almost an automatic thing and was very easy.

I have been having problems with the other methods either giving errors or not working at all. Or working one time but not the next time. This wrapper seems to work with no problems so far.

Yes you are expressing your opinion. When I first started trying to go interplanetary I found that MJ is better than I am. A lot better. I can do it myself, but choose not to. It saves me hours of frustration this way. As for mods making the game unstable, MechJeb is built into this game! MJ2 is a mod. Almost all the mods I do have are graphics, not functional. Anyway, i uninstalled MJ last night and played a bit. Scaled a 6600 meter mountain on Bop. Now to reinstall and see what happens. Really not sure just how to reinstall the entire game while keeping this save file.

In that screenie the plane has just left Minmus and is in solar orbit with MJ all set up to go but still in manual mode. After taking the screenie I activated MJ which turns off SAS, and then went to map mode. It was then on its way to Bop. That plane is a rover carrier that is carrying a science rover that is being delivered to Bop and is now bebopping around Bop collecting science. It is also carrying 2 fuel cell arrays to add extra power to the gas truck. Solar panels are useless that far out, I have found. That is basically a stock screen. MechJeb in the upper left and some mod stuff in the lower right are the only non stock things there. Yeah there is a bug somewhere. The plane had been flown to Ike, then Dres by MJ and it was only when going from Dres to Kerbin that it changed targets to Jool, so there should not have been any old things to trigger it. I'm going to reinstall MJ and if this still happens, then the whole game will be reinstalled.

Ayup. This launcher is a very bad idea and I'm surprised that this forum is not blowing up like the Steam forum is.

My SOP is to get into a solar orbit and then turn on MJ and let it do it all from there. And these are with crewed vessels and there is never any "control from here" stuff touched. I only do that with rovers. I normally do this in map mode too. Oh, i am paranoid about leaving maeuver nodes open and delete them as soon as I am done with the manuevers. I did find 2 screenies that show what I see. It's a pretty clean screen.

I really don't know. The buttons themselves change. The prograde button flips the ship retrograde. And it got worse earlier tonight. I was returning from Dres to Kerbin in that crewed MK2 and it was going ok. It was about a 16 minute burn and with around 5 minute's left in the burn being controlled by MechJeb when the engines shut down, then I noticed the navball rolling. Checking the map out showed MJ had changed the target to Jool and was swinging the ship around to start burning there! Aborted everything and exited the game. Restarted and the buttons were reversed. Started over from the last save and this time it worked normally and I made it to kerbin and landed just fine. Thinking about uninstalling and reinstalling KSP.

Methinks I have found part of the problem. The game is intermittently flipping the prograde and retrograde buttons. Prograde shows as the position of the ship but it is pointed retrograde, and vice versa. Not always but just once in a while. I hired 4 new crew and am taking them around to level them up. Loaded them up into a MK2 and went to Mun, flag, Minmus, flag with no issues. Off to Ike and nothing but trouble. When doing the retro burn into Ike orbit the ship was flipped and it ended up out in solar orbit again. In the map view it looked like the earlier Jool burn with an orbit suddenly showing up and then flipping. Now I have to visually check the ship before every burn.

Jool is complicated. The high point was when prograde became retrograde right out of Bop. That made me not try to dive at Jool but just get away. Maybe next time.

I've been using that Oberth maneuver to get to Mun and Minmus. Planets? Nope, I kept missing. Hence MJ. I recently discovered "focus view" and that is a big help in getting a good intercept, but still have a lot to learn about it. How do I get from Minmus to Kerbin? I wait until just past the prograde point and burn to Kerbin orbit. It usually works well but sometimes it takes 3 burns. Accuracy is not my strong suit. I have a spaceplane at Bop now and will try this Oberth thing.

Ah, you both assume I know how to do orbital mechanics. I do not. I get into solar orbit and then let MechJeb do it. Upon arrival I know enough to eventually get to where I want to go. Jool is complicated and this was my first time exiting that system. As near as I can tell when I left Bop the game decided that I was in a retrograde orbit instead of a prograde orbit and it took forever to flip the orbit around before it would let the vessel actually leave the Jool system. That is where most of the fuel went. I need to learn more about that. I do spaceplanes because I don't like rockets. There are 70+ rovers scattered around the Mun and Minmus from the days I was using rockets to get there. They had to be left behind when returning to kerbin. Not so with spaceplanes as they can reload the rover and bring it back. Oh, they do not carry any mining equipment as that is what the gas trucks are for. For Bop, first to land was a science lab, then a gas truck, both with rockets, then this spaceplane. Round trips are now possible.

Full disclosure. The spaceplane took off and went to Minmus, refueled, took off and got into a solar orbit, then went to Jool for a cost of 2800m/s. It had plenty of fuel left as it didn't take much to get to Bop after arrival. It then refueled on Bop. It took off from Bop, circled around and burned for a solar orbit and just sat there. Once it eventually did reach a solar orbit it then set course for Kerbin but didn't have much fuel left. I hope this doesn't happen again as it was nerve wracking

I have established a base on Bop and sent a spaceplane there to transfer crew for the first round trip there. The spaceplane made it there just fine with plenty of fuel left over, refueled and took off. It then took so much fuel just getting out of the Jool system that when it got to Kerbin it had to aerobrake to slow down enough to then get an orbit, then more aerobraking was needed to slow down enough to finally land. I would think that it would take less fuel to return than to get there. Is this how it is or did I do it wrong? Also, I just installed restock and it seems to be working well, but this fiery arc on the craft is new. is this normal?