jbdenney

Finally figured out how to get IMGUR to work. My Grabber picot is locked - I will try setting it free. Below is my Tug. the Grabber is retracted at this point. When extended the grabber extends past the Convert-o-Trons so It can grab the rock. Here it is attached to Class E 1,300t rock... H Here is a pick of my Bent Cylinder... DO I need to extend the Thuds away from the core to give a wider thrust base? Thanks Bruce

Yes - I am using SAS. When I am capturing the rock I am flying backwards and the Thuds are pointing at the rock and the Tug is controlled from the grabber in the back pointing backwards. It took a while to get used to having to reverse Retro and Pro for the Thuds while the RCS worked as expected with the backwards orientation. When I start to pull the rock I have moved control to the forward MK1-3 capsule and the Thuds are still pointing back to the rock. Either way the Thuds are pointing in line with the central axis of the tug. When I am catching the rock the engine thrust points in the direction of movement and when I am trying to pull the rock the engines thrust point opposite the direction of movement and that is when the roll happens. I have not tried to "push" against the rock since there is no way to have the Thuds push toward the attached rock. I will have to try turning off the gimble controls and see what happens.

Having an issue with trying to move an asteroid. It is a class E about 1300t. I used a grabber attached to the end of an extended cylinder piston on the back of the central core so that I could pull it instead of pulling. No matter how slowly I apply thrust the rock starts rotating badly. Not just a wobble but a definite roll. I did target the center of mass so that is pretty straight. I tried to get a picture in from i.imgur but it is not working for me tonight so I will have to describe it. Just so you know I use only stock parts. Central Core is Rockomax Jumbo-64 fuel tank topped with an Advanced reaction Wheel (Large) and a Mk1-3 command pod. There are also a bunch of RCS trusters, monopropellant tanks, Solar Cells, Ore Storage containers. On the back side is a 3PT Telescoping Hydraulic Cylinder that extends with an Advanced Grabber unit. The extension is needed to get the grabber beyond the outrigger tanks. During launch the extension is retracted so it will fit on the booster. There are four outrigger tanks. Two outriggers are Two FL-TX1800s and a FL-TX900 with a Thud mounted on the front side as far forward as possible pointing straight back. The other two are also Two FL-TX1800s and a FL-TX900 with a Thud mounted on the front side as far forward as possible pointing straight back but they also have Convert-O-Tron 250 with an attached Drill-O-Matic Excavation Miner mated with a large radiator on hte back end. The resource drill and converter is to refuel once I am on the asteroid. When I am ready to start pulling I reset the engines to 20% max thrust. When I start the burn the rock starts rolling badly. It is not wobbling but rolling. As far as I can tell I have the Center of Mass pretty well centered. Even if I use the RCS system it will not hold keep the rock stable. I do not know if I need to add one or more Reaction wheels. Even turning the rock is very slow and sluggish. Also one other point. I used this tug to grab a Class A rock and after that mission the 3PT Telescoping Hydraulic Cylinder is bent. It is mounted flat on the rear end of the tank but the shaft has a distinct curve. It is bad enough that when I extend the piston and control from the grabber it lines me up off center of the center of the rock. I had to do the last few meters of the capture by eye. Could the bent piston be causing the issue? The Thuds are a far forward as possible but do I need to extend them further from the central core to get a wider thrust base? If so - how do I do that. On the end of struts extending sideways? In that case how to I set them up so I can get the tug into orbit and then extend them into position? BTW - I also use the Thuds to get the last bit of DetaV to get into orbit. Is there something else I could be missing? Thanks Bruce

I have wrangled 3 asteroids into Kerbin orbit - 1 Class B and 2 Class A. I just noticed something odd. The B and 1 of the As is flat gray. But the other Class A has cracks with a orange/yellow bright glow showing through the cracks. Is this just an interesting pattern or does this means something significant? Thanks Bruce

I used 2 Convert-O-Trons 250s to balance the ship. I have 4 radial fuel tanks with thuds in the front. The Conver-o-Trons are mounted on two of the opposite tanks with the drills. I figured if nothing else it would speed up my processing.

Built my first Tug for grabbing asteroids. On the back of the tug is a 3P Telescoping Hydraulic Cylinder with a grabber on the end. I extended the Cylinder, armed the Grabber and backed into the asteroid with no issues. I got the rock into the Kerbin SOI and into orbit. All is OK - except the Cylinder looks like it is bent. I can retract it and re-extend it but it sill looks bent and the grabber is off center. If have punched every properties button I see and no change. Is this a bug - or did I break something that can be fixed by an engineer? It was only a class A and I am planning to be able to pull bigger rocks with this ship. Any ideas/inputs???????? Thanks Bruce

I managed to answer my own question by building a small test rocket and comparing AP for different configurations. You are correct with 85.9kN. I was visualizing in my head that 45 degrees was halfway between 0 and 90 so I split the force in half. I forgot that it is "Force times sin(45)" or "Force times cos(45)" depending if you are talking about the X axis or Y axis relative to the angle. At 45 degrees the sin is equal to the cos so the x axis force is equal to the y axis force. I took collage physics in 1975 so it has been a while. Bruce

I have 4 Thuds mounted on 4 outrigger tanks. Each Thud puts out 120kn thrust. Now in situation 1 they are all mounted pointing straight back. That means all of the thrust of each engine is pushing the same direction making a total of 480kn thrust. Situation 2 - all 4 Thuds are angled out by 45 degrees. By basic physics each engine SHOULD be pushing straight back with 70kn each and 70kn each pushing toward the center of the rocket. The sideways thrust should cancel each other out leaving 0kn lateral force and 280kn pushing forward. But when I look at the Delta-V info stack it shows 480 total thrust. Is this forward thrust or is this just the total thrust without accounting for the thrust vectors? Are the angled engines giving me Kerbal Physics 480kn forward thrust or am I getting Collage Physics of 280kn of forward thrust and 280kn of wasted acceleration? Thanks in advance Bruce

OK - frustration has set in. I got the tug built with two Drill-O-Matic' Mining Excavator, two Convert-O-Tron 250, two Radiator Panel (large), and eight Radial Holding Tank. I have a pilot, an engineer, and a Scientist. I got the Class C asteroid grabbed and proceeded to refuel the ship with the Ore and the Convert-0-trons. No problems. I then used up my fuel moving the Asteroid. Still need to move more. Did more mining and and moving On the 3rd mining and refueling cycle suddenly the Drill-o-matic stopped running the Asteroid harvest and once the Convert-o-tron drained the Holding tanks fuel production stopped. At that point I figured that the spot I grabbed had run out of ore so I detached and re-attached at a different spot. No luck. I tried a third spot. Still no luck. Can a single asteroid produce only a certain amount of ore? If that is the case I nave no idea how I am supposed to move a class C or larger asteroid where needed with out having to get a un-affordable amount of fuel to the rock ( I am running career mode). Am I missing something? I have plenty of power. No sign that the equipment has over headed or broken. Is there something I can/have to do generate several cycles of re-fulling so I can get the blasted thing into an orbit?

What is the significance of the Conic Patch Draw Mode (currently set to Dynamic) and Conic Patch Limit (currently set to 3). What do the various modes mean and what are the pluses and minuses of increasing the Limit? Thanks in advance Bruce

IRSU - good idea - but new skill I have to learn.

The solution I found is to mount Thuds on the sides of fuel tanks that are mounted radial on a central fuel tank. No other engines are on the tug. I have the grabber mounted upside down on the rear of the central tank. I had no issues backing up to the Asteroid grabbing and then be able to pull hte asteroid. The only issue I had was to get it through my head that prograde and retrograde were now backward on the NAV BALL. My major issue is getting enough fuel on the Tug after it is in orbit. I can refuel the tug in orbit but even with that, once I grabbed the Class C rock my mass went up so much I did not have enough available Delta V to get the rock back into Kerbin orbit (not to mention into orbit around Munmus) I need a tug with enough DeltaV that I can grab a class E and pull it back into orbit. I don't need the tug to re-enter with it as my plan is to leave it in orbit, refuel it and then go get the next rock (saving money). The only issue I have is having to match INC on an incoming rock which means I may need to to a big inclination change and then refuel again before I go chasing the rock. Unfortunately I have not been able to make CARGO/FUEL hauler SSTOs work. I watch the tutorials and make the same build I am shown and try to follow step by step launch and I just cannot get a Heavy SSTO into orbit so I have to use expendable fuel haulers so they have to be cheap. Even at that my Tug just does not carry enough fuel. BTW - I am only using stock parts including Making History and Breaking Ground. I knwo there are heavy lifting mods out there but I dont want to get into the "MORE MODS" addiction.

Ok - looks like the faring should work - thanks.

I am trying to build a Tug to move Asteroids. The core section will stay in space once it is build and hauled into orbit so it can be used several times and can be refueled in space. It is a Cupola with a docking port on the nose (Refueling and Crew Transfer) a singel large fuel tank with 4 smaller fuel tanks attached radially with a Mk-55 Thud attached. I understand that when moving larger Asteroids that it is better to pull the body instead of pushing it. My problem is that this requires a grabber attached backwards on the central tank so I can back up to the asteroid and grab it and then pull it. The issue is that with a grabber on the bottom I cannot attach a stage to the bottom of the core since there is no nodes on the grabber to hook a decouple to. I need ideas on how to attach a lifting body on my core (83 tons) to get it into orbit. Bruce

I was looking at Docking ports. I saw the option to "Undock" but also one to "Decouple". What is the difference between those. Is there a difference in using a docking port to dock and allow crew transfers and fuel transfers or as a connection point to hold station parts together? I figure there must be a reason for having both options. Thanks Bruce

OK - Thanks. That fixed my issue.

Ok - I did something stupid and I suspect I already know the answer. I have a contract to move an existing rover to check on some seismic activity. I had two rovers in the area. I focused and took over one of the rovers. It was night so I wanted to get into daylight to get the photocells working. I did the warp thing. When the sun came up I stopped the time warp and both of my rovers promptly exploded. I did not have a save - quick or otherwise. This was the first action I took after starting the game. I have not done anything else and I have not exited the game. Is there any way to recover from this. I suspect I know the answer but just in case.... Bruce

Ok - thanks. I just wanted to make sure I was not missing something. I never even thought to check and see how many total reports I had for the Mun. Bruce

Tthe only Mods I have are Environmental Visual Enhancements, Kerbal Alarm Clock, and Docking Port Alignment Indicator. I am trying to go stock for as much as I can so I have no non-stock parts, Just KSP v1.9.1, Breaking Ground and Making History.

That is why I am confused. I have unlocked the entire Tech Tree except 3 of the 1000 point groups and the only science I see in those is the M4435 Narrow band scanner. Is there something outside of the tech tree I have to unlock that I am not aware of?

I am looking at the Mun reports. When I cursor over a couple of the Biomes I see... Midlands 9 reports - 126 hidden Northeast basin 10 reports - 125 hidden I assume since both of those add up to 135 possible reports that this means there are a possible 135 reports in each Biome. For Northeast basin I have the following reports... Atmospheric Pressure Scan from the Mun's Northeast Basin Crew report from the Mun's Northeast Basin EVA report from space just above the Mun's Northeast Basin EVA Report from the Mun's Northeast Basin Gravity Scan from the Mun's Northeast Basin Materials Study from the Mun's Northeast Basin Mystery Goo Observation from the Mun's Northeast Basin Seismic Scan from the Mun's Northeast Basin Surface sample from the Mun's Northeast Basin Temperature Scan from the Mun's Northeast Basin That is the 10 reports and as far as I can tell that is all of the science I have equipment to run. What are the other 125 hidden reports? Or am I misunderstanding what the hidden reports mean? Also I know the deplorable surface science from Breaking Ground generates and transmits data but to they ever create a "report" for the Biome? Thanks in advance. Bruce

I was wrong on how long I have - I have 44 years <grin>

Thanks - will will do it direct - that might be why I have 26 years to complete it.

I have the contract "Build a new orbital station around Gilly". This requires that I build the Station on a class E asteroid and have it orbiting Gilly. My Questions... 1) Do I grab the asteroid and put it in orbit around Kerbil - build the station and then move it to the Eve system? 2) If I do put it in orbit around Kerbin I know it will complete an existing "put a Class E in orbit of Kerbin" do I have to go and get a 2nd class E for the station contract since the contract require s NEW asteroid? 3) If I have the Class E in Kerbin orbit to build the station and I release the Grabber will that reset the contract so I have to grab another? I guess my main question is do I have to take the Class E straight to GIlly and build the station there or can I build it "closer to home" and then move it? Also with Gilly's gravity being so low what is the trick to putting a Class E in orbit around it? Thanks in advance. Bruce

I think the mouseing over may have been the issue. I just had another part (antenna) that if I even moused over a quad it went to quad - I had to snake the antenna between the quads.