BenKerman

I managed to land safely, and have now re-fueled the ship and am ready-ish for takeoff! I have some cool screenshot, but for some reason imgur won't let me upload them. I'll try again later. Oddly enough I find that I can't do an EVA. One time I tried to EVA, and my kerbonaut "crashed into the terrain" and exploded. I think the gravity is too great. Another EVA avoided that problem, but then the Kerbal couldn't climb back into the ship -- again, I suppose too much gravity.

Hahaha...I just realized I forgot to add landing gear to my latest ship, so I'll need to land this sucker and then launch a new one.

Hi, In the past few months I've been trying to visit and return from Eve. I've successfully landed my vehicle on Eve a few times, but haven't managed to get back to orbit for one reason or another. It's a tricky balance of competing interests. Successful Eve EDL - Imgur This guy had a fatal flaw -- the mining drills inside the fairing blew up on EDL. I think this was because the fairing terminated on the fuel tank that the mining drill was attached to. It might also be because in extended position the drill went below the heat shield, but I'm hoping this was not the case, because I didn't account for that in my latest ship... Latest ship: Latest Eve Ship - Imgur It's a bit ugly. The trusses were necessary because the vehicle was flexing too much in the middle during Kerbin take-off. As a matter of fact, it was quite difficult to fly even in this configuration, which was successful in getting to orbit. Next I'll refill this guy in orbit and re-use the lowest stage to get me to Eve and then brake into orbit and then land. Hopefully the drills won't explode during Eve EDL. I don't think they designed the game to make returning from Eve that do-able. It wasn't the first thing on their minds. I'm doing this in sandbox mode because I kept running out of money in Career mode. These things are expensive. Ben Successful Eve EDL: Latest ship:

Hi, I'm the OP, and I wanted to follow up on my own question in case anyone ever looks at this. First, one can indeed get Xbox achievements in Sandbox mode. Second, returning from Eve does not in fact get one an Xbox achievement! The closest Eve achievement I saw was simply for visiting Eve, and not returning from it. So, I already have that one. Oddly enough, I don't have the Xbox achievement for returning from Moho, which I am certain that I have done. I'll have to do it again...in the meanwhile, I'll keep plugging away at Eve. I'm feeling confident that I will succeed at landing on Eve, refueling, and taking off at least partway to orbit on my current attempt. So far my best effort has been to land a lander I think would be capable of re-orbiting, but I've only taken a very short flight afterwards. Ben

Hi, I have been working on landing and returning a Kerbal from Eve. My efforts may be ... halfway there. I have been using the Konami cheat code to get money for attempts, all of which are expensive. Before I used the cheat code, i was warned that achievements would be turned off. So my idea is to use my design developed from the cheat mode and use it in a regular mode. Obviously i don't want to spend all that time regaining all the science and money and stuff. Can I get an Xbox Achievement in Sandbox mode? I just need a lot of money and all the technology. #firstworldproblem Thanks Ben

OK, I "solved" the problem for one of the cases. The rover couldn't move after staging, but I realized that that was because the brakes come on after staging. Turn off brakes, and voila. Not sure about jettisoning the ore still, but I noticed if I jettison the ore before the rover lands, then it will still be able to drive. I am actually now considering totally scrapping this plan, however. I tried using the grabbing unit to attach to a ship on the launch pad, and it didn't work. I'm pretty sure this is because the grabbing unit was not lined up perpendicular to a flat surface, it could only run into an engine bell. Because the end goal of this endeavor was to land on Eve and refuel a ship that is already there, and because that ship only has engine bells near the surface, I might not bother with this approach. Of course, I could change my rover so it intersects with a fuel tank that is above an engine bell, but then I would be effectively enlarging the cross-section of the rover, in which case the fairing would have to be enlarged, which would surely cause aerodynamic issues on EDL. I know more about making fairings now, so I might just redesign my Eve lander so I can protect my mining equipment with a fairing. Sheesh.

Hi, I'm trying to send a rover someplace. It's going to be a mining rover. Today I noticed that if the ore tank has ore in it, and I jettison the ore, I can't drive the rover any longer. It won't go forwards or backwards or turn, even though the little dials (yaw, pitch, roll) on the bottom left show that the rover is receiving my commands. What's up with this? I've previously jettisoned ore on rockets, and they haven't had stopped working. I also noticed that if I execute staging on my rover, it will exhibit the same behavior. Can't go foward, back, or turn, even though the yaw, pitch, roll dials show movement. That is, only if I "launch" the rover from the Spaceplane Hangar. If I launch the rover on a rocket, then I will be able to drive it (after it lands) after staging separates the rover from the rocket. all of these tests were conducted on Kerbin. Any ideas? I do think I have already tested doing ISRU and being able to drive it both before and after. Also, any ideas on how to get this large-ish rover onto the surface of Eve would be appreciated. Thanks, Ben

Hi, Thanks to those who helped me with landing on Eve. Today I finally landed my big Eve Ascent Vehicle on the surface. yay! It's the biggest and most complicated thing I've ever landed on Eve (which is the last body I have yet to land and return a Kerbal from). Unfortunately, during the atmospheric entry phase, the mining drills that I was going to use to refuel my ship on the surface were destroyed. They overheated. This is the second time this has happened. So far I've tried placing the drills closer to the body of my ship (on the first failed attempt they were closer to the rim of the 10m inflatable heat shield) and I added some small radiators (which were turned on during entry, of course). Would larger radiators make any difference? Is there any way to protect those drills? I see people talking about mining stations and fuel rovers, but I don't have any mod that will allow me to pinpoint landings. Also, I've never landed a rover on another body, only rockets. I might just try to land a fully-fueled variant of my Eve Ascent Vehicle. however, I'm concerned about the center of mass, as well as the extra stress on the landing gear (half of the landing gear was destroyed on this attempt, although otherwise the ship was fine. just resting on some engine bells now). I wanted to include a screenshot but for some reason my Xbox didn't send the screenshot to my computer. Of course, ISRU is kind of a pain, so maybe landing a fully fueled variant wouldn't be that bad, relatively. Thanks, Ben

How do you add struts once in orbit? I don't want to use mods. Only stock.

Hi, I made a spaceplane based exactly on the Nifty Plane 9000 as described in the Kerbal Player's Guide. I flew it successfully a couple of years ago (one year?), and I'm pretty sure I could get it past Mach 3 in air-breathing mode. I tried again today after that long hiatus and couldn't even break Mach 1. Have the game mechanics changed at all? I know early on they changed the way atmospheres worked. Thanks, Ben

Hi, What's a way to get very rigid structures constructed on-orbit? I'm working on my Eve lander/ascent vehicle, as we talked about in this post (My Eve Ascent Vehicle Doesn't Work - Gameplay Questions and Tutorials - Kerbal Space Program Forums), and I tried implementing one of the suggestions, which was to make a longer tail stabilizer. As a matter of fact, both my short stabilizer and my long one have this problem: the part of the ship shielded by the heat shield bends way the heck around, pointing in one direction, while my stabilizer tail points in another direction. It could be that the bend is all coming from the Advanced Grabbing Unit that I used to connect the tail stabilizer to the lander; that's the way it looks. Incidentally, the advanced grabbing unit does sometimes survive the process, while the lander itself disintegrates. Would it be preferable to just use a docking port instead of a advanced grabbing unit to do the construction? After I resolve this I think I'll try to move the center of mass closer to the heat shield. In short: what's the least bendy way to connect two spaceships together in orbit? Just to be super clear, the tail itself is barely bending at all during entry into the Eve atmosphere. That part seems strong. Thanks, Ben

I tried posting a picture of my ship to imgur, here is a link: https://imgur.com/6vM4Inn

Hi, I have a specific question. Do wings always provide lift in KSP? Take a look at my specific case...oh, looks like I can't add photos. I got that screenshot for nothing then...Well, just imagine an awkward looking spacecraft. It is short and fat with multiple parallel stages (like the Soyuz launcher, not like Falcon 9). On its bottom is one of those inflatable 10m heat shields. On its top is a tail fin. The tail fin is attached to the spacecraft via a grabbing unit. The tail fin is composed of three "Big S Delta Wings" spaced 135 degrees from each other. Overall the whole assemblage looks rather like a bomb that is meant to point down as it falls. The purpose of the spacecraft is to enter Eve's atmosphere. The heat shield is supposed to detach and fall away eventually, and the tail fin will also detach and fall away. Unfortunately this setup does not always work. During atmospheric entry (say around...50km? 40km? 30 km? altitude in Eve's atmosphere) the craft flips around so the heat shield is not facing the direction of travel, said craft quickly disintegrated. That is -- this is USUALLY what happens. One time the setup worked. The tail fin kept the craft pointing in the right direction the whole time, and it would have "landed" except it was heading for Eve's ocean (at that point I just reverted to an earlier save). What I'm wondering is if those Big-S Delta Wings are providing lift? I don't want them to provide lift; I just want them to provide guidance and stability. I was looking for an option to change the curvature of the wings to eliminate lift, but didn't find any. I've tried a couple of other things trying to keep my large-ish spacecraft oriented properly as it heads to Eve's surface. I tried adding more and larger reaction wheels (didn't work) and I tried adding a weird parachute/heat shield thing. The weird heat shield parachute thing was three of those 10m inflatable heat shield facing the wrong way, attached to the top of the spacecraft like the tail fin in my current setup. How do I keep my big Eve Ascent Vehicle (which obviously has yet to even attempt said ascent) from flipping over during landing on Eve? Thanks, Ben PS I'm playing on Xbox with no mods. I made a website in Google Sites to upload this picture of my spaceship.

I made it back from Laythe, too -- it took two tries.

Hi HvP, no, I haven't played with NiftyPlane 9000 for a few days now. I think I've gotten what I need out of it. The pitch problem went away after I removed the battery (I also stopped time-warping). I haven't even disabled the extra control inputs. After removing the battery and stopping time-warping, I was able to safely land on Kerbin after orbiting. In the future I may disable extra inputs to control surfaces if I run into an issue. I didn't check CoM and CoL with empty tanks. I don't think that had anything to do with the pitching problem, because the pitching problem happened even in vacuum.

Hi! I made it to Laythe! The air was too cold to take off my helmet when I got there, though. I had a crazy descent. I can't believe it, but I managed to land on an island on my first try de-orbiting. When the parachutes popped open, my craft went crazy, because the lever arm of my parachutes was so close to the CoM of my craft, I think (testing on Kerbin didn't reveal this problem). I can't believe it, but I managed to land my spaceship! I hope my Kerbal makes it back to Kerbin. The delta-v readout says I have enough delta v to get home, even though I burned a lot of fuel trying to land properly (I didn't expect to burn that much). We'll see how take off goes after I take a walk. Xbox One, no mods! Ben Kerman Image Capture

Hey! Thanks for responding to my posts, everyone. I'm the OP here. I'll disable the extra inputs to control surfaces if I do another plane. Planes really are hard, rockets are easier. Yes, my link to the Kerbal Player's guide was incorrect. Here is a good one: https://www.amazon.com/Kerbal-Players-Guide-Easiest-Program/dp/1491913053/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=kerbal+player's+guide&qid=1576966447&sr=8-1 I think I said I would post more screenshots of the NiftyPlane 9000 with CoM, CoL, CoT displayed, here it is:

Here are some screenshots. Thanks for the suggestion that the issue has to do with multiple inputs enabled for the control surfaces. Would you say that's an actual aerodynamic behavior or is it a glitch in the game? I'm sure I've seen odd glitches in the game. For example, I landed something at an angle once, and it stayed stuck at that angle. The craft was balancing on a single leg while the others floated high in the air. The other legs should have dropped down to the ground. I can attach a screenshot if anyone wants to see it. Besides that, before I landed that craft, if I turned off SAS, the craft would start to spin wildly. I did remove a "floating battery" which was living inside the tail section (the Mk2 to 1.25m transition piece). I mean, I was trying to attach the battery to the tail, but the battery wound up inside the tail. I decided to ignore it. After this pitch up problem happened, I went back and removed the battery. Afterwards, the pitch up problem went away. As I said before, this plane is not my own design, it's from The Kerbal Player's Guide, by Manning, Nugent, Fenwick, Allan, and Buttfield-Addison. Amazon link here: https://news.google.com/?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en 0

Hi, How do you predict where a vehicle will land after re-entering atmosphere and then proceeding to the ground? I'm trying to land my SSTO spaceplane (design for which I got from KSP Player's Guide), and not sure how to do it. I crash-landed my one plane in the ocean. Is there a program that will calculate this for me, like Alex Moon's Launch Window Planner? I'm playing on an Xbox One, with no mods. Thanks, Ben PS OK, I remember doing problems in physics where I'd have to calculate lateral displacement for an object following a parabola...but those problems always had a flat surface to land on, and now I'm trying to land this video-game spaceship on a curved (spherical) surface! Not to mention the air drag.

Hi, So, I have used the Kerbal Space Program Player's Guide to make a "NiftyPlane 9000." It is an SSTO spaceplane. It has two Rapier engines, Big-S delta wings, and a Mk2 fuselage, among other things. Happily, I can get it to orbit and back down from orbit (sort of -- I had to make a crash landing in the ocean. The Kerbals survived). However, after I re-enter atmosphere (Kerbin's atmosphere I mean), it can no longer pitch up. Actually, now that I think of it, I don't think it was able to pitch up after warping forward several hours (I was trying to land at KSC during the day). Any ideas why my NiftyPlane 9000 refuses to pitch up after time-warping? When I try to "pull up" it just pitches down. When I "pull down" it pitches down. It looks like the ailerons are just always tilting downwards if I pull up or pull down. Thanks, Ben