OutInSpace

Jeb is heading home after a test of KSC's new FastBurn™ system, which got him to Jool in a record 250 days. The FastBurn system uses a chemical booster to achieve Kerbin ejection before the main ion craft fires up to slowly accelerate onto a high delta-v trajectory. This particular test had him swing around Kerbol at about half the orbit of Moho before zooming out to Jool, where he slammed on the brakes to safely enter orbit. The ship is light enough that the ion drive can achieve a TWR of 0.10 and up throughout most of its journey, making burns only a few hours, which is shortened to a few minutes using x10 phys warp. As for total delta-v capacity, it's around 30kms, but this could probably be greatly improved to upwards of 50kms by replacing those smaller bottles with larger drop tanks.

Unfortunately no . And I think the Roci has 0.03c of delta-v, or something insane like that. I just have 50kms and a crap TWR. Awesome! I tried it with the infinite fuel cheat like you suggested and I got pretty close. I tested it with the ion ship (using Pe kicking to get out of Kerbin) and I got similar results, although some precision was lost due to the insane physics warp I was pulling to get through the multi-day burns. I do wonder if it would be more effective to eject from Kerbin using a chemical booster before firing up the ions to shift the course onto the intercept. Shouldn't be too hard to test, and it negates the risk of a Mun encounter when periapsis kicking.

I've built an ion-powered ship that drops spent Xenon tanks to achieve insane delta-V, on the order of 50kms. My intent with this is to basically jump Hohmann in an alley with a large blunt object, slowly accelerating to the point where I basically have a straight line trajectory to my encounter, coasting, then slowly decelerating into orbit. My question is: what's the best way to execute this? I can use a porkchop plotter to pick a suitable trajectory, but I'm dealing with a pathetic TWR, only made passable through Better Time Warp. Doing a burn like that all at once with a ship like this all at once would be insane.

Try a Kerbin aerocapture. When I did my J5 trial run, I was able to brake out of a Jool-Kerbin transfer orbit by lowering my Kerbin PE to 40km and spinning like a top to prevent melting. My mothership was pretty rigid though, so this might not be a good idea if you're leaning more into wet noodle territory.

I can create the badge with a photo of the finished station, if that sounds good to y'all.

Editing a quote to say "snip" is common forum practice when you don't want to add lots of quoted text or images to your post.

If you just have a single ion pushing a few tons, you can get away with around 500ec of storage with 2 RTGs for generation. Even once the batteries run dry you can get about 1.2kN of thrust running straight from the RTGs. Is that a fairing on top of your observatory?

I don't think you should bother. I tested adding my avatar as a flag and then removing it from the files; the flags it was on would universally become blank white. So unless we create a mod to add everyone's avatar as a flag, then there's not much point.

I wonder how possible it would be to redirect one of the smaller comets. IIRC those can have very high ore fractions.

Try https://www.file.io/ and post the resulting link. I believe you'll have to compress the save to a .zip first?

I had the same thing happen to me with an education (?) license I got on the cheap through my Dad's old Uni job, so pirated Photoshop CS6 it is. (You can't even officially download CS6 anymore: see here. Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen...) That and I refuse to support the abomination that is Adobe's subscription software model. I am not paying 21 bucks a month to rent a program that'll hold your work hostage if you stop paying up.

I think KerbalX was suggested, but I suppose any filehost will do. Also, who is going next? I want to put my module towards the outside, so not me.

DRM has no tangible benefits other than making low-IQ corporate higherups feel that their product is "secure." In reality, any DRM is usually cracked wide open within days or weeks of release. No matter how much effort is poured into the DRM, anyone with a hex editor/decompiler and a boatload of patience can tear it down, rip out the DRM, and near-instantly distribute it across the Internet. I have experience in decompilation via Rimworld modding; I could bypass the code that checks for the Steam API with maybe three Harmony patches, and I'm sixteen. Hardware-based DRM (e.g. Spiradisc) is the only hard to crack option that isn't intrusive, but that isn't exactly an option in the age of all-digital marketplaces. In the end all it does is hurt legitimate consumers, prevent those with limited budgets from sampling the game, and does nothing in the long run to stop dedicated freeloaders.

You'd have to ask @VoidCosmos. The poll is tied, so I guess he gets to break it?

I can add some more. Yeah, it's the stock Clamp-o-Tron. Not sure if it was retextured by one of my mods, or if that's just what it looks like with textures at max, but its definitely stock.

Here's my module - the "mass relay." The two Rhino engines can be fired simultaneously via the abort group, kicking away anything in the nozzles, such as a drop pod or Kerbal. From a 100k Kerbin orbit I was able to deorbit a Mk2 can with a heat shield, 4x chutes, 4x airbrakes and a 2.5m reaction wheel. It has three 1.25m ports, one for docking the relay and two for other modules and/or drop pods to be used in the relay. It also has a command chair and RCS, allowing it to be detached and reoriented as needed. (We're going to Laythe, yeah?)

Hey man, I'm not in charge here! I'm just interpreting the rules. But that'd probably be fine. I mean, you are launching the core module.

I don't see why not. Only rule is it has to get there without cheats - a resupply should be fine. Edit: Don't forget this: " Also add your avatar as a flag in the game, and then you can add it to your parts. One flag will be made for the station with everyone's flags. "

Well, I checked the original rules, and it says no DLC parts - works for me.

660 parts would probably work. We'd definetely want to avoid any wacky physics contraptions though. Actually... what about DLC? I don't have either of them, so what happens if someone equips the station with Breaking Ground parts? Do they stay or disappear?

Today was a big space station day - thank you contracts! I've got three modules (hab ring, core, and lab) en route to Minmus and am currently in the process of putting up my first Kerbin station. The Kerbin station is currently useless, but I have plans to slap a big liquid hydrogen tank on that sucker to hopefully refuel my under-construction fleet of Providence-class interplanetary motherships. I'm also dabbling in the Apollo Redux challenge, but engineering a rover delivery mechanism without Breaking Ground robotics is a pain. If anyone has tips on that, it would be greatly appreciated. Looking at your sig... I feel like I've seen that Hatsunese flag on a site called NationStates. Correct me if I'm wrong though :p

I run Astronomer's Visual Pack with EVE, Scatterer and PlanetShine. Some screenshots:

MechJeb is working fine for me - I just did a whole J5 with it. With the Hohmann transfer to a body, I do the plane match before the burn. I also have to fine tune the closest approach (since it defaults to ramming you into the center of mass of the target body ) but other than that it works fine. When transferring to a ship, I don't even bother with changing the plane; I just let the velocity match at the target take care of that. I don't think any of them handle braking maneuvers. When intercepting a ship I use the "match velocities with target > at closest approach" function, and with a body the "circularize" or "change AP" function work well to get captured. Edit: You can always queue up multiple nodes! Just click "create" rather than "create and execute," and the nodes should be placed sequentially. Then you just have to hit the execute button.

I don't think that would be a good idea. I have a pretty powerful PC and I start to get lag around 300 or so parts, and control begins to become an issue around 500 - I believe it gets exponentially worse with each part you add. And that's before potential Kraken considerations.

Behold, the Hope Light Shuttle! This is a perfected version of what I submitted to the K-Prize challenge, which was also my first SSTO. Using a Whiplash and two NERVs, I can haul six crew and/or a small payload into LKO with 800m/s of dV to spare. Unfortunately, the design doesn't take well to being scaled up - past a certain point, the NERVs simply don't provide enough oomph to break through the upper atmosphere.