paul_c

They look like it but if so, doesn't make sense. There's the HECS core just underneath the resource survey scanner. But there's no additional fuel tanks or engines, so they can't be (functional) other satellites? For 100s of my satellites I've used the HECS core. On its 6 sides are: 2x solar panels*, 1x battery, 1x aerial, leaving 2 sides for eg thermometer, another science instrument. * if you fit just one, it will probably end up in shade and the satellite will go dead!

What are the hexagonal gold things? And are they really needed? I suspect they are taking up a lot of the weight and because its at the top, every other stage is correspondingly affected so bigger and bigger.

What is an "interstage fairing"? There are decouplers and stage separators, which automatically enclose a component such as an engine or heat shield in a fairing; and there's the payload fairings which are manually drawn to shape. Both attach top and bottom to circular sections as relevant.

Yeah it processes the data anywhere, but at the point of adding, if its from a different biome it won't show as earning any science (and the button is greyed out).

I think the science lab needs to be in the same body/biome as the data was gathered, to be added to it and earn science.

This is the KSP forum.

Without knowing much further details: * The side things look way too big and fat - are these the first stage? Why is it so big? Its going to massively alter the CofG when fuel depletes and its decoupled etc Personally I'd go for about 1000m/s first stage, you have 2546m/s. If you wanted ~2500m/s first stage, you could do 4x shorter 'pods'. * Putting those side things to one side, the rocket looks too thin, I imagine it will wobble a lot when thrust is applied. A temporary fix would be to add some structural elements from the tip of the side things to as high up as possible of the main body, but there's other fundamental issues which will not help. Since you have used 2 diameters of fuselage, you could make the upper bit shorter and thicker with no issues and it will probably help stability too. You can attach a smaller diameter engine to a wider fuel tank no worries. KSP is very forgiving and normally if a rocket "looks right" it flies okay. And if it looks wrong, it has issues. (Sometimes it looks right but flies horribly!) The resource survey scanner is a big lump at the nose, but not heavy, its the worst thing to get into orbit for stability but it should be possible to do it nicely, especially if the rocket underneath is big in comparison to it. Also one final point on gravity turns not appreciated by many - its not really a 'maneouver' where control is applied to change direction, rather you (very early on) set up a curve instead of a straight line, and as the rocket 'falls sideways' due to that initial small maneouver, it does the curve/turn. In theory its possible to put 1 control input at the start, then do nothing and it will fly itself (if you turned off stability control). Or, make a structure from launch that was angled very slightly eg east.

Ummmmm.......no. Slowing down in a LEO can put you into a lower LEO but you won't necessarily "fall right into it" until you enter its atmosphere* Similarly speeding up doesn't "put you into deep space" unless its enough to escape the SOI. It puts you in a higher orbit, sure. But in between there is a massive range of orbits. There is not one "LEO speed". Of course, the launch is timed to intercept nicely. In the real world, the longer a spaceship stays in space, the more expensive and heavy it is, due to life support systems etc. Hence why they would optimise for a reasonable travel time too. In KSP we have the luxury of time warp and everlasting Kerbals who don't need to eat or visit the loo too much. It sounds like you're not actually used KSP because there is a whole world of things to find out about orbits, rendezvous, intercepting etc etc which is full of subtlety and detail. * Or if its a body with no atmosphere, so low as to hit terrain

Its always been rockets so far. Normally I follow a rough plan: stage 1 - SRBs, 800-1200m/s. If the SRBs don't do quite enough TWR I'll light up the main engine too, maybe on a part-throttle. Its also "in the plan" to go full throttle for launch, then back it off once the TWR improves as fuel is burnt and the weight goes down. stage 2 - nice and controllable, normal rocket engine(s) stage 3 - to get into orbit or beyond. stage 4 - sometimes I've added extra tanks which are later jettisoned for extra dV stage 5 - if its a satellite, I've always used normal rocket fuel (not mono) and as small an engine as possible. If its 2 or more satellites, I've saved vertical length by installing bag tanks onto the side and/or 2 ant engines there too. I've tried asparagus staging and I like it - often its possible to tweak throttle setting and/or SRB burn rate to achieve an ideal TWR and match the burn time too. A lot of the time it depends on the length of the SRB vs the 2nd stage, if its too long then the extra fuel needs to be attached to the side, which can't be good for drag. Most of the time stage 2 is a single 'cylinder' but I've also experimented with 3 or 5 tubes, for really big rockets. I've tried SSTO but it just seems inefficient, because you're taking an awful lot of empty fuel tanks and engines "up to the top of the hill". Also if I can arrange for all the "to orbit" bits done in eg stages 1-3, then further stages can be much lower TWR and smaller/lighter engines. Sometimes the engine thrust vs fuel tank size looks a bit odd, with a really low TWR. The longest "injection" burn so far I've had is 12 minutes, although of course, some guys are using ion engines etc with hour-long burns etc. I've not tried anything else exotic like nuclear engines; or space planes (yet).

I have successfully made a spaceship which splashed down at Laythe, but in doing so I used all its fuel up. So it and 3 kerbals are all floating. It was quite big, with loads of science and a science lab so its done most of its job (there's a massive bonus in running the experiments in a science lab compared to transmitting the results back, or even retrieving them). Now the challenge is to get them back. I thought I would split it up by sending a small ship which can land nearby, the Kerbals swim over to it, then it can return to Laythe orbit. Then later, I will send some other ship, park it in nearby in Laythe orbit (never going down to the surface then up) which can get back to Kerbin. I built a big thing with lots of deltaV, but it took a lot to get it to Laythe. It was all a bit random. It was very far away from the Kerbals (that's another topic entirely!) and had about 2300m/s dV left. I tried to get it back to orbit but it didn't do it...I guess I need about 3500m/s for Laythe surface-orbit. I'll launch the (nearly) same thing again, this time I'll play around a lot more with moon (there's loads to choose from...) encounters to get the Jool orbit sensible and then just do loads of rotations to get a decent Laythe encounter etc.....

I'm finding the same problems with a Laythe trip. Am I right in thinking, as a general principle: * If you encounter a planet then (assuming you do a burn close to Pe, to get into a highly eccentric orbit just within ite SOI), if you have an encounter with a moon on the way out from the planet, you need to arrive behind that moon, as close as possible to it, to get the maximum gravitational assist but that will also go the right way ie slow you down and reduce the main planet's orbit? * You can "choose which side" of a moon you encounter, making it a helpful/unhelpful in the grand scheme of what you're trying to do. * It can also mess up your inclination (or improve it....but KSP doesn't show this numerically, only the graphic of the orbit) * As well as any control you have on the effect of the encounter, you might just have a situation where the phase of the moon isn't right, so its gravitational effect is undesirable/best avoided? I got into a situation where I encountered Laythe on the way back. My speed was about 4000m/s at Laythe Pe. Any retrograde burn resulted in splatting into Jool. So I was forced to burn about 1700 m/s to be fully captured but that meant I had enough to descend to Laythe, but not get back into its orbit. Any attempts to go below 50km at that speed resulted either in a fiery death or minimal effect (eg 49km didn't do much; 48km burnt me up).

1600m/s is about right. Duna is a bit funny - its kinda intermediate between an atmospheric entry (float down at slow speed on a parachute) and vacuum (rocket retrofiring to control/fly). I've found "terminal speed" is about 40 m/s on chutes, which is way too much for most parts to cope with, so I've always aimed at a retro burn once near the surface. And its always sloped...or there's not much control for choosing. So I've tended to go for wider landers. If you stick a bunch of engines around the edge, then its possible to deactivate/activate some and that can sometimes get it back to vertical - but its dicey!

How do you replace a GPU on a laptop?

A while ago (in game time) I launched 4x Sentinel satellites with plenty of extra fuel for repositioning etc. All are a standard design and have big relay antennas on too - makes sense to have a relay or 4 "out there". Once they're in sun orbit, I basically interpret "detect xx asteriods" as "reposition xxxxx satellite to xxxxx orbit" - mostly the orbital changes have been mild. I've detected hundreds of asteroids but never any comets, I'll look at king of nowhere's suggestion but I've never had any joy from comets so nowadays ignore those contracts.

I think that's basically what they did on the Apollo Lunar missions - the spacesuits were unwieldy on Earth, but once on the moon their extra mass/bulk was manageable. The main problem would be the "cost per kg" to the moon is so high, there is a massive incentive to lighten everything anyway. The Rover was only about 200kgs?

I know what I did wrong - I forgot to do one of the correction burns far out from Kerbin. But since I didn't have any intermediate saves, etc, I just carried on and still made it there.

I have literally no idea how I would have planned Ike - Kerbin directly..... I dare say it could be done more efficiently but I don't have any planning tool, just the "theory". This in theory would work but the problem is, burning to orbit Kerbin then burning to encounter Minmus is going to be potentially quite a lot; and kinda in the opposite sense (you'll be burning retrograde to be captured by Kerbin, then prograde to encounter Minmus) so I think this is the critical phase. Duna-Kerbin transfer window is "Kerbin 75deg behind Duna"?? https://ksp.olex.biz/

Can you re-run the thing you did, but keep the focus on the detached satellite, then time-warp forwards a few days? I am wondering if its something design-related with the satellite; or a bug which makes it blow up/disappear. I've had issues where lander pods, when time-warped for a while, will just blow themselves up. I think they call it "The Kraken".

Made it with 22m/s dV left! The burns were (approx): 1. 100 m/s to leave Ike for a wide Duna orbit 2. ~40m/s to adjust to not encounter Ike again 3. ~600m/s to do Duna > Kerbin. Due to my very wide Duna orbit, the planets didn't really align with my ejection angle, so I tried the 'first' one that looked about right - I might have been able to do a quicksave and try the 'next' orbit of Duna to see if it were better...but if it wasn't.... 4. ~600m/s to insert into a Kerbin orbit, with an adjustment of inclination just as I entered its SOI to encounter Minmus on the way out Then the problem was, I was heading for Minmus with way much more than normal velocity. So the retrograde burn to insert into Minmus orbit was about 650m/s, then the rest was used for the de-orbit and landing.

A satellite needs the following: A controller module of some kind An aerial (this might be the built-in one in the controller module if its close enough to a relay or Kerbin) A battery (the built-in might be enough) A source of power, eg solar panel(s) Also if you're not even including an engine/fuel tank, then bear in mind that there will be no control over its orbit. In theory you can launch it in precisely the right orbit but in practice, there is the ejection force of the decoupler adding a good few dV and also, because satellites are relatively light and only maneouvre in orbit, you don't need much fuel and the engine can be tiny. I can't see the pic very clearly but I am wondering if its lack of comms, lack of battery power, or both. Top tip for power: I've tried skimping with 1 solar panel......if its shaded by something, you're stuck because a chicken/egg situation develops where the satellite dies in the shaded position, then you can't move it to put the panel into sunlight. So for even the smallest/lightest satellites I now put 2 panels on.

I have a vehicle which is in low orbit of Ike; and I want to get it to the surface of Minmus. According to this: https://13375.de/KSPDeltaVMap/ it should take ~1050m/s of dV. The vehicle has 2264m/s dV. But what's the route? Do I 1. do a burn to just leave the orbit of Ike and drop into a wide orbit of Duna (being careful to avoid another accidental encounter with Ike, its a big blob) 2. Wait/timewarp to the relevant transfer window, then upon the encounter with Kerbin, aim to enter an elliptical orbit (lets say, aim for 69km Pe, it doesn't have heatshields etc but I can retract the solar panels, then do a minimal retro burn to be captured in orbit by Kerbin) with an Ap beyond Minmus' 3. Then maybe a plane change 4. Wait or gently tweak things for an encounter with Minmus? 5. Minimise the Pe, enter Minmus orbit, then de-orbit, land etc?

It depends what you define as a "spaceplane" - does it need to land/take off horizontally? I think KSP defines it as "plane" if it has the plane cockpit. I tried a few different horizontal landers, the problem for me was the control origin - I never did quite suss out how to make the controls operate the right way round. So instead I went down the path of fairly wide vertical landing. I've also done the "land vertical, then tip over" to get a horizontal thing onto the surface of Mun/Minmus. Minmus is easy. Mun, the landings are a bit more random and/or fuel sensitive, also Mun has no flat areas (well it does, but I've not consistently found a flat landing) so what I've tended to do on the Mun is get down to about 10m then re-orient to "fall over" on the upslope, if/when it lands/crashes. Getting back to vertical for take off is not too hard on Minmus. On Mun, and for heavier Minmus stuff, I've used 1 or 2 small engines specifically for this purpose. With skill I can get it vertical and stable. But sometimes its a case of activating/deactivating engines to rise it up then take off immediately. All fun stuff.

You're right in that respect, and thank you for pointing it out.

Its vaguely similar; in that with the "send science from", its MUCH more efficient to already have the kit there and do it with 5 clicks. You aren't going to send them to the far flung corner of the solar system with 1 repair kit are you? And if another contract comes up, send another rocket??

You're missing the point, I feel. Of course there will be no contract once he arrives, but if another similar contract pops up, he is ideally positioned to respond and do it within the asked-for timeframe. Its similar to "send science data from the surface of Mun" (and other places) contracts - you think ahead and put a thermometer/controller on the Mun, you can do these contracts in about 5 clicks.