Scarecrow71

To those of you who did this challenge: How did you deal with the fuel flow from upper tanks to lower tanks? I'm having an issue right now that a couple of us are testing, it bears out that engines do NOT prevent crossfeed from upper stages to lower stages. With no decouplers, this means that upper tanks will empty into lower ones even when you aren't staged for the upper engine to be used. How did you get around this?

@18Watt Well, I've got some bad news on this front. I rebuilt the rocket, and I checked the flow priority values in the VAB. As you can see in the following image, the upper tank has a flow priority of -10, while all of the lower tanks have a flow priority of 0. So I took this thing for a test drive, knowing that the flow priority is set correctly. Check the following video; fuel flows from the bottom tanks correctly...until they run out, at which point fuel starts flowing from the upper tank into the bobcat. You can see this happen at about the 3:50 mark. I apologize for the graininess of the video; I'm still relatively new at taking video and uploading it to YouTube. Anyhow, you can see that the fuel empties out of the upper tank without staging near the end of the video. Is this a bug that has never been reported?

I built my ship from the top down, so I assume that KSP dealt with flow priority correctly. However, I'll have to test this when I get some time, most likely later today (Mrs. Scarecrow71 made me take the day off today so we can do errands). I will certainly let you know what happens when I rebuild and retest!

Yeah, I tested this with multiple engines (Cheetah, Terrier, Swivel, Reliant) and got the same behavior every single time. Modded or unmodded. Sandbox, Science, Career.

So I tried this again this morning, but this time in an unmodded game. Same results: the upper tank starts draining into the lower tanks, even though I've got an engine between the upper and lower stages. I staged manually when I saw this was happening, and as soon as the lower tanks exploded (one of them), the bobcat engine stopped firing as it was out of fuel. @18Watt, is there any chance you can test this on your end? Sandbox, normal difficulty, no changes to any settings. If you can build the craft I have above and just see what happens on your end, just to rule out that it's something in one of my games?

Even when I stage manually, the upper tank drains into the lower one. I am going to try doing this in my install that has no mods and see what happens.

My upper stage is an FL-TX900 and a Cheetah; the lower stage is an FL-A215 Adapter, 3 FL-TX900fuel tanks, and a Bobcat. And the upper tank is draining into the lower. What else is really odd is that, if I use MechJeb for ascent guidance, MJ fires the upper engine as part of the first stage. This is all in sandbox, and I didn't alter any settings when creating this particular sandbox game.

I dated a girl who had a lazy eye when I was younger. I had to break up with her, though; I was worried she was seeing someone on the side.

I'll be scrapping my current run at that and starting over at some point.

I did. And I adjusted braking. And it still took way too long to brake.

I'm trying to build a craft that has multiple stages...but I'm not using decouplers between them. As part of the Jebediah Space Program challenge, you are only allowed to use parts from Jeb's Junkyard manufacturer, which means no decouplers. So I'm building a multi-stage rocket to get into orbit, and the thought is to have the upper stage overheat and blow apart the lower stage when the lower stage runs out of fuel. Unfortunately, the upper stage's tanks are emptying into the lower stage, and so I can't ever activate the upper stage. Is there a way to turn off crossfeed on parts that don't allow for this to happen? I do NOT want my upper stage tanks draining into the lower stage, but there are no parts from Jeb's Junkyard that have the explicit option to turn off crossfeed. Is this possible, or do I need to find a different way to accomplish this?

And finished! Finito! The end of the journey! As I stated in the post, that was TEDIOUS. Physics warp helped, but you gotta be careful using that. And you have to pay attention; you can't simply set warp to 3x and start perusing the internet. But I finished. Thankfully. Just need @18Watt to verify please!

Technically, this is yesterday and today. A LOT of yesterday, into last night and this morning. But... I finished my circumnavigation of Minmus. And oh my dear lord was that tedious. I drove nearly straight south from the site of Oracle V, over the south pole*, and then back north through the Greater Flats until I reached the site of the Oracle IV landing. I then had to drive northwest(ish) to get back the site of the Vision II lander. You'll notice that there's a LOT of stuff in that small area in the Flats: Philosopher I (the rover), Oracle V (that particular rocket has made multiple trips to Minmus), Prophecy I (our first and only surface outpost that will probably need to be scrapped due to it not being secured properly to the surface), and Vision II (the lander that got me here this time). Vision II's cargo bay, as well as Philosopher I, cannot come home with us as the rover does not have a docking port on it to reattach to the bay; that will be getting corrected in future designs of the rover and the cargo bay. But, Bob got back into the lander and, thanks to all that dV I over-engineered the lander with, I was able to get him back home with some fuel to spare. I ended up collecting just over 1400 science points from this trip, thanks in large part to hitting multiple biomes. However, there are some lessons learned here: Physics Warp can save time, but if you use it you'll need to save early and often. I cannot tell you how many times Philosopher I just decided to flip over and go flying across the terrain for no reason, causing me to have to revert to the latest quicksave. I got into the habit of quick-saving every 5 degrees traveled. Contrary to real life, you CAN drive through the rocks on Minmus. The sandstones are real, and so are the Olivine formations. But the larger rocks on the surface? Pretend they aren't even there. Rovers need to be equipped with the Experiment Storage container. I missed out on EVA reports and surface samples from multiple biomes because Bob can only hold 1 of each. Philosopher I is too forward-heavy. This was my first attempt at a rover, and so I'm pretty happy with that. But the command seat needs to be in the center of the structural panel, not on the forward edge. And to that end, the science gadgets also need to be away from the front of the rover. Rovers on Minmus need more traction, both for driving and for braking. Not sure how to get that, though; bigger/different/more wheels, perhaps? For those of you who didn't read the previous posts about this trip, I was averaging - AVERAGING - a surface ore concentration of 14.8% in the Lowlands. This means that I was correct in placing Prophecy I in the Flats...but I placed her too far away from the edges. With an ore concentration that high, Minmus is going to become the first ore mining operation in this career. Gotta learn how to do that properly; anything in this game that's possible to learn will keep me playing! Any/all comments are appreciated!

Pffft. KSP2 will be to KSP1 what The Firce Awakens is to A New Hope.

ColdK

Granted, but they don't give you the right answer. I wish Flirting With Disaster wasn't so difficult to play.

Hot dog! Although, I really didn't do much; I simply out my 2 cents out there. The others in that thread deserve far more credit than I do!

Have you farmed the KSC yet? You can literally place a capsule with the gadgets on it on the launchpad and runway, run the experiments, and recover the vessel and get that sweet science. Also, dont forget to fo crew reports and EVA reports; that science is just there for the taking!

Yeah, I've seen the same thing in the VAB where stages don't show dV amounts. So I've gotten pretty used to using MechJeb's dV display.

That happens when you are moving too fast. Right click on the engine and lower the thrust to about 25ish or so. Then, during takeoff, press S or W to angle yourself instead of going straight up. As soon as the engine is out of fuel, you should be able to deploy the chute and get to the ground safely.

Images would be helpful. Also, on what body is it spinnng? Kerbin, one of the moons, another planet? Do you have any other engines active? Do you have the control point in the right direction (up, forward, reversed)? Do you have the thrust on each engine the same?

I am now about half-way through traversing Minmus. Very slow going. I cannot use physics warp any longer on Minmus; I have found that the game will randomly turn the wheels sharply, causing me to spin uncontrollably until I land completely upside down, spilling Bob from the rover and then the rover exploding - or, in one odd case, spinning off into space. This means that I have to literally sit here FOR HOURS watching the rover move. Sigh.