Deadweasel

Holy frijoles! I like what you've done with that thing! It looks so... mechanical and jam-packed with equipment like I'd expect something that big to look. VERY cool! Questions: What is that nose spar from? and What the heck are the glowing orange panel doo-hickeys near the aft section? I've been seeing those around but have no idea what they're about.

To be fair, it looks like he *is* trying to link to a running webserver (running at home), so points for the attempted hail mary.

[TABLE=width: 800] [TR] [TD]The DV-102 "Sherpa" The Sherpa orbital tug and light equipment dropship is capable of SSTO on all celestial bodies in the Kerbol system except Kerbin and Eve (due to gravity and atmospheric density). Featuring three torque sources for the ultimate in control and stability, the Sherpa was built primarily around an experimental fuel converter, which serves as its fuselage as well as its sole source of fuel. Because of this design, it can operate at an extended range (unloaded) by converting fuel on-the-fly as it operates, and is the only tug and dropship in the fleet capable of berthing aboard an IPEV vessel's vehicle bay. At full throttle, the Sherpa will definitely run its tank dry in no time, even if the converter is active. It is also incapable of generating its own power and monopropellant, which means once it hits atmosphere, it is now on battery power, and the clock is ticking. It can convert fuel for itself only so long as the batteries hold out. This can make landfall while loaded on planets or moons with atmosphere quite tricky to successfully complete! But land it can, and it's quite capable of delivering a substantial payload to any surface. Recently improved as the DV-102A, the Sherpa is now the exclusive mover and surface delivery vehicle for the Duna Explorer Missionâ„¢! *Duna Explorer Mission is sponsored in part by Kellog's Special Kâ„¢ cereal. Look special, feel special![/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

I'm having the same problem. I'm seeing nothing at all on Kerbin, Mün, or Duna. Could be a mod, maybe, though there don't seem to be any threads mentioning this particular issue. :/

Flags were available before, but not by default. You can remove them from the list in the Tracking Station view by right-clicking the flags in the topbar. Left click selects ONLY that icon's craft type, right click adds/removes that type from the visible list.

Things like that might warrant either a special mission to get rid of the thing, or, perhaps quicker and easier, editing of the persistent file to re-class and rename the thing instead. My (minor) beef with the current system is that it counts planted flags as "flights". Minor thing, I know, but I hate doing that double-take when I go to load the saved game and see "10 flights in progress" and it takes me a moment to realize the bulk of that count are flags. :/

Oh, well that's an issue with a stock command part getting default control, not a problem with the seat's orientation itself. In my case, if there's no pilot in the capsule, but a kerbal in the topseat when the ship gets focus, the orientation is on the chair. There are no probe bodies to muck up the control method unexpectedly. If it ain't manned, it ain't flying. The game seems to have an order of priority where control focus is concerned. Top priority is a manned module/capsule, THEN a probe body, THEN a manned chair. If there's a capsule and chair but no probe body, the empty capsule will get command authority every time. I suspect that might have something to do with why a command chair isn't considered eligible as a root part.

Most likely a combination of the CoG offset, automatic guidance, and hull design. It's never mentioned if there was actually a section in the manual covering such an event, but I'd wager it's one of those things that's as automated and out of their control as the final landing procedure anyway.

Nice. http://instantrimshot.com

Huh? Wait a tic... Are you saying that the seat's orientation is off by 90 degrees to the right from its appearance? I don't usually use the seat as a control point (since there's no weight difference with a pilot in the cockpit anyway), but I'm pretty sure I've flown that ship from that seat a time or two, and never noticed the navball differing from the capsule's orientation..

India's MOM suffered from premature cutoff, so requires more thrusting. (Don't look at me like that; that's what it says!) http://www.universetoday.com/106288/indias-mars-orbiter-mission-mom-requires-extra-thruster-firing-after-premature-engine-shutdown/ Some people aren't happy that it takes extra minutes to do an incremental multi-burn transfer maneuver, but imagine if it took WEEKS instead!

Would be nice, but it's not always feasible to do. For example: The dropship has a top seat for the second rover driver (the other is piloting the dropship). The top seat is balanced on the ship, so everything behaves normally in hover mode. Lateral flight? Ehh not quite so much. XD

I was a bit surprised by that too! Seems like quite a bit of complexity to have to deal with to keep from breaking astronauts, but that final *FWAAMP* of the arresting rockets still looks violent enough to hurt anyway.

Awwww nuts! So now we need to know the drag coefficient of a riding kerbal, which is the KSP equivalent to asking the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow... (hint: don't say 'I don't know'! Stall for time; I'll go work it out...)

This is where the whole idea of "balance" comes into play (literally in this case). I like that it's being built up as a mod already, though I'm not personally inclined to use it. There's a point at which there's enough realism to be interesting, engaging and challenging, but there's also just that right amount of fantasy (what I call "BS elements" in my writing) to make up for the portions that maybe aren't quite so realistic. In this case, I'm quite happy to do the job that takes hundreds and hundreds of people to do in real life, so I can get down to the part that *I* find most fun about the game: launching, exploding, launching again, exploding a little less, launching one more time, and getting a cool design up into orbit and beyond. It's the act of creating and getting to see it in action that's most fun for me, not the minutia of actually RUNNING a space program. Basically I'm more than happy to ignore the fact that time is paused while I'm building, and that launches happen as quickly as the scene will load. That lets me get on to the next part I built it for: BLOWING IT U- *cough* err, flying with style. >_> Having to worry about how this next launch will influence another flight in progress is (again, to me) another one of those elements that aren't really manageable prior to the launch. All of that redundant tripe said, here's a suggestion that could help a concept like this work: In VAB or SPH view, find a way to do two things, and this will become a LOT more approachable to a lot more people: Show a picture-in-picture popup of the Map view (exposed or hidden with a shortcut key) that behaves as the map normally does so we can see what's where without leaving the assembly process Provide a means, perhaps similar to maneuver nodes, to show where things will be by the time this craft you're building is able to launch from right now. Nobody will want to learn their massive design just cost them potentially dozens of hours of time AFTER they hit the launch button, and now they might have lost a critical intercept elsewhere that they can't get back. Set things up so there's at least some indication of what the launch will cost BEFORE the launch, and you'll avoid a recipe for ragequits (and vehement mod removal). EDIT: Also, it might be interesting to see if map view in the VAB/SPH would behave more reliably due to the fact that the engine isn't currently engaged with simulating physics for *anything* in the world. Could even make it a preferable means to viewing the map for some people!

That^ Also, I'm TOTALLY going out for Halloween next year dressed as an evil mutant minion, specifically so I can run around yelling "BAAAAA!" in a crazed manner at kids. This will end well. Also also, thanks for the shuffle vexx32!

Heh, well I suppose poor Bill could be considered to have run into a really, really big rock, eh? XD I get your point though, and be assured that it was entirely intentional for them to be experiencing such ridiculous mishaps out in the environment. Like Krista's stumbling around after first landing, the others just aren't really used to seeing so much strenuous activity out there in the Big Bad World, so it's inevitable that they'll have to learn some things about their vulnerability when doing things their suits weren't designed to let them do. Read the next part, you'll understand they're learning a thing or two about how to deal with the threats they've encountered already.

Alrighty folks! Been a little while, but I stole some time and sat down to figure out the finer points of this part of the story. This one's straight reading, so no images to go with it (yet?), but it goes deeper into the history of how things worked on Far Horizon, and why Jinda's freaking out so bad right now. Heh. Enjoy, and as always, comments definitely welcomed! (see front page for updated links to Chapter 6)

Oooh. MOOODDD!!

That's a feature. See, you'll never forget the name now. XD

*adds "moar boosters" to dictionary* You know, in honor of the fallen.

Well, somebody has granted at least one of your wishes already! http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/44135-0-22-Universe-Replacer-v4-0 The other may be coming soon if the developers work out the kinks and/or come back from hiatus.

Actually.... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/31532-how-much-does-a-kerbal-weigh Answer: .09t EDIT: And now that that is settled, I'm off to do just what I suggested, because I too have ships that require specific balance if somebody is crazy enough to sit in the chair.

Thought some of you folks might appreciate this as much as I did. Includes actual footage from a Soyuz re-entry from inside the cabin!

I experience that too! I think I take preparation for the trip more to-heart, after I sent a quick and dirty lander to the Mün and... well, there I was. Once the actual encounter became easy to set up, it didn't seem like quite so much fun to just get there and look around any longer. I needed there to be more to it. Not just getting there now, but having a reason to be there, more than just landing and having a walk/fly/drive around. It became more interesting to go through all this additional preparation and complex equipment delivery, so that when the time came to hop in a rover and have a look around, it was that much more satisfying.