Anachronda

http://www.reoiv.com/random.asp?img=dadbandwandcolour.jpg&page=2

Well, since I\'m on record as supposing Kermen are some sort of plant with the names (Jebediah, etc) being the variety rather than an individual name, I suppose reproduction happens something like this:

I am so stealing this idea...

More efficient to use a highly elliptical orbit; you don\'t have to make that circularization burn. It also makes the period of your orbit and that of Mun radically different, so you don\'t have to wait so long for it to catch you. That\'s the technique I use because I\'m no good at eyeballing when the Mun will be where.

More importantly, did they survive?

There are plenty of Blender tutorial videos around, such as these: http://cgcookie.com/blender/get-started-with-blender/ Can\'t really vouch for them, as I\'ve only been through the first couple myself. There\'s some KSP-specific info here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4032.0 Hasn\'t helped me much yet; when I unroll my cylinder, I don\'t seem to get a nice rectangular shape; I usually wind up with something that looks like an upside-down omega. Haven\'t figured out why yet.

The view at my mother-in-law\'s house (visiting the in-laws paid off for a change): This was taken through two aluminized mylar pop tart wrappers, which are the source of the fuzziness.

I think Minmus is hollow, a spaceship from another system. Full of invaders. 'For Minmus is hollow and I have touched the sky'

I just hang my apoker out there slightly past the Mun\'s orbit, then crank up the time warp and wait for the Mun to catch me. But I\'m an idiot.

I have 4GB and I\'m OK for a couple of hours. Hmm. Actually, I haven\'t run 0.15 for very long yet; I was OK on 0.14.4 for a couple of hours.

\'Cept it\'s kinda hard to get a reading on it with it jumping around so much.

One thing I\'m wondering if everyone else experiences (i.e., is it the game or my weaksauce PC) is that the more circular the orbit gets the more the Ap and Pe markers dance about. I currently have a ship in an orbit with about 100m difference between Ap and Pe and the markers and they dance around very rapidly over about 45 degrees of the orbit. Here\'s a sequence of screenshots I made by just punching F1F1F1F1 really quickly: Is this normal?

As I\'ve mentioned in other threads, my big problem with rendezvous is patience. This isn\'t helped by the fact that my machine isn\'t terribly powerful and the game hangs after a couple of hours of playing. Slowly, patiently over the last couple of days I\'ve been working on a rendezvous. And thinking I\'m doing really well. Then I notice in the map view that I\'m sitting right next to some debris. I think 'wtf?' and switch back to non-map view to see this: The good news: I\'m still creeping up on my target. The bad news: I won\'t be able to do anything about it except wave as they go by.

Well, sure, for a circular orbit there\'s not much difference in Ap and Pe to begin with. Your Ap and Pe are marked on the map, but those of your target aren\'t. Doesn\'t matter much if you\'re both in circular orbits, since there\'s not much difference to begin with. I\'m not the original poster of the thread. I poked my head in here because the target I use is in a mildly elliptical orbit; it\'s something I put up there when I was still arguing with getting to circular orbits. I also have a much more elliptical target out there that I\'ll work on once I get it down with this mildly elliptical one. It is the case that I have not yet succeeded. I can easily get within 20Km of the target. With more time and patience, I managed to get within 90m last night. At which point I got all enthused and tried to tweak the last little bit by sight. As I said, my primary barrier is patience. I have no doubt that with sufficient patience I can succeed. Aligning inclinations is not really a problem, because there\'s a clear point where the orbits cross. With sufficient patience, you can approach that point then do the burn as you describe. Aligning the major axes is a bit trickier. As I mentioned, the Ap and Pe of your orbit are marked on the map view, but those of your target are not. When you target Kerbin and zoom out enough to see the whole orbit, you can\'t see enough detail to see small misalignments. When you target your ship and zoom in to see the difference between close orbits, you can\'t see enough of the orbit to find the difference. And small differences in Pe position translate to large differences in Ap position. It\'d be nice if you could scroll around the orbit while you were zoomed in really close to the ship. A rendezvous with debris in a highly elliptical orbit will be even trickier, as the orbits of debris aren\'t even displayed unless you mouse over the debris. It\'d be nice if there were some way to select a target and have its orbit displayed with Ap and Pe markers as long as it\'s selected.

Oh, sure. RCS is plenty. It\'s my *coordination* that is a problem.

I suspect (but am not math-worthy enough to prove) that what happens is that you\'re pivoting the orbit around a line between where you are and the focus of the orbit (yeah, yeah, an ellipse has two foci; what I mean here is the focus that holds the body around which you\'re orbiting. Don\'t know the term for it. Probably center of mass or somesuch). Which is a nice sentence that hides a lot of trouble, since you can\'t see the Ap or Pe of the target orbit. Furthermore, on an eccentric orbit the Pes can be quite close while the Aps remain far apart. The Pe is on the short end of a lever arm with the fulcrum at the center of mass, so a small change in Pe can make a *huge* change in Ap. In my experience, the biggest problem is running out of patience, especially when the target gets close enough that you can see it. I got within 90m of my long-suffering orbiting Kerbonauts last night, but then tried to close the remainder of the gap by sight with the RCS. Didn\'t go well.

I suspect he uses the RCS to roll it along. I guess it\'s appropriate that his Kerbonauts look dizzy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Macon_%28ZRS-5%29

Well, since you folks already know I ain\'t the sharpest bulb in the drawer, I guess I don\'t have to worry about opening my mouth and being thought a fool. Bear in mind that I\'ve not yet managed to accomplish a rendezvous (can\'t quite close those last couple of kilometers), so take it for what it\'s worth. I also know little about orbital mechanics. Seems to me that if you thrust tangent to the ground, you\'re raising the point on the opposite side of your orbit. If you line up your orbit such that one point is on the orbit of your target, you\'ll see a big hole on the other side that shows the difference in eccentricity. Thrusting at the aligned point will close the hole. It\'d be a big help if I could put a marker on my orbit in the map display to remind me of where I want to accomplish a burn...

Yeah. And that way, there could be a counter-KSC and a counter-VAB. The Kerbonauts wouldn\'t have to carry enough fuel to get home if they can convince those lunatic breKmen on breKin to let them refuel and use their launch pad.

Perhaps what we need is a Kerbal analog to Gor, the counter-Earth. In the same orbit as Kerbin, but on the opposite side of Kerbol. That way you always know what the alignment is (always terrible).

Embarrassing? Naw. Almost blowing up Kerbonauts isn\'t embarrassing. Me, now, I\'ve got a trio of intrepid folks parked in orbit that I use as a target for orbital rendezvous (unsuccessfully, so far; I can\'t quite close the last few kilometers. I wind up braiding my orbit around that of the orbital station). When I checked in on them yesterday, all three of them were in manic screaming mode. After 29 lonely days in space, can\'t say I blame them...

My problem with the navball thingie was that it seems one of the axes is backwards in the default install. I had to go switch the keys around so they all have the same effect on the ball \'cause I ain\'t the sharpest bulb in the drawer. I also had to spend some time thinking about what the navball means. When you\'re sitting on the line between blue and brown, you\'re tangent to the surface beneath you. If you\'re rolled so that the brown is on the right and blue on the left, pitching up and down will turn you long the various compass headings; you\'ll see the lines go by with degree notations on them to tell you which way you\'re pointed. If you\'re rolled so that the dividing line is horizontal, pitching up and down will point you towards or away from Kerbin. Your velocity vector goes through the navball, entering on the side with the plus and exiting on the side without. I\'m not sophisticated enough yet to care about the direction to the space center, so I haven\'t given it any thought.

Yeah. I\'ve been thinking about that, given their reoccurrence and the fact that they don\'t seem to require food or air in order to handle long missions. I figure they must be some sort of plant. And Jebediah Kerman is the variety, not the name of the specific Kerman; kind of like a Macintosh or Granny Smith apple. If your Granny Smith got exploded in an unfortunate cooking experiment, you\'d just wander on down to the orchard and pick another one. Same thing for a Jebediah Kerman. There is precedent for intelligent space-faring plants in the extensive documentary records of our culture. Ficus, the second officer of the galactic sanitation ship Quark, is a plant. I imagine the Kerman mating ritual is similar to the one demonstrated by Ficus during the series: male and female Kermen lying on the floor waving their arms and legs in order to attract a bee. On the other hand, given how much they seem at home in a dark, dank space podule, perhaps they\'re some sort of mushroom....

SUCCESS AT LAST! After all the trouble I had getting enough fuel to the Mun, I had so much left that the puny engine on the bottom of my Munar lander couldn\'t lift me off the surface; it just sat there rocking back and forth like an overly heavy booster on the pad. Goosed the RCS to get it off the surface and it got home just fine.