Corona688

So no, you did not try the config mod. Could you try the config mod?

qwer

So a mod installs buttons in the cockpit in places that's impossible to reach, and that's KSP's fault... Have you tried the config workaround?

I'll take gameplay over fluff any day.

I have pinned down this issue more exactly. At launch, they respond as they should, but as the COM moves, they continue responding as before, until the next stage change. In extreme cases, they can respond backwards! This might not be a bug per se. I'm not sure they are intended to compensate for that. It's something useful to know when designing asparagus.

How so exactly? Being more specific would make this easier to understand and easier to implement.

That is fair enough. A lot of parts are repetition; width A fuel tank size 1, 2, 3. Width B fuel tank size 1, 2, 3. If they were resizable within tech level limits perhaps...

A 2020 reprise of my 2017 craft "The Refresher". I made it 3000 roots cheaper, then added 3000 roots more equipment. At 1200/ton it's fairly cheap for an early-ish career craft. It's also a hair under the 140 ton "cheap" launchpad limit. The concept remains the same - a big whack of fuel, engines, and equipment to ferry around a mun or minmus lander, and spares for things they might break or use up. It'll get them there and back, the rest is their own problem.

Don't spend 30 minutes buttering up your audience first -- show 'em what you got. Fancy intros and outres should be skipped or minimized. People aren't going to watch them twice anyway. Beyond that, have interesting content. It's as easy (or hard) as that.

Then go buy a game which has it. Designing and getting exactly what you want without limitations sounds a bit easy, to me. Perfect wings - go. Perfect fuel tanks - go. Perfect engines - go. Auto-planning, go. Autopilot, go. All of these are features people call make-or-break. I don't see what's left for me to do in such a game.

Kerbal Space Program, or any other non-kernel program, generally cannot cause the Blue Screen of Death. That is something far worse than a crash and generally means hardware failure or driver problems.

I managed to answer my own question... In rebuilding one of my ow designs I forgot an important bug that apparently still exists -- thuds above the COM will respond backwards (or rather - won't respond backwards, when they should), so you better disable their gimbals. Now that half the engines aren't fighting the other half it responds fine. This is the craft being recreated, a twisted-candle asparagus lifter:

They make a bit show of moving around, but any craft I build with them doesn't actually feel vectored forces from them! Is it just me?

I have since learned there is a specific kraken which causes this, lured into action by off-center parachutes. It's not a very reliable kraken though, as I've been doing this for years without seeing it.

It had phenominal TWR and ISP back then. I could get a three-spark asparagus arrangement to orbit. A few updates later it stopped working. I was quite annoyed. Turns out, the TWR was so good, it was more efficient than the terrier for nearly all purposes despite its minor disadvantage in ISP, and much better in-atmosphere besides. What engine to use? Sparks. But its not strong enough - so use ten. I still think they nerfed it a little too much.

Was that before or after the spark was nerfed? The spark used to be game-breakingly good.

...which only leaves 60km and 2000m/s left to go. Besides which, 30 tons in dead spiders is hardly "ideal conditions"

:facepalm: I should have noticed when they said kethane...

TL/DR, this challenge will require at least 300, perhaps thousands of parts. I've actually done ultra-light stuff with spiders before: It helps that the spider is actually one of the better in-atmo engines. (The ant, on the other hand, is uniquely terrible.) Comparing the weight of an occupied command seat to the weight of an okto+accessories, I think that a pair of spiders and berries can probably circularize an orbit. It's in the ballpark. But getting high enough to do that requires a hammer - that is, at very rough underestimation, 30 berries of fuel plus 100 spiders of thrust. That's 2 tons of dead weight an SSTO can't get rid of. Tripling the payload requires tripling the thrust. Call it 300 spiders and 100 berries. Of course, that's the direct approach. With the juno... Well. It weighs a quarter-ton for what's basically no help at all. It will get you a few hundred meters height, but basically no velocity. The spiders still have to do all the work of lifting and circularizing. You'd get more benefit from launching from the abandoned airfield than from carrying a juno.

Any "first" thing you do is liable to be slightly wrong, mine always are, so I think start smaller - then send expansions and corrections until it's as big and functional as you want. It'll also probably end up a hilarious mess, but a functioning hilarious mess, instead of one solitary try which took all day and left no survivors.

You need to double-click on the planet to select it as a target. Then it will show closest-approach as tick marks, just like a spacecraft encounter, whenever it doesn't end up close enough for SOI change. You can right click on the tick marks for detailed information. Encounters in the very far future may not be that precise. That's OK, neither are your engines.

Hitting the sun is not easy for experienced players! Kudos.

It's a long-standing policy for KSP to not promise dates. And a long-standing rule here to not ask for them.

It's a longstanding policy for KSP to not promise dates. And a longstanding rule here to not ask for them.

What exactly do you expect to happen instead?