theBlind

I might miss something simple here, but why not burn towards heading 270 from the start? (and the usual of a bit up and then do your "gravity turn")

+++ theBlind optikal instruments and space operations +++ +++ Press release +++ +++ RE: Duna permanent dependency, delay in operations +++ +++ For public release +++ After seeing one of our esteemed competitors reveal their new line of blimps, our most esteemed CEO was seen wandering the hallways of corporate HQ muttering about Zeppelin airbases on Duna. Phase two launches have been put on hold while the Duna truck and mobile lab Vehicles are redesigned. Our most esteemed CEO has since claimed his office (he calls it his workshop) and soft mutters can be heard through the door: "leather... aluminum... bones, yes..." In unrelated news, the position of head of corporate law section is once again open for all qualified applicants. Applications welcome. +++ End press release +++ +++ © theBlind optikal instruments and space operations +++

Hi Ferram, sorry to bring this back up but when I read this and tested drag from sudden decrease in cross-sectional area, I came upon a behaviour that seemed odd to my intuitive understanding. That being as error prone as it is, I'd like to show you the behaviour and you can decide if that is as expected. I build a simple craft as seen below. the interesting part is the central rockomax x200 fuel tank and the large SAS below it. There is no module below the SAS. At 350-400m/s combined drag from both parts is 6.9 kN from the tank and 26.8 kN from the SAS below (which I figured is from the decrease in cross section below the SAS, 2.5m -> 0m) Now in the third screenshot I remove the SAS. Drag from the fuel tank along goes to 122kN at 350m/s. Is that a bug or working as intended?

+++ theBlind optikal instruments and space operations +++ +++ Press release +++ +++ RE: Duna permanent dependency, phase one and two +++ +++ For public release +++ After much deliberation, our engineers have settled for a massive 44t launcher. This allows us to lift massive payloads in journey-ready configuration and is very importantly much more impressive than certain competitors puny rockets. The lifter stages are fully recoverable and reuseable. This configuration gives us an alternating 3 and 4 launches per Kerbin -> Duna transfer window. For permanent operations, 1-2 launches per window are reserved for resupply and crew movement, the remaining launches for expansion of the Duna base. Final numbers will depend on neccesity of course, but our investors had to be reassured about the long term viability of the project. Phase one will consist of a detatchment of probes and drones to Duna. The entire phase is unmanned. theBlind optikal is proud to announce that we were able to aquire a total of 5 NERVA engines and licenses for their useage from the local post office. These engines are, while rather expensive (our CEO had to abstain from buying a new ivory backscratcher for this quarter!) will allow us to transport cargoes and crafts in a highly efficient manner. The first of those NERVA engines will be part of the so called Duna tug, which will be part of phase one. In detail, phase one consists of four main components: 1) The mentioned Duna tug, a small robotic craft equipped with a single nerva engine. It is meant to transfer to Duna and stay there. It will dock with crafts returning from Duna to kerbin, give them their main push and then undock before leaving Duna SOI. The craft will afterwards expend build in power to finalize the burn for kerbin as well as any mid course corrections. 2) The Duna probe host, a set of 3 orbiter and 3 lander probes. the orbiter probes carry mapsat as well as kethane scanners. Depending on available dV, they will be inserted into Duna polar orbits and maybe ike polar orbit. Two of the lander probes will land on Duna and one on Ike. The first Duna lander probe will be used as a beacon to mark the point where orbital descent should start to aim for the landing zone. The second will be backup for the first. 3) The Duna waystation and emergency habitat is a small space station that will be placed in Duna orbit that carries fuel and can provide emergency shelter. Unneeded fuel from Duna -> Kerbin flights will remain here. Additional fuel will be brought along as necessary. 4) The Duna emergency suppliy drop is a 3.5 ton module containing little else than supplies and the engines nececssary to land it on Duna in case of emergency. Phase two consists of the remaining primary infrastructure as well as the first manned flights. This phase will see a Kerbin tug very similar to the Duna tug but equipped with 4 NERVA engines since the cargoes going from Kerbin to Duna will tend to be much heavier than the cargoes going back. Phase two will also see two Duna orbit to surface shuttles (that will probably also serve as Duna -> Kerbin return shuttles) and the major base block, the Duna truck and mobile lab. Those two vehicles are fully mobile and provide long term living and working space for 4-6 kerbals. The vehicles will remain on Duna, the crew will rotate at a later date. Last but not least, phase two will contain the necessary fuel for the Kerbin -> Duna transfer via tug as well as the supplies needed to last until the next arrival. Mission plan: +++ End press release +++ +++ © theBlind optikal instruments and space operations +++ Screenshots: Mods that influence flight characteristics or give me additional options: FAR, Deadly Reentry, KAS, Procedural fairings, Kerbal Join Reinforcement, Kethane, RealChute, StationScience, Ubio Welding Mods that don't influence flight characteristics: Actions on the fly, Clouds and city lights, RAM optimizer, Crew manifest, Docking port alignment, Kerbal engineer redux, enhanced nav ball, haystack, LTech external camera, MechJeb, PreciseNode, Chatterer, SCANsat, SelectRoot, MK2 cockpit internals, TreeLoader Achievements: (as planned) Mission Execution: 2 (maybe 3) Crew Mobility: 2 Base Mobility: 2 Crew Safety: 1-2 (crew carrying crafts will be designed with multiple engines but I will assume real-world level computer control in case of engine failure, not me manually switching off engines) Mission Robustness: 1-2 (There will be non-critical launches in every windows that could take a failed launch from before. While I only plan on having one duna truck and mobile lab in phase two, I can bring more. The very first launch is critical and not recoverable within that windows but only consists of probes and nothing yet on duna depends on it. In case of critical failure I'd assume that the whole plan is simply delayed by one transfer window.) Note 1) my PC is rather old and I experience significant delays and time stretching so it may take some time for me to muster the patience to actually fly the missions. Note 2) I managed to start my first mission on day 1 instead of day 10. since it took me 10 minutes to get the launch to orbit, I did not revert and redo it on day 10, this will be visible in the screenshots of the first launch. I will only launch my second lifter on day 76.

+++ Start Press release +++ We here at theBlind optikal systems and space operations would like to announce that we would like to announce our upcoming participation in this worthy endeavor to reach for Duna and expand the scientific knowledge of all kerbalkind with our very own manned permanent Duna dependency. +++ End Press release+++ +++ For public dissemination+++

My machine is several years old and I get an ingame time to out of game time ratio of 4 to 1 around 400 parts, just to get you an idea. (Meaning that I spend 4 seconds RL before one second on the in game clock has passed, at no acceleration, viewing a ~400 part craft in stable orbit)

But - what is the practical value of fixing such an edge case in a mod that aims to simulate violent reentries?

Just wanted to chime in to say that whatever you did in order to increase performance in this pass, job done amazingly well. I went from 20 seconds extra loading time to open the map around a planet with the surface map open to no perceived extra loading time.

So this very interesting mod was completely unusable for me because it comtained sounds that do not conform to the general volume setting. What I did was to simply record a few seconds of silence and overwrite the included sound files with those. In case anyone else wants it, you can grab the soundsilence files here. Simply extract to GameData and it will overwrite the ones contained in the mod. No other files modified, all content in the zip by me, idk if this needs a license if yes it's do whatever just don't hold me responsible. Hopefully some future version of the mod will simply adhere to the volume settings. Now, of to burning kerbals.

Even though I do not have any problems whatsoever with this plugin, I just wanted to post to thank you for creating such a superbly useful thing. I've only used it for a few days but already I can't image how I did without!