Carl

I assume fun was had :p.

So last night screenshot, 29kps of dv at kerbin orbit, 9.2kps on duna encounter. Still 6kps short. Back to the drawing board we go. Retrograde missions are challenging. May actually make a challenge once i get a successful encounter. Image of the final required burn at duna vs what i had in the tanks:

Ok, my last attempt as a result of a bug, (xenon flow does not respect cross feeding), on the duna relay rescue had to revert to a prior save, so i built this instead, in case your wondering, it still may not be enough to slow down at the other end, but it will get me on the course i need to be on. 4600t on the pad in case your wondering. Will be picking up tommorow, bed for now. Yes i've totally lost it, i agree.

Minor note, figured out the odd d/v display. Xenon does not appear to respect cross feed settings, so it was all one stage from the PoV of fuel consumption. Joy. Back to the drawing board.

Just looking through that stuff i posted earlier in more detail, think this is my favorite line. Don';t even remember writing it, so uh lulz.

Odd, might wanna drop a save of the situation into the bug reports forum if you have it.

Try varying viewing angle, i find you have to get quite close and often a specific angle, yeah it sucks.

So uh, gonna be tomorrow when screenshots show, at the earliest, but running a DUna mission, got to beat a probe with bad comms there. Only way there in time, retrograde intercept with duna from kerbin. Yeah. hark at the crazy man, is going to take like 20kps just to get the intercept, never mind the braking maneuver at the other end.

Thing is i'd never touched the controls for that before except my accident, so i had no clue how to work it, i just experimented till stuff happened. Also ethier KSP or MJ dosen;t like retrograde trajectories as anytime i reduced the dv to try and fine tun the encounter it deselected duna as a target. Not sure weather that's KSP or MJ though. Not sue if maneuver nodes even exist in stock, i get them impression they do but i could be way off base, again if serbian needs logs just tell me which logs he wants, i assume MJ has several given all the modules and VAb vs SPH vs flight, plus KSP's own logs that may or may not be applicable. Still managed to do it, but annoying. Currently trying the burn without having proper craft dv info, will se how it goes, have a save to revert to if needed from pre launchpad.

Well i managed via messing with the node editor and setting a manual node to get it to work, turns out i need even more d/v than i thought, joy. Thats led me to a new issue, built a multi-stage ion for the obscene dv, but can't get MJ to recognise ion stages beyond the first. What do you need from me serbin? Not sure what if any logs you'll need on this one. Image of probe: Don't have the time, image of the geometries, (probe i'm trying to beat there is the one down near eve with the red comms line): A direct retrograde shot from kerbin is the only trajectory that will get me there in time, and thats a maybe.

Cheers, to be fair the hard part is getting a retrograde sun orbit setup, once you haver that setting up a retrograde intercept isn't too hard. I just don't know how to setup a retrograde sun orbit from kerbin SOI.

If the plating is that dense the rocket would never fly, as for the generator, theoretically plausible, but not sure how practical, (minimum magnet size may be too large). A combined charge plus magnetic might work but in a spacesuit would be hellishly tricky.

Sadly not, just checked it, (thanks for the tip though, never investigated that as the manual has nothing on it), but it still tries to plot a prograde trajectory, (which is fair enough, retrograde needs more dv than is remotely sane, your velocity at encounter with duna would be 14kps and you have to shed 9kps of kerbin orbital velocity first to get that).

If Jool has major rad belts like jupiter a suit is not helping. Those things fry super-hardened electronics, never mind anything organic.

Ok i've got a giant "How the *Beep* do i do this with mechjeb question. Had an ongoing science mission go a little fubar. I didn't put enough comms on it . Now it's a little over a 100 days from Duna and i need to rush a relay there.. Given Kerbin and Duna's positions the only way to beat the probe there will be to send the relay on a reciprocal of Duna's orbit. I've got a craft that assuming nothing goes wrong on the way to orbit will have enough d/v to do the job, (>20kps), but i'm not entirely sure how to tell mechjeb to do that...

You know, that does actually make sense... Except for the lack of PA system for him to hijak...

So pictures got delayed by IRL stuff and internet issues. Built this a few days back: Sent it winging off into an orbit that just intersected minimum and had a periapsis that kept it clear of the mun, then time warped to try and get a minmus flyby that would gravity slingshot em out system. Misjudged the mun separation and got an encounter there, some burning got me the minimus encounter however: It's currently in the middle of a Homan transfer to Eve. After that i took advantage of all the science my MPL had given me to get ion tech and try to build and launch an ion probe for Jool, Eeloo, and Moho missions. Then the Kraken struck. gets off the pad, gos up a bit then starts shaking for no aparant reason until the fairing breaks off from the top of the decoupler it's on. So yeah, think it's because it';s so ludicrously tall. Need to wait for 3.25m parts really.

Pictures in a bit, but i woke the kraken. Joy.

Eh, reminds me of an old design of mine. Posted the testing log, (in the old versions thread) from a comp i was involved in december 3 years back where i tested everyones designs, chose a random location on the moon for the landing site. Was a 45 degree slope. Mine was the only one to get down and not topple .

Is that buggy as in it drives, or buggy as in it blew up when i tried to drive it .

Glad you didn;t take it the wrong way, some would have. And wow, didn't realise those big chutes could be mounted off a node. DuH! Those look like they'd rip tons of the part count. Yay. To be fair as you can tell i tend to over engineer a fair bit in my designs.

Still not quite there. But i won't press you, i was joking with the last one and now i've crashed KSP on you. :(. Sorry. Did some serious stuff, but also. This: Some boosters hit the little blue button marked "Give Me More Fuel", some liquid boosters pull the big shiny lever marked "Give Me Lottsa Fuel", mammoth liquid boosters hit the big red button marked "Dump All The Fuel". This does all of the above and gives the engines laxatives so that they "Absolutely Excrete Fuel". Yes that is some abusive quad coupler clipping to give me 9 mounting points for vectors. No i did not abuse that to clip engines inside each other, only 9. Yes i'm sure it's been done before. God knows when i'd ever need to use this as an actual booster. 6 of these could first stage boost a 4.37k ton rocket. Thats a 2900 ton upper stage and payload combination. And thats Awesome, But Impractical. And thats without adding Kickback SRB's to goose things... Also damm censor, ruined my punchline... ;p

hahaha, show off, now do the wing pylons you slacker . Also Munar eclipse, appropriate for armageddon...

For reference 2 bare bones solo boosters. each had a 0.04t probe core, 1 MJ, one big square battery, and 4 fins. Each also got a size appropriate nosecone. the liquid had the fuel carried droped to bring it's burn time in line with the SRB, (actually it's a second less but w/e). Note the difference in apotheosis and burnout velocity. Thats despite the fact that the liquid has the better TWR on the pad. Most of thats drag, but some is the much better burnout TWR in the upper atmosphere.

Actually they're very mass efficient, thats because an empty SRB weighs a lot less than an engine plus empty tanks. Also very cost efficient. Also lower drag.