[[1.0.2] NovaPunch 2.09. - May 6th - 1.0 Compatibility Update]

I certainly hope so--I\'d really like the sizes being updated to reflect the larger modules, alongside support for 0.16 features (EVA most obviously).

It\'ll just take some time, like the update.

[Impromptu EVAs on Landing...They're Real!]

In atmosphere you might have more drag (and some maneuverability) as a skydiver than as a streamlined plane. Quite a few people have survived falling out of airplanes over the years, without working parachutes. It\'s obviously not a very safe way to land, but it is indeed possible. Iirc, the soviets once threw several hundred people out of aircraft at high altitude without chutes, over deep freshly- fallen soft snow. To their surprise, some 40 percent were more or less able to walk after impact. Jumping outside of the atmoshphere, though, might be less successful :-)

I\'ve heard this story too, and I suspect it\'s an urban legend deliberately created by the VDV (Soviet, than Russian Airborne Troops) to promote their own 'macho badass' image. It doesn\'t seem grounded in reality, since before the VDV, the USSR had various amateur parachutist clubs, which pioneered their early experiences, and did use parachutes (just very poor one).

Plus, the number always change. One guy says it was 20 guys, someone else says it was a few hundred. Next, someone will say it was an entire Soviet Air Army, heh.

[[NovaPunch] Presenting: The Most Advanced Ship In Kerbal's Fleet]

That\'s a hell of a piece of machinery, well done! Nice to see I\'m not alone when it comes to worry about debris accumulation (though I just cheat and edit the Persist.dat file, hah!)

I\'d like to ask--how does remote deployment of parachutes work anyway? I\'ve never gotten it to work myself--I was under the impression that you just include the parachutes in the stage of the engine being discarded, and they\'d open on their own when you drop the stage, but that never seems to happen.

[[0.16] KW Rocketry v0.5]

the triple parachute is from a separate, old mod pack. Forget the name. The pack probably needs to be updated.

Which pack? I\'m not great with assemblies, so I was hoping to take a look at the Lander and study it, but I can\'t open it as it stands.

[The Farside Mission II: Operation Muntropolis]

I correct myself, this is not the Empire State, it\'s the entire friggin Kremlin flying out to space.

The similarities are obvious

St. Basil\'s Cathedral, anyway, which is outside the Kremlin. A good analogy.

A very impressive feat, either way.

[[Collection] Kosmos Spacecraft Design Bureau (SSPP 4.1 6/12/12)]

How do you get the engine fairings to work properly? I cant get them attached to the engine no matter what I do. Otherwise everything else in the pack is great, I have only this and a rover pack installed and it makes a great difference in my Kerbal exploration experience.

I think I have the same problem (shrouds don\'t attach to the engine they\'re assigned to according to the text). Apparently, someone else fixed it?

I just recreated the changes you mentioned and applied them to all the decouplers used in the Angara pack, as well as the two decouplers used by the VA. (They are 'Kosmos_VA_RRV_Upper_Decoupler' and 'Kosmos_VA_RRV_LockDown') Works like a charm.

I notice also in the Angara pack that the shrouds do not connect to the engines correctly. I looked into this and found the issue. The alignment of the 'node_stack_top' was incorrect.

It showed: node_stack_top = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0

It should be: node_stack_top = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0

In addition, to make the staging nice and automatically handled for the shrouds, the two lines mentioned in Jeb_Kerman\'s post can be uncommented back in to the shrouds.

stageOffset = 1

childStageOffset = 1

Of course, this could be a completely different problem, I\'m still very new and unfamiliar with the terminology.

Still wondering why the nuclear engines don\'t want to attach in place. I might be overlooking something obvious in the meantime, like a nuclear fuel tank.

[[Collection] Kosmos Spacecraft Design Bureau (SSPP 4.1 6/12/12)]

As a fan of Soviet spacecraft, it\'s great to see some (proposed) designs in addition to mainstays like the Soyuz. Plus, a few of them blend in surprisingly well with the indigenous Kerbal hardware. Bravo!

EDIT: Incidentally, has anyone else had trouble with the nuclear engines? If I\'m not mistaken, they\'re normal liquid fuel engines (despite the name, but that might just be what I\'m assuming), but when you mount them, they cause an error: they automatically decouple.

Is it an incompatibility with MechJab? I see a dialog box flash briefly (briefly giving me the deactivate the engine), but it vanishes because the engine automatically decouples with the PFFF sound. I\'ve tried it on multiple designs with the same outcome--it also breaks the OTHER engine banks so the the whole stage decouples upon activiation, so I don\'t think it\'s stage sorting.

Any ideas? I\'m using the hotfix and the Angara pack. It\'s just those engines thankfully (everything else works well.)

[[0.15] Advanced Decoupler (6/20/2012)]

Same here--shrouds no longer work (shame too). The old decoupler update still works, of course, so it\'s mostly just cosmetic interest.