Vanamonde

Hello Aningaaq. This is a good place to look for tips, or post questions of your own.

Hello and welcome, kyle5432. Your pic isn't showing for me, but sometimes my browser is finicky about image links, so it might be at my end.

Every world has a height limit between "high above X" and "space near X," but it's different for different worlds. The thermometer can only be used within the "space near X" range, which, for the sun, is 1000km.

This is how experienced and expert KSP pilots land on the dark side of a world; they wait in orbit until the world's rotation brings the landing site into daylight. No matter how good you are, landing in the dark is a good way to come down on a slope or bump and wreck your ship. It can be done, but it's just not worth the hassle.

Welcome (back) to the game and forum, herulach.

Dude. I split your first post off of another guy's thread so you could have a greeting thread of your own, and he could keep his own greeting thread.

Hi Markhoz. Right now, you can't change your avatar. That's because the forum software is not entirely convinced you are not a spambot. After you post a few more times, though, the status of your membership will change and you'll gain the ability to customize some things like the avatar.

It's actually impatience. I would rather spend 2 minutes un-doing a mistake than have to re-fly a 4 hour mission.

This sort of thing is why I test each stage on the pad before adding another stage to my design.

Thread moved to ship exchange, which is a more appropriate place for those craft-showcase-kinda threads.

Since this thread was created, SAS got its major overhaul, we've got new hybrid engines, and other things have changed, rendering the info in this thread no longer applicable. Thread locked so as not to keep outdated info floating around.

Hello, DelayedReaction. Welcome to the forum, and I'm glad you're enjoying the game.

In order for any assemblage of KSP parts to work as a controllable ship, it must have either a capsule with crew in it, or a probe core. Cores do almost nothing by themselves, but they do allow you to operate a ship without crew, if the mission is too long, too dangerous, or just doesn't need a Kerbal for its objectives. Probe ships are smaller and cheaper than ships built to house Kerbals, but as others have noted, by can't plant flags, return soil samples or EVA reports, or send a Kerbal out to do anything. The Stayputnik is the first of the probe cores.

Hey David Hock. I moved your post to a thread all of its very own.

Since this is a video, the thread has been slipped on over to the video sub-forum. May it flourish there.

I've been sick, and so have done almost nothing in .23 so far. But today, my first experimental drone with the Rapier engine not only achieved orbit, but then landing on the runway.

I don't see any problems with your build. Are you sure the problem is fuel not getting to the engines? I see you've got it set up to spacebar1=separate stage, then spacebar2=activate engine. Are you hitting spacebar twice between stages?

Thread moved to ship exchange, with the other showcase-type-y threads.

I've seen that as an occasional glitch. I wonder: does it only happen with designs you copied over from previous versions? That's when I saw it.

Your speed determines the altitude required to accomplish sufficient braking; the faster you're going, the deeper you'll need to venture. Note that in the real world, over-doing things would result in the ship burning up or breaking apart, but since atmo affects in KSP are incomplete, this is less of a consideration.

The first post in my thread includes 3 ships. The second one can reach Kerbin orbit, and the third can do a moon surface excursion and return. Each them is built using parts only from tiers 0-3.

Katateochi is still working on this campaign, but he moved recently and it's taking forever for them to set up his home internet.

It sounds like you simply don't have enough steering authority for the size of the ship in question. This authority is provided by 4 kinds of devices: SAS from capsules and reaction wheels (though you said you don't have the reaction wheels yet), steerable fins (not all of them are, so check their VAB descriptions), RCS (which works only poorly in atmosphere), and engines which have a pivoting "gimbal" mount and therefore have "thrust vectoring" capability as listed in their VAB descriptions. Very small ships can get by with nothing but the capsule's inherent SAS, but as your design gets larger, you'll need to add more of the other devices to retain control.

As Sirine suggests, place two sets using 4x symmetry.

I like cold weather, so I kind of want to live on Vall.