Vanamonde

The first crew capsule you install will be supplied with a crew when you go to the Launchpad, but you can have the guys go EVA and "end flight" them one at a time to leave the capsule empty. Or, if you're in a bad mood, you can just have them let go of the ladder and fall to their deaths. Either way, the capsule is left empty and ready to go save some lives!

If you'd like, I made some example rovers you can download and fly to the moons. You can find them here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/35916-Small-Medium-and-Large-moon-rovers-from-Yeahletstrythatdyne

That is a handsome satellite. And by the way, a rocket that can reach Duna can very likely also reach Eve.

The struts were not between the core parts of the docked ships in the mishap I posted. Incidentally, when I landed another one of that mission's rovers, I found that it had a broken wheel. I suspect it slammed into another part during that spastic jerking. But the result is, 3 of the 4 rovers on this voyage were wasted by the cubic strut problem. The really aggravating thing is that if I had discovered it before undocking the rover, I could have sent a crewman out to fix the flipping thing.

Kids, let this be a lesson to you; mods lead to the dark side!

That's quite elaborate for your first mission to another planet. Nice job.

This has been a day of ups, and downs.

I was hoping for something more authoritative than the wiki, such as somebody who knows how to dig into the game's mechanics and see what's actually happening.

How about, don't use time acceleration during delicate maneuvers? Seriously, speeding towards a mass of rock is a bad time to get impatient.

It was added in 20.1 or 20.2. Only shows up on the IVA version of the navball, though, not the one on the main screen.

Nope. They all point front/back. Did you dock it to anything after launch? Not undock it from an assembly from the VAB, but dock it to something else after launch?

Or, teenagers like yourself are the people most likely to be free to read this forum in the middle of a weekday. But thanks for the first age poll in which I am not "Other/too old to bother with."

I've used the linears for certain things because I thought they were supposed to be stronger, but can somebody confirm that they have the same thrust?

Kateteochi first brought my attention to the problem, and as far as he could tell, it ONLY occurs when you combine those particular strut pieces with docking rings in the same construction. My experience bears this out.

Yeah, me either. I posted it in general. WTF?

Fellow players, allow me to give you a word of advice. Do not use the cubic octagonal struts on the same vessel that has any docking rings. For ANYTHING. EVER. I built a small rover that uses them for suspension. This is what the rover should look like. I flew about a dozen test flights to Mun and Minmus without a hint of trouble of any kind. But as I docked a couple of them to my interplanetary ship, I noticed that the wheels would jiggle suddenly when I came out of warp. That was troubling, but no harm was done, so I flew the ship to Tylo and set an orbit. Upon exiting warp in Tylo orbit, the rovers tore themselves to pieces. As you can see in this pic, those delightful little cubic struts jerked so violently that they actually ripped themselves off of the rover core and went flying off into space. I spent about 6 hours this evening flying these things to Tylo, but there was nothing left to do but discard the rovers that were the primary reason for the mission. As others have discovered, having cubic octagonal struts in an assembly that also includes docking rings can cause strange rotations that have caused vehicles to flip while sitting on the surfaces of worlds, but apparently, it can happen while in space as well, and on small vessels, it is not just a nuisance but catastrophically violent. Right now I am keenly resenting that this forum does not allow swearing.

I finished assembling, fuelling, and loading my latest design for a reuseable interplanetary ship, which I will send on a shakedown cruise to the Jool system after work tonight.

Try rebuilding your launch vehicle so that the upper stage is not a mass of fuel tank sitting at the end of a boom made up by the length of the NERVA. As you have it now, when that last orange tank begins to run low, you've got an inverted pendulum.

My interplanetary burns commonly take 20 minutes to an hour. That's partially due to part-count lag, but also an unavoidable ramification of fuel efficiency.

People have landed on wheels, but its very risky because at the speeds involved, even a little bump can send you on a disastrous arcing tumble.

Let's see some screenshots. Are you remembering to turn stability assist on with T before taking off?

That's because there are 5 of the things, and it's hard NOT to bump into one. Ike is so large relative to its orbit that you frequently encounter its SOI as well. But the reason I don't use Mun slingshots is that you have to wait for 2 windows, Mun's and the target planet's, and then it's quite a pain to chart a Mun fly-by that ejects you at the proper angle.

1) The stock planes aren't meant to be great planes, because Squad wants you to be able to make better ones yourself. They're just examples, so don't feel bad if you can't get them to fly well. I've made a couple of airplanes that should be easy to fly, though, which you can find here, if you're interested: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25413-Trainer-and-Example-Aircraft-for-Newbie-Pilots 2) Currently, all the game's guidance systems work to maintain an absolute attitude with reference to the fixed stars. I don't know if any mods do that. Oh, and your other post also showed up. It's just that until you have submitted a total of 5 posts, a moderator has to approve them before they go through, to help make sure you are not a spambot.

When I was experimenting with an orbital ejection seat for emergencies, that happened a couple of times, but only when the chute snapped fully open and hit the guy with umpteen Gs. I fixed it by switching to a smaller chute that didn't jerk as violently. WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING TO THESE ROVERS TO SLAM THEM THAT HARD?

No, it's not an abort. Short of crashing the ship and killing the crew, it's the only way to dispose of a ship and recycle the crew.