kujuman

Yeah, this debate is hard to develop a simple answer for (which is why it constantly rages ) because it's very hard to develop a single set of assumptions. Riding the border of terminal velocity makes sense for the straight up portion of the launch, which in stock may be 5-15km depending on TWR. In NEAR/FAR this portion might be...200m tall? And you're probably (hopefully) not getting to terminal velocity that quickly. In stock, terminal velocity is attitude independent, but in NEAR/FAR craft orientation is a consideration. Too much dynamic pressure may make control of the rocket impossible (either too stable or too unstable), or your rocket may disintegrate; an "optimal TWR" rocket which can't control itself through launch or breaks apart isn't optimal Then there's the question of TWR when? Asking for optimal initial TWR based on initial conditions is pretty unhelpful as stages have differing average TWRs, differing extremes of those TWRs, and different burn times. Also, with engines becoming more fuel efficient higher up, saving reaction mass for later in launch by not having a high initial TWR may allow you to develop more total delta-V, even if it costs more delta-V to perform this maneuver. The "best" TWR for a launcher in stock is relatively similar because the atmo model leaves launch profiles to be pretty consistent. In FAR there are more variables to factor in, and there are concerns outside of pure fuel savings. Besides, in FAR, drag losses are very small, so even a pretty "unoptimized" TWR and launch profile (for minimizing drag losses) isn't going to cost that much. And Kraken help you if you're also trying to figure out an optimal launcher in career mode, having to pay for things...

I'm not sure what you mean by integrate it. It should work with those mods just fine.

This is a symptom of spaceplanes in general. Anything you can launch in one is probably better launched on a regular rocket. When we get the larger bays people will then ask why use them, since they can be better launched on a stack (this doesn't hold for specialty delicate payloads, where a bay provides much better opportunity for supporting it). Almost like the real world tradeoffs

I'll use the smallest cargo bay to hold bits of my spacecraft that I think are ugly to just attach. Solar panels, batteries, life support containers, extra monoprop, large antenna, science equipment, etc. So even if I don't have a "payload" bay, I will always attach an equipment bay to spaceplanes.

Yes, as stated the f just indicates it's a floating point number. My guess for force is 2kN, not sure what units torque uses, but maybe 2kN*m? A set acceleration doesn't fit the empirical experience since lower mass ships seem to be affected by the magnetic force more.

Pre- 0.21: SAS were ONLY reaction wheels ASAS were ONLY heading hold computers Vessels needed ASAS to have heading hold, but did not need more than one ASAS part ASAS was a "hard-hold": it would not allow any manual control inputs, requiring unlocking and locking The ASAS would waste RCS like crazy The ASAS would maintain exactly the heading you wanted, but would oscillate pretty badly on some craft trying to do so Post- 0.21 ASAS functionality was added to all command pods and probe cores ASAS parts changed to act as SAS (torque wheels) ASAS logic vastly improved by: Allowing a player to control one axis while holding the others steady, a "soft-hold" Being much less likely to "hunt" for the correct direction, no longer wasting RCS like crazy It sounds like post- 0.90 All probe cores will provide post-0.21 ASAS functionality. So if you want to fly a vessel with no pilot (maybe just a scientist) you can add a probe core to get ASAS functionality. The only kerbonauts that can provide ASAS are "pilots" Any "pilot" will give standard ASAS Improved probe cores and pilots give access to new heading select modes What we don't know Are kerbals ever not in a class? IE, is there some generic "recruit" who does not have any class? Does the player choose what class the kerbals will each belong to, or is it randomly assigned, like the traits are? Can a player change/add to a kerbal's class? Can a pilot also be a scientist? Could a player change an advanced pilot into a basic scientist?

the KIA screen is pretty old, I don't remember the version in which it was replaced by the kerbal portraits being removed (maybe .16-.21?). It still creeps in every now and then :/

Seems to work fine in 0.25.0 32-bit

Tough != hard. Besides, your argument is then that SAS is useless (for you) anyway, not just with the existence of the timewarp rotation stopping. If landing isn't hard without SAS, then you probably don't need it at all. So for you it'd be pointless to include SAS, just as it is to remove it. In which case, SQUAD should not be developing for you, but for the typical players, players for whom SAS is important (hence all of the backlash of SAS being removed). Using http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/85990-0-23-5-Persistent-Momentum-1-0-%2814-July%29 or http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/67821-Timewarp-Rotation-Fix ? They both work the same way, only slightly differently in how they save/load. Cybutek's mod seems to work bug free on 32-bit. No reason to believe SQUAD couldn't fix any residual bugs since they have the source.

Eh, bothers rather than finds. It's super easy, but just not very high priority. There's at least one mod that does it. And no, it's not pointless. Landing without any SAS is tough, landing an asymmetric ship without SAS is very tough, and timewarp tricks won't help a whole lot very near the ground.

And this reply is to all similar comments... Have none of you memory of (not even that) old versions of KSP? It used to be that you had reaction wheels (SAS) and heading hold (ASAS) as separate parts. So if you wanted to have control, you needed to add an ASAS, otherwise it was manual flying (read: spin stabilization). The ASAS was pretty heavy, 800 kg, so you'd typically have it on launchers and maybe landers, but not on the ascent stage, for both dV reasons and size. ASAS functionality was added to the pods in .21 when the SAS was rewritten, so not even that long ago. Ever wonder why the 2.5m ASAS unit doesn't have wheels modeled in it? Because it was just a computer when it was introduced in .18! But .21 made that redundant, so it got torque added. It took something out of the "game"...we no longer had to balance having extra mass of an ASAS vs manually controlling the vessel, and there were times you'd forgo the ASAS. Easy mode. In sum, get off my lawn, suck it up, learn to fly manually (like many astronauts did in Mercury and Gemini and I assume early Soviet vehicles), and quit complaining

That's great! Thanks for doing that.

0.7 Alpha released. Not tested enough for general release. See the thread here.

Quick update: 0.7 Alpha is now on KerbalStuff It's not meant to be a general release as it may have some bugs in it still. If you download to test it, please give some feedback https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/384/Advanced%20Solid%20Rocket%20Boosters

I've seen CKAN, but I've never used it, so I'm not familiar with how to use it. If you can make it work though feel free to do it. If you need me to update something let me know how to do it and I will.

Don't forget maneuver nodes in .18. And close approach indicators in the map. And engine fairings. And vessel types/renaming vessels. And the science parts. And the crewtank. And action groups. And air intakes. And lights. I'm super hyped for the new editor in .90 (I spend about 1/3 of my play time in it), but at this point it's very hard for me to believe that the rest of .90 will come close to .18. Although, the new strut and fuel line modules may solve the most annoying of editor bugs. And that alone is worth the hype.

It's pretty doable. People did it before tweakables even. Can't find the earliest video I'd seen though.

I don't think throttle is really the right word based on what a throttle is, but as has been stated, SRBs can have a preset thrust profile (technically it's a preset burn profile). There's at least one other (aside from AdvSRBs) mod I'm aware of that allows configurable SRB throttling. Actually...throttling SRBs a bit in stock KSP might be a reasonable compromise for realism/simplicity: set minimum thrust to 80% and maximum to 100% so the player will not be able to shutdown the engine but still give some control of the thrust. Not perfect, not too bad though. On the OP, there is the question of the throttle down before separation...this is a necessary physical constraint. The entire booster "fuel tank" is also the combustion chamber, so it is many orders of magnitude larger than a LF combustion chamber. The SRB propellant burns and increases pressure inside of the combustion chamber: all else equal, the higher the pressure, the higher the Isp and therefore thrust. Pressure takes some time to build up (not very long) and even if the fuel burn rate instantaneously drops from 100% to 0%, there is still pressure and propellant mass in the chamber. This gas takes some time to equalize pressure with the other side of the nozzle and during this lag there is still residual thrust being produced. This same effect happens in a LF engine, but the small chamber volume requires much less time to equalize pressure. The shuttle SRBs were commanded to separate when the chamber pressure got below some set amount (I think 50 PSI?), not by time or anything else.

Are you using 0.4.3 or one of the 0.5 release candidates? It's supposed to be more persistent in 0.5

Back in .16 or .17 or something, there was a mod that slowed down time when there were a lot of parts, and this feature became stock. I imagine that since that was possible, what you suggest is possible.

From my testing long ago starting AdvSRBs (which actually features a floatcurve editor in game), two points defining a curve with no tangents specified form a line. I recall having some trouble getting the game to see 0 tangents as 0s, sometimes it would ignore them and just create a line anyway :/

Great, thanks!

I just found out that I can assign Structure On and Structure Off to action groups for both the Water Tank and the Water Purifier (from the TAC pack) and the action groups work in flight. I tested the other wedges I have (KAS and base pack) and none of them appear to have this...feature. Presumably this is a bug.

I haven't been but to Mun lately. But there at least my flags point the wrong way. I just tried facing North, then East, then South, then West, and every time the kerbal would turn before planting the flag so that it ended up facing the wrong way.

Hi, For the past few versions at least, it seems that all of the flags I place on EVA end up parallel with the rays of the sun, so that the flat side of the flag doesn't get illuminated. My kerbals always seem to rotate about to plant the flag in the only direction I don't want them too. Is there some secret logic for getting the flags to plant in the orientation you want? P.S. I typically land near the equator. I think this has some impact on the orientation (maybe it's always East-West?), but I'm not going to incline my orbit just to partly illuminate the flag. I may have to end up bringing extra lights with me to illuminate the flag -kujuman PPS-Planting a flag in "Orbital" camera mode explodes the flag and spams nullrefs, so you have to restart before your kerbals will respond :/