jayther

I made a space shuttle (vertical launch, horizontal landing mission in this video: ) before they added the big orange tanks and the launching struts. So the "big orange tank" was just a tall stack of fuel tanks and used structural (empty) fuselages to make it stand straight up for launch and broke off at launch.

They're smart, just no regard to the safety of others or themselves. That said, they're adorable.

Clearly, these two will never agree because the points they're making are on different sides of the fence. The main argument here is not playing KSP with a 3-part ship, but with a ship of considerable size and amount of parts. In this particular scenario, _Aramcheck_ is arguing that any computer that meets the recommended specs will show some frame rate problems because of the amount of parts. Meanwhile, SecondGuessing is arguing that a similar computer should not have frame rate problems. Boiling it down to the bases, the points are essentially defining what "normal circumstances" are. _Aramcheck_ believes that a simpler ship is of normal circumstance, while SecondGuessing believes that normal circumstances include large and/or complicated ships. Will SecondGuessing return to argue the original topic or will he continue with personal attacks? Will _Aramcheck_ do the same? Stay tuned!

Here are some names that I used that actually sound nice: MunStalker (orbit Mun) MunWalker (land on Mun) Kerby (plane) Space Penguin (space shuttle)

I saw a live stream of someone making it to the moon and back without instruments, let alone a map. So yes, it's definitely possible.

The key sentence in that email is, 'So if you haven\'t ordered KSP already, these are the final weeks to get the game for 15.00 USD!' If you already have KSP or have ordered it recently, then don\'t worry.

That was just a general comment in fuel efficiency (because when to start tilting determines how much of the thrust is going to the horizontal direction versus how much is going to break through the atmosphere and gravity). It has nothing to do with why your ship is tilting when you\'re going full power. I was just thinking that if you\'re having trouble with smaller designs, having a good approach to get to an orbit is important and one of the key things for some minimalist designs you may have seen. Also, smaller designs have less drag, so that\'s another thing to think about when you\'re make ginormous rockets. Anyway, I did huge rockets before as well when I started. Moar boosters, right? But after achieving orbit for the first time, I tried looking for ways to make the design smaller because there is no way in hell am I going to make it to the moon when I\'m having trouble getting into an orbit with behemoths. I\'ve encountered tilting problems as well with big designs, but sometimes it\'s just the smallest thing (and maybe even some weird random hitch with alignment), so I make the rocket again from scratch and usually it turns out to be stable (and not tilting at launch).

Yeah, that\'s a lot of fuel tanks. You would probably do a lot better with less fuel tanks on that second (middle) stage if you don\'t want to cut out the entire bottom stage and adding control fins aren\'t working for you. Keep in mind that the bottom stage has to carry the fuel tanks in the top stages where the engines are not being used. Less fuel tanks an early stage has to carry, the better (for both fuel efficiency and control). You don\'t need that many SASs. 9 SASs is overkill. You can get rid of the SAS at the bottom and the SAS in the middle below the ASAS. Gotta trim the fat. Also, your approach of how you exit the atmosphere and achieve orbit is important to fuel efficiency.

Are you able to land that space shuttle in the last pic?

They\'re just hanging out on top of the VAB. After an early launch fail and the ship started to go down very early, I aborted and spammed the space bar. I ended up landing on top of the VAB. I accidentally the kerbonauts. Without destroying anything (including the capsule). I was trying to go to the moon, and on the long trip there, I got impatient and timewarped. I didn\'t slow down quick enough, and after about 10 seconds of freezing (I assume going through the moon), the game started going again with the Kermans dead, but with the capsule still intact. I ended the flight, and the log says that NONE of the parts are destroyed, even though they\'ve been stripped off and only the capsule was to be seen.

Ugh, slugs. But I don\'t mind imperial measurements being an option. I don\'t mind it not being added either. I agree with Endeavour that, as an American, pounds as force/weight (and miles as distance, mph for speed, etc.) is more intuitive for me because I grew up with such units. In other words, I know exactly how much 500 pounds of force does, how far a mile is, and how fast 200 MPH is, because I have a sense for those units. Not so much for metric. If I had grew up with a metric system, the metric system would obviously be more intuitive for me and see how stupid imperial units are. x] I\'ve already grown to how far a meter is and how fast m/s in KSP is because I\'ve played it so much, but I still can\'t apply that to real life. Despite 4 years of physics, I still prefer imperial units, and approximate one meter to one yard and one kilogram to 2.2 pounds to get a sense of how far or how heavy stuff are (yes, kilogram is mass, pound is weight, but that\'s how my mind gets a sense of how much mass there are). In either case, I don\'t mind the imperial system option NOT to be added because having two scales will really throw off people, especially when people are teaching others (tutorials or otherwise). I don\'t think I\'d like two kinds of videos about KSP: one in metric, one in imperial. x]

There are crew members named Luke and James in the default crew list, but no Adam.

Hehe thanks! -]

Immediately after launch, I rolled the shuttle so the shuttle\'s back is facing the direction I want to go to, and pitched up slowly (with the SAS (avionics package and normal SAS) and RCS on). The shuttle has the tendency to pitch down, which is why the shuttle\'s back is facing towards the ground (like how real space shuttles actually launch). Even then, I still had to hold the pitch up key to counteract the shuttle\'s tendency to pitch down. If you mean keeping it balanced roll-wise, it\'s really just minor adjustments during takeoff and keeping an eye on the navball. The avionics package helps a lot in keeping it at a steady direction and roll angle while still be influenced by manual control.

That would be nice, to activate certain systems and deactivate others for launching, and vice versa for reentry and landing. You should check out the conversation Ted and I had in my thread: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=14468.0 In short, the usual cause of spinning uncontrollably is reentering at a steep angle. We\'ve found that reentering at a very slight angle helps maintain control of the space plane. Of course this makes aiming for the space center a hundred times harder, but at least you won\'t spin out of control (or in my case sometimes, fly backwards). Also, tapping the SAS key helps stabilize the plane, but only if you\'re not at a steep angle. But yeah, I\'ll have to try that Advanced SAS for landing, hehe.

o.ONew mission for me: land in one of the really deep craters.

Adding decals add 0.2 drag, 3.0 mass, and have vectoring ability. Trufax. I can imagine the Decals will have its own folder where KSP will load from and we will be able to put our own images there. Then again, knowing Unity, this won\'t be a completely easy thing to implement, but I can dream. x] As for stock decals, it would be great if there was just an enormous image of Jebediah as a decal that covers 3 full-size liquid fuel tanks.

Yeah, the never-ending spin is quite annoying. I\'ve found that ASAS (or the Avionics package) tends to do this because it will always try to go back to the original position, but the speed of the spin is so fast that the ASAS sometimes makes it worse (and with Avionics package, it\'s not enough to stop the spin at all). The solution I came up with was with the same trick I use with just rockets, where I tap the SAS key (not the toggle) multiple times so it will gain a new target direction for the ASAS, thus slowing it down at least. Even with this solution, though, if I fall into the atmosphere too steep, I will at least stop the spinning, but it will be stuck flying backwards. This usually happens in my failed launches (I don\'t reach an orbit) where I go down at a steep angle. And yes, I agree with you about reentering with a space-plane. So much time invested only to fail at the end. The last half of the video is just the descent part x]

Hehe yeah, it\'s a lot of eyeing it. This second time I actually positioned the periapsis just before the space center\'s continent behind the mountains at a near 70km height. This was really an educated guess, and it worked out pretty well after a few adjustments when you\'re already in the atmosphere. It\'s pretty nerve-wrecking nevertheless. x] I\'ve gotten used to getting into orbit, but the descent is always tricky with this space shuttle. I\'m always paranoid that if the speed and angle of descent is too fast and steep, the ship will flip and fly backwards (because it has the tendency to do that, and I fail to recover). I\'ve gotten better with the fuel consumption, though, which is always a plus.

That\'s what I did in my space shuttle, except I used a normal SAS on the rocket. I shall try it with an ASAS, as I still have to manually fight against the shuttle\'s tendency to pitch down with the normal SAS.

Hehe, I\'ve done this several times, all on accident (I miss the Mun). This happened in the demo 13.3, though (so no debris persistence). I haven\'t tried to get to the Mun yet since I bought the game. It\'s actually fairly easy...just keep blasting at the periapsis when you\'re orbiting Kerbol until the trajectory line in the orbital map is not circular anymore (just a curved line). Once you escape Kerbol\'s gravity, the Sun\'s gravity takes over. Speaking of which, has anyone managed to go REALLY far from the sun?

Yeah, I\'ve noticed that time warps have some weird effects on your spacecraft. When I\'m still on the launchpad and I timewarp to a high speed (I forgot the exact speed, but it was pretty fast) to get to morning quicker, then I suddenly go to normal (1x) speed, the rocket tips over because of some structural linkage failure. I actually found it a little funny because it looks like the sudden deceleration of Kerbol\'s rotation made the rocket tip over. x]

The title reminds me of a Stargate-esque ascension. x] The first ascent is not good, since you need to use a lot of fuel just to counteract the up movement, and more fuel to go in the direction of the orbit. The third isn\'t good either, since you\'re using fuel to fight against atmospheric drag for a longer distance. Instead of fighting atmospheric drag for 70 km when going straight up or at a slight angle, you\'re fighting 90km of atmospheric drag. Plus, going at that angle, you still have to go upwards. I\'m not sure if the first one is worse than the third one, but my experience is that the first one is worse because you need quite a bit of sideways speed to go in an orbit. At least with the third ascent, you already have a direction going. The second one is probably the best one, since you\'re at a slight angle going up, so you already have some sideways direction going. Also, the gradual climb to the height of the orbit is better than a sharp turn because you gain momentum to go sideways already. Getting up to orbital height is easy; it\'s actually getting into an orbit is a little harder. I\'ve learned that going at a slight angle at launch is good, then start to have a more dramatic angle between 10-15km (I usually start going to 45 degrees at 10km with SAS so it changes the angle slowly). Drag is less of a factor the higher you go up, so you should take advantage of this fact and start going sideways, even if you\'re not completely out of the atmosphere yet.

Here is Spacey 3\'s second successful full flight. Full flight meaning vertical launch, orbit, and horizontally landing on the runway. I posted a thread about Spacey 3\'s first flight, but it was just pictures as I didn\'t actually plan to have a successful flight. x] Also, the video is sort of long (especially the descent part), so you can skip around. -]

That\'s pretty awesome. And those are impressive orbits, and the evenly spaced satellites in the smaller closer orbit is equally as impressive. -]