Frederf

I'm sure the mathematical optimum is low but my skills enjoy a little margin for error. My current M.O. is to come down at a safe minimum altitude and burn a variable angle profile to maintain constant height to a point in space (PiS) above the landing site and then transition to a hover landing. I budget about 60 seconds * local gravity in deltaV for the landing. I'm sure it's not perfect but it's modular, safe, and reliable. The hardest part is ending the horizontal burn over the desired touchdown point. On the Mun I never have to go vert more than 20 degrees so the steering loss can't be that bad.

Presumably there's a tradeoff between landing engine size and deltaV lost due to lower TWR. A big engine will do a last-second stop beautifully but will take a lot of fuel to pull it off because the engine itself is more massive. Personally I find the limit being in controllability during landing with respect to throttle sensitivity. 10:1 TWR is great to stop be terrible for a gentle touchdown. My fingers are only so precise. This is seat of the pants but for most landings I wouldn't budget more than 10% of the vehicle mass as engine or 5:1 TWR, whichever yields the lesser engine.

Unless your target has rotation... Or your RCS placement isn't perfect... Or your target isn't facing N+/- Or you need to point non parallel to see to maneuver Yeah, no need to switch back and forth.

I think it's a problem because that particular part name has SPPPPAAAAACES in it. @PART[kethane_2m_converter] @PART[MMI.K Converter Medium]

The thing is I need LiquidOxygen which is a resource from Modular Fuel Tanks. The odd thing is after scrapping that my next craft seemed to make LiquidH2 which is also a modded resource (or is it?). The difference was I used the 2m converter in the second design. Sigh, maybe I'll keep the cryogenic fuels only for non-refueling craft. EDIT: Yeah the small converter does 4 types, the big 6... SIIIIIIGH It's a cool gameplay thing, but it would be nice to notice earlier.

I just realized that Kethane converters don't have a way of generating LiquidOxygen resource! What do I do?

Maddening isn't it? It's as if the laws of statistics are invalid because "people not perfect video games."

I've greatly been considering an orbital assembly station, not a resource-warp-done kind but a genuine place to build ships in orbit. Proposed features: 1. Extensive gantry structure 2. Lighting arrays 3. "Walking" type articulated arm(s) to place components 4. Space tug to capture incoming parts and handle anything the arms can't reach 5. Storage nodes to inventory components outside of the assembly area 6. RCS fuel, xenon, etc. small servicing resources 7. Support equipment for above Basically a component is launched on an intercept with the station within the Remotech 2.5km range so a tug remotely commanded can catch it and dock it to a storage node. As the parts are needed arms place them into their final position in the lighted assembly area. Finally fuels are topped off and it's launched.

I just got a huge 60t station and a Kerthane depot in Munar orbit, matched planes, same Pe/Ap, planning the rendezvous and... Oh, they are on different orbits. Eastbound and westbound. ;_; So much deltaV.

Good at: Docking and tugging space station modules. Because: Terrible at planning space station construction. Good at: Rendezvous at night Because: Poor planning Good at: Using RCS efficiently Because: Doesn't bring enough RCS

The answer is that the "drag" stat is "drag ratio." Two parts with drag=1.0 do not have the same aerodynamic drag force in the same atmosphere at the same speed unless they are the same mass.

23km on Kerbin which I believe is some function of the atmospheric scale height.

Electrical generation is about 10X too powerful with respect to electrical usage. You can run a 100MT space station on 4 m^2 of solar panels. rotPower and RCS are too powerful, often to the detriment of effective control. Anything that can arrest rotation should also be able to provide it (SAS). Need more tempting low-gimble or static vector engines. EVA suits should be an upgrade over the standard ladder-n-tether type.

I would be very interested to see scatter plots of various engine models (perhaps as a Compare-o-Tron feature of KSP itself) of Thrust vs Mass, Thrust vs Isp, Isp vs Mass, etc.

Checking in, is FAR+DR still making capsules have practically no drag on reentry still?

The impression that I got was that it might wait for the scheduled event to arrive and then apply the signal delay before the action occurs despite the command being scheduled ages ago. That would be terrible. It seems that's not the case. What is new information is that commands have a sort of "auto compensation" for signal delay insomuch as the "do this X time from now" happens X time after the message is sent, instead of received which makes things easier in most cases.

I don't understand "at the time the signal is supposed to be received." My thought process is this: 12:00PM send message to probe two light minutes away "in 50 minutes, burn for 5 minutes" 12:02PM message is received at probe and stored in memory 12:52PM probe begin burn 12:57PM probe ends burn Notice there is no delay between the scheduled burn (as the probe knows it) and the burn itself.

#1 Nice and awesooome. #2 I don't understand why the computer would wait after the scheduled burn. Surely the programming of the scheduled burn being stored is delayed but the execution is instant. Once the flight computer is programmed that data is local, right? It's not too hard. You have to recognize that the "flight computer" is two largely independent systems. The window titled "Computer" is for attitude control while the window titled "Throttle" is for throttle control. It would be nice if they were labeled as such. Anyway, attitude control has 9 options. Killrot just engages SAS. Pro/Retro/N+/N-/R+/R- point in the usual directions. Maneuver will point at the blue maneuver vector if available. Finally surface allows you to type in specific attitude numbers. The throttle control three main parts: 1. Throttle Power, 0-100% throttle 2. Throttle Duration, clicking the label changes between time or deltaV mode. Value is input as seconds or m/s. 3. Delay input, an optional delay in the HH:MM:SS format. If not entered command is executed immediately. Because the two systems are independent it's possible to burn the correct amount in entirely the wrong direction. The throttle control simple burns as commanded without regard for direction. You must confirm that the desired attitude mode is set and the craft has successfully achieved that attitude.

I'm not sure if this is a feature discovery or not but I set a flight computer scheduled burn on a remote controlled part and I believe (I walked away) that it performed the programmed maneuver despite not being in KSC contact during the actual event. Is this really what happened? If so...cooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool. If not, please aaaaaaaaaaaaadd it!

Try to hover at a low height 1-5m for the count of three and then slightly reduce throttle to sink. On touchdown watch the navball and steer to counter any tipping tendency. Use cut throttle on touchdown to make your landing positive and more stable. Pick as flat a spot as you possible can.

Learning to build and learning to fly are quite tough to do at the same time. 1. Fly a known design. 2. Use capslock to soften the controls 3. Fly without any (A)SAS control 4. Keep the rocket pointed within 5 degrees of the velocity vector on the navball 5. Go up until 10,000m then pitch over about 10 degrees and keep it falling equal to your height (10km=10deg, 20km=20deg, etc. until you are at 90km=90deg) 6. Keep 1.5-3.0G during the ascent 7. Go east. 8. When your Ap on the map is >80km cut engines and wait until Ap to burn sideways. The goal is to start with vertical velocity and end with horizontal velocity. You need vertical to get out of the atmosphere but you want it to go away by the time you're in orbit. At 2200 m/s or so +-5 degrees of the horizon you should be in orbit.

The PID variables control how a part responds to the delta between the desired state and the current state over time. K comes from the german "konstant" and PID are the functions with respect to time: position, sum, and rate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PID_controller To achieve "podtorque" you need rotpower. I believe rotpower is only applicable to command pod class parts/modules.

I really wish so but ASAS, avionics, SAS, etc. are always enabled when attached. There are lots of times when I wish I could disable ASAS and there might be examples when I would want an optional SAS.

SAS parts are a Godsend when used on docking tugs.

Regarding the crash on scene change I had the same problem it was because I had both the original fustek parts and the new ones at the same time. The second I switched to the new ones only the crashing stopped. I'm enjoying these parts immensely except for two small irksome factors: 1. Generator is so powerful and consumes zero resources so feels very cheaty and means my station has no solar panels which just looks wrong. Please make it toggle-able and take some suitable resource. 2. Forced MechJeb is bad. A glue-on part should add MJ optionally. Additionally some kind of "bridge" ladder part could mean that EVAs entirely on ladders would be possible. Everything else about this mod is fantastic.