Frederf

I've found a workaround for FAR+DR. I put a decoupler in between the shield and pod so I can quickly switch to drag mode after the burny stops enough to get slow enough for the usual drogue/mains arrest.

Yes, definately FAR's reduction in drag causing my hot-butter-knife style reentries. Heating and cooling along with thermal transfer between parts would make an excellent subject for a mod, hopefully from an author that doesn't mind losing their hair by pulling it out. It sounds like a tall order.

I'm hitting a wall (named Kerbin) trying to manage a reentry that manages to get slow enough for even a drogue deployment before getting too low in altitude. I've tried even a powered correction to maintain 30-40km artificially long, using canted capsule lift, and other such tricks without success. The only thing I can think of is to travel very fast and bury into the atmo deep enough so that the exit trajectory in a climb will mean I can decelerate going up and then back down. I doubt how survivable that is though. I probably just need to cfg edit myself a lower drag drogue that isn't 20G at mach 2 or so.

Shallow was interesting. My ablative shield was totally used up and the heat began to rise but did not exceed structural. I am trying to use a drogue-main chute pair but the default drogue doesn't want to stay on. Using capsule for lift is definately something I am trying but even at 25 AoA the lift is poor. If I came in steeper I might be able to use the extra speed-lift to climb but it would be harder to arrest the dive. I'm a bit surprised that pointy-end isn't a stable attitude which is useful but not realistic re Apollo.

The sliders sound good. Fine control is sorely lacking in most of KSP. Curious if the RCS balancer takes into consideration pod torque. Does CRCS synergize with ASAS well?

I just tried DR2.2f and while that's what I wanted to do it turns out that (perhaps with FAR?) waiting for Mach 1.0 basically means waiting until after impact which is a little late for parachutes. I used to get down to 200 m/s at 5,000m or more which was a good time to pop chute. Now I'm practically impacting at 400. I need to rework my post reentry recovery procedure.

One of the primary reasons I use Hydrotech RCS is because it has an RCS scaling "throttle." Another excellent feature is that it's able to apply RCS thrust continuously and/or via main throttle. If you were to adopt these I think it would help the overall goal of the mod (more RCS control) and save me having so many darn mods. Basically I think RCS is crazy powerful and it becomes a chore to keep my impulses small during maneuvers. Having the RCS balanced, throttled, and toggle/momentary switchable would be the perfect storm of RCS control mods.

I've recently waited until < M1.0 to deploy chutes. I used to "prime" them but the deceleration was too high and it's just kinda suboptimal all around. I wish I could set automatic chute deployment armings. Oh well off to the mod suggestion forum.

I have a few modulemanager type mods and they all include a version of the plugin which is suboptimal for a number of reasons: 1. JSGME considers the overlap co-dependency 2. It's difficult to tell what version is applied at any moment 3. dll version changes based on what mods are installed I don't know the ideal solution but a "MM required" note and a link to where to get the latest dll outperforms including the dll in the release I think. So far I've always opted not to use the included MM dll in any MM-enabled package and keep a separate mod folder for just MM dll and try to keep that latest (with mixed success).

The delta-v charts are almost assuredly made with the following assumptions: 1. Piecemeal calculations from all intermediary states. 2. No gravity assists or aerobraking. 3. Hohman transfers. 4. Ideal transfer angles. 5. Instantaneous impulses. 6. Minimum or average inclinations. I'm curious what exactly the math is that the people used to derive these charts.

Prograde is an adjective. Etymology for its antonym is here: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=retrograde&allowed_in_frame=0 Anyone who says that the meaning of "go forward" is specific to a certain context is too isolated within a convention. There are plenty of these conventions where longer phrases are abbreviated to shorter ones where the explicit meaning of the wording gives way to implicit meaning. The implied meaning is totally dependent that all members share the same convention of abbreviation. When differing or non-participating groups interact you get confusions over assumed meanings of words such as this one. Hopefully any critical situation would sort out the exact meanings of words or not rely on ambiguous phrasing. Very costly calamities have resulted from ignoring such advice historically.

I've taken to naming them "01 Skyscratcher" and "02 Munzor" and so on so my space program is in numerical order, each craft building off the last. I rarely reuse a craft, maybe for multi ident remotetech sat launches.

I like to think of Oberth as the efficiency of accelerating while fast. If kinetic energy is proportional to v^2 (and it is) then the energy by going from speed v to v+1 depends on the value of v. Going from speed 999 to 1000 gives double the energy as going from speed 499 to 500. Try the math. Compare 2^2 - 1^2 and 3^2 - 2^2 and 4^2 - 3^2 and so on. However both take one deltaV worth of fuel so if you're going to spend fuel you want to be going fast when you do. The best way to go fast is to jump off a tall building which in orbital terms means to fall as close as possible to a massive body, converting the potential energy of gravity into speed. Being high and slow does you no good since the potential energy of being up high doesn't affect your fuel efficiency. The reverse is true. Scrubbing off kinetic energy is best done fast because every quantity of reduction in speed equates to more kinetic energy lost. It may seem like there's less speed to lose at a higher orbit but even at 0 m/s you still have all that potential energy which is going to turn into KE if you try to land. If come in with 1000m/s excess orbital energy and you don't care about landing then a high orbit is fine. You still have to blow off some steam though so it's better to flyby the target close, burn just so you are captured and then let yourself drift to outer orbit before circularizing. If you can burn while fast it's always better.

Getting back on track about calculating LPs: the various types depend on the orbits and masses of the two bodies. LPs are where the effective force on the body is zero which is where the first derivative (i.e. gradient) of the potential is zero. The potential is a sum of gravity which is real and centrifugal effects which are because the system is in an accelerated (rotating) reference frame. L1 is perhaps easiest. Objects orbit massive bodies faster than less massive bodies. Having a mass partially canceling the primary orbiting mass serves the same purpose as having the primary mass reduced. Far from the "lifter mass" the effect is less. Near to the "lifter mass" the effect is greater. For a given primary and lifter mass (really, just their ratio) there is only one spot a certain distance between them where the slowing effect caused by the lifter mass causes a test object to orbit at the same rate as the lifter mass. This is the L1 point. It turns out to be fractionally the cube root of one third times the mass ratio to first order approximation. The derivation is a little annoying but not too difficult. You start with an arbitrary point between the two bodies and write an expression for it's orbital angular speed as a function of it's position between the two masses and then constrain that angular speed to be the same as the second body. L2 is just like L1 but instead of having to orbit slower due to being closer, it has to orbit faster because it is farther. The alignment of the two bodies on one side of the L2 point causes an increased mass and speeds up the orbit sufficiently so it keeps pace with the alignment of the two bodies. L3 is very similar to L2 being more distant than normal being sped up by the fact that both bodies are on the same side of L3 but simply reversed in order which one is closer. L4 and L5 are a pair. L4/5 can be seen as three objects having circular orbits around a common center of mass. Being equidistant from the other two masses, L4/5 orbits the CoM due to the bias of the differing masses at equal distances. Orbiting the CoM is what ensures invariance and a stable orbit. The proof of the triangle of the L4/5 and the two bodies being an equilateral triangle is beyond me to describe simply.

I get that too with the LED light from Salyut space station parts from that one mod.

It's only useful in a small number of cases. Basically the Mun has an orbit velocity which is X m/s too much lateral speed if you were at the Ap of an orbit around Kerbin at the orbital radius of the Mun. Leaving the Mun's SOI with ~0 m/s relative (which takes some dV from a LMO) still produces an orbit around Kerbin that doesn't capture which requires additional dV depending on where you want to capture in Kerbin's atmosphere. The interesting data I think is where in position angle to burn for various dVs such that your escape vector from the Mun is exactly retrograde to its orbit. Low dVs will require you burn earlier in the escape than higher ones.

Any chance of a MM Modular Fuel Tank cfg for MM?

I've been calling it Kerbol too but I don't like it. It needs a name that is not confusing but properly KSP-ized. Kol? I know the K-words are passe but I would be much happier calling it Kol than Kerbol or Sun.

Some people are getting the genuine (rsync?) updater to work like Dizzle. It seems to not fail completely, just fails to do a certain step partially into the process. I don't even consider the redirect to the KSP site an updater at all

I'm no veteran. Every day I feel like a brand new player despite those being many days.

Patcher springs up after running the KSP.exe for the first time. My patcher can never sync to the online repository.

Yeah I realized post-posting that earth-moon and earth-mars dynamics are different. I didn't know if that made free return with significant gravity braking more or less possible. My gut feeling is that gravity assist is usable in the Duna scenario for some benefit. It certainly would improve the usefulness of a cycler if you didn't have to get off the taxi on the edge of the body's SOI.

My preferred free return trajectory makes use of gravitational braking. The benefit is that if the craft or a portion thereof wants to capture it may do so making efficient use of the Oberth effect. Skimming the SOI of the target body avoids the complication of gravitational assist (or de-assist) but misses on the benefits available. This is the classic Apollo style profile that swings around the target body (Moon) and has its trajectory bent back toward the origin (Earth) right down the atmospheric corridor if one can be that precise.

Perhaps something highly eccentric or inclined or both like Pluto. Maybe comets? Asteroid belts?

I like these forums. It doesn't seem people are so fanatical to be venomous to criticism. Everyone seems so positive and even disagreements which come naturally with passionate subject matter are treated lightly. The creators have humility so there is friendly understanding between the crowd and creators despite development tension. Most seem simply too busy creating, sharing, exploring, and helping to get side tracked building forum egos or stirring cloistered trouble. Any inciting incidents seem to be absorbed in a thick cushion of positivism that allows the little firecrackers of human nature to detonate and resolve harmlessly. I could think of a half dozen communities right away that could use a dose of what KSP has.