Volt

Because you missed it above, I must ask again, could you take a look at the OdinLauncher? It seems the two bottom stage fuel tanks are overlapping quite badly. Not a modder, so I couldn\'t tell you what\'s happening, but it makes the rocket extremely unstable till you dispose of that stage.

Yeah, sorry, I screwed up the install. However upon testing the OdinLauncher I found what\'s probably an attachnode bug: The FL-S100L (long 1m tank) and HH-77 collision meshes intersect when they\'re connected together. Not sure which part is screwed up.

Nice video, I\'m jealous of anyone who can get a lander down there with BigTrak or Truck right now. I might actually finally update this week and go through my whole mod clearout to try out the new terrain with the carts. By the way, was the music from Mass Effect?

Let\'s just say I\'d rather it hadn\'t. This is going to be... difficult...

Nope, it no longer works because of the way the new persistence system handles debris. All disconnected bits are currently counted as debris and CANNOT be controlled by staging.

Just a word of advice, it would be a good idea when assessing people\'s ships to add some expanded analysis of how it flies. Just giving the numbers makes it difficult to know what your criteria are and why you\'re giving them good or bad marks. Similar to how I analysed my own aircraft above.

In the version I\'m using (0.7a I think, I need to spring-clean when 14.2 is released) the fuel/mass ratio is 1:200 as opposed to stock\'s 1:300. This basically eliminates the need for lag-machines with in excess of 40 LFT\'s to complete missions. I think it\'s closer to real life, more practical and a lot less finicky.

Not bad, not bad! For my first VTOL back when my building concepts were screwy, too. I hope C7\'s wings don\'t have so many srfattach problems in future. On handling, it IS a little difficult because it\'s actually over-maneuverable; the control surfaces turn too sharply for the lift body and engine to keep up with my vector changing. That causes the sort of \'pulsating\' turning trend you might have noticed on sharp turns. I think the only solution to that is to reduce maneuverability or mass, neither of which are practical. Also I can\'t remember very well but I think because of its high mass the thing liked to tip stall in very sharp, long turns at low thrust. Any detailed input is appreciated so I can improve my building techniques in anticipation of C7AD and the new wings.

Updated my post with my .craft. I\'m happy with how the War Dove flies without ASAS or SMASS, but it\'s still worth using the SMASS particularly for smooth straight flight.

This is the War Dove VTOL, an adaptation of my old first massive-wing aircraft. Uses the old C7 engine sadly. I\'ll get a weaponised version and .craft up soon, but in a rush now. The aircraft can stop dead in mid-flight then lower down to the ground. It can have handling problems in the last seconds before landing when the angle of airflow against the control surfaces is near 90 degrees. Best solution is to dive in low before you fire the retros. Edit: .craft below. Drat. I couldn\'t weaponize at all because the only area for weapons would be those huge wings but for some reason NO wing-attach pylons work with the MASSWP01. I also tried the HSTW Drone but the 0.14 update has stopped that from activating after it\'s released. I reckon this could carry, say, 2 or 4 railguns with 2 modular missiles on the side. Maybe if you added the mk2 bi-coupler with an extra engine, since the shells for the railguns really stack up in terms of mass right now. Still, this is the non-weaponised version. Requires C7, not sure whether anything from the new pack but I guess you have it anyway. Controls: Translate \'back\' (I think, I use numpad for RCS trans) for sharp deceleration. WATCH IT! You will end up going backwards with no RCS fuel if you\'re not careful. Translate \'up\' (again I think) for VTOL thrusters. Try to maintain some forward velocity as you drop, otherwise the aforementioned screwed up control surface magic happens. This thing used to be able to CTOL, but it seems 0.14 broke that too; it now snaps in the middle when the front landing strut hits the ground. Try it. P.S. This flies well with MechJeb \'KillRot\'

If it works anything like my unfortunate findings with Retro Thrusters, as of 0.14 this has become (temporarily) impossible. There used to be a function in the part.cfg file - activatesEvenIfDisconnected = true/false - that allowed parts to activate even if in a stage during or after their decoupling. In 0.14 I found that due to the way persistence works it\'s not possible to do this; the string no longer does anything. The only thing I can suggest is that you put the parachute in a stage just before decoupling and activate it very rapidly. Might result in spiralling catherine wheels of doom where your ascent stage used to be, however.

Good god. All the Farside projects so far have blown me away. I wish I had your design and piloting skill and perseverance.

This is incredible. This man has it spot on. I will not write much, because I\'ll end up rambling and ranting, but I wish you guys luck with your petition as pessimistic as I am about the US and EU governments. If people like Neil can galvanize just a tiny portion of the people with the resources to revive the space program, we might still see colonization in our lifetimes. If it ultimately fails, we can still turn to Asia. Never forget the country with more people of \'Genius\' IQ than there are people in Britain. We\'re guilty of being suspicious or just apprehensive of the Chinese and Indians because they\'re different, and their development was behind ours. But they have the muscle power and their people are still, to some extent, behind it.

Yeah, the split-ailerons look like something that would work fairly well in KSP. You don\'t really have to simulate loss of lift perfectly at this time - I\'m sure Harv will include realistic airbrakes in a speculated spaceplane-centric update. All we can really do using this plugin is simulate an increased drag, and then see what that does to the behaviour of the plane. It\'ll be as sketchy as the current wing system, but it\'s something. Not sure how we could integrate an animation into it, though.

Well, I\'m a bit of a spaceplane freak. Ever since I was testing the drone for Tosh I\'ve been wanting to get some airbrakes so I could actually have some control over the speed of my planes, particularly when following something else in the air or bombing. I don\'t know how it would work; the only airbrakes I\'ve encountered IRL are in the Vigilant T1 - they\'re literally little blocks that pop up out of the wing perpendicular to the airflow. IDK how they would work on a C7 plane, but I\'d guess it would be more likely like the sort of airbrakes you get on large aircraft. And guess what, I have no idea how those work. Good luck if you want to create airbrakes for normal spacecraft, though!

Oh yeah, now we can make foldable aerobraking \'sails\' like that recent Mars lander... Why is my memory like a sieve?

Turning on/off drag... combined with animation... AIRBRAKES?!

Missile launched LAVs. Full of win.

Retro thrusters would have done in previous versions. Sadly, ActivatesEvenIfDisconnected = True is now defunct despite still being just as useful ingame.

My main issue with Munar transfer right now is indeed being off the ecliptic by a LOT. My inclination if I burn using the horizon method tends to be screwed up because I always end up in a direct descent and have to burn perpendicular. Without any autopilot or an orbital plane indicator, it\'s almost impossible to keep that 0 degree inclination. That\'s my main worry when it comes to my Munar missions - I\'m planning 1 more landing mission with the pod I posted before I land a third then attempt to rendezvous with a manned mission; Surveyor 3 and X craft (<--- gold star to the first person to work out which craft X craft is.) Not being able to change my plane is going to make rendezvous using a large lander quite difficult. Edit: Ooh, it seems ROUGH plane change maneuvers are quite easy once you work out where your Normal+ and Normal- are. I just managed to get Surveyor II to tap Surveyor I after landing 8km to the south. Might be a bit more difficult with a Manned Lander because there\'ll only really be one direction of thrust instead of the 6 made available by RCS. In fact, with my flying skill it might be impossible... Note that you should probably avoid landing at night at all costs. The whole process of landing and rendezvous was made much more nerve-wracking by the total lack of sunlight... so much that I took this picture after a whole half-orbit of darkness just to signify the blessing that the return of the sun was to me...

Launch over the sea to a \'parking\' altitude. That\'s anywhere outside the atmosphere, 70,000m or 1 million metres, it doesn\'t matter. Depends how much fuel you want to waste. (lower is better, obviously.) Make sure you get an orbit - it doesn\'t have to be particularly circular, just within reason and the Apses (Ap, Pe) should be above 70,000m (150,000 for 50x warp). Then go into time warp, making sure if your rocket\'s attitude is somewhat close to your prograde vector. (Green circle with 3 lines coming off it and NO X inside, this should only be an issue if you have a fairly large or hard to control rocket like my standard Mun rocket). Watch while in time warp (I advise no higher than 50x) until the Mun has appeared over the curve of Kerbin, then burn at the prograde vector I mentioned earlier. Your Apoapsis (Ap) will begin to move, across and up. It should settle at around 70-90 degrees ahead of the Mun. Burn until you have an Ap of 11,000,000 to 12,000,000. You\'ll then be on an intercept course. If your intercept is successful, your sphere of influence will change to the Mun, indicated by a rapid shift in all instrument data. On the orbital map, you should now have a green line, a parabolic orbit, going towards the Mun. Ideally, if you have a periapsis, wait until here then burn retrograde (the same icon as Prograde but with an X) Until you get an Apoapsis and lower that down to your intended orbit. There you go, a Mun orbit. If any of this is inaccurate/doesn\'t make sense, please let me know. Proof that this method works: I just used this method to get to the Mun; this is the only method I ever use. Also, the probe here is excellent for landing practice. I had an NP mid-length 1m tank and the medium power NP 1m engine under it, decoupled at about 5m/s and 1500m alt. Don\'t expect to return home in it, though. It\'s worth noting that using this method, you sometimes end up with an orbit that intersects the Mun. This means you\'re going to go boom if you keep going on it. My solution to that is to point at the triad with the dot on the navball (retrograde vector to KSC I think), turn 90 degrees, then burn across. This gave me a Pe in a few seconds.

Do you have an older version of NP? I do, and I had to change my parachute drag from 55 to 70 due to some changes in terrain/impact calculations that would occasionally kill a crew at just-below-\'safe\' speed. I don\'t know whether Tiberion changed the parachute drag in a later update because I think I\'m still on 0.7. Also make sure you weren\'t in 2x warp. That\'s a death sentence for your brave Kerbals.

Would be handy if you could allow access to the key binding to change it, in a .cfg or something. Would that be difficult?

Considering my want for bigger, cooler explosions.. looks good to me.

Recent events have given me a massive craving for more \'surprises\'... gimme