phoenix_ca

Did you install this plugin? It's required for the solar panels and ion engine. What I'm curious about is if the Energy resource from that plugin plays well with the one from PowerTech (making parts using either one compatible with each other). Off to muck about with things. Edit: Ooookay, so it seems that nothing using energy is working with this mod. I stuck an ion engine with a battery on the pad and it won't start. Stuck some MMI panels on the platform. Nothing. Stuck some DSM panels on it. Still nothing. Right-clicking the DSM panels shows an energy gain of 3 during the day, but the battery and engine show nada. Both the DSM battery and DSM ion engine read: Battery Power: -1 Overall Power: 0 The part and ship indicators show Energy at 50%. I'm considering slapping PowerTech MuMech code into the cfg files for the DSM modules to get them working.

I've had this happen with other GUI elements added by other plugins, so it's not limited to this mod (I've seen this with MechJeb, ORDA, Orbital Construction, and Warp Clamp). I suggest a restart.

Don't forget to check the Addons subforums here. There are lots and lots of awesome mods buried in there.

Indeed, I do use MechJeb. For any craft that experiences these significant oscillations caused by ASAS, MechJeb's ascent autopilot tends to flip the craft on its nose. (This is rather hilarious, but I'm afraid the hilarity of this problem is starting to wear-off on me. It's probably over-throttling it.) Using Smart A.S.S. with SURF HDG: 90 PIT: 90 holds it on course a little better, but still ends-up being about as wobbly as ASAS. And then it pitches over end-over-end again when I start a gravity turn by adjusting the pitch in Smart A.S.S. That sounds like a nifty trick. I'll have to try that with my next launch. Maybe it'll help. Downside of course being that I have to go all-manual with mental fixation on the ASAS. I'm not good a task-switching on the best of days. Perhaps I should expect a lot of pain and suffering though when the payload I'm trying to launch is about 100-tons. I'm considering an almost ludicrous design where the payload is actually at the bottom and center of the rocket. Not sure of/how that'll work. I guess until they fix ASAS to be less aggressive, long and pointy rockets are the wrong way to go. Well, I've seen those values...but I haven't the faintest idea what they represent. Perhaps you could help in that regard.

This looks lovely. I imagine this will be a very useful tool indeed. Would be nice to see it integrated with MechJeb.

So...what do I do if I want to just get going and use a different phase angle?

My guess would be nothing. The post states that craft carrying the part are subject to re-entry heat, not all spacecraft. I know Squad is planning to add re-entry heat at some point, at which time it'd be a hard-coded part of the game...I would think. Still, this is neat. Might try it out.

Less complex is good. Fewer parts for the engine to deal with means a great deal less wackiness. ...don't suppose you could make a total beast that could put an 80-ton payload into LKO? >.> (Stability could always be enhanced with boosters. Yay, boosters.

Oscillations caused by SAS seem to be the bane of my existence right now. Whenever I use ASAS during launch for particularly large rockets (using NovaPunch, so "large" here means the bottom stage might have a 5m tank and a bunch of booters), the system introduces huge oscillations in the rocket; the whole thing tends to bend around the center of mass. Without enough struts, these oscillations can tear the whole thing in half (usually at the decouplers between stages). So...how does one go about dealing with this? It seems obvious to me that the ASAS code is over-correcting, then over-correcting its over-correction, and back and forth it goes. Should I slap a ton of RCS thrusters and tanks on as well to keep things steady? Or...am I just missing something entirely? I've kinda been using real-world rockets as a rough guide, like the Saturn V and SLS concepts, but maybe this is just totally wrong-headed for KSP.

Patience? You expect us to be patient!? We have planets to explore! Things to do! Muffins to eat on other planets! ... Nah, that's cool. Life and stuff. It can get in the way of important things like KSP. And muffins.

Uhhhhhh...okay, this is already a long thread so forgive me if this has been asked (yes I searched; no, I was not successful...now that I've placated ze internets, moving on). How does one use the RCS tanks? Because any time I stick RCS tanks on lower stages, the tanks from upper stages are drained first. This...isn't helpful. If I want to launch a satellite, if it has RCS tanks on it, they get drained by lower stages, so that when I separate the final stage, the tanks are empty. (Meanwhile, I left behind a bunch of untouched RCS propellant in the larger tanks from the lower stages.) My solution has been to limit usage of RCS thrusters to my final stages, period, but that's going to get awfully annoying, fast, as I try to do more complex things. So...is there a way to reverse this behavior, so that the bottom RCS tanks get drained first?

Oh dear...you know...I'm going to shamelessly use MechJeb for interplanetary transfers. It's not that I don't love math. It's that I don't necessarily want it to get in the way of the hilarity of splattering Kerbals on the side of the new planets.

Yeah. Just look at that specific impulse! It's a thing of beauty, I tells ya. Though NovaPunch has one with even higher Isp. O.o

ManCan, The full file size should be 398 MB. Your download got dropped by the server, and your browser thought it got the whole file. Such things happen when the server one is downloading from is overloaded like this. I suggest you try again. Squad's servers just got wanged, hard. It's not unusual for indie developers to encounter this. Interest in their game may explode because of certain events (in this case, a mob of users trying to get their hands on the juicy new release), and the server gets bogged-down. It's not like it's supported by a big network of backups and alternates like EA. (A similar thing happened at Kerberos Productions when the first SotS suddenly gained a much larger audience because of a spotlight or interview or something...forget what. Their forums were down for several days as a result.) Just wait for things to settle-down. The patcher is new; there are likely to be kinks, not the least of which is the server is hard to reach right now.

Nah, the launch and orbital transfer stages can handle themselves. I stick some sort of normal command module on them. I'm still working-out the fineries of how to use the RC mod correctly to get the desired effect (lone spacecraft that do indeed go out-of-contact when they can't relay a signal back home). Slapping a MechJeb module of any kind on the darn things anywhere seems to make them always-pilotable (please correct me if I'm wrong). Maybe there will be time for that...after I make a launch vehicle that doesn't have such a tendency to explode...either on the pad, or tear itself to pieces later...or wobble into a mess and create impromptu fireworks. (It's kinda silly how much fun I have just watching my not-so-well-laid plains go horribly awry in this game.) Seems my satellites are rather heavy.

Just keep in mind that inclination changes are very costly. If you have a choice, it's better to get to the right inclination in the first place, e.g. establish inclination as part of your ascent. So yeah, burn NORM+ or NORM- , but make sure you do this at the orbital nodes. (Erm, read the article up to the math. No need to bog-yourself down with math in KSP. )

I take it you mean it would be used as a "just in case everything goes to hell and we lose comms because we're dumb and put something on the wrong side of that big rock" satellite? It's an idea, though not sure how much use it'll be if I can get all three comsats in one go.

Heheh. That was amusing. I've only played a few hours total, so to those who say that "everyone" (mistaken reasoning if ever there was) knows how to use struts, well...let's just say things were very interesting before I knew that adding struts to my boosters wouldn't prevent them from decoupling (I mean...it's only logical to think that attaching something with one piece that detaches, and another that doesn't, is rather counter-productive to detaching said thingamajig).

Some of the other missions in that thread are nifty, but I like that there's a bit more formal style to this one... In any case, I'm game for this. (Though note I've played KSP for a grand total of 7 or so hours now...so I'm probably still very lost on specifics of orbital mechanics. Notably, I need to tackle the issue of transfer to Mun and Minmus with target inclination, inclination changes, and positioning geostationary satellites with specific longitude.) COMSTAR Project Project goal: Establish RC (mod) data network that is capable of providing 100% coverage of Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus surfaces and surrounding space. Phase 1: Testing of COMSTAR designs. Phase 1 Progress: 18/09/2012: Development of COMSTAR satellites is necessary, as well as an appropriate payload delivery system. After experimenting with an engine-less RC satellite (COMSTAR-A; it did have RCS thrusters), I found that MechJeb threw a fit and seemed to have no idea what to do. So I'm going to try adding a small ion engine and solar panels. Besides, it'll make it look cooler. Solar panels make everything look cooler. Payload delivery system was initially two-stage with boosters. I'm now considering a Saturn-like liquid-fuel-only design, with probably 3 stages, the goal being to minimize leftover debris that is put into orbit. The final stage that delivers the payload contains an MMI command-doohicky (technical term), allowing it to be moved to the graveyard after deployment. (The satellite itself contains the RC controller units and a MechJeb 9000 for good measure. I need data for my brain to chew on when I'm piloting.) 19/09/2012: Okay, so after a lot of headache and annoyance, I've scrapped the idea of having the comm sats completely RC-based. They've got an MMI satellite command module now. It became infuriating dealing with KSP's staging; decouplers didn't stay where I wanted. The RC bits don't seem to be getting renamed as they should either. Maybe that's something that broke with the 0.17 update. *sigh* Phase 2: Establish Kerbin COMSTAR relay system of geostationary satellites (alt. 2870 km). Why geostationary? Because in my imagined world of Kerbin, those poor sods don't have satellite communications yet. They really could use some satellite TV for entertainment, and space program propa...er...public service announcements. Will consist of 5 satellites in geostationary orbit around Kerbin in a star-pattern...ish. I'm still not clear on the specifics of getting the darn things exactly where I want them in space, but the addition of an ion engine should help matters in that orbit will be correctable later...somewhat. Will try to make the design somewhat realistic, in that any extra (more than one) microwave dishes will have robotic thingamabobs to target them. (No it's not actually necessary. No, I don't really care that it isn't. ) Phase 3: Establish Mun COMSTAR relays. I figure this'll take about three satellites placed fairly high though not so much so that they are recaptured by Kerbin. Preferably, this will have all three satellites in the same launch vehicle, with the single vehicle ferrying each satellite to it's intended position before being ditched into deep space. Then deployment should be as easy as one, two, three...with a lot of maneuvering in-between. (This delivery vehicle might even be of the 1.75-2m variety. Haven't thought that far ahead yet.) Phase 4: Establish Minmus COMSTAR relays. Probably three satellites as well. Similar delivery to Mun relays. I'll ponder this later. Will update this post as things progress. (Yes, I'm a MechWarrior fan.)