frenchie16

Except that due to the behavior of transmitters (with unlimited-length queues so that you can spam experiments), speed really doesn't matter. Power consumption matters somewhat more (especially with probes) but with solar panels, even that isn't a huge deal, so it's really down to just mass. Also, it makes no sense that a "high-gain" antenna (which the description of the fancy dish-shaped one claims it is) would require more power to transmit the same data. A high-gain antenna requires LESS power, because the gain is higher.

Sounds like it's keeping the same resolution, but the problem is when you go to windowed, the button goes off the bottom of your screen (since the window is the size of your screen, but the menu and title bars need to go above it). Either switch to a lower resolution, or go back to fullscreen when you need to spend science points, I guess?

There's a lot of weirdness with antennas. For one thing, unless I'm reading the specs wrong, the antennas get progressively worse in terms of electricity usage as well. They all have the same packet size, but the intermediate antenna uses 15 electric charge per packet, and the advanced one uses 20 (the basic is 10). This means the basic is the most efficient...? Second, you can enqueue as many experiments to transmit as you want, and the antenna will work its way through them. This essentially means that you can do something like spam an experiment while passing through Duna's upper atmosphere, choosing to transmit every time, and then once you've landed, sit on the ground with solar panels out and warp until transmissions complete, thus getting nearly all of the available science for that experiment in Duna's upper atmostphere with a single brief flight through it and a single experiment part. Finally, the time it takes to transmit seems to be unaffected by warp. This is kinda minor compared to the above, but weird...

Duna return: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/22923-Kerbal-Panic-II-%28Stock-Duna-Return%29 Capable of Mun and Duna return missions (probably Ike and Minmus too). Separate ascent and descent stages (so you can leave something on the surface).

After a long time spent not playing KSP, I went back to playing KSP! And suddenly planets! And I knew I had to go to them. But first I had to get back to the Mun. And seeing that the stock parts were now many and varied, I decided to use them. I found getting to the Mun to be much harder than back when I used to play. Probably this is because I refuse to build a Mun rocket which does not do two things: 1. Look like a rocket (no un-capped fuel tanks or other silliness) 2. Leave behind its descent stage on the Munar surface In any case I eventually managed it, in a rocket dubbed the Kerbal Panic I (a play on Kernel Panic; all of my rockets being named after computer errors on this save). And then I accidentally erased the save. So here is the Kerbal Panic II. It is capable not only of a Mun return mission, but a Duna return as well (and quite probably Ike, Minmus, and others, though I have not done this yet). On the pad: <img src="http://i.imgur.com/TBq4I.jpg" /> Landed on Duna: <img src="http://i.imgur.com/L0Ios.jpg" /> The .craft file is attached. How to fly: Launch at full throttle. I recommend using a joystick and leaving SAS off, as this will be gentler on the rocket. It sometimes explodes (the capsule's usually fine, though.) By the end of the first stage you should be tipped over about 45 degrees. Start the second stage and aim at the horizon (SAS works well from now on). Keep an eye on your apoapsis and remember it will go up as you burn horizontally. The second stage doesn't last long, start the nuclear engines and burn horizontally until you are in orbit. From here, you can do whatever sort of transfer you want to get where you are going. I was able to make Mun orbit with at least a quarter of the nuclear stage's fuel left. I was able to do the same for Duna by using aerobraking to achieve orbit. Landing: For the Mun, reduce your orbit until you will hit the surface. Start a retrograde burn around 25km out until your velocity is <100m/s. Switch to IVA and keep your velocity at 100m/s (burning dead retrograde) until you start to see things on the radar altimeter. Keep velocity at 100m/s until the needle hits 6-o-clock and then burn full retrograde until your velocity is below 10m/s and you are just above the surface. Switch out of IVA and land. Remember to kill your engines JUST above the surface or else you will tip over. For landing on Duna or returning to Kerbin, you are on your own; it's fairly easy, except that there is only just enough fuel for a Duna return in the ascent stage; you'll need to aerobrake to avoid escaping Kerbin. Also, this craft lacks RCS. It works fine without it, but RCS would make a lot of things easier. I may try a mod that adds small external RCS tanks like Silisko Edition had; I can't find a good place for the normal ones on the rocket. The lack of SAS on later stages is also annoying, though less so than the lack of RCS.

Am I the only one who can\'t figure out how to make the Silisko Edition 2 fairing panels actually eject? Neither activating the panels themselves nor the decopuler they attach to seems to work. Does anyone know what I\'m doing wrong?

Twilight Sparkle is best poni.

Landed on the VAB. I only used RCS though, which I feel like is kind of cheating.

On Kerbin or the Mun? Does it matter?

'At least [they\'re] alive' Meaning the kermans landed safely but have no means of returning and (if you use your imagination) limited life support.

Not all of them. There is a reason the fairings are called 'engine fairings', as they work very nicely for covering up the smaller 2m engine when it is used on upper stages. I have used that engine and a 2m tank on many of my Mun rockets as my Kerbin-departure stage and taken it with me to Mun orbit.

If you are very careful you can get them to fit when on a small tank. You have a bit of wiggle room between radial connection points where you can slide the lander 'into' or 'out of' the fuel tank, just a little bit. If you do it just right you can use them with fairings on a small tank. Also, possibly mounting them 45 degrees from usual might help? (Speaking of, I am loving the ability to place objects with 4-symmetry at 16 different positions rather than 12, it allows much more freedom in rocket design. Anyone know whether that was KSP SE 0.8 0.7 [oops] or KSP0.12x3?

Mine use to drain the yellow radial tanks before anything. It was fixed either by 0.12x3 or by putting the radial tanks on a fuel tank instead of a decoupler. Not sure which.

Properly-yes, as of the latest experimental, although for me (and at least a few others) they used to drain before any other tanks no matter where they were located. Symmetrically-no, but as of right now they don\'t lose mass as they drain so as to not destabilize your rocket.

I am quite excited for 0.7. seems like you\'ve got the balance just right for some really fun Mun rockets, and I\'m loving the fit-in-fairingness of those lander legs, even if they may make my generally quite tall two-stage landers a bit iffy.

Out of curiosity, how many people actually have separate ascent and descent stages? So far I\'ve only done separate stages, but a lot of people seem to be having more luck with combined single-stage landers. There is something wonderful about leaving the descent stage sitting on the surface of the Mun, though...

WHAT I meant this as a joke, but somehow I knew people would find a way... I can\'t even get it into space, personally. ;P Seriously, that is incredibly impressive. Congrats, Ronox and NonWonderDog.

I have had no trouble really with 2m rockets. In my experience, the first stage (plus boosters) gets me to perhaps around 40km, but with enough speed that my apogee is above the atmosphere, so I just wait until then before burning the second stage to enter orbit. Occasionally I need to use just a bit of the second stage\'s fuel to raise my apogee, but it generally works fine. Not sure what the fuss is about. On the other hand, you can reach orbit with an RCS-only vehicle entirely too easily with that new service module.

Not really. SAS doesn\'t respond to user input, and only applies force at the position of the SAS part itself. So, yes, it adds more 'control points' (if I understand your use of that term correctly), but it also doesn\'t use other control points and is much better tuned so that it doesn\'t simply oscillate from full-left to full-right. For instance, with SAS on a rocket with gimbaling engines, articulated fins, and RCS, the only forces that will be applied when you aren\'t giving the rocket any control input are at the SAS part itself, and at the command pod (and the forces at the command pod are miniscule since its SAS only dampens rotation). However, the same rocket with ASAS on will be applying the maximum amount of torque the rocket can apply through all of its control devices, wildly oscillating back and forth. Even the command pod will now be applying much more torque, since its internal SAS DOES respond to user, and therefore ASAS, input. A better-tuned ASAS would help immensely. However, ideally, we need a way to manually enable or disable individual engine gimbals, RCS blocks, and other torque sources so rockets can be controllable (but not overly-so) in all stages of flight. The optimal control weights for each part will be quite different between lower atmosphere, upper atmosphere, and vacuum; even more so when you consider staging of the rocket. Finally, what if ASAS could detect all of the nuances of a rocket\'s control systems and, for instance, not apply torque to the command pod when all that will do is make the rocket wobble? TL:DR: ASAS has a long way to go and SAS is a good, if imperfect, stopgap that should be kept until ASAS works.

I understand the rationale for removing SAS, but frankly ASAS is just not at the point yet where SAS is no longer needed. While ASAS and all the control features (articulated fins, gimbaling engines, RCS, the command pod) on my rocket should be plenty to stabilize it, ASAS loves to oscillate the inputs from all the way in one direction to all the way in the other, resulting in the rocket wobbling all over the place. So, while it is possible to design around this (smaller rockets :\'() or just deal with it and fly, it makes the game a lot less fun (at least for me).

I have had success. Landed on a bit of a slope, but kept upright with SAS, and was able to lift off and maneuver around with RCS. In so doing I knocked off two of my lander legs but stayed upright thanks to SAS. It was a bit strange. My mission profile was something like this: Boost to an apogee of around 80km with the first stage and its boosters, angle slightly eastward. At burnout wait until apogee. Just before apogee, begin burning second stage to circularize orbit, trimming with RCS (no real reason to but I take pride in my orbits) to between 99km and 100km. When the angle between a line from the spacecraft, through Kerbin, to the Mun\'s orbit would form a 70-degree angle angle with the line from Kerbin to the Mun\'s current location, boost into a transfer orbit to 11400km. The angle is hard to estimate, but if you go a little higher than 11400km, you get two chances at being captured, and with a little luck it\'ll work. Once within the Mun\'s gravity, burn last of second stage to kill off all velocity, eject second stage, and start dropping towards Mun. Carefully keep velocity below around 500m/s. Reduce speed as you approach the surface. Be careful not to go too fast or run out of fuel. Also, keep nullifying velocity (relative to surface at this point). LAND! Fly around with RCS Lose a few legs Eject descent stage, fly away with ascent stage, into Mun orbit, accelerate to escape velocity I ended up on a very elliptical Kerbin orbit. Did a very inefficient thing and burned all my fuel about halfway back, which put me into a wonderful and gentle shallow entry into Kerbin\'s atmosphere. Totally by accident, I landed just a few klicks north of KSC! So that was fun. Now to try some fun Mun orbits...

Whatever you personally consider to be fair. Obviously, the more difficult it is with the parts you use, the more impressive the feat. For me, 'fair' is default parts, default + SIDR&SD/Wobbly, or KSP Silisko Edition. CFG edits (that aren\'t just rebalancing, such as making a liquid engine that\'s more efficient but less max thrust) probably aren\'t fair.

Quite simple, and I feel like it\'s been mentioned before, but I can\'t find where. Get NovaSilisko\'s Mun part from http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=1402.0 Put it in orbit around the Mun. Use fair parts. Is it even possible? Oh, and bonus points for leaving it there and returning to Kerbin. Bonus bonus points for leaving it in orbit, landing on the Mun, and returning to kerbin. Ridiculous insane bonus points for landing on the Mun WITH the Mun [part], taking off again, dropping the Mun [part] in orbit around the Mun, and returning to Kerbin.

I am having almost no trouble cancelling horizontal velocity once arriving at the Mun (just having no luck landing on it...). All you need to do is: If you intercept the mun in a hyperbolic (escape) orbit or an elliptical that doesn\'t hit the surface: wait until Periapsis and burn retrograde until your velocity is exactly zero. Tweak with RCS. If you intercept the mun on a collision trajectory it\'s less easy, but just draw a line between the zenith and your retro-velocity-indicator (green with cross through it) and continue a bit past the retro velocity indicator, point there, and burn. The retro-velocity-indicator will inch towards the zenith. Finally, when you are near the surface, hover and use RCS translation (with SAS enabled to cancel out rotation) to nullify any remaining horizontal velocity. Now, back to calc homework so I can try it again myself...

I uncommented the lines about gimbaling in the cfg files; will that be enough to enable it? I didn\'t notice the nozzles actually appearing to move, though I did seem to have some control while the engines were on even without RCS.