annikk.exe

I think I've been given an impossible mission. The mission is to take gravity readings from 11,900m above Duna's surface in a specific spot. The problem is that the game won't allow me to take gravity readings in the upper atmosphere, which is everywhere between 41,446m (according to the wiki) and about 5,000m (from experimentation). If I try to take a gravity reading anywhere within this range, the game tells me "Gravity scan can't be done right now." Screenshot: My save file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzsgpelyP3DITGo3QWxra1BrNW8/view?usp=sharing (There's a "download" button in the bar at the top. You may need to mouse-over the bar before it appears.) I'm using the 32 bit version of KSP 0.90. Windows 7 x64 Pro i7-3770K cpu 8GB RAM Nvidia Geforce GTX 680 Hopefully this isn't just me doing the mission wrong.. that would be embarrassing..

Omfg guys i hef been h4xd! Pls help ;_;

I believe Kerbals have a mass of 0.05 tons, however I'm not sure if they still have that mass when onboard a vessel. The main difference is that you would need to take a heavier pod than the mk1 pod. In fact, you'd be at least double the payload weight.

I undertook and completed a task very similar to this back during Alpha 0.24. The mission requirements were as follows: 1. Manned return journey to Eve 2. No stages/junk to be left in orbit anywhere 3. No refuelling 4. No docking/undocking 5. Kerbal must be able to get out and walk around on the surface of Eve. 6. Kerbal must return home alive in the same ship. 7. Stock parts only From my experience, the hardest part of all is getting the landing stage right. I spent weeks (in real life) testing it on Kerbin to make as sure as possible that it would perform as expected upon arrival at Eve. The asparagus was so intense during takeoff from Eve that I was advancing a stage every 1.5 seconds. A few notes on things I learned during the experience. You can't afford anything extra. No science, no legs, no parachutes... all of that stuff is too heavy, and will need to be detached before you begin Eve liftoff. Also, 48-7S is the only viable engine imho. Toroidal Aerospike is too heavy. TWR is king here. With so much fuel and complexity, the landing is very dangerous, so I used a huge number of parachutes. The design is like this: Fuel Tank > Cube > Decoupler > XL Parachute > Cube > Drogue Parachute > Sepatrons The drogue chutes deploy first, then the XL chutes... this is to slow the craft down more gently during descent, to prevent damage. Once landed, the decouplers and sepatrons fire and the parachutes are detached and thrown safely away from the craft. The landing legs are also on decouplers, fired during liftoff from Eve at the same time as the engines. The weight of the legs is more than zero, so they have to go. The whole thing was about 70 stages in total. Enough for a single Kerbal in a Mark 1 pod to go to Eve, then go home. I didn't take any science modules or anything else whatsoever - the only "payload" was the pod with 1 kerbal inside. I made it home with a very small amount of fuel to spare in my final fuel tank. Getting 3 Kerbals home would not have been possible with my design, it would require a much bigger rocket or breaking the docking or refuelling rules. Or three seperate journeys. Hope that this gives you some ideas to optimize your rocket. Good luck. :>

Here's a very fast aircraft I made, it uses the Interstellar power receivers and Thermal Turbojet, and requires an orbiting power transmitter to operate. DemonCraft It behaves like a gentle glider with the power turned off. With the power turned on, it's crazy fast. I built a similar, even faster craft: Hurricane It sacrifices some handling ability for a great deal of extra power. As I recall, with a suitable amount of input power, it can produce 10,000kn of thrust. Note that neither of these aircraft is designed for high-altitude flying. The engine will overheat and explode if you attempt to take them into the upper atmosphere.

I think I've noticed an AWESOME bug... Last night, I downloaded 0.25 and started playing. First mission, I did the typical Scott-Manley-Style 3-solid-boosters-with-no-decouplers to get into space to complete the first 3 contracts. On the way back down, I got an EVA report from the upper atmosphere. I then right-clicked the capsule and chose Take Data, with the intention of getting back inside then doing a second Crew Report from the upper atmosphere. Then the atmosphere burn began. The rocket went shooting upwards and Jeb's jetpack wasn't even close to powerful enough to get back to it. Oh dear, I thought - my first mission and I've just shafted it. Then something strange happened... I hit the ground, and Jeb bounced! I couldn't believe it. He bounced something like 200 metres into the air, then fell back down again. I hit spacebar, and he stood up and shook himself off! I was then able to recover him, and received a whole bunch of science that by rights should really have been a bloody puddle somewhere in Kerbin's grasslands... In summary, although I can't be sure without further testing, it seems as though taking data might make kerbals invincible.. Can anyone confirm ? :>

"The Financial Frontier" gets my vote!

Could it be because the Spaceplane Hanger is in the way? Microwave Power Transmission is based off line of sight. You should also be right-clicking the receiver that is pointing towards the generators. The ones facing away won't receive any power because they aren't pointing in the right direction. Another thing to check is that your engine is using the correct fuel mode (right click while on the launch pad). If it's a plasma thruster, I believe they default to Quantum Vacuum mode, which doesn't work for take-off.

Near sea level. This is using the Interstellar mod.

With a sufficient number of intakes (6-7 per turbojet engine) I've found I can keep firing my turbojet very gently all the way up to 70km. Above 50km the turbojet provides perhaps 0.5kn, but the drag is so low up there that even such a small thrust as that is often enough to maintain the apoapsis. Using that technique I've been able to get a periapsis with turbojets and come within about 50m/s delta v of a low kerbin orbit. So this is why I made the thread.. I'm wondering why everyone is in the business of closing intakes..

Thanks. Can anyone suggest a test where I could verify this? Small rocket engine at 30,000m perhaps?

I've heard that closing air intakes reduces drag. This was news to me. Excited by the possibility, I set up an aircraft with about a dozen intakes then went for a test flight. I flew straight at about 2000m altitude, then tried toggling most of the intakes off. I expected to see a minor speed increase due to reduced drag. However, I was not able to observe and change at all in the craft's speed. What is the deal here? How does closing intakes help? What test can I perform to verify that closing intakes does something?

Thanks Zuni :>

Still very impressive. It's clearly meant to be a replica/work of art rather than a form-follows-function speedboat. :>

You should be able to land it manually without much difficulty. (I disapprove of MechJeb, HyperEdit, etc... so ignore me if you want) Landing on Eve with thrust alone is easier than you might think, as the terminal velocity at sea level is only 50m/s. The trick will be trying to land quickly, so as not to burn too much fuel.