FredMSloniker

Let me see if I can put this together. (I apologize for pestering with questions, but I couldn't find an online source for the answers.) To set up a self-sufficient construction yard with my current set of mods, I need to: Have at least one drill. The vessel with the drill must have a container for Ore. Have at least one ISRU. The vessel with the ISRU must have a container for Ore, as well as containers for the things it can make out of Ore: Fuel, Oxidizer, Monopropellant, and Material Kits. Have at least one Ground Assembly Line. It can create Specialized Parts from... something and Machinery from Specialized Parts. It has its own storage. Optional, but recommended: have some sort of large container for storing resources. The vessels still need at least some storage capacity, but it just has to be enough to get the resource on the board. Have at least one Workshop, ideally a Mobile Workshop. (Does this need containers?) Have at least one Engineer, ideally a bunch of them. Have power and thermal needs satisfied and hook stuff together to transfer materials (am I gonna want to use KAS hoses for this, or does your mod handle this?) Then, to build a vessel offworld, I need to: Design a Part Kit containing the vessel. Save it as a vessel or subassembly. Have a Ground Assembly Line build the Part Kit. It would be helpful for the GAL to be mobile, as it sort of poops the Part Kit out the back, though a kerbal can, according to the video, drag it into place if necessary. Have an Engineer deploy the Part Kit. Have a Workshop process the Part Kit. Have an Engineer unbox the Part Kit. Transfer resources like Fuel and Oxidizer into the vessel. Pop champagne. I'm sure I've missed a few things. The things I particularly wonder about are: does the GAL make the Specialized Parts out of nothing but electricity (I didn't see it consuming anything else when I tested it, though it might have been using trace amounts of Material Kits), and why don't I need, say, radioactives to build an RTG off-world (which is good, because I don't see how to gather them either)? Is it because I don't have whatever mod actually activates certain resources, so your mod is just using what it can get from stock?

Avoiding a third edit: it seems to be working so far! Question, though: the OP says I can eventually build kits themselves off-world. How do I do that?

I was afraid to try it on 1.7.3 since CKAN said it was incompatible. I'll give it a go. Thanks! e: I told CKAN to allow installation of any 1.7 mods, but when I try to install Global Construction, it gives me the error "GroundConstruction 2.4.1.0.1 depends on GroundConstruction-Core, which is not compatible with the currently installed version of KSP". This despite the max KSP version for both being the same. What am I doing wrong? e2: it works if I also allow 1.6 mods; the culprit appears to be a dependency on the Community Resource Pack, which only has a 1.6.9 version. Ideas?

Any idea how long before CKAN gets a 1.7.3 version? I've got a save that's on hold until I can make rockets off-world.

Sorry to keep you waiting! I'm not sure what to offer, though, in terms of guidance, other than this. This is what the IVA looks like for the stock Mark 1 lander can. This is what I want it to look like. Okay, maybe throw in some toggle-able HUD stuff, or move the instrumentation off to the far sides and roof, but I want a big, clear window to look through. Standard capsules, even the ones with larger windows (like the spaceplane stuff), are looking the wrong way to see any of the cool stuff, and the lander cans have tiny windows (plus, the Mark 2's window is fogged for some reason). I don't need those fancy see in from the outside windows (though if you want to, that'd be neat), just a nice big picture window to look through from the inside. Mark 2 (and Mark 3, with 270 degree coverage and poor Bill staring at the hatch?) variants would be welcome, but something like this, that'd fit in with the stock looks and let me do my all-IVA run without 90% of the view being unchanging instruments, is all I want.

Thanks!

I have a need for a KSP part I just can't find, and I'm hoping you can help. I really enjoy flying ships IVA, but the problem with cockpits is they face away from all the good stuff. There are good reasons for this in real life, but in KSP, I'd like to be looking out the side of the ship, like in a lander can. The thing is, the two stock lander cans have pretty small windows. I'd rather have a wide view - like, the default camera angle/zoom sees only window, and I have to look around to spot any instruments. That said, having it strutted up like the cupola wouldn't be a problem, as long as the struts were fairly thin. Like the USI Exploration pack's HERP Pod, only oriented sideways. I know about the Panopticon pod, which would at first blush seem to fit my needs. And it's all right. But it doesn't look stock at all, which is kind of an issue for me, aesthetically. So what I'm asking is this: would any of you be interested in making an alternate Mk. 1 lander can with a big window? Something like this (fear my MSPaint skills!): Only maybe with some struts on the bendy parts or something. And it doesn't have to look exactly like that; if you have other ideas, go for it! A Mk. 2 version (and a Mk. 3 version, with three crew, a 270 degree window, and poor Bill staring at the crew hatch?) would be cool as well, but if I can only talk you into one, I'll take the Mk. 1. Do any of you think you'd be interested? Or do you know something already that might fit the bill?

Would it be possible to add the ability to tweak scale differently along different axes? I could really use a pancake-like fuel tank for a project.

Am I missing something, or does the Cyclops Command Pod not have an IVA button for MechJeb on the glass screen? If not, could one be added? The glass screen is very cool, and I'd like to integrate MechJeb into it. Also, what kind of external cameras will the external camera button work with? The mod doesn't seem to include any.

I thought I read somewhere that MechJeb had recently added the ability to align docking ports when docking, but if it's an option I can't find it. Is that something planned, or did I remember wrong? EDIT: by 'align', I mean rotationally.

Am I correct in thinking that a craft with MechJeb doesn't actually need ASAS, or does that part provide something MechJeb doesn't?

Can you transfer kethane using quantum fuel nodes? I'd just try it and see, but I'd have to get the debugger installed to spawn kethane on the launch pad...

Somewhat belated, but by any chance, do you have KSP installed in your Program Files directory? Windows can get fussy about allowing programs to make and change files there. I moved my whole Steam install to its own directory, C:\Steam, to avoid issues like that.

Since therealcrow999 didn't make it clear: MechJeb2 removed all MechJeb parts but that one. You can use the mod he suggested if this bothers you.

I'm still a bit confused about the need for better scan resolution. Are you somehow making bigger maps or something? Because the map it's giving me is pretty low-res (360x180, I think), and at that rate it's hardly going to go more than a pixel per ping.

I'm having an issue with MechJeb, landing, and aerobraking. If, after I've aerobraked, the craft would hit the ground before the desired landing point and I choose 'land at target', instead of making a correction burn at apoapsis (or immediately if already past apoapsis), it waits so long that, at least in my test case, it wasn't actually able to pull the ship out of the premature dive before it ran out of fuel. If the craft would hit the ground after the desired landing point, on the other hand, 'land at target' works perfectly... except it still thinks it needs to do a deorbit burn, and it spazzes out at some point in the descent, spinning the ship wildly and causing the framerate to drop significantly. At some altitude, once it switches to 'braking burn' mode, it regains its senses and does the job, but there's definitely something going awry.

For folks having trouble with MechJeb's inefficient use of RCS, there are two things you might try. One is the RCS balancer. It doesn't work with every rocket design--I had a weird issue with one rocket with unusual RCS jet placement until I turned it off--but if you've got the standard one or two banks of four, it should cut down on fuel usage. The other is that, although it's not visible by default, there's a lot of docking information that MechJeb can provide. Open the custom window editor and go to the 'Target' section (just under 'Click an item to add it to the window'). You can make a new window and add the docking info to it. That should help you guide the ship in manually.

I used a methane molecule image from Wikipedia for the flag because that's the biggest component of natural gas. If someone would rather I make a flag for ethane or propane or something, just say.

So while I was noodling around with stuff, I said, 'Fred, you know what you need? You need a mission flag for kethane operations.' So I made one. Share and enjoy! EDIT: here's a version with a transparent background in case you think the white one is too harsh. Just pull it into your image editor of choice and put whatever color you like behind it. EDIT EDIT: and after a bit of tweaking, here's the version I'm going to use:

The version of the party starter on Kerbal SpacePort isn't working properly. I was able to fix it by opening the .cfg file and adding to the beginning and to the end.

Is a shorter scan interval really a big deal, though? I mean, you'd have to be sweeping pretty fast across the surface of a planet for 1.2-second pings not to hit a deposit at all (not to mention it must be a pretty small deposit if so!) I guess I was hoping the bigger sensor could cover a larger area per ping or something, a narrow cone rather than a line. Oh, and while I'm thinking of it: I'd like to see an addition to the map screen that lets you mouseover a deposit (once detected, natch) and see how much is in it. I'd also like to be able to bind the map to an action group; it's sometimes fiddly to find the scanner to turn the map on, and while I can turn it on or off by action group, I can't open or close the map window.

Are there any reasons to use the larger kethane detector other than detection range? I don't have trouble getting close enough to use the smaller one, and the ping time seems a non-issue.

Well, I've got the Kethane pack working under .20, with one exception: my detector isn't giving me that lovely BEEP BEEP BEEP. It's working--I can see the map getting filled in--but it's not making a sound. What's up?

While I want for the .20-compatible version to come out, can someone sum up how to get the current version working? I know there are a few tweaks to be made, but I haven't seen them in one place.

Yeah, the issue is that, in a hyperbolic orbit, apoapsis is reported as some huge negative number, and the maneuver planner therefore thinks the orbit therefore goes between (say) 10k and -4M and never reaches 100k. At least, that's my understanding of the problem.