Van Disaster

And of course, if it's basic rivets & grooves and other discrete elements you can just skip the normal map & add them as mesh. 30 basic pyramidal rivet heads is only 90 polys + the few more you cut in around them, 30 8-sided rivet-heads is 240, etc. I'd kinda like to know where the break-even between extra mesh detail & the extra call for a map is with this engine, actually.

Huh, looked scaled up a bit. And yes, I took the slickest version of a S2 hull/twin 2.5m sabre ship I have at the moment, converted it all to tanks and totally failed to make orbit on 6.4x - admittedly I should probably try it with RealFuels or something, and I don't much like the way the planet is 6.4x the size but the atmosphere is only 90km, but still that appears to be a completely new problem.

While that does sanitise the issue, is this something that can be fixed permanently with a custom FAR config for the part?

@eddiew: 0.66 is not low TWR by any means! slightly mismatched materials is a B9 thing yeah, you'll stop noticing it after a while. Which scale planet is that, Blowfish?

So, how does FAR determine if a part is a nosecone? presumably it's a bit more than only having one node. I've been trying to debug a drag issue with Retrofuture parts: Initially thought the adapter was the problem, because... well, that's a stupid amount of drag. However stacking two in a row pushed the problem to just the front one. Next I stuck a cubic strut inbetween the nosecone & the adapter: so now the adapter's drag level is fine, but... that strut definitely isn't. So, it has to be an issue with that nosecone - there's only one node configured in it, and dumping the MM db out showed only one node still, so I'm not too sure where to go with it.

Already removed, it was causing much bigger issues than colliders disappearing.

In the current version I deorbit about 1/3d to a half an orbit before whatever runway I'm aiming for - assuming we're starting from lowish orbit - and aim at about 20km above the target, and re-enter pitched up a couple of degrees. I am flying relatively draggy craft at the moment though. If I'm going for KSC rather than some alternate runway I'll usually fly over at about 13km and do a big diving circle to line up on runway 27, you get plenty of time to align & slow down without dodging mountains or terrain then. The versions of FAR for 0.25 usually made me spend a couple of orbits in atmosphere slowing down...

I used to put flags at the runway ends, but the flag icon obfuscating the actual runway got too irritating. A rover 20km out in the water is my preferred option at the moment.

And today's final config. The giant spacedock looks fantastic, but ... actually if I want to build a giant ship I'd need to use the original dock or it'd get stuck inside the structure. So I might pull that off again, or I might just leave it all like that.

Worked on an orbital dockyard.

A little more work done ( this is going to be hell to fill up... )

Hard edges? you sure everything is welded properly after your mirror operation?

Parking a probe several km away in line with the runway will have the dual function of telling you where to aim at to deorbit, and also giving you a guide to line up with the runway.

You won't get that in a real rocket either, it's not like their payload usually ends up in circular orbits unassisted

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/111715-Odd-artifact-while-zooming-map-randomly-flashing-in-flight - if it's that, then yes it was a mod.

That is B9 HL, and conveniently .... stock Mk3 was developed from B9 HL!. So yes, something exactly like that has been made.

If you keep falling short, kick over slightly later/faster, you'll fly a slightly steeper ascent then. You can shape the profile by throttling up & down a little, but if you're going too flat and you're at full throttle already there's not much you can do other than pull the nose up yourself. Rocket engines do gimbal - mostly quite a lot more than ours do - so it's not like you can't steer most real rockets ( Vega excepted, I think... that's pretty much all SRB ). I'd recommend Telemachus for telemetry, except I'm not sure it works for 0.90.

That's the biggest KASA spacedock ( I believe that's the IXS mod Roverdude mentioned, but I can't remember because that's all I have installed ). I can't remember if it needs configuring for EPL, but it'd be pretty simple to do if it didn't come like that. Can't help with orbital recyclers - my old launchpad also doubles as a ground recycler ( given ground launchpads are useless after stakes at least there's *something* for it to do ) but I've nothing other than the skip for space yet.

This is a sketch rather than a product of any sort ( or I'd not be posting in someone else's thread ) - so I'd imagine it'd probably look a little like this, only longer and with the tail doing something rather than just stopping. I dunno, I might try it, might not, I've got a big enough pile of unfinished stuff as it is

Is there anything already in place that'd tie an animation on a launchpad-class object to spawning a vehicle? I started using the KASA dockyard parts for once and immediately realised they impose a size limit, so I had the idea of something similar that'd open to spawn a craft - but I'm not sure if it's doable yet.

Aerospikes are apparently terrible at mach 1-3, which is not so hot for a combined cycle engine... @Eddiew - practically all my spaceplanes grow their wings from near the tail, generally using B9 tails, but also generally I either stick engines on their own pylons right at the tail or stick them on the end of the wings, Skylon style. You can definitely make the existing bits work though. What I've been eyeing is a dual 2.5 engine mount tail with intakes, but I can't seem to get it together to actually do one.

Mods modifying other mods directly, what a fantastic idea. That would kill my interest fast. For some reason my Gigantor solar panels lose their colliders every now and then, not a clue why they're doing that - nothing in the log either.

Bootstrapping up an orbital dockyard - eventually it'll be using parts far too large to launch off planet, but you have to start somewhere. 90x2400km orbit to give constructed vessels a nice little boost. And a little later after the dockyard module was built and there was some re-arrangement - Need to design a tank farm, which is easy enough - but I also need to find or create a model for a really large workshop, so suggestions welcome.

If I edit a KAS container in the SPH I can definitely put Survey Stakes in it - while I've always used alternative models for EPL I've definitely never altered the stake config. Is your modulemanager up to date?

Don't forget that at mach levels over ~3.5 drag starts increasing quite drastically, so you do want to be as slippery as possible. I generally run out of jet thrust from hitting speed limits before I run out of air and if there's any reasonable payload fraction I won't have sufficiently low wing loading to fly high enough at top jet speeds to make use of more intakes, so it's generally 1:1. No rule of thumb for l/o ratio, that can also change depending on payload fraction anyway. I never use the sim tab so I can't help there.