capi3101

Handwavium... (It's from the Pathfinder mod, one of the Wild Blue Industries set of mods by Angelo Kerman. You use sliders to pick which resource(s) you want to send to another mass driver within the same SOI, and whether or not you can send the intended payload depends on a number of factors such as available guidance data, available delta-V for the transfer package vehicle, available energy for the shot, and so forth. The default setting limits the payload to something like ten tonnes to Mun orbit, but I always tweak that up quite a bit when I begin a new save. It's real handy when you don't want to have to deal with the tedium of resupply missions between a ground base and an orbital space station or shipyard).

Finished building the latest iteration of the Deepwater Horizon base: This was intended as a glamour shot of the base's mass driver, but it is unfortunately rather horribly backlit. Also spent the weekend with trying to get KWV Ender Wiggin in orbit over Minmus to start receiving supplies from DH and to land staff for training purposes. I forgot how touchy the Alcubierre Drive controls could be though; Ender is currently below the drive threshhold at at 45-degree inclined orbit. Going to have to work that out before I start sending folks down, especially if I want to get them back up again...

Did a double-rendezvous yesterday; those are always fun. My second ship about took a radiator or two off of one of my space stations... KTV Sisko conducting docking maneuvers with space station Kerbinport as seen through the port's docking camera, with KTV Dax (upper center) waiting her turn to do the same. An Auk II and an Auk XIa await passengers are also docked at the station. On the plus side, once I got everybody docked up and all the Kerbin-bound passengers on their planes, and once I got those planes safely down to the ground (minus the ventral pair of engines on the Auk XIa), I got eight contracts cleared all at the same time, which is always a nice feeling. Plus I don't have as many pesky tourists to deal with at the moment.

No, there isn't. That said, I'm currently doing another run to put Pathfinder bases on every solid world in Kerbin's system, so I can answer any questions you have and offer what guidance I can. Where would you like to start?

Getting to ready to see if I can remember how to fly one of these things... KWV Ender Wiggin departing the Dystopia Planitia orbital shipyard on her maiden voyage. She's a new design with some elements with which I'm not entirely familiar. So far so good, but we'll see how well she warps soon. Guess I'm running out of excuses to not go to Eve in my current save... EDIT: I did. I guess flying an Alcubierre Drive ship is a lot like riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put old Pokemon cards in the spokes...

@RoverDude I've seen the same behavior as the last two posters on this thread. The Alcubierre Drive doesn't want to behave unless you set it as the root part. I have only noticed this on the 2.5 meter drive so far; I'll check the other engines to see if they're doing the same thing or if it's just the one part. If you don't set the warp engine as the root, it snaps off on placement. It then becomes necessary to trash the part to which the engine was going to be attached before you can get rid of it. Clicking on the engine itself to get rid of it moves the entire craft in the editor (like it's trying to be the root part.)

I've been playing for a bit and am just now getting the infrastructure set up for permanent colonies on Mun and Minmus. Tourist runs have begun. KLV Kira docked to space station Munport, with KLV Dax (right) recently departed. Both KLVs were full of tourists; Dax's group just wanted to go into orbit and do flybys, while Kira was prepping for a surface excursion. Both craft succeeded in their respective missions and have since made their way back to space station Kerbinport. I need to start taking notes again, in case something interesting actually happens. Trying to repeat my earlier feat of getting colonies set up on every celestial body in the Kerbol system except Kerbol and Jool. This time I'm doing it with Snacks installed for just a little bit more of a challenge.

Yeah. I had parts in inventory on a part that was also being used to carry Equipment. Took the parts out of inventory and things are working just fine now. Completely my fault. Thanks anyway.

I appreciate it. I suspect I know what the problem is at this point, but I haven't yet had sufficient free time to take corrective action. I'll let you know if it turns out what I think it is is actually the problem.

Howdy @Angelo Kerman. Trying to use the Mk3 Drydock from MOLE to print up a craft with Buffalo 2 parts; it's doing the old bug where the craft pops up instantly in the drydock but you can't interact with it in any way and if you go to build something else the Kraken strikes. The Drydock is working properly with stock parts and other MOLE parts like the Bigby Orbital Workshop, which makes me think it's something specific to Buffalo or maybe Pathfinder. Here's my log file. I'm hoping we can resolve this relatively painlessly. Let me know if you need additional information.

Yes. Keep the Exotic Matter above zero or you're going to have a bad time. As to it breaking the game, that wasn't RoverDude's intention. I doubt he's still maintaining the mod at this point. I typically carry a set of eight Gigantors aboard my warp ships. A typical trip with the warp drive for me usually involves a period where I warp to a trajectory either heading directly into or directly out of Kerbol, with the intent of speeding up or slowing down enough to enter orbit around the target body (or at least getting close enough that I can warp there and pull the same shenanigans at the destination until I've got the speed right). That's either starting at 1.2 Gm and going out to 1.6 Gm if I'm slowing down or vice versa to speed up. 1.6 Gm is the distance at which eight Gigantor solar panels will produce 10,000 EC/s, which is what the Exotic Matter Generator requires to operate. So the speed up/slow down maneuver also acts as an opportunity to refuel the ExM tank. You do have to be careful not to overheat your craft getting that close to Kerbol, of course. The only other reliable method I've found for generating that much power is using the S.A.F.E.R. reactor from the MOLE mod (or was it Pathfinder or Buffalo? It's one of the WildBlue mods, I know that much). You need something like eighty of them. Apologies if I still haven't answered your questions regarding the mod - it is rather time consuming to comb through the walls of text...

By "the devil I know", I meant that I have worked with RoverDude's Alcubierre Drive for a number of years, so I'm familiar with that particular mod. It certainly looks like his at a glance. Here's one of my warp ships that utilizes that mod: If you are using that mod, try running the drive without having the Exotic Matter generator turned on at the same time. Nine times out of ten, that's the cause for spontaneous destruction. The other one time out of ten it's because people try to extend the warp field with multiple warp bubbles - that trick simply doesn't work with at particular mod.

Which Alcubierre Drive mod were you using? RoverDude's, KSPI-E, or a different mod? Been using RoverDude's mod myself for a long time now (the devil you know and all that).

Has anybody figured out how to deal with the issue of Pathfinder parts (Chuckwagons and Haciendas in particular) jiggling around until they just randomly explode, or having the Saddle explode spontaneously upon loading up a base? I've been using this mod for a long time now and I'm finally sick of having that happen... Latest annoying thing I've got going on is the game generating two dozen messages to the effect that my storage is full and can't make any more Compost, or that Minerite has run out (it hasn't) every time I load up a craft or try to launch something. I assume that's a Snacks thing. Going to be awful irritating if I try to replicate my 1.8 goal of putting bases on each body in the Kerbol system...

Used to. These days I call them "spesos"; just like the sound of that one better...

Not gonna lie to you...it's weird to me to see those buildings directly connected to one another without Walkways in between them... Been having some issues with Pathfinder of late, actually. Not with the Castillos, but definitely with the inflatables - they used to work better with less competent crews.

Anything you built and saved in the SPH will be in C:\Kerbal Space Program\saves\<your_savename_here>\Ships\SPH, assuming you're playing on PC with the standard install prodcedure for the vanilla game (that it's modded makes no difference). Sorry to hear that you're giving up on FAR. I completely understand your reasonings why and hope you're not completely adverse to trying it out again at some point in the future. Just for the hell of it, were I to put together a tutorial, do you think it would be better as something folks could read or something like a YouTube video? Been a while since I did one of thems and my box is a hell of a lot more capable these days than it was the last time I put one together.

Ah! I found that site I mentioned that discussed stability again. Here's the link.

Wow. From the pics, I'm inclined to give you a diagnosis of "you're going too fast at the altitudes indicated and your planes are disintegrating thanks to a combination of excess dynamic pressure and insufficient yaw authority." I try not to accelerate above Mach 1 (343 m/s) lower than 10 kilometers up - Mach 2 (686 m/s) at 12.5 kilometers, Mach 2.5 (858 m/s) at 15 kilometers, Mach 3 or higher (1029) at 20 kilometers. I definitely don't have any rockets lit below 29 kilometers, which is about as high up as you can get and still have RAPIERs on air-breathing mode. The first one is Mach 1.72 at 1899m; the second one is Mach 2.28 at 2863m; the third is Mach 1.05 at 2800m. Try punching the numbers into FAR for the static analysis on the first two for those variables. I'd wager good money the Lβ is in the red. How's the pitch authority on those planes at low speeds? I'd wager it's sluggish. Try a pitching surface that's not on the same front-to-back axis as the Center of Mass. You can also increase the deflection angle to see if that helps. What's your launch TWR? Planes are good at 0.55 or so in FAR; I've got an eight-passenger plane that does about that. Not the most fun to fly, but it's reliable.

It's modeling realistic aerodynamics, so that's probable. I'd have to look at your designs to know for sure. I've seen it happen myself, so yes. In my experience, though, that's a symptom of not setting up dedicated control surfaces, and it's something that a fly-by-wire mod should smooth out (assuming there aren't other inherent issues with the craft). Okay - that does sound like a stability issue. I'm going to gather a few ingame images of one of my planes and hopefully I can show you what you need to be looking for; I'll try to post again later today. I will say that my own designs typically land at higher speeds than 80. That might go back to needing more wing.

Flying straight into the water: move your CoM forward, and/or add more pitching surfaces. Try something like a Tail Fin (or even an AV-R8 on a smaller plane), something where the entire surface moves (i.e. avoid something like the Delta Deluxe, where there's only a little bit of it that actually adjusts itself - those are decent for ailerons, but you want more pitch control than anything else). Flipping just before landing: which direction? If it's flopping over on its belly trying to land upside down, move your CoM upwards. Pitching upward uncontrollably - try moving the CoM back, or try landing at a higher speed. I'd have to watch your approach to see what's going on there. Simply exploding: curse a lot. It doesn't fix anything but at least you'll feel a little bit better. Another thing to do is make sure you've got dedicated control surfaces. Adjust your pitching surfaces to 100% pitch and 0% everything else. Same goes for your ailerons (100% roll) and rudder (100% yaw). I might also suggest a fly-by-wire mod. I use AtmosphereAutopilot myself; I've used it with FAR for a decade now.

Key bit to know on those analyses is that the specific numbers don't matter all that much. If you've got a red value, your plane will have an unstable aspect to its flight - end of story. Mw is the key one to note if you don't want your plane to be flip happy. Standard advice there - move your center of lift back or your center of lift forward. Possibly both. There's another one but I forget which one specifically it is - one of the Ls. If it's red, you haven't got enough tailplane. Typically that one really only matters if you expect to be maneuvering a lot at high speed. I'd recommend installing RCS Build Aid here to see what happens with your CoM as the fuel drains. Check these benchmarks: Mach 0.5 at 0k, Mach 1 at 10k, Mach 2 at 12.5k, Mach 3 at 15k, Mach 4 at 20k. If you're green on all those numbers, you should* have stable flight through all the regimes. With the dynamic graphs, again it's not the specific numbers so much as the shape of the graphs. A graph that starts off with a sine wave with big amplitude on the left that tamps down to the right is dynamically stable. And vice versa. Same general tips for fixing things - it's either adjust the CoM or add/subtract tail. There is a manual for FAR out there. Bless me if I can remember where it is though, and it'd be a little out of date even if I did know where it was. I also used to have a site that explained the dynamic graphs but I seem to have lost the link...

Never mind. I was trying CRP Mode; went back over to Classic Stock and everything's working now. Might consider removing the other modes from official releases.

A lot of the folks doing Scott Manley's Runway Project would tell you that there are known issues with the gear in that mod, and that you probably shouldn't use them. One thing to check before swapping them out - how much weight do you have underneath them? Too much will cause them to buckle. You can try strutting them down if you don't mind the extra drag. But yeah, you probably want to use stock gear instead.

Hey @Angelo Kerman, got a little bit of an issue ongoing with my current run, in that my resource scanning satellite is only picking up Ore, Metal Ore, Rock and GeoEnergy (obviously this is over Kerman). I'm trying to print Equipment, which among other things is going to require RareMetals or PreciousMetals depending on my play mode. I'm looking through my WildBlueTools folder and I can find the Storage_Template .cfgs. Can't find the Resource_Definition .cfgs anywhere though. Makes me wonder if I missed a step in my installation somewhere. Which folder should they be in? I've got WildBlueTools, WildBlueCore, Buffalo2, ClassicStockResources, MOLE, Pathfinder and Snacks going on; all of those should be the latest versions. Let me know if you need more data.