capi3101

In the final analysis, not much was accomplished yesterday. The Auk VIII heavy tanker spaceplane I launched to the Kerbinport space station the day before returned safely to KSC 27, having delivered its payload to the various craft at the station. After that the Auk Ia 2-passenger spaceplane at the station commenced a double-rescue op to pick up scientist Phildan Kerman and pilot Paley Kerman from LKO. Both kerbals were retrieved and the plane returned safely to KSC 09. A replacement contract for the rescue missions included a five-tourist contract to both of Kerbin's moons, so the two recent rescuees along with scientist Bobkin Kerman were loaded into an Auk II 8-passenger spaceplane along with the five tourists, and are now waiting for the launch window with the space station. They'll probably head up later today. Plan is to send them out with Nelny Kerman aboard Next Objective, which has been sitting in the barn for quite some time now. Spent the rest of my time fiddling about with @RoverDude's Alcubierre Drive mod. So far I'm liking it; the conservation of momentum is something I'm still getting used to, and I can see that recharging the warp units is going to be a tricky proposition with the parts I have available. Running them is certainly simple enough. So far I've visited Dres and Laythe, though I've yet to put myself into a course that would lead to a successful orbit around either. Hoping to find a good tutorial for this mod. I'm already thinking about how I might be able to incorporate it into my career save...got to figure out what I'm doing in the litterbox first.

I don't know - taking out the board strikes me as something that should be worth a DQ. You know, kinda like going after the horse in jousting... As for me, it was a planes weekend. I landed the second of two Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplanes from the Kerbinport space station at KSC 09, then landed an Auk II 8-passenger spaceplane at KSC 09, again starting from Kerbinport. The second of these flights netted me about √500k and cleared seven contracts all at once, 4 passenger and 3 rescue. Next on the agenda was an Auk III fuel delivery spaceplane, which was sent to Kerbinport; it arrived successfully, delivered its paywad and then returned safely to KSC 27. Last but not least was an Auk VIII heavy refueling spaceplane, which once again delivered its payload to Kerbinport. As of this morning, that plane is still at Kerbinport awaiting return to the surface, a job that I've got waiting for me later today. What can I say - the three ferry ships guzzled up a lot of gas on their last set of runs, but it was definitely worth it. Among the replacement contracts, I also did about half-a-dozen piddly little garbage missions (sci data from mun, sci from Minmus, orbital sci from places I have space stations and kerbals present, etc.). Found out that KIS explosives make parts testing way moar fun... This is the Kerbal equivalent of lighting a Black Cat and throwing it away at just the right time so it explodes in mid-air. Except this way you can't see the fuse. Plus bigger boom... Sorry, Newburry - we didn't get you in the shot; we're going to have to do another take...

So, apparently I haven’t posted jack squat on this thread in 25 days. That’s not for lack of playing KSP, mind you – I simply haven’t taken the time to keep y’all up to date on my latest activities. Rather than give you guys a detailed report like I would ordinarily do, I figured I’d just do a summary today. With pictures. Because pictures… I began building a communications satellite constellation over Kerbin, which is proceeding apace with three rings of triangle-orbiting birds (one short range equatorial, one short range polar, and one long range equatorial). All the birds are in their final positions now except for Kerbincomms Hotel and India, both of which are way the heck out there in Kerbin’s SOI past 60,000 kilometers. Those two birds are awaiting final adjustments, and since their orbits are about seventy days each, it takes a while for them to make any needed positional adjustments. On a related note, I had to adjust the orbit of Minmuscomm Baker, which had drifted far enough out of its position to lose its direct connection with Minmuscomm Charlie. A simple (and much faster) fix later, all was cool and froody. I say that - it's been a while since I checked on the comm relays. I should check to see if any of them have drifted again; there's definitely fuel enough aboard each of them for station-keeping. My ferry ships ferried. Necessary Evil took four tourists to Mun, then Minmus, while Strange Cargo hit Minmus first before going to Mun and Next Objective returned to Kerbinport station from ferrying, spending most of this past month docked at the station. Inexperienced KSC staff accompanied both craft for advanced flag-planting duties, and thanks to the labs at the Munport and Minmusport space stations, all of my extant KSC staff are now as fully trained as you can get without leaving Kerbin’s system with the exception of scientist Bobkin Kerman (who I only picked up just last week). Both ships are now back at Kerbinport and I’ll be sending down all the remaining paying customers and rescuees I’ve collected in an Auk II 8-Kerbal passenger spaceplane currently docked at the station later today (I've already sent down six Kerbals in a pair of Auk IX 4-Kerbal passenger planes, three yesterday and three more just a little while ago). When all is said and done, I will clear seven contracts all at once...it should be a pretty good payday. I had four planes docked at Kerbinport all at the same time. I should mention that. Didn’t think it was possible, but here’s the screenie that proves I did it: Still haven't figured out how I'd get a fifth one docked on the port you can't see in this screenie. I'd probably have to orient the plane so the port was on the side or something. The mission of the Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout 7 garbage collection lander was ultimately successful, though it definitely didn’t go according to the plan. First, when she landed, she got a little close and blew the paywad (a Mk 1 cockpit) down a steep hill; luckily it survived. After relocating the lander closer to the target, I discovered I’d forgotten to bring any Kerbals along. So I sent pilots Nelny and Givin down to the site from Munport aboard the station's Spamcan 7b lander. They KIS-scooted/leapfrogged that cockpit 200 meters across the Munar surface to the lander: Just how did you get the motorcycle up there on the high dive, Coy? ......brownie points for any of you kids out there who know the reference. Me, I'm probably showing my age right now... I quicksaved before finally putting the cockpit in the lander’s KIS container, and it was a good thing I did: the game counted the part as destroyed and failed the contract. I quickly reverted and came up with a new plan: I sent the Jiffy Lube 7 parts lander I had over at the Piper Alpha refinery over, and used its tools to attach the cockpit to SCSS along with a pair of FL-T100 tanks, which were fueled up to counterbalance the cockpit. Naturally, I had to send Nelny and Gilvin back and exchange them for a pair of engineers so they could do the necessary repair job. That plan worked - I released the cockpit in Munar orbit, and SCSS returned to Munport. Lesson for you kids out there - if you're going to clean up litter on the Mun, you need KAS/KIS or one hell of a Claw design. This mission turned out to be one gigantic pain... A Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe later scooped the Cockpit up and took it back to Kerbin safly. I did two other Bill Clinton missions this past month – one returned a Mk3-2.5 Adapter, the other a cargo ramp (the second of which hasn’t returned to Kerbin just yet). Final end of the SCSS mission. I like the bouncy house heat shield. Sure does make your paywad feel some serious gees... The engineers running the Piper Alpha and Deepwater Horizon refineries on Mun and Minmus (respectively) have been busy with some other things (other than running their posts, I mean). Magster conducted a four point EVA mission using Piper Alpha's rover Indecision, with Theony at Deepwater Horizon later performing two similar missions with the rover La Perla Negra (translates as The Black Pearl - I guess I was in a Pirates of the Caribbean mood when I named the thing). Leedorf Kerman replaced Magster as capsule commander at Piper Alpha so the latter could accompany the ferries to gain some needed experience. Leedorf retrofitted Indecision into a fuel carrier and oversaw the final installation of the Jiffy Lube and Heartbreak Hotel 7 outpost craft as parts of the refinery (namely by hooking them up through KAS connector ports). Theony also used the Spamcan at Minmusport to fix an orbital probe for contract, which had a crucial scientific instrument missing at launch: Is it Theony Kerman or Theoely Kerman? I don't know - one of them was a tourist, the other the engineer pictured making the rendezvous here. When Theony completed that job, he conducted an EVA surface survey of Minmus near the southern pole before safely returning to Deepwater Horizon. Leedorf also played with explosives... This is the part where you run like hell. Five meters in fifteen seconds would give me trouble, I think... Leedorf is disappointed that there was no fire. My own self, I'm glad I bumped the blast radius down and the countdown up...... Scientist Siglock Kerman was rescued from a high orbit over Kerbin using the Spamcan lander at Munport, which successfully rendezvoused and returned to the station only to run out of fuel 400 meters away – and going at 6.6 m/s relative velocity away from the station at the time. The Old Bessie refueling lander was dispatched on an emergency fuel delivery run, which was successful; both craft returned safely to Munport and Siglock joined Necessary Evil on its tour of Kerbin's moons. Less interesting stuff: I cleared three tourist contracts, did a Kerbal Tour Bus 7 flight for a single tourist on an orbital hop, did a ground survey near KSC 09, did some garbage hauling over Kerbin, did another ground survey near Deepwater Horizon, delivered a probe to Mun with an Auk IV probe delivery spaceplane flight, did a ground survey on Mun, delivered ore from Minmus to Kerbin (ostensibly), launched a probe to Minmus, and did a landing gear test contract using an Auk I LKO rescue plane. The Old Bessie landers at Mun and Minmus were kept busy, with the one at Minmusport landing once over the period to replenish the station's fuel supplies, while the one at Munport conducted refueling hops no less than seven times. I also helped forum user @Kitspace test out a long-range cargo transport plane over the course of a couple of days. His final design is pretty nice and it flies well too. That's pretty much been it. Last day or two has been spent working on the Black and Decker 7 parts delivery probe-landers, whose purpose is to deliver spare KIS screwdrivers to the refineries. I was having a really tough time with getting them into orbit; the problem there turned out to be excessive drag in the design because I had made the fairing too blunt. While I was able to successfully deploy the one headed out to Piper Alpha, I forgot to deploy the solar panels on the one headed out to Deepwater Horizon, so it was DOA when it reached Minmus's SOI. A replacement has been launched and should arrive in about another four days or so. TL, DR: I've had a busy month…

Alright, thanks. I'd pretty much figured that was what was going on. Already have two small probe landers (dubbed Black & Decker 7) en route to my refineries at this point to deliver said-type container and (among other things) about a dozen screwdrivers each...

I've encountered a KIS-related issue with my game; I'm not sure if the underlying fault lies with KIS or it lies with Ship Manifest. I suspect it's really Ship Manifest's fault and I'm wasting my time by posting here, but I figured I'd try here first to see if anybody had encountered anything similar. Also am at work right now and I'm not about to take the time to scrolling back to see if the answer to this is like, three posts up, so my apologies in advance if this has come up recently. Alright - so I've got a refinery outpost set up on both Mun and Minmus, which are functionally identical to one another (each consists of two craft that have been joined to one another by winch cable). Each refinery has one Kerbal engineer manning it. Habitable spaces are 5 Mk1 Lander Cans, 4 Mk1 Cockpits, 1 lab and a Hitchhiker container. Both of these guys were delivered a screwdriver and a spare EVA pack by a third craft visiting the site, and both of them used said equipment to make adjustments to nearby rovers. That equipment has now gone missing. I suspect that what happened is that the equipment didn't transfer along with the Kerbal - I generally use Ship Manifest to move Kerbals around. At least with the case on the Mun, I know the Kerbal re-boarded the refinery via the lab door after he refitted the rover, and then I transferred him to one of the Mk1 Lander Cans. His equipment went missing after that. Thing is, I tried moving him back to the lab to see if the equipment would re-appear, and it hasn't. I'm hoping it hasn't been voiped from existence entirely at this point. So, has any other KIS user seen the behavior I'm describing? And, the corollary: what does a screwdriver and EVA tank look like in the persistence file (i.e. how do I look to see who is carrying a screwdriver at the moment)? Is there any way to see where they might happen to be at the moment? I'd rather not have to send out new parts if I can at all help it...

Okay...taking a look at the Circe, and some of the advice you've already received on this thread. Just at a glance, @HvP is spot-on when he pointed out you're not in atmo mode on KER (the button that says "Atmospheric"). Turn it on and leave it on - KER these days is smart enough to know which bodies have atmo and which ones don't. You may find that you don't have nearly as much delta-V as you think you have. The launch TWR on that craft is nuts; you're going to lose a lot of your first-stage delta-V to drag. I use FAR; with FAR, a good launch TWR is 1.2-1.3. With stock air, a good launch TWR is 1.5 or so (at least it was last I checked; the old 1.6-1.7 rule may still apply). As you're flying along, watch your gee meter - if it climbs out of the green at any point, that's a cue to throttle the engine back. You don't need to change out the engine - just play with the throttle limiter until you get a TWR in that range. You can always swap out the engine later if you need to, and you can always adjust the throttle limiter more in flight if you feel it necessary to do so. The second-stage TWR is not high enough; KER is telling you that much. You've got a 25 kN engine trying to push a 3.5 tonne craft when that stage lights - a TWR of 0.7 at that point. You're losing delta-V to gravity at that point. Your second craft has rectified this somewhat, but you're saying it's giving you control headaches. Would you mind taking a screenie of just that stage with your control balls on (CoM, CoL, CoT)? Wagering your CoM is too far aft on that stage. TWR is still a tad on the low side for that stage of the ascent. Since I use FAR, I can't really give you good advice for the earlier portion of the ascent (while there's still atmo). The last I'd heard was to try to cross 45 degrees elevation at 15,000 meters. I have benchmarks for the latter portion of an ascent - 20 degrees above the horizon at 25,000 meters, with 35 seconds to apoapsis; 15 degrees/30,000m/40 seconds; 10 degrees/35,000 meters/45 seconds to apoapsis; 5 degrees/40,000 m/50 seconds; horizon/45,000m/55 seconds; five degrees below/50,000/1m 5s to apoapsis, and then ride that until the apoapsis is where you want it +1000 meters for every 1000 meters below 60,000 your altitude is at MECO, or +100 meters for every thousand meters if MECO is between 60-70k). Usually results in circularization burns of 50-70 m/s at most. Whether or not that's actually a good profile, I can't say; I can say that it works for me. Good luck; let us know how it's going.

I'll respond with my observations over on that thread, since you've got one.

Not much has been added to the game since then as far as new mechanics go. CommNet and KerbNet in v. 1.2 is probably the big thing. Landing gear also got tweakables in v. 1.1, and we also got KSPedia about that time. If l'm reading the SETI tech tree right (it's not a mod I play with my own self), making orbit is tricky but doable with the tech you've got. Are you using stock air? What did your ascent profile look like on the probe you tried to launch?

Welcome back. Out of curiosity, what was the version you played? Assuming you're playing career, how far up the tech tree have you made it so far? My own self, I'm now up to three weeks without reporting on this thread; I owe y'all a lengthy and substantial tale of my trials and tribulations for most of this past month. Which, naturally, I'm not going to give y'all right this second...

Yes, all I did was move the stabilizer back and aft, thereby increasing the length of the "lever arm" on the pitching axis, providing more torque/pitch authority. Here's the image you requested: That's what I'm getting at 100 m/s. Here's 80 m/s: And for good measure: I did a little fiddling with the upper and lower bounds; the yellow line crosses the graph at just over a 7.1-degree angle of attack. It's about the same for both speeds; for some reason the F1 key doesn't always take a screenie when I want it to. One thing here is that I'm generally used to flying spaceplanes, which is a different type of animal entirely. My designs usually have wing loading in the 0.4-0.5 tonnes/square meter range, which means higher takeoff and landing speeds than an subsonic aircraft like this one. I'm also used to a negative AOA gear configuration (going all the way back to the topic in keptin's discussion), which once again lends itself to higher takeoff and landing speeds. So it's probably just how I was flying the plane/how I typically handle landings. Incidentally, I did try replacing the back gear with extra-large gears (so I'd get the negative AOA gear configuration), and was able to land the plane just fine at around 90 m/s. The plane still wanted to bounce, but the fuselage was higher up off the ground so I didn't slam the tail into the ground in the process. That all said, my observations concur with yours, in that the plane doesn't want to pitch up at speeds in the 80-100 m/s regime. Increasing the length of the horizontal stabilizer a little bit (i.e. improving pitch authority/torque/leverage by increasing the amount of force the tail generates) might help with that. In case you were curious. Not a bad set of curves at all. This last screenie shows how the CoM moves - the red "dry center of mass" marker (courtesy of RCS Build Aid) actually shows it going forward and upwards. Forward moving CoM makes the plane more stable; a CoM above the CoL makes the plane maneuverable. Couldn't tell you if those two effects would cancel one another out or not as your fuel drained. As a diagnostic test that I'm thinking about just now, you might want to try reducing your plane's fuel load to 5% to see what that does to your stability figures. I'm not sure if there's a potential issue there or not.

The flag came from the forums all the way back in v. 0.20, a contribution by @Volodyuka. The original post/image is here, if it's one you want... I'll get to the rest of your post later today. I had hoped to respond to it properly before I had to begin my paying job this morning; alas, it was not to be...

@Drew Kerman and @Van Disaster; this oughta cover y'all... Try to see if any change happens when you replace the engines with stock motors, like Van Disaster suggested. If you notice a difference, turn on your voxels in FAR and take a screenie (might want to do that anyway; FAR doesn't play nice with every mod and if one of them is putting drag in a weird spot, that could also account for your issues).

Hmm...here's a question: are your props counter-rotating? By which I mean that if you're looking at your plane nose-on, is the prop on the left spinning clockwise and the one on the right spinning counter-clockwise? If not, can you set them up that way and see what happens? You may have a yawing effect going on due to asymmetric blade effect, and yawing can induce rolling. It's something I didn't consider before; I'm too used to working with the stock KSP engines. Just a thought. I did notice your stabilizer placement; I was more interested in making sure they weren't twisted five-degrees to one side or the other. A mod that could help with that determination is Hangar Grid, which (incidentally) is also a good one for making sure you've got your landing gear on straight. I'm trying to think what else might induce a roll with no control input, and how to go about fixing it. I might suggest adding some dihedral to that wing, if it wouldn't mess up the aesthetic you're going for there (looking back at the thread, I can see that Van Disaster already suggested that - and it's good advice). Larger ailerons wouldn't hurt either (a brute force solution, I know). But try the propeller thing first, if possible. And double-check all the numbers on your control surfaces for good measure.

Realized today that it's been two weeks since I've posted on this thread...I should probably post something substantial, then. But I'm not going to (at least, not right now anyways...).

@Drew Kerman first thing I'll suggest is to put the plane out on the runway and set the brakes, then begin playing with the roll controls (Q and E) to see which way your ailerons deflect (a little "is it plugged-in?"-esque diagnostic test). Two things I can think of that would cause the behavior you're describing - either one of the ailerons has been set to -100 control input (causing it to deflect in the wrong direction) or your wing surfaces were attached in radial mode instead of symmetric mode. That's just what I can think of off the top of my head. Some screenies with the parameters you've set up for the control surfaces would be nice. Also, one or two with your CoM, CoT and CoL turned on (top downs and side view) would be helpful. As far as the dynamic stability simulator is concerned, what you're looking for there are oscillations. Plug in a starting value for the parameter you want to test (a value of 1 works for me) after you've got your static parameters for the altitude and velocity you wish to test, and then mash go. If the graph oscillates from left to right but it dampens with time, you're fine. If the oscillation stays the same amplitude, you're probably okay. If it increases with time or if it flies wildly off, you've got a dynamic instability problem that you'll have to address with your craft. http://code7700.com/aero_stability_and_control.htm ...which leads me to want to see a front-end screenie as well, to see how you've set up your vertical stabilizer. Your craft may have a tendency to roll if the vertical stabilizers are slightly tilted to one side. Just something else to check.

Alright - so, I did make some minor tweaks to the design. I didn't have the B9 engine, of course, so I had to improvise a little bit there with some stock parts - a structural pylon, Mk1 fuel tank, circular fuel intake and Wheesley engine port and starboard. I went ahead and reduced all the wing surfaces to 0.5 strength; the effect on the CoM was negligible. From Hangar Grid, I saw that your back wheels were tilted slightly forward. I went ahead and straightened them out , though I'm not entirely certain I got them back in the same spot. Tweaked the friction on both sets of landing gear for good measure. I went ahead and made the more inboard of the outboard pair of control surfaces on the main wing a set of spoilers and bumped them up to full deflection, and I also set up some action groups for flap control. The big change, as you can see from the screenie, is that I moved the stabilizer aft and up, and I did add some dihedral to it (despite my earlier advice). Flies like a champ - low takeoff speed, responds well to input both on FBW and stock SAS. AoA for level flight with no flaps is now between 4-5 degrees, says FAR. Only trouble I have with the design is landing; every time I've tried to land it, it's bounced hard enough to rip off the tail - even at relatively low speeds. That might be more of a landing gear issue than anything else.

There are a lot of the "under-the-hood" aspects of that mod that I don't really understand. What documentation there is on it is here. Just glancing through it, though, it does appear to have a built-in function to help the plane hold its attitude on the roll axis. You may want to check the "Roll angular velocity controllers" - more specifically the default snap angle (give it an increase). You may also want to try toggling the "coordinated turn" first if that's something you've not done (it's one of the standard options on the fly-by-wire GUI IIRC) and see if that helps.

If your node is at the six-o-clock position (looking down at Kerbin's north pole), you can burn for Minmus when it's anywhere from 1:30-3:00. Generally it's best to burn for Minmus at the ascending/descending node, about 900 m/s prograde and 300 normal (at the descending node) or anti-normal (at the ascending node). That said, you can do an initial prograde burn and then do a second burn on the normal axis at the ascending/descending node later if necessary. How that all translates into exact math, I couldn't say; that's just generally how I do it. I will say that the closer Minmus is to the 1:30 position, the less time it takes to get out there - I think the quickest I've gotten out to Minmus in the post-0.90 era is six days.

I had a pair of Kerbals down on the surface; they lugged the part a quarter of a klick between the two of them just to get it to the lander. Neither of them were engineers, though, so I had to send them back up to the orbiting space station on a different lander. Luckily I have engineers available at the station and the lander I was going to use to haul the part up has a screwdriver, and it's got a Mk2 lander can onboard, so the mission isn't entirely a wash. Still...

Yeah, that's what I'm asking. Ugh. I was really hoping to not have to resort to Plan B...

I had originally assumed from looking at your craft that the full horizontal stabilizer was movable; my apologies there. Making the whole thing one movable surface would increase your pitch authority, though; I can speak from personal experience on that one, and it's particularly true as your plane approaches the transonic regime (Mach 0.8-1.3 or thereabouts). Spoilers can save you a lot of headaches/heartaches on approach. I always include them in my designs even after I have access to AIRBRAKE parts. To my knowledge, FAR has no problems with tweak-scaled parts. I use B9 Procedural Wing parts my own self. Van Disaster has pretty well covered the answer to your final question; I have nothing else to add there. I'm trying to think what else you could do to try to improve the plane's pitch authority. Comes down to either moving the CoM aft or moving the CoL forward. I'd suggest canards on a low mass-strength ratio (0.3-0.35, perhaps) but I think that would totally throw off the aesthetic you're trying to achieve with this craft. Might have to play around with it my own self - would you object to making the craft file available? Only mods you're using with this craft are Tweakscale and FAR, right? @Schwarz, I'll have to find time to jump in with the discussion of your aircraft later. Quick question: are you also using a fly-by-wire mod? I can't imagine a successful supermaneuverable craft without having one installed - definitely not with the stock SAS system. If you're not using one, I'll humbly suggest Atmosphere Autopilot; for me, that mod changed flying in KSP from an annoying chore into to a real joy (comes in handy for docking too, incidentally).

Quick question - I've got a piece of junk (a Mk1 Cockpit, as it turns out) that I'm trying to get off the surface of Mun. Any way I can shove it into a KIS container without the game counting it as destroyed and scrapping the contract in the process? It does seem to be the easiest way to get the part off the surface. Sorry if this kind of question comes up often/has been answered in the last page or two; I honestly should be working at the moment (you know, not typing on/searching a forum).

Let's see...I guess, last Thursday (already, dagnabbit) began with several missions to land KSC staff on Minmus from the Minmusport space station, using the station's Spamcan 7a lander as the vehicle each time. Scientists Gillie, Zelwin, Seanlan and Kirmund Kerman along with engineers Eriemy, Dilnard, Leedorf and Bill Kerman each departed, landed safely, planted training flags, returned to the station and then used the station's onboard science lab to punch their tickets and level up. That particular feature (lab levelling) wasn't in 1.1.3; I have to say that I really like it. Spamcan 7a on the surface. I have to say, I think it's kinda ridiculous that the craft has to bounce its signal off of all three Minmuscomm sats AND one at Mun... Apparently I did a total of five runs down to the surface of Minmus with the available fuel at Minmusport, but I didn't bother to catch everybody's names in the last two runs. So shame on me there. A Bill Clinton 7b long-range probe arrived at Minmus and picked up a piece of low-orbiting junk for contract, having to come within 6 klicks of the surface to finally make the rendezvous (I don't like seeing the impact time counter on my HUD, especially when I'm not attempting a landing). It should return to Kerbin sometime in the next few days. The Old Bessie 7 fuel delivery lander dispatched to Minmusport arrived and docked successfully to the station, and its stores were sufficient to refuel all other craft docked at the station (including Strange Cargo and Next Objective) to full while keeping sufficient stores for its own first landing operation. That had to wait until the arrival of the Deepwater Horizon refinery, which happened a couple of hours later. Deepwater Horizon arrived and landed about half a klick from the spot marked by the Hellhound 7 rover sent previously, and upon landing engineer Theony Kerman refueled the refinery's stores to maximum. Since I had several Kerbals ready to return to Kerbin and some that needed to head to Mun, I spent the rest of my time on Thursday sorting them onto the two ferry ships. Strange Cargo will be heading back to Kerbin, while Next Objective is headed to Mun. I had ten Kerbals that needed to go to Mun and only nine seats available, so Nelny Kerman (capsule commander of Next Objective) was transferred to Strange Cargo and pilot Lazor Kerman took operational command of Next Objective on account of his cool, cool name. Nelny will head to Mun at a later time. On Friday, I decided to leave scientist Seanlan Kerman at Minmusport in order to be available to support Theony, who will be remaining at Deepwater Horizon. Strange Cargo and Next Objective then both departed Minmusport station: Strange Cargo departing Minmusport, with Next Objective set to burn for Mun in the background. Both ships made their transfer burns. I left Strange Cargo with a relatively high periapsis at Kerbin owing to a huge plane adjustment needed between it and the Kerbinport space station. She'll arrive at Kerbin in four days, and Next Objective will arrive at Mun in 12 days. I didn't get much else accomplished on Friday. Theony planted a flag for contract and in the process became the first Kerbal to ever leave a Piper Alpha 7-type refinery via the upper control tower, which up until now had always been hatch-blocked by the radiator panels. The Old Bessie lander went down to Deepwater Horizon and affected a successful refueling operation, returning to Minmusport and restocking the station's fuel stores while Theony once again recharged the refinery. The station's Spamcan 7 light rescue craft/lander was then dispatched to Deepwater Horizon in preparation for the next set of operations around Minmus, which will see Theony go out to the Boop-Boop 7 probe I'd placed in a tundra orbit over Minmus with the instruments currently attached to the Hellhound 7 rover needed for the probe to finally meet its mission criteria. Theony will also punch his ticket while he's at it. That all is awaiting the arrival of the Jiffy Lube 7 parts lander I dispatched to Minmus, which should arrive in a few hours. It's carring a KAS screwdriver, which Theony will definitely need in order to do the intended mission. The day ended with the flight of an Auk VIII heavy fuel delivery spaceplane to Kerbinport, which (for once) did not feel like I was attempting to take off on ice. The plane docked successfully to the station, delivering fuel to Necessary Evil already docked at the station and awaiting the arrival of Strange Cargo. Truth be told, I probably sent that plane up too early - I've got a lot of folks to bring up and down at this point and I now have two spaceplanes docked at the piers (largely rendering the remaining piers unusable). Haven't played in the last three days. Was largely doing chores. Introduced my oldest son to Magic: The Gathering last night with a 7th edition starter set; he did the red-green deck while I did the white-blue deck. Little turd beat me 7-0...

Been gone over the weekend; just now looking at this. Okay...so, first thing I see is that your Mass-Strength multipliers are in the 0.6-1 range. In my experience, you're okay with putting those at 0.5; the fin you can sometimes get away with 0.4. Lowering the mass-strength multipliers would move your CoM aft slightly, so maybe limit any changes to the surfaces on the main wing Also, do you have your standard controls zeroed out for the various flap parts? Just checking. I might take the outboard set and change them to spoilers (bumping the deflection up to full, of course), since I'm not seeing airbrakes on the design anywhere. Then again, that's just me. Getting back to your original problem, my suggestion would be to increase the area of the horizontal stabilizer - It struck me as a little small for the size of the aircraft initially but I wanted to see if there was any other issue I could identify first. I couldn't tell from any of your screenies if you had a degree of dihedral going on with your stabilizer or not; if you do, try zeroing that out, and if you can get the stabilizer up on the fuselage any higher, do that too. All three of those things should increase your pitch authority.

Can you show us your current control settings on your flaps? Flaps and spoilers have a separate control slider from pitch, yaw and roll, and it's easy to overlook (to this day when I'm doing early aircraft and I want to add a spoiler, I'll usually forget to bump this setting up to maximum deflection and wind up with some wimpy 15-degree setting, when what I want was the full 85-degree makeshift airbrake setting). For that matter, what do the settings look like for each of your control surfaces? Given the position of the wing, if the rear wheels are lined up with the CoM (like i think you're saying), the plane should have sufficient control authority - that's just me looking at it though. Your control settings may (once again) explain a few things. Could you also provide a picture with your CoM ball turned on, just to make sure I understand what's going on with the aircraft? For good measure, go ahead and turn on your CoL ball too. It may not tell us anything, and then again it might.