Hakuryu

I searched and looked, and read through a bunch of posts. This is not a topic about how the .21 SAS works, but what exactly the three rocket SAS parts do now. All three of the rocket SAS modules look like they do exactly the same thing, but the wiki seems to say the two small parts (Inline Advanced Stabilizer and Inline Reaction Wheel) are what they used to be; the old ASAS is still needed to control surfaces/rcs/etc while the Reaction Wheel is old SAS with a new name. So what is it? Do all these parts function the same, and it's just aesthetics and size for variation? Or do they pretty much work like they used to, needing one Inline Advanced Stabilzer with perhaps multiple Reaction Wheels? Can't figure out the large part at all... still says ASAS, but the stats are the same as the other two pieces, and no mention of a 'computer'.

I prefer a landing vehicle skycrane, where you drop the rover once landed, because almost all rovers are unbalanced, and using a skycrane to fly them off the top of a landing vehicle can be extremely tricky. Once you start making larger rovers, 'fly off the top' skycranes (like the default rover/skycrane) are worthless. Here is my latest (.20) on the way to the Mun. It is a pretty heavy rover, so I sent it and it's skycrane/base lander up first, then docked the delivery vehicle shown. Landed and dropped off, waiting for passengers. Off on a mission.

My new rover, skycrane / base lander, and the delivery vehicle docked and starting off for the Mun. Landed, rover detached and parked, and Kerbals exiting the base to get in the rover. Turtle Rover off on it's mission.

I don't suppose you have proof of this? Didn't think so. Obviously some portion of the sale goes to Steam, but if you've been checking out the 'top sellers' since KSP was released on Steam, I'd bet SQUAD have sold at least ten times the amount they did on their site, in the short time its been available on Steam. I don't know about you, but I'd rather sell 200,000 copies at $18, instead of 50,000 copies at $20. And, have the added bonus of Steam handling downloads and updates... Steam + KSP is a win/win. As to where to buy it, I always favor Steam versions, because all my games are in one place, auto-updated, and the amount of AAA titles I've bought For $5 or less is pretty staggering.

Alternately, you can add pieces with torgue to counteract rotating (and ASAS to use them of course). One of my larger space station delivery vehicles has 8 SAS units to keep it from rotating. It's just a beast and I didn't feel like redesigning it yet, so put those SAS units on top of radially mounted tanks - no rotation at all, where it used to go crazy after 10KM.

I had the same issues with a similar rocket, and it is the tri-couplers that is the culprit. Once down to a single fuel tank and engine underneath a load like that, both of the tri-coupler spots, where they slim to a single connection, are incredibly wobbly. Not sure why people say you can't use them that way though... works fine for me. What I do, is put the structural small framework pieces radially around both the delivery vehicle and the the cargo, sticking out, and then run struts between them, in effect strengthening that entire portion of the rocket.

Finally got my first delivery craft and lander in orbit around the Mun. EVA'd to the lander, seperated and started down. Put the landing gear down, only to realize the landing gear was backwards. Built the lander upside down on top of the delivery craft, and forgot to rotate the gear in the correct direction. http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r504/JamesCV/gear2_zps4a925e2b.jpg' alt='gear2_zps4a925e2b.jpg'>

Size 3 RCS tank that is thinner than the 750 RCS tank. Something maybe half the size/weight/RCS. Lights! - small lights for station beautification and rovers, in white, red, and green light variants Size 3 SAS unit. Rover bodies - medium and large.

The tug. Hard to see, but the tug is about 1.5K from the orange fuel 'arm', and 3.9k away from the station core. Issue #1 - Switching craft with the '[' works fine to switch between the tank and the tug, but if you switch to the station it blows up. BOOM! Station pieces flying everywhere. Have to go to the space center and select the station; does not blow up if I do it this way. Is this an issue with the 2k draw/relevant distance? Only 4 struts on my station, and nothing clipped. Anyway, I do the impossible, decouple the orange tank arm, dock the tug with it, deorbit and land safely the Kerbals in the 'arm' delivery vehicle (mostly there for the SAS torque), and dock the transferred arm to the station. Issue #2 - Nothing lines up correctly. The orange 'arm's' light towers are not at 90 degrees like they were in the VAB, and the tug did not connect to the 'arm' in the rotation it did in the VAB. With only vertical rotation in the VAB, why do the connections via docks in space not line up the same way? Issue #3 - after connecting the orange 'arm', I left the tug connected to it, in order to place the other 3 arms coming later. Returning to the space center, there is no longer any station piece as a flight, only the tug. I cannot select the station core pod (T-Can) for targetting, and hence cannot change it's name/etc. It's as if the station decided the tug was the main part, and not the initial pod. I'm guessing this is a bug; both the tug and the station should be target-able. So, what could I have done differently? Could I have constructed things differently to avoid these issues?

No real performance issues or bugs, but I'm not a fan of the new Loading icon... it actually takes longer to enter the VAB than it used to, seemingly because the Loading icon needs to be displayed. It used to take less than 1 second after clicking the VAB, now it takes 3-4 seconds. I know that isn't a huge deal, but it is aggravating to be slowed down to be shown a Loading icon.

Subassembly loader didn't work consistently for me, so I spent ALOT of time rebuilding the same rockets. Then there were the quirks like having to build the delivery vehicle before the unmanned rover, or your delivery vehicle would have no Kerbals in it. Then there was the bug when you pulled apart a rocket and grabbed the pod, only to have it 'stuck' to the mouse, requiring restarting your build. And of course the 'damn, I don't like the pod I started with, have to rebuild the entire rocket to use a new pod'. All this and more has been fixed by simply allowing us to change the main pod. BRAVO! Want to use your perfectly working heavy lifter? You no longer need subassembly loader. Just load a rocket with that lifter, delete the cargo portion including the main pod, and build your new cargo on top of your proven lifter. This alone saved me hours last night. Of course a parts saver/loader is still needed, for times when you have a big station built in the VAB, and want to split it up on top of existing lifters, but being able to change the command pod at least negates this need when building new parts with a premade lifter. Command pod changing is the highlight of .20 imo.

My biggest tip I found by accident - turn off gimballing for your center engine in an asparagus setup. Got a rocket that wobbles? Do this and it will be ultra-smooth, saving fuel. Only problem is when you get rid of all the asparagus stages; gotta turn gimballing back on or you might go out of control. For stacking 3 engines on a large fuel tank, use the 3-splitter structural -> 3 engines -> 3 decouplers -> 3-splitter structural. NOT 3-splitter->3 engines->3-splitter->decoupler. You will not see 3 fairings doing it the second way (hence issues).