[i need help on mode carrer]

dunno if tier 2 tracking station is needed, but

in mapview there should be a colored circle with moving dots that indicates the target orbit. the dots move in the direction your ship needs to be going. if clockwise launch to 270° if anticlock 90°. if you don't see the circle, zoom out more. sometimes they are pretty far out.

pro tip: the tracking station shows the contract orbits before you accept them. check whether you can reach that orbit or rather not, especially with orbits around the sun!

another thing: do you use a probe? satellite missions need an unmanned craft which is launched after you accepted the contract(s).

[Low Tech SSTO Spaceplane Challenge]

I never build spaceplanes in my early career, but I had to give it a try.

I came up with a crazy 2 turbo, 1 srb, 2 48-7s pointed forward design. It made orbit once, but my pilot skills are not that consistent. and since that was technically a test run, I didn't make enough screenshots... (not one in orbit *facepalm)

if you guys wanna try, the flightprofile is like:

1- taxi to flat gras and orient east

2- full throttle, at 110m/s pitch up and use landing gear to get her fat arse in the air airborne

3- pitch to ~65° until 15km

4- pitch down a bit, but not under 40° or SRB will push her down

5- ignite SRB at 20km (before flame-out), throttle down turbos (don't try to shut them down!). at SRB cutout AP should be 85km (+-10km depending on pitch)

6- while coasting: shutdown turbojets, activate forward tanks, activate 48s, turn nose retrograde when out of atmo

the rest is trivial. she glides pretty well (as the 2nd pic shows) and the turbos will have fuel left, so landing is no problem

.craft

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a second version is almost ready and I'll post when I have good pics. but not tonight...

[I Remember... (A Thread for Early KSP Nostalgia)]

I remember

... me practicing orbital rendezvous to be ready when then next version features docking (didn't use the docking-mod back then)

... the old LFO-tanks

... the mainsail being OP

... me asking myself whether or not I should invest in a incomplete game in early alpha.

... epic failures

to be continued...

[Kerbals on EVA just going poof and satellite issues]

I had Gusdun on a ladder on mun as Quicksave. on load he fell through the lander and the ground and exploded.

solution: spam hit F3 on load to pause the game. let physX load and unpause. Gusdun survived to crash another day.

[Time travel?]

Timetravel will lead to the discovery of what the Universe is for and why it is here.

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

[game freezes/crashes while transmitting data and opening contract list]

hi I have the same problem with the freeze on mouse-over contract, though it's in a modded install and I didn't check whether it happens in stock too.

reproduce: have some contracts, launch or load a vessel, mouse-over contracts symbols

effect: game pauses for several seconds, gamescreen get white, windows suspects critical failure of game and suggests killing the process, everything's normal after that and the contracts tab opens without hassle after that

likely cause: I guess the code which checks for achieved goals and completed contracts, looks in way too many places and has too many numbers to crunch. the "mission accomplished" seems neither to be affected nor causing or solving problems (seperate code-modules/gameobjects?). It's always the initial loading of the contracts tab.

possible solution: (1) if numbers have been crunched previously, use them instead of crunching them again. (2) check the contracts while loading the flight scene. (3) assign missions/contracts to special flights. the contracts-building could be reworked to support n flights with x contracts each. that could also cure some current contract exploits and keep the number of simultaneous flights down in early career.

(guess I should make a suggestion out of that last one...?)

[Devnote Tuesday: "Point sharp end towards space"]

OKay about the engineering feature: can we deactivate the check and use only when needed? I don't want a constant check for fuel flow slowing down my VAB to a slide show. even if it's only after every time I placed, removed or tweaked a part... I really suspect worse case here, but I don't want to wait half a minute everytime I compare two stage-subassemblies.

I'd rather have a "Komputer Simulation": my rocket spawns in a room looking like a tng-holodeck and I have control over gravity, atmo etc while seeing nice readouts to help me improve my design. And all a bit quicker than loading my whole savegame.

[A few questions]

...my sat went all the way down to 44km at its periapsis and then ascended all the way to its apoapis of approx 565km (why my this attempt failed, was waiting to watch the Drainex1 trigger the stage for the first time and not paying attention to the orbital view ). Will the sat eventually fall as it continues to dip below 70km hitting friction slowing down the orbital speed? Or is the minimum altitude for orbit dependent on mass and speed (all thought I am sure there has to be some absolute floor)?

minimal orbit is 69.5 x 69.5 km.

If your PE is under 69km, you'll lose velocity on every pass. that is called aerobraking and is what saves you loads of fuel whenever you need to brake down to achieve orbital velocity (eg. returning from mun). test different speeds and heights with F5 and F9 to get a feeling for that. Afaik if you don't use FAR, size and shape doesn't matter, only speed and height. ah and deactivate SAS while aerobraking.

Finally, on a complete side note, are forum accounts wiped after a certain amount of activity? I did an initial introduction and asked some similar questions to above along time ago. My account was no longer active and I cant find my forum post from last year.

there was a big forum wipe /crash about one and a half years ago, dunno when exactly. I guess your account fell victim to that too...

[Slight freeze every 5 seconds (or so)]

I tried cpu affinity (and priority), only difference is that the interval is longer (about 15 seconds).

I have no clue how to get everything else off that core. Manually configure each process? If that's actually necessary to have the game run properly, it's a lot of hassle.

actually that's what I had to do for one save a few versions ago. I put KSP on realtime priority on CPU0, killed all non essential processes and shoveled the rest on to the remaining cores. manually, in taskmgr...

a slimmed down OS (dedicated to play KSP and KSP only) on another boot-slot could help...? I'd like to say something about boot-disks, but that was two decades ago.

[Custom Labels. Custom Ways to Name Vessels!]

I also had the need of more Labels for my spaceprogram. in my RT2 career I wanted to be able to hide my CommSats, so spacestation are now labeled as bases...

I had a look how the game handles that and - sry - that can't be modded.

The vessel types are hardcoded two times (for the vessel and for the filters in the map view). I can't see any way to mod that without breaking the game.

That's a shame, thanks for looking.

are there workarounds possible? like having an extra window for renaming instead of using the build-in renamer and putting the custom icons on top of the stock icons, internally handle the changed vessel as something else (unknown/ hidden object or debris or one of any deactivated vesseltype)? idk just my oneanahalf cents...

If not (and actually anyway) this function should be a suggestion and added to the stock game. the stock icons are just insufficient.

[Slight freeze every 5 seconds (or so)]

okay reading some setups here, I consider my rig pretty damn mediocre:

phenom 8400 tripple 2,1GHz; 4GB RAM; Radeon HD 6450; Win 7 64Bit

KSP 0.90 with KER, RT2, KAC, KAS

I don't have regular stutter problems as you discribed. even the horizon lag disappeared with .90.

only thing is a short hang/ pause/ almost crash in flight when I first mouseover the missions tab...

are you sure your CPU or GPU aren't throttled down? it also helps if you assign KSP to one CPU core only and try to get everything else off that core.

[What is your minimum orbit altitude?]

My initial orbit is almost always 70km. from there I can take full benefit of the Koberth-effect and I don't mind if I scratch the atmosphere a bit during a maneuver.

If my spacecraft's ascent-profile is ... interesting I'll aim higher to compensate for that.

as for parking orbits: docking-targets are between 90 and 120km (including refuel station) and generic stations at 250km. my second generation RT2-sats are at ~1000km.

[Why isn't map view showing my trajectory after Mun encounter?]

^^that was the why, here comes the workaround:

put a maneuver on your munar-trajectory (0m/s deltaV). it will show you the next part of your projected orbit. I have planned complicated flyby-slingshot-stuff with many many small maneuvers like this. also right click on mun and "center view" (? I guess, not "select as target" but the other one) will show how your orbit looks relative to mun and makes setting maneuvers easier.

[On Monopropellant...]

In an application like you show, I often just use point-anywhere RCS ports and angle them aft-ward. They're cheap, massless, and provide plenty of thrust on a small probe. There are three main disadvantages: (1) RCS ports have lower ISP than the O-10 engine [260 vs. 290], (2) you have to hold the H-key down throughout a burn, and (3) you have to calculate the ÃŽâ€V by hand because KER doesn't compute it for RCS.

this is actually my plan-C: grab science data, decouple commandpod, enable RSC and return home.

MechJeb calculates RCS deltaV and also somehow predicts time of RCS-burns. holding the h key is a pain but alt-. timewarp helps and i can imagine a simple mechanical "finger" to keep the key pushed (I remember times when I ducktaped my playstation controller for the 100 rounds on a superspeedway...

[What are you supposed to do with an unused launch escape system?]

I don't use LES either, but you could:

- use the thrust of the LES on ascent, then jettison on suborbital trajectory

- shoot it at the stage you just staged off

- build LES as a satellite (if you use RT2)

- use it as seismic impactor (if you use Interstellar mod)

[Confused by contract language]

AFAIK

(...) For the staging variation, the part has to be activated for the first time in the required situation, which effectively means that if it's an engine, you'll have to get it there by other means.(...)

false

(...)Easy way to use staging to test an engine that you're already using: activate the engine by right click -> activate instead of through staging. Set it up so that you can stage to it when you meet the conditions.(...)

true

[Maximum delta-V at Kerbin surface TWR >1.]

OP, rip off all nosecones and give it another try!

[Manned Duna Mission - Docking and Construction Woes]

seriously, you need to learn how to dock. It's not that hard and opens soooo much possibilities.

You wrote that you can rendevouz flyby, that's good!

Now you need to get rid of that nasty relative velocity and get close to your target.

1. select target as target (...duh), the new big round symbol on your navball is "towards target" the small three legged is the "away from target"-marker.

2. click on orbit-velocity to change to target mode (if that didn't happen automaticly). Pro- and Retrograde markers work now relative to target.

3. nose towards retro marker and a short burn to get a feeling for your deceleration. You also want to align the retrograde- and retrotarget-markers, here comes how:

retrograde always moves away from thrust vector, prograde moves towards it. Keep your velocity at about distance/20s [1000m / 20s = 50m/s; 200m / 20s = 10m/s etc.]. if you get to 50m, brake down to <0.2m/s, and take a deep breath.

intermission:

0. while placing your RCS in the VAB, detach all lower stages and drain as much fuel as would be used in the mission at the time of docking. activate the CoM-marker and place a set of 4 linear thrusters "around" it. this is your middle line. now start putting normal RCS-ports at equal distance above and below your middle (still 4 times). for a small ship 8 thrusters are enough, bigger ships need more. Test your RCS placement on launchpad with hacked gravity. if you can use HNIJKL without turning the ship, it's perfect.

4. kissing ships...

argh, real life interferes. to be continued if you say so....

[Designing Launch Vehicles]

most of what you guys said, but I still go to 10km before I turn. thus 1500m/s is a magic number for me. I try to get my liftoff-stage to 1500km/s so it burns out at around 10km.

my second stage is about 4550 -1500 - 50 = 3000 m/s. circularisation is done with the payload.

TWR >1.5 liftoff and low; > 1.2 upper atmo; ~0.8 vacuum.

in my current career I use a recoverable LFO-SSTO for everything around 17.5t (more mass to orbit with SRBs).

[I don't understand what in the hell is going on]

hmm from the (suboptimal) pic I can't see anything wrong. which one is the root part? have you tried an two node probe core right under the dockingport (my standart)? or perhaps KSP is confused by the off-center probecores, try right-click on dockingport and "control from here".

you're not using RemoteTech, are you?

[Trash ships to hell]

A very good solution to waste is to throw it into a mini black hole. It will be converted to gamma radiation as the small black hole evaporates.

until now I though mankind's role was to produce plastics for future lifeforms and then die out. but shoveling the (reachable) mass of the universe into blackholes sounds equally valid.

since capitalistic economies expand by definition, some time in the future the resources will get scarce. recycling can only compensate a little and the natural mines (of any kind) will get more and more difficult (read expensive) to get to.

I don't think anyone will throw thrash away into space. I rather think that garbage will be a tradegood.

[KSP 0.90 'Beta Than Ever' Grand Discussion Thread!]

okay, firstly: KSP runs sooooo smooth since the update. okay, I immediately set the "Oceans" to 3 and run on low graphics, but still the game seems to be much better performance wise.

then: oh man, what a blast I had on my first rescue mission. Didn't upgrade my tracking station, so I had to do it all hands on.

[Transfering kerbals between parts]

you still need to click the hatch to transfer. if you have crewed parts without accessible hatch you're stuck

[Crash Test Dummy / Kerbal Analogue]

yeah guess google is my friend.

mods, pls close this

[Crash Test Dummy / Kerbal Analogue]

Thanks, sometimes the forum search just doesn't get what I'm trying to tell it...

does it work? (no pic thread...)