Colonel_Panic

Yes, that's the same exact issue I'm having (though I struggled to even get the GUI to open, just the tooltip) Is anyone able to get this to work who is running MechJeb? I can't really test without MJ because that part is installed on pretty much every ship in my fleet and VAB.

What kind of system do you have? this is honestly one of the less laggy ships I've put in orbit.

I did figure it out in the end, but even after decoupling the docking port the darn thing just didn't want to let go. I ended up burning a ton of rcs fuel and spent a lot of time thrashing the station back and forth and twisting it until it finally broke free. I also discovered the lack of battery in the tug when I undocked it after sunset... thankfully it didn't drift far before morning. Assembling this thing is a real challenge and big undertaking. I love it. I think I'm better at docking already.

Doing a plane change in low orbit would be very fuel expensive, and my landers are minimal single-stage affairs designed only to reach the surface and return to orbit. I don't want to risk running out of fuel before I can make the rendezvous with the station again. I know I can hit a 90 degree inclination for almost zero fuel if I perform the inclination change far enough out near the edge of vall's SOI, but getting back on track when departing again is different, and I don't know how well a transfer to another planet will even work if I'm in a 90-degree inclined orbit. I suppose if I'm lucky and my orbit takes me through vall's prograde and antigrade vectors around jool during my departure window, but that's kind of a gamble, and I don't know how well the moons will play with lining up a departure window that works considering. Thanks. I'm planning to visit each moon with the station, and deploy 6the lander in low orbit, then scoop it back up again before moving on. This allows me to use small re-fuelable single-stage landers so I only have to bring 2 for the mission to have one spare.

I made a video covering most of the concepts of beginner, intermediate and advanced rocket building, and basic ascent guidance. I tried to be as comprehensive as possible, so it's long, but should have something for just about everyone but the most seasoned players. Check it out and leave your hate mail on youtube, thanks! P.S., maximum resolution is 1920x1200 so if your monitor and internet can support it, select 'original quality' to see all the details of what I'm doing in the GUI.

I don't know what I presed, but some yellow text popped up that I didn't get a chance to read, and now I can't switch back to rotation mode for docking. Every time I hit spacebar, the selector clicks over and then immediately back again. I'm now stuck in the middle of a docking rendezvous maneuver I can't complete. help?

yeah I can't figure out how to release the cover either. Some basic setup instructions would be nice! All that aside it's still an insanely elegant rocket. I absolutely love it.

Can't speak for austin, but it's not working for me either. With 4.0 the parts show up, but I get no button or GUI. If I mouseover where the button -should be- and hit exactly the right spot, the "ISA MapSat" text pops up, but it's not clickable or anything. also using Also using protractor 2.5.2, kerbal engineer redux 0.6.0.3, crew manifest 0.5.2.0 and mechjeb 1.9.8 & 2.0.8.0. No other mods.

Thanks. I got it installed now, but it's not working. :/ GUI appears to be broken. tried uninstalling other mods to check for conflicts but no joy.

link please? I'm not finding it, only old versions.

If you're using a lifter and transfer stage to take it places, I'd assume you won't need the air breathing engine for SSTO (unless you're going to laythe) and remove it and the intakes to save weight/drag, and also probably assume it's expendable, so you could remove the landing gear as well and replace with a clamp-o-tron jr. Not sure what that will do for the balance of it though.

I have a few fantastically efficient lifters rated for 100 and 150-200 ton payloads.. the 100-ton one is solid as a rock, but 150 is unstable and tends to break apart if you attach it to anything toward the upper end of its capability (it has the TWR and dv to lift 200 tons, but for some reason the weight of the payload will cause it to disintegrate mid-ascent when you get close to the 200-ton mark. No amount of struts or reinforcements at the points of failure will help, so I suspect there's an upper limit to the mass the physics engine can handle before joint failure occurs.) It's interesting because the same lifter will perform perfectly fine on a 150-ton payload and reach orbit with 100+ tons of fuel to spare in the final 2 stages.... but with 200 tons, it just breaks apart and no amount of tweaking will ever make it reliable... only way to get it in space is to keep re-trying the launch over and over again until it randomly works. I'll post a .craft once subassembly loader is working again, since I can't access my pre-built lifters right now.

Perfectly balanced and flyable, single jet engine so will not spin out. MJ recommended, but not included. You'll want to manually map your intakes to a control group if not using MJ, since it's not set up that way. recommended ascent: standard SSTO ascent, 28km ceiling. begin leveling out around 14km to maximize your speed before burnout. http://herpnderp.info/MicroDart%20NoMJ.craft

I really don't want to be dropping any tanks. The dry weight of the station is high enough that shedding empty tanks wouldn't save that much mass anyway, but mostly I just want it to be fully re-usable. The idea being I need only return to kerbin to refuel after a mission.

I couldn't resist building an open-top shuttle with the new seats, pack them in there like sardines in a can. Incidentally, it landed without throwing any out! ladder not included: at present, you have to get in from orbital EVA, though you can easily add one... recommend mechjeb (also not included) to manage your engines and intakes. Will make SSTO with about 900 delta v to spare with it. It's a tad bit clippy, but very stable. .craft: http://herpnderp.info/Fun%20Bus%20NoMJ.craft

aw damn someone beat me to it. Although at least mine is different in that it's SSTO.

Hi folks. I recently completed the maiden voyage of my new explorer station, thus proving its capability for deployment and retrieval of extra-atmospheric munar landers. In a single trip, I deposited and retrieved 2 landers from both the mun and minmus, then returned to kerbin LKO with close to 3400 delta-v to spare. After refueling and re-outfitting the station with a newer, heavier lander, I want to make my next mission to visit Vall, Bop and Pol all in one go. I'm fairly confident I have the delta-v to get there if I play my cards right, although if I need to send a refueling tanker to make the return trip, that's acceptable too. Here's my question: how should I go about it? First and foremost, I want to visit all three moons, set down with landers, return those landers to the station, and move on to the next, using the minimum amount of delta-v... I guess it's kinda a traveling space salesman issue, however there's a few other mission objectives I'd like to meet: I also want to visit points of interest on Vall and Bop. I would presume that the most efficient path probably involves aerobraking at Jool or Laythe into Vall's orbit, aiming to hit a polar inclination, then burn to capture and use my heavy lander to fine-tune the approach, land, return to the station, then try and find a transfer window that lets me escape the polar orbit as flat as possible into Vall's prograde to hit Bop, possibly via Tylo gravity assist, determine a minimum orbital inclination that will allow me to reach the point of interest, capture on it, wait for a window to land at the desired location, land, return, find a transfer window to Pol, eject as flat as possible and perform a Hohmann transfer, aim for a 0 inclination capture, send down the lander, return, and then just hope my pol ejection and kerbin transfer windows overlap.... So here's my questions... 1) Can I shave off any reasonable amount of delta v by using a munar assist on my kerbin ejection? 2) is it more efficient to reach vall via jool aerobraking, laythe aerobraking, or a combination of both? what is the second most efficient method in case the conditions to using the first turn out non-favorable? 3) how much delta-v will I need to land on vall from a low vall orbit, and return to orbit again? assume a single stage, fully re-usable lander. 4) how difficult will it be to escape a polar orbit on vall via vall prograde into the correct orbital plane to hit Bop? how much extra delta v should I assume this maneuver will require versus a flat transfer from an equatorial orbit? 5) what are the actual coordinates of the point of interest on vall, and what orbital inclination do they lie on? (please use spoiler tags for the coordinates. I can't get ISA mapsat to work on 0.20 or I would find out myself.) 6) Is a tylo gravity assist to reach bop from vall feasible? Is it recommended for correcting my inclination? 7) what are the coordinates of the kraken on bop, and what's the minimum orbital inclination I can hit to reach them? (again, please use spoiler tags) 8) should I try and eject from pol directly into my kerbin transfer window, or should I eject early and try to make the transfer from an outer orbit of jool? 9) how much delta v do you think this all might take? is it all a pipe dream? am I doing this all wrong and should I approach it differently? please post comments below. For the record, my station has about 5300 delta v not including the weight of the heavy landers, in its current configuration. I estimate around 4800dv with the landers docked and fully loaded. I can improve it somewhat by leaving behind unneeded hitchhiker containers and/or replacing them with fuel tanks, but I want to make this mission with the minimum amount of modifications, so I'd rather send a fuel tanker to meet me at pol for the return trip, than retrofit the station before leaving. Just looking at transfer burn requirements I calculate I can do it in approximately 4160 delta v round trip, taking into account about a 15% wiggle room on maneuvering fuel, but NOT counting capture burns and major changes in inclination, so I really don't know how much more those things will set me back. I figure for bop and pol it will be minimal, but for Vall it could be a mission breaker. Thanks in advance!

The mission was long and complicated, but despite several hiccups, a complete success. Our two fully reusable orbital munar landers rendezvoused with the already fully fueled and waiting Explorer in LKO to begin our journey. Once ready, we transferred to Munar orbit and sent our first OML down to the surface to plant a flag. With our first stop out of the way, the OML returned to the station, and we set up for our trans-minmus injection burn. Repeating the process on Minmus, we set down our other OML and deposited another flag before returning to the station once again. Finally we returned to Kerbin and aerobraked to return to our parking orbit for refueling and to await the next mission: Vall, Bop and Pol.

Explorer I mission success.

aw crap, I really hope my spaceplanes still work... I was in the middle of a multiple-launch mission with those.

You're forgetting there are other background processes besides the main one. Your CPU can thread different processes differently. There's also system overhead in managing the load.

like this. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/31212-Testing-Jeb-s-new-flying-car!?p=384668#post384668

for what? There's a hundred ships in this thread.

Check that you don't have alpha blending or transparency enabled in your PNG file.

cross-posted from the re-entry thread, since it's relevant here. I decommissioned several older craft to make room for the new today. Lots of images! My old MKI station, the KSS was retired. It didn't have any propulsion to de-orbit, so I had to send up an assembly tug to give it a gentle push. It came in shallow and broke up early, right over KSC at night, giving the ground crews a light show. Burning up passing the island airstrip on its way out to sea. Prototype X was retired, having fulfilled its purpose as a forerunner for the new class of frigate, now titled KDV Ambition. Here it is shedding its solar panels while trying to keep the nose up on re-entry. The light show really was spectacular. Look at the SIZE of that thing! With flames still licking at the trusses, the crew module ejects, cleaving the ship in two. Using its RCS thrusters to break free of the doomed vessel, it flies over the sensor tower. and deploys its parachutes as the nose falls downward and the ship plummets to Kerbin. The fireworks hadn't ended yet. miraculously, a rover survives the crash and wheels free of the wreckage to join the crew. This heavy interplanetary tug was commissioned immediately before the completion of the new Clamp-o-tron Sr, and was made obsolete before the end of its first week. Here it is being decommissioned to make way for the new and improved model. Burns like a star. The Deep Space Station Explorer I was decommissioned following the discovery of missing safety equipment: the jeb seat lacked a seatbelt. It's also being cleared to make room for the MK II, which will be deployed with the -correct- mission flags. Check out that crazy debris trail. The chutes, the chutes, the chutes are on fire. We don't need no water....