Colonel_Panic

pictures would be helpful.

Very nice! I especially love the idea of using the long fuel tanks as connecting pieces, since they're longer than fuselage and you could refuel rovers and other craft with them, although it is unfortunately slightly unrealistic for your kerbals to move between habs through them.

If the rocket or part does not have any control core, it will automatically register as debris. If it does have a control core of some kind, right-click on the control core and select rename, then change the icon to debris type, and it will register as debris.

Don't save them as .TXT files. Save them as .craft files. The problem is probably with your browser or OS re-encoding them when you save them as .TXT. KSP craft files ARE text filetypes by the file header, so your browser will happily assume you want to save them as text files. Don't. Right-click the link and save-as, and make sure it saves it with the .craft extension and not .txt.

np, hope it helps!

It knows you hurt it because you love it.

Hi, nice, do you mind if I link the vid in the first post? I did have a couple comments. I'm not an expert, but I -think- it's pronounced ig-uh-luck. Burning with the LV-Ns during late ascent increases the overall specific impulse of the burn, since their high isp offsets the low isp of the mainsail engine. You could possibly save more by using a cluster of LV-30s around an LV45 as the core stack, but that might also cost you more in weight and part cost, since it seems like you're going for low expense. It is definitely true that by having fewer LV-Ns on the lander, you would increase efficiency, and you could probably land fine with 2, however this is only the case if you're actually removing the engines from the design, and not just disabling them (since it's the weight of the engines that you're burning extra fuel to support. -using- them just trades off burning fuel -faster- for faster acceleration, but your total delta v does not actually change, and in fact may suffer with less thrust due to less precise burn timing (due to the Oberth effect, you burn the least fuel if you can complete your entire ejection burn closer to the prograde vector, and closer to your periapsis, aka, faster.) I used to include clamp jr ports on all my lifter stages to siphon off unused fuel in orbit, but I kinda stopped caring about it since cost wasn't an issue, and just minimized waste by fine-tuning most of my lifters for ascent efficiency to not have a ton of fuel left. Another thing you -can- do if you want, though, is to begin your transfer burn with the lifter stage attached, and using only LV-N engines (disable the mainsail), and then decouple it just before the lifter tank runs out of fuel, then continue on with just the lander, and de-orbit the lifter with the last bit of fuel when it reaches its apoapsis (however, for this particular lander I did NOT include a solar panel on the lifter, so you'd want to add one first.) Also, the amount of fuel you use for an inclination change is proportional to your current velocity (the actual formula is something like delta-v=sqrt(2)*v where v is your current velocity), and the most efficient place to do it during your transfer is somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the way to your apoapsis. (since changing it earlier takes a smaller change in degrees to line up your orbits, but changing it later takes less fuel per change in degree, because you're moving slower.) You want to fine tune your inclination to match your landing site or rendezvous orbital plane immediately after entering the target body's sphere of influence, since you're moving slowest. For best rover use, turn on your SAS with T, turn on precision controls with capslock, and then switch to docking (translation) mode, so your input won't cause it to try and torque forward/back or side to side while turning. If you use a soft touch on it you can cruise pretty safely at 35m/s, just be prepared to tap spacebar to switch back to rotation mode in case you manage to get airborne and need to re-align yourself to land flat and in the right direction. Also this rover has enough spin torque due to all the attached probe cores to right itself and to pitch up and down without using its RCS, and you could use that to drop the towing hitch by pitching up while holding the brakes. I didn't actually test the towing hitch yet, so it might just be bugged. sorry. The game doesn't like cubic octagonal struts near docking ports very much. The original plan was to make it so I could tow fuel tankers along and use the upper port to connect to a ship to refuel. If you are looking for a good way to transport kerbals to and from munar orbit for rendezvous, you might check out the Arrow or Dart SSTO I have in the link in my sig, as it can carry 2 (1 for dart) and return unmanned using nothing but fuel (needs to refuel in LKO before going to mun). I might be working on an even more efficient shuttle for those purposes soon.

I've seen that happen since .20.2, and it seems to be related to the cupola crew modules. Warping doesn't stop it either. Only fix I've found is to quickly switch away to the tracking station then back again, reloading the station. Hopefully they'll fix it. They're just craft files. I assure you that hosting them somewhere else will not make a difference. You need to save them as .craft files in your VAB folder

My new Terminus Station Core for O.A.S.I.S. systems. shown with OASIS fuel cores.

New Terminus station core for OASIS (link to this and all OASIS craft downloads in my sig) Operates as a standalone station, fully functioning with everything it needs in a single launch. Low part count: around 150 parts total, 180 with 2 fuel cores (additional OASIS XL fuel tanks after that are only 3 parts each, up to 14 tanks!) 'Lite' alternative for people who want a full sized O.A.S.I.S. compatible station with minimal part count, hassle, or orbital assembly. Once in orbit, it has enough onboard fuel for its LV-Ns to reach minmus orbit, although you will need to dock additional fuel tanks with it before moving it to another planet. shown with OASIS fuel cores. The entire length of the station is accessible via mobility enhancers.

with 500 billion parts, I think any machine would choke on that.

I usually use kerbal engineer for staging analysis on really big lifters, but usually just use mechjeb for basic interplanetary calculations with single stages, since I throw it on all my rockets anyway. IIRC the duna and eve injections both cost in the 2000-2500 delta v range, but of course you should do your own math first. This assumes perfect approach and aerobraking.

1550 delta v with the onboard fuel tank and no additional docked ships or modules. When I launched I had an additional 900 delta v left in the lifter stage, too, after reaching a 118km orbit, so if you don't care about leaving the lifter floating around an eccentric orbit, you could use it as a boost to get to duna or eve.

Station core for use with the O.A.S.I.S. station systems (see link in signature) Also operates as a standalone station, fully functioning with everything it needs in a single launch. Low part count: around 150 parts total, 180 with 2 fuel cores (additional OASIS XL fuel tanks after that are only 3 parts each, up to 14 tanks!) 'Lite' alternative for people who want a full sized O.A.S.I.S. compatible station with minimal part count, hassle, or orbital assembly. Once in orbit, it has enough onboard fuel for its LV-Ns to reach minmus orbit, although you will need to dock additional fuel tanks with it before moving it to another planet. shown with OASIS fuel cores. The entire length of the station is accessible via mobility enhancers. Action groups: 1) toggle outer engine gimballing. Press twice before every launch or station will wobble! 3) toggle solar panels 4) toggle antennas 5) toggle mobility enhancers 0) Jettison structural support (press before finishing circularizing, or you'll leave a bunch of debris in space) Ascent notes: It's very tall and thin with a cupola module at the top. Be sure to handle it gently and don't let it thrash around. Recommend selecting the probe core at the top of the lifter stage and 'control from here' to reduce navball wobble during ascent. If you have trouble keeping it oriented after the second lifter stage drops off, you can re-engage the outer engine gimballing temporarily, but be sure to turn it off again before the third stage drops. http://herpnderp.info/KSP/Terminus%20Station-S.craft

That's because we don't care what happens to our particles after they do their job and leave the grid.

This sometimes happens since I don't host them personally. check back later. the .crafts should still be available.

charged particles are highly entropic, and always traveling at an absurdly high velocity. AFAIK an ion engine is more about reducing entropy than accelerating particles. In the vacuum of space, the particles should scatter very quickly.

has anyone successfully made a non-stop rover trip around the Mun? I noticed the surface rotation speed of the Mun appears to be lower than the maximum speed of a rover, so it should be possible to make the entire trip nonstop in daylight using solar energy... but it's also a really big moon, and would take a very long time. I'm also thinking about starting a series of endurance race challenges around some of the smaller moons in the Kerbol system. Thoughts?

My guess is it wasn't implemented the same as liquid engines because the nature of the engine is different. Clearly if you have an ion engine completely blocked, it shouldn't give you any thrust, however, since it operates via a combination of expulsion and magnetic repulsion, and at such a low rate of expulsion, the exhaust can probably still produce usable energy while dissipating, even when something is in the way directly behind. It was probably overlooked as a matter of lesser importance because of this.

Modern space programs try to minimize it, because it's a very real problem for us now. NASA actually tracks every piece of debris in orbit right now, dating all the way back to the first space program. It's a lot of junk, and the smallest collision could destroy a billion dollar mission. There are some plans in the works to design and implement vehicles capable of deorbiting derelict satellites, but as of yet the cost of doing so is too high to be worthwhile. It's far easier to just plan the missions to leave everything out of orbit apart from what you plan to keep there. It's why we stopped using things like explosive bolts on orbital craft. Kerbin is a much smaller planet than Earth, and most players use a smaller range of orbits than we do, so a debris problem can crop up faster. I deorbit what I can, but generally ignore what I can't, or that which would require too much effort. My trash collectors stay in orbit but are very infrequently used since .20. Every once ina while I might have a catastrophe in a heavily populated low parking orbit, and decide to deorbit the larger pieces before they can hit something important. I strive for realism where I can and don't like using the magic "solve problem" button if I can avoid it. I make an exception though for catastrophes which are caused by some glitch in the game and are no fault of my own, like spontaneously exploding stations.

better check your symmetry

hmm, I actually rather like that design as a single-launch station, might have to design my own take on it at some point. Not sure where I'd attach the fuel, though. Probably to the east/west facing sides of the station to keep clear of the solar panels. I'd probably also space the panels out a little further on masts so they are less likely to eclipse each other.

see posted in this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25004-KSP-Unofficial-Official-Computer-Building-Megathread-%28All-Questions-Acceptable-%29?p=447567&viewfull=1#post447567

That's fair. When I designed OASIS, my goal was to make a station infrastructure that offered maximum physical size for minimum part count, using a lot of very large pieces and very few structural supports and other bells and whistles (the docks themselves being the exception, with lots of lights and rigid structure). There were a few unfortunate limitations such as the need for adapters and struts to make 6-way clamp-sr joints work (until they add a 6-way large size hub), but I did for example get the fuel cores down to 36 parts per side (7 orange XL fuel tanks and 3 XL RCS tanks) and things like that.

You might be able to get back to kerbin orbit from mun if you're really efficient with the fuel and use proper aerobraking, it will be close though. It's really designed for simple landing and return to orbit from non-atmospheric bodies, in order to transport kerbals, rovers or other supplies from orbit to the surface and back to orbit. The fact that it has enough to reach mun from kerbin and still land and take off without refueling first i just a bonus. Normally you'd use all the fuel to reach orbit around a destination body and then refuel before landing and taking off. Since it lacks parachutes or atmospheric engines, I don't recommend using it to land where there's atmosphere, including kerbin (although you could probably land it on kerbin if it had full fuel before entering the atmosphere, and used atmospheric drag to slow you down enough on the way in) I couldn't attach the liter to the bottom if the rover was there, so the rover is moved to the top, so the rocket can attach solidly to the bottom.