Kerba Fett

Probably the most pointless thread ever. From the title and post date it was pretty obvious that it was a Fools day joke, and as soon as you read the first line it was confirmed. Why would anyone believe that the ksp devs would pass big news about the game through some random forum user. The trick to a good Fools Day joke is to make it at least somewhat plausible.

Using winches to pull a ship to the docking port sounds like a dangerous idea. You have pretty much no directional control and no way to slow down when you get close. If you're using multiple winches and it starts to drift to one side your only option would be to pull faster with the winch on the other side. Of course that just means your docking ports are going to hit that much harder.

If you'd have jettisoned the engines after the de-orbit burn and just come down with parachutes it would have been a lot easier to get back in the capsule and your chances of making orbit again would remain the same.

I run multiple modded versions through steam all the time. The only downside I've ever found is that you only get the news and forum buttons on your main install.

There is a way. Write a check, put it into an envelope with a note explaining that you think they deserve more money for their game and mail it to them. Most devs would probably be thrilled to get an unexpected bonus and you'll feel better so everybody wins. So now that you know how, you're going to do it right? :^)

Ever notice that there's lots of mods for most features of KSP but very few focused on rovers? It's probably because as others have mentioned rovers are mostly pointless. If you want to travel short distances, the vastly overpowered jet pack is faster and easier. If you want to travel long distances, it's easier to just take your lander. (at least on low gravity bodies) Compared to either option the rover is a slow clumsy alternative. If the jet pack were nerfed and your short range option were walking or a rover then rovers would get more attention. The fact that the standard rovemate is a giant block of nothing doesn't help either. It's huge but has no battery, no reaction wheels, no fuel and no storage space. As near as I can tell its only purpose is to make the COM higher.

If you get your computer fixed, you might be interested in knowing that most Radion cards can support 3 monitors by using the DVI, HDMI, and Displayport. You need a Displayport to DVI adaptor to use more than 2 though.

I notice on your config that you have the Drawgauge = True for the liquid fuel but not the oxidizer. Is it only required for one of them? One thing you might try is to use the .cfg for one of the stock engines. If it fixes your problem then just tweak that config with your ISP values, node position, and any effects offset. If the stock config doesn't fix your problem then it's in the Unity setup and you're on the wrong path to fix it.

I played with the camera mod a while ago and while it was OK for planes, it was pretty bad for most other stuff. VTOL's and landers were all sorts of fun when your velocity drops to near 0 and the camera starts whipping around trying to line up with the velocity vector. Docking was a similar challenge when you're on your final approach and translate at low speed. Suddenly you're not looking at the docking port, but somewhere 90 degrees from it. I ended up getting rid of the mod and going back to the stock chase camera. I imagine if they implement this as a replacement to the chase camera rather than in addition to the current one, someone will come up with a mod to restore the current camera.

I don't use nukes that much, but I have been experimenting with mixing them with higher output engines. 4 radial mount nukes and a skipper. With all of them in use you get good TWR. As you turn down the thrust limiter on the skipper the TWR goes down while the dV remaining goes up. This lets you choose fuel efficiency or power on the fly. (you leave the nukes at full power all the time)

In my .25 career I did one too many landings on a trip to Minmus. Fuel was tight coming back and by the time I got my PE inside kerbins atmosphere for areobraking I was down to 3 m/s of dV. I tend to be a bit more conservative now.

Even if you could get a stable orbit out of it, you'd still need to match orbit with the station on anything going to the Mun. That would take just as much dV as simply going directly to the Mun and would be much more difficult to rendezvous with due to the non circular orbit.

You need a Karbonite scanner on your satellite and you need to be running the latest dev version for it to show Karbonite on your scans at map. In the upper right corner of the big map you find a menu to choose your resource type and when you hover mouse pointer over the map it will show the Karbonite concentration in the lower left corner where it shows biome and altitude.

I just discovered the bit about running the extra copies through steam last week. It's also worth mentioning that once you add it to your steam library you can right click on it and go to properties to give it a more descriptive name. Eg. 25 modded, 23.5 64 bit, 90 b9 install, ect. Also, I don't think just linking to the 64 bit .exe will work. Normally when using the 64 bit version you need to rename the KSP_x64_data folder to KSP_data. If you use the 64 bit .exe without the 64 bit data files, doesn't it break your install?

Like many of you I'm also bothered by the EVA pack being WAY overpowered for 0 g. At this point an easy fix is to use the Tweak Everything mod. It adds a thrust limiter to the EVA pack just like engines have. I find setting it at 10 to 15% works much better in 0 g. While I'd like to see this implemented in the stock game I'd also be fine with it fixed at about 10 to 20% of what it is now. This would mean you couldn't use the basic pack for surface travel, but I don't see that as a bad thing. It would give small rovers a purpose. Right now if you want to go a few Km with a kerbal it's easier to just use the jetpack than to bring a rover. Why not force players to bring a rover or even a planet exploration jetpack? If you really want to fly around the surface the Exploration Jetpack would be a larger varient of the basic backpack. They'd be a part with mass and it would cost you dV to bring one on a mission but the tradeoff would be more fuel, downward looking lights, and different versions for more power output with the larger ones able to fly on Eve. The Universal Storage mod has a larger EVA pack. It works with Kerbal Attachment System and can be stored in KAS containers or surface attached to a ship. It adds more fuel and life support. I consider this to be a good proof of concept for the Exploration Jetpack.

Is there a particular reason why you want the engines to pull the craft? If not, here's a ship I've used to harvest science from Minmus and the Mun for the last few career restarts. I've done minor variations, but stuck with the same basic design since it works pretty well. The 3 man capsule give you enough crew to man the lab module and still keep someone in the capsule. (required to run the lab) This version has 4 docking ports on the fuel tank and 1 shielded port on the nose. Fuel is the same capacity as the big orange tank and the engine is a poodle for decent fuel economy. When fully fueled in kerbins orbit it's got about 4000 dV and you will have to refuel it in LKO. A full orange tank is too heavy for a poodle to lift. If it you tweak it to half full in the VAB it's easy enough to get into orbit. I use 4 of the radial mount monopropellant tanks. It's enough to keep the lander topped up for enough dockings to harvest every biome of the Mun or Minmus. I normally send the lander on it's own booster and transfer stage to Minmus or the Mun. I've usually got a bit of fuel left in the transfer stage so I'll dock with the mothership and transfer out any remaining fuel in the transfer stage and jettison it. The lander design is also something I've stuck with through a few career restarts. I used a 2.5m main fuel tank to keep the COM low, still carry a decent amount of fuel and provide a nice wide landing gear base. It uses the LV909 for fuel economy and has 2 science jr and 2 goo canisters. 2 of the small radial mount monopropellant tanks are mounted on the bottom next to the engine. This lets you use lots for docking and landing assist and keeps the COM low. (important on the mun where flat spots are rare) By the time I've harvested all the science and am ready to move on, I've usually set up a kethane mining base on the surface that I use to refuel the mothership. Stock players could send a tanker from kerbin. When you're ready to move on you just dock the lander to the nose of the ship to be in line with the COT and deactivate the lander engine. The small ship docked is a data courier. After a number of landings and storing the data in the pod of the mothership, a small courier ship comes from kerbin to pick up the data and take it home. This way the mothership never has to go back to kerbin unless you replace it with a better one. While this version uses 4 radial docking ports, I found 2 plus the one in the nose was enough in later versions. Still gives you room to dock habitat modules for crew comfort or refueling tankers. It's been a while since I haven't launched one in .90 yet, but if memory serves the booster was a mainsail with 3 orange tanks and 8 basic jet engines radial mounted. Gives you a starting point to work from. I found this setup to work quite well through a few career restarts so hopefully there are some ideas here you can use.

If you've got to land on that point why do you care if your orbit goes over it? Just use a maneuver node to set up your de-orbit burn and use both retrograde and anti-normal to put your predicted impact on your target. You can land a long ways off your orbital path like that.

WhiteKnuckle's idea is pretty good. You could also just point them forward to use them for braking. Just use an action group to toggle them off or on.

If you've got the Kerbal Attachment System mod you could just land a craft near your base and attach it with KAS pipes or a winch. That should allow your contract to complete. Or even just use KAS to attach a single rover wheel. Chances are that your contract only needs wheels present not the ability to actually move the base.

I find the rendezvous method described by Zilfondel to be much easier. By using an elliptical orbit on the ship you're piloting you get intercept markers that move closer each orbit. When it looks like they'll go too far on the next orbit you add a node at the intercept point and add prograde till you get a very close intercept. Once I get a very close intercept, I set up a node to match orbits at that point. This gives you a countdown to your closest approach next to the navball. (but I still use the relative velocity marker to kill the velocity. It's more accurate than the node)

One issue with docking ports is that they can either surface attach or node attach, but it seems like they've got a preference for surface attaching. Assuming both of your docking ports have nodes showing, hold ALT to force it to node attach.

This is a very cool idea. I don't fly planes that much, but having to roll using the QE keys always bugged me. (I do all my flying with the KB) This should make things a lot easier. I'd like to suggest a feature for a future release that I think would fit right in. A third control mode for landers. When you fly a rocket through space your camera is usually behind it looking forward. The ship is usually oriented so the spine of the ship faces to top of the screen and the controls are quite intuitive. W pitches you forward, A yaws you left and Q rolls you left. It's quite easy to keep track of. When you land a lander on it's tail, your camera is usually behind and above the ship looking down. The spine of the ship faces the camera and most of the controls are intuitive. W pitches you forward and A rolls you to the left. Q and E however seem backwards. Pressing Q causes you to yaw to the right rather than the left as you might hope for. I understand why it does this and have learned to cope with it, but it would be nice if there was an easy fix like your mod. Is there any chance of getting a Lander mode in a future update that's like Rocket mode but reverses the Q E axis? It would be a big help with a lot of my flights.

Raindreamer gave some good suggestions, but I'd also add MechJeb mostly for it's info screens rather than pilot assists. MJ allows you to easily make custom windows for most situations so you don't need large cluttered windows. Eg. custom window for landing, one for docking, one for surface to orbit, ect. You should also look at Universal Storage. It plays well with KAS, TAC LS, and Dmagic orbital science. It lets you build clean looking complex ships. Also the Docking Alignment Indicator by Navyfish.

The 64 bit version of the game is buggy and while the 32 bit version is less buggy, it's also memory limited. When KSP runs, it loads all of the parts in gamedata, but could it load and unload them once the game is running? Everyone has parts they don't use but deleting them is a bit permanent. Suppose you could base part loading on tech tree availability. If you play career and the part's not unlocked yet, why have it take up memory? Parts in unlocked nodes could be clicked on to load or unload them and anything not loaded into memory doesn't show up in the VAB and SPH part inventory. By adding a memory display you could fine tune your install for the parts you actually want to use rather than everything in gamedata. In the research building you'd also load and save profiles with different parts active like spaceplanes or rockets. The one downside to this method is that you'd end up with some longer loading screens coming out of the research building after changing parts. You'd also need a warning to keep you from unloading a part used in an active flight unless you wanted to lose the ship as well. Or perhaps it could use a placeholder for unloaded parts and they could load from disk as you approach the vessel. I'm no programmer, but would this even be possible? You can reload the entire database from the debug menu but will Unity and KSP let you load and unload stuff at will? I'd be willing to trade longer loading screens for more memory avialable for mods. Or does a mod like this already exist and I just don't know about it yet?

Your new stuff looks pretty cool. I can't wait to try it out. I'd tend to agree with you about avoiding make it plugin dependant. Every time KSP is updated many plugins stop working and you need to wait for them to be updated. This means removing any dependant parts which removes any flights in progress that may be using them. For example, if .91 comes out and your lander needs a plugin that's not compatable it has to be removed. If that lander was docked at my science station orbiting duna then I lose that as well and any other ships that might be docked to it. Sometimes plugin dependancies can ripple out beyond your own mod. A growing parts list can be a concern. With the 64 bit version of KSP being so buggy and the 32 bit version being so memory limited, there are many excellent mods that I'd like to use but just don't have the memory for. Fortunatly your mod hasn't gotten to that point yet. My advice for your release version would be to have one download, but sort it into folders for your 2.5m, 1.25m, skycrane, and science. That way if the entire pack is too large for a user they can just remove a folder to get rid of one category.