Elsig

I wasn't sure where to post this....it's not really KSP related, but it IS space related! I'm sure many has seen this video by now which is making the rounds in the news. Here's the video: (turn on youtube captions for the translation)I've been reading the various youtube comments as well as comments people have made under the many articles dotted around the interweb. It seems people are expecting meteorites to glow and travel at lightning speeds at this low altitude! Of course, us kerbonouts knows that when our s<strike>pacecrafts</strike> contraptions, <strike>fly controlled,</strike> tumble violently through the atmosphere like a glowing fireball awaiting the impending doom, it eventually reaches terminal velocity and travels at more "relaxed" speeds. Not that it increases the chance of survival, unless your name is Jeb and you land with your head in just the right position to soften the blow. Not saying that this IS a meteorite. But it is certainly very plausible. The expert on the video certainly seems sure in his case. Some people are saying the must have gotten a rock in the parachute by accident. I don't think so, you'd notice!!

http://kerbalcon.com/

Have you got docking ports unlocked? If so, I would assemble this in orbit and then take it to Duna

EDIT: As I posted this I realized that you perhaps meant a manned craft? Not just a satellite... I'll have to modify my craft to have a pod on it. I'm sure it can be done. Here's my very quick attempt! Payload... 0.12t. I'm sure this can be improved on a lot! I had lot's of fuel left. No mods (apart from mechjeb for stats, didn't use any of the auto pilots).

You're welcome. I can share the craft file if that would help. Is there an easy way to share craft files (ala image sharing sites like tinypic?). I never share files so have no idea.

Here's how I did it. I'm sure there's more efficient ways, but this works. 13 orange tanks 7 Mainsails 2 ASAS modules (needed for the torque, the new reaction wheels are two small) Decouplers (decoupled asparagus style) Struts, struts and more struts All tanks are arranged in asparagus style. The outer 6 tanks have no engines (fuel only) The challenge was to get your contraption into orbit and this does the job. However, your module is very wobbly. You need to add more struts to make it stable...I didn't do that, i did exactly what you asked. Got it into a stable orbit with all the tanks still full. Only Mod I used was Mechjeb for the delta v stats. Didn't use it for ascent. I made it into 100k orbit with 100 Delta V left in the last Orange tank (the one you see floating away in the photo).

You can set the Max debris in the settings menu in the game. No need to tinker with the cfg file.

Couldn't help it. I had to post this! If I had the time I'd edit the video to include some Kerbals! There's a challenge for you creative souls out there! WARNING: This song will haunt you for the rest of your day!

That's great advice and very helpful insight into why it flips! I'll try that and report back Thanks.

I've placed many a rovers on various surfaces where there's no athmosphere and have no problems with that. My latest mission is to place a rover on Duna to go with my existing Duna base. I've come across a hurdle however. I've got 4 parachutes to help with the descent. They are placed on the beams next to the wheels. Center of gravity is more or less in the middle of the 4 chutes. When I deploy them in the athmosphere everything looks OK. However, as soon as they fully deploy the rover flips up side down and i'm unable to rotate it the right way. I'm baffled as to how this is possible. Looking at my descent can you see a reason why this would flip when the chutes fully deploy? Seems illogical to me.

More is not always better! You got too many engines and too much fuel. Once your boosters are empty and ditched that one mainsail (or is it skipper?) engine does not have enough power to lift the two orange fuel tanks AND your load. I always use asparagus now, but here's one of my very first heavy lifters before I knew what asparagus was. I got this into my 300k orbit and docked with my space station.

DOH! I thought Protractor gave me the current phase angle and I had to wait until it matched the Olex one. I get it now!! And I managed to use it to get to Dres on first try without doing multiple orbits. Thanks for the help guys!

In the settings menu you can reduce the "Max Persistant Debris" to zero. That will clear all your debris.

I'm only a few weeks "old" when it comes to KSP. Whenever I'm flying to other planets I've not used any calculators (or calculated it myself). I've just use the maneuver nodes and gotten to where I wanted by trial and error. Sometimes my kerbals have spent years (decades?) in space awaiting the right window. Now I want to do things the right way. I'm not maths genius, nor do I have interest in calculating all this stuff so I'm using the tools that are available. I'm attempting to get to Dres using the Protractor tool and the Olex calculator. I've been to Dres before but I must have orbited Kerbol about 20 times before the right windows occurred! I'm currently sitting in orbit around kerbin at 110km. Olex is telling me I need to leave when Dres is at 82.06 and it gives me a picture which shows me that Dres needs to be about 1 o'clock. However, when I use the Protractor mod it doesn't match what the Olex picture shows. As you can see the Protractor is currently showing 84.74 but it's at 10 o'clock. I'm sure I'm doing it wrong so I'm asking the community for some help on how to use the tool. Thank you

I didn't think of Mechjeb! I have it installed but only use it for Delta-V and for putting crafts in orbit around Kerbin (done that too many times now so happy to sit back and watch mechjeb do it). Mechjeb worked a treat! I didn't use the autopilot but I picked a landing spot and burned manually. Had to do a few corrections on the way down but it worked! I hit my target almost spot on. I wanted to land on the ridge of a crater and it worked! The developer of MechJeb is a genius, that must be some hefty maths going on in the background! Cheers PS! How do I change the post to [Answered]?

How do you land on a specific spot on a planet with atmosphere? I can do it easily on any planet with no atmosphere since there's no drag. Where there's atmosphere however, it gets very difficult. I've done it successfully on Duna (although I landed a few Km's away and had take off again to move closer to my base). I've just tried to do it at Eve which was impossible. The dense atmosphere meant I either overshot or landed too early on all my attempts (i tried MANY times). Any best practices on how to do it? Are there any tools/plug-ins to help with this?

Install MechJeb. Gives you all sorts of information in addition to Delta-V. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/12384-PART-0-20-Anatid-Robotics-MuMech-MechJeb-Autopilot-v2-0-8 It will show you how much delta V your rocket has when building it and also how much is left in the various stages whilst your rocketing around the universe.

For my smaller crafts using ASAS and RCS has worked perfectly for docking. This craft is bigger and it just kept wobbling. Anyway. I failed on my missions to Moho. I tried using the Olex calculator to time my transfers but i ran out of fuel every time... Once I reached Moho i needed another 4500 delta V to slow down! I only had 300 left in the main shuttle and 2000 in the lander so that wasn't going to work. I ended up reverting back to a save and went to Eve instead. Now orbiting eve. I'll deploy the lander another day. No fuel left in the main craft but lander has 2000 and a parachute so that should do nicely. Taking off again is not an option as the gravity is too high. Poor Kerbanauts.

That was a very helpful answer. Thank you! I ended up using mechjeb to dock it. I've docked plenty of ships before without issues and I always have an ASAS module and I've used that to keep the ship steady whilst docking. It's worked really well, but the ships were a lot lighter (usually one or smaller engines). I didn't factor in the ridicolous weight of my LN-Vs. It's all docked and refuelled now ready for the trip to Moho. The 7 LN-Vs have 3500 Delta-V and the lander around 2000. I'm guessing that's enough to get me there and land? But it probably doesn't have enough to get back to Kerbin. The brave explorers will be stuck there until a rescue mission can be done.

Hey all, Is it possible to turn off one SAS module on my craft? (I have 2) Mission: Deploy a refueling station in orbit around Moho and land a spacecraft on the planet. I wasn't able to design anything with enough Delta-V to get there in one go so my plan is to dock with my Kerbal refuelling station and then head off. The problem I'm having is docking with the refueling station! As soon as I turn on SAS and RCS, the thrusters are constantly on. I think the problem is that I have 2 Advanced SAS modules on my craft and they are fighting eachother. One for the spacecraft and one for the Moho Orbiting station. Is there any way to turn one SAS off?

Today I reached a milestone achievement and I need to share it with someone who will appreciate it My wife didn't think it was impressive, it's "only" a computer game"! I'm still in the learning phases of the game having played for a few weeks. I have had a "space colony" type ship on the Mun for a few days and today I added the first module to it. The docking port was on the "roof" of the colony so placing it required a lot precision navigation. And I should have retracted the solar panels first!! (Which are placed horizontally...I know, newbie error). To be honest, I didn't think it would work, but it did! (yes, i used quick save, took me 3 tries to get it docked). The purpose of the trip was to test my Interstellar Colony Builder! It's powered by 3 Rockomaxx 24-77 engines and it's cargo was an FL-T200 fueltank. I should be able to decouple the tank (leaving it attached to the Mun Colony) and then, hopefully, have enough fuel to get the builder back up to the orbiting Mun Mothership/fuel tank ready for the next part or move it to another planet at some point in the future.

Excellent! Thank you

When I undock from a space station and want to control the ship I just undocked I have to go to the tracking station and then select my ship in order to take control. Is there a way to take control of a ship which I just undocked? Double click + key or similar?

Thanks SmallChange. Right after I posted this I realized that the autosave might still be there. And it was..... PS! Why does my post have to be approved all the time?

Panic over!! I had a quick save from a few minutes before i ended the flight. I reloaded that and my space station was back! Pheeeeew!! Didn't want to start all over again so this was good news.