Montag

I successfully made the edit last night.

I was planning on doing the VAB and Launchpad analysis but posted from work yesterday. I did do the study and successfully reversed the part order by editing the persistent file. I did cut and paste the part { } sections so that they were in the sequence on the vessel { }. I do not know if that mattered or not.

Houston, we have a problem. It seems those pesky rocket designers had too much to drink and switched the order of two parts and we are asking for Divine intervention to correct the problem. From the images below you can see the TR-XL Stack Separator (stackSeparatorBig) and Docking Port Sr (dockingPortLarge) are reversed. I am sure I can complete the mission and just have the LV-909 Terrier burn off the Docking Port Sr after separation, but I would rather leave the docking port intact on the science lab portion. I intend to keep the Science lab in orbit. It would still have the Docking Port Sr at the other end, but this is a chance to fiddle. I know I need to address the solar / strut clipping, but I will do that later for new builds. Broken Fixed From the SFS file which has the "broken" vessel has the following relevant parameters: probeStackSmall (item 0) is my root part attN = top, 74 (attachment node top is part 74 - stackSeparatorBig) position 0,0,0 stackSeparatorBig (item 74) parent = 0 attN = bottom, 0 (attachment node bottom is part 0 - probeStackSmall) attN = top, 75 (attachment node top is part 75 - dockingPortLarge) position = 0,0.19999885559082,0 dockingPortLarge (item 75) position = 0,0.299999237060547,0 parent = 74 attN = top, 76 (attachment node top is part 75 - liquidengine3) attN = bottom, 74 name = liquidEngine3 (item 76) parent = 75 position = 0,1.06281852722168,0 attN = top, 77 attN = bottom, 75 Can I get away with just changing the parent, attN = top, attN = bottom parameters - switching 74 with 75, and position? Does the order of the Part { } matter within a Vessel { } as long as the numbers are correct? Is the position the center of the part or is it the face of contact with its parent? - Trying to figure out what the position parameters would be when switching the separator with the docking port. I cannot find the actual part heights.

I have been targeting TWR around 1.5 at launch. Faster than that gets way past terminal velocity. I do try to be at 45° by 10k m. I think trying to keep tipping over while maintaining a constant time to AP - say 45 to 60 sec until AP is the desired level may be a good way to go? So I guess I am agreeing with Wanderfound. I don't know how much a penalty you have if you shoot for an initial 75, 85, or 100k m AP for the initial burn.

The wiki has terminal velocity versus altitude for Kerbin, Eve, Laythe, and Duna. You want to follow that curve for your velocity. Scott Manley has a video speaking to gravity turns. The easy for Kerbin is roll to 45 at 10km then gradually decrease the angle after that. The advice from GoSlash just seems wrong. Once you get past the atmosphere penalty you want to throttle up to get in orbit as fast as possible to not fight gravity anymore. I am guessing that Max Q should typically occur at 10-12.5 km and throttle up could be 15k. Above 20k, I think you would have to be at extreme (re-entry speeds) to not want your max acceleration.

Forget the N/S stuff. Get Docking Port Alignment Indicator by Navy Fish.

I did three Minmus exploration contracts in one go with a manned Mk1 capsule, 4 solar panels, 1 battery circular battery, 1 parachute, 4 landing struts 1 ion engine with 4 fuel tanks. I had crazy 7000 dV in Minmus orbit. I had plenty of thrust and just had to watch the time of Minmus day to make sure I would not run out of power. I could not continuously run at full tilt. edit: To clarify, the upper stag had the ion engine. Chemical engines got the upper stage to Minmus orbit.

Let's say you have a maneuver node that is a prograde burn with a duration of 3 minutes. You start your burn slightly earlier than 1 minute 30 seconds to compensate for throttle up. Should you being burning pure prograde the whole time or should you be burning to the maneuver target (blue crosshair) the whole time? From a LKO, how long of a burn time would you go before splitting it across multiple orbit pass burns? How does the Scientist experience level multiplier effects work? Does he just need to be in the vessel when you transmit or recover? Does he need to be the one that conducts the EVA, take the surface sample, or take data from a goo or science jr? Does he only need to be present for a crew report? Can this be exploited by just swapping out the crew at re-entry? I am not looking to game the system, just wanting to understand it.

Sometimes I would assemble to the two in the vertical axis and then move it back to the horizontal. This comes up when I have a mothership with multiple small probes.

Essential mod - Docking Port Alignment Indicator by Navyfish. Absolute must - and it is awesome!

SaSquatch, what mods are you using?

Pebblegarden has some good instructions as well. He gives some recommended approach speeds versus distance to target. I go a little more aggressive than his recommendations. When you are ready to take the next step for docking, I strongly recommend Navyfish's Docking Port Alignment Indicator. That is an awesome mod - and I would not view it as a cheat at all.

Move your initial probe core to be on the other side of the Octostrut. Add a new probe core where the old one was. You should then be able to take the Octostrut on as a subassembly.

Sent reply to Kasuha instead of thread ... I found this challenge further back: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87211-0-24-s-Cost-Effective-Lifters-Challenge I was basically looking for a modern version of the Zenith family - not really reusable.

Have there been challenges to come up with the most economical designs with career mode for launching payloads to Kerbin orbit? I loved the http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/33381-0-20-2-Zenith-rocket-family-%28modernised-for-0-20-x-with-perfect-subassembly%29 Zenith rocket family lifters, but they are not the best cost when compared to the newer parts. It would be useful to get the most economical and stable lifters for payloads ranging from 15 - 150 tons. A legitimate challenge that would benefit the community. If this has been done before, then please point me in the right direction. I have plenty of cash because of my flag garden on the Mun, but I will be having the mega missions soon for the Jool system.

I would think you could bring a craft with ladders in close proximity and make it have a slow approach speed for collision with the guy and switch over to the Kerbal ready to grab when the craft hits.

Feel free to flush the idea... Maybe add buttons left of the 3 axes to zero out the field? More of a convenience thing. Inadvertently pulling the wrong tab or forgetting to click out of the window and adding gibberish text because of window focus. Obviously these are user created nuisances and can be resolved with clicking in the fields and fixing the value.

I downloaded the actual dll within the zip instead of the zip file itself! That added more to my confusion. Dropping the dll in the main plugin directory worked btw. Awesome tool.

I have been moving in the slow lane and just now using plugins and mods. I do not see anywhere in this thread the installation instructions. I am guessing you just put the dll file in the plugin directory. Could a short blurb be added to the 1st post and perhaps the change log. As a newbie, I greatly appreciate the depth of work the community has put into this awesome game. This plug in is my next step in learning the game. I want the refined inputs for the maneuver nodes. Thanks