Warmblood

HG-55 Antenna issue Hello, I know the dupe issue with the HG-55 antenna was addressed on page 77 & 78, but I'm still having problems with it. Filter extensions is causing my game to crash when loading into the VAB, so I'd rather work around using that. What I tried to do is simply delete the HG-55 duplicate part and the duplicate solar panel part from the Asteroid Day parts directory. That seemed to work just fine, with one small problem... When I attach the remaining HG-55 antenna, it either hovers away about 20m from its attachment point on launch, then disappears, or when I can get it to stay attached to another part, it doesn't respond to any of the action buttons. It does not extend, unfurl, or otherwise show any signs of doing it's job. So question: does the remaining antenna depend on assets of the Asteroid Day part? Is that what's causing the problem? What workaround would solve both the dupe issue and the antenna deployment issue (presuming that's a problem) Thanks!

Single stage to Laythe and back (w/o refuelling) is quite possible using stock parts. It might require some unusual designs and abuse of the atomic engine, but they work. Here's my craft:

Thanks for the replies. I didn't know there were any minimum reputation limits for contracts. It's *probably* due to that. I think I'm still under 100 reputation.

So I am a fairly experienced player, testing out a maximum stock difficulty campaign. Rewards at 10%, starting funds 0, negative starting reputation, etc. I've found this to be fairly doable, although my mountain landing program sadly led to the loss of one kerbal (should have bailed out when it started to slide!) I have a Mun mission in orbit, ready to go. However, I have a problem: I am not getting the Mun exploration contract. I did the initial Kerbin orbit contracts, some miscellaneous parts testing contracts, and several "science data around Kerbin" contracts. I have no active contracts, and I can accelerate time seemingly ad infinitum, but the Mun contracts have yet to show up for me. What gives? Is there something I need to have before Mun exploration contracts show up? I certainly don't have much in the way of resources, but I do have positive reputation, positive funds, and at least some science unlocked. I certainly never thought there were any pre-reqs for the Mun contracts, but then again I was used to unlocking the Mun after the first flight with much more science and rewards, I've looked around for info on this, but haven't found any, so if there is anything a player has to have before receiving Mun contracts, it would be nice to have that information out there.

Probably not the right size or high enough definition, but I can give two options from my albums, one a bit more complex, the other nice and minimalist. Perhaps they'll give someone an idea.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned in-orbit failures. My worst disasters are always building a multi-part ship in orbit, inevitably after having launched 5 annoyingly difficult and unstable component assemblies into orbit. Only to discover that fuel is routed incorrectly, parts don't dock properly, or my favorite, not enough struts and the whole thing is so wobbly it can't even fly straight. (Large docking ports are useful, kiddies!) For me those are truly the worst. Orbital rendezvous take so much time, and then you have to do something with the crew to move them onto a new ship, all because of one overlooked detail! Those are the sort of things that make me stop playing for a while. Most recently, I was going to launch a combination base, heavy rover, shuttle, and station to Duna, in preparation for a long haul mission to Vall to visit Vall-henge. After assembling the craft in orbit and time accelerating to the launch window, it turns out I need... more struts, because the thing will NOT fly straight for all the Funds in the world. I've pretty much just been waiting for .24 to come out since then.

Major features are being added/still need to be added. The game is being built as we play it. Therefore, it is still in alpha. Personally, that's fine with me so far as this game goes. Once all major features are in, I'll expect refinement, but for now, I don't feel it's realistic to expect polish on some features while others are still being built.

Thanks. Yes, on Minmus the probe core can pull it back upright if it falls over. With the controls in docking mode the SAS keeps it stabilized and you can drive around fairly normally.

Hmm, how my "colonies" have gone: On Laythe (.21): On Minmus: Full album for Laythe .21: http://imgur.com/a/NPizI Full album for Minmus: http://imgur.com/a/k4IAC

Ah, thank you, that's good to know.

A mission to land a skyscraper on Minmus, and find amusement thereafter.

Had my first Jool/Laythe multi-part ship disappear on me while building it in LKO. Was not save-recoverable, it was just gone. That was a blow. I didn't try another expedition for a good month or two. I also had an Eeloo mission returning to Kerbin (well into interplanetary space), which apparently had an encounter with the 'Hell Kraken' when I tried to load it in. My altitude went to 666666G, but the ship was either gone or invisible. Luckily for Bob, who had already visited Moho and Dres in this save, I was able to quit out and reload just fine.

Jool Mission, 2 parter. Hab module, 2 planes, 2 rovers: Jool station, spaceplane docking port, and outer moon mission (Vall outpost, Tylo lander, exploration ship) on the front: Result of hab landing (best out of 15 tries)

Back in .18, setting up my first space station. This was when I learned about COM and thruster location. I described it like trying to dock a pipe onto another pipe while both are rotating randomly in space, and any control input I put in also introduced a new rotation to my ship because of the COM issues. Of course, both were probe cores, so torque was hopelessly low. My goodness...The TEDIUM! The holding your breath, finagling the controls, missing by a tiny fraction! ARGGGGHHHH! But, after about 2 hours, I finally got it, and I don't think I've ever felt more accomplished in KSP!

Landed and returned (to orbit) 1 Kerbal on command seat. Landed: After takeoff:

Mine was a tier 0 Duna+Ike flyby and return mission. My spacecraft was like a long stick, a pod or two (no batteries of course) and something like 9 of the small liquid fuel tanks with a LV-30 at the end. I did the usual burn-through of solid boosters on launch, and once I was up to orbit, calculated how much delta-v I had. I knew that I would be cutting it close, but as it turned out, it was a little too close! So I got to Duna, did an Ike flyby at high altitude along the way. I settled into a high Duna orbit and time accelerated to the next return window. Well, I knew it might be close, but this was a bit much. I finished up the main injection burn with about 5 units of fuel remaining, and I still wasn't on target to actually land on Kerbin! I made further adjustments, although it was made difficult by the relatively powerful engine, but finally I had a path that would take me low enough over Kerbin to deploy parachutes and land. So how much fuel did I have left after this? 0.6 units of lf It was almost time to get out and push!

Less an official challenge, more something to give your campaign a long term objective. Use your first rocket at tech 0 to send Jebediah, or a Kerbal of your choice, to Laythe. This is the first challenge, and does require a bit of work, but it is possible if you are careful. Try to land on or at least close to an island. It turns out Kerbal swim speed is ~2.2m/s. Guess how I know... Once Jeb is on Laythe, start planning rescue missions! Normal difficulty: All missions are allowed to increase science. Harder: Only missions to Jool are allowed to increase science. Challenging: Rescue and return Jeb using only science gained from Jeb's mission.

With tier 0, I have done Mun flybys, Minmus orbit (with the obligatory landing by EVA), and a Duna orbit. Hooray for explosive staging! However, I think my first campaign will start with a suborbital rocket, taking soil samples on landing, then launching another mission with science parts, perhaps a Mun/Min flyby. I am quite excited for science parts. Finally we will have a meaningful payload to put on our ships. I'm also curious how the math works between carrying extra crewmembers as opposed to extra experiments. The crew have several actions they can do to generate science, and some of these, (the crew report for one) can be transmitted without trouble. Multiply that science gained by the number of crew kerbals and you might be able to gain quite a lot of science throughout the course of the mission. On the other hand, some of the experiments appear to return 100+ science if returned to Kerbin successfully.

I happened to be testing this yesterday. For mid size craft (15-25 ton fully loaded range-the one posted is a tad small) nukes are the way to go if you can fit one. Anything 2 jet engines and above should qualify. I flew an aircraft with a nuke stuck to the front, the same way one of the earlier posters had set his up. In this configuration you will likely need an extra engine at the back for the phase immediately after jet engine shutdown, but even then the efficiency gained from nuclear is high enough to offset that wasted mass. As a test, I sent up the aforementioned plane. It made it to stable orbit with about 2500 delta-v. The atomic engine was only used in circularization, not the main burn. And I didn't even jettison the rear rocket engine, so it really could have been more efficient. For comparison, I flew a very similar plane with the same fuel loading. All I did was remove the nuke, change the rear engine to a single aerospike, and adjusted the aerodynamic surfaces to suit the new CG position. It made it to orbit just fine, and indeed, was a little easier to fly. It had substantially more fuel once in orbit as well. But, it's calculated delta-v was only 1800. ISP matters. A lot. 800 is clearly superior to 390. As long as the weight of the engine is offset by the overall mass of the spaceship, (and there's fuel ofc!) efficiency becomes the dominating factor in delta-v calculations. Furthermore, if you refuel a rocket plane, that element of efficiency with the nuclear engine will increase even further. It may be extremely awkward, but if you really need to go far with medium to large spaceplane, a nuke is the way to go!

Firstly, experimenting with random stuff in KSP is half the fun, so while we're waiting I'd encourage everyone to go out and play with the starting parts! And if you don't want pre-tested answers, stop reading! But... Since we're sharing results, here's mine. I found a pod+SRB+SRB to be a good way to get to about 120k above Kerbin. Nowhere near orbital, but depending on parameters it could be sufficient for early space experiments. (like an early Mercury mission.) The trick is activating the 2nd srb while the first is almost out of fuel, but still burning. This lets it overheat quickly and blow itself up. For orbital flight, the best seems to be a pod and 8-9 FLT-200's using an LV-T30. Control is not an issue, the pod torque is plenty enough. For me, 8 tanks was so close to being an ideal fuel load. My 8 tank craft made exactly one orbit, but fuel is incredibly marginal. Maybe a little fine tuning would help, but there is just hardly any safety margin. 9 tanks is pretty safe, and is just about perfect for the T30 to lift. Orbit with about 20 units of fuel to spare. There is a question about whether the engine is a T30 or a T45. A T45 might change results a little due to extra weight. On a cost basis (for what's that worth), I believe the 1st option is the most efficient to outside of atmosphere, while the 2nd is best for orbit. I tried some SRB/Liquid hybrids, but without decouplers they are a bit weird and inefficient.

This might help: http://ksp.olex.biz/ I've used that to get to + land on all celestial bodies.

Although it looks like such a thing could happen, nothing causes a clipping problem. Everything can be placed quite normally and stays in place just fine. The craft is balanced as long as there is fuel in the right hand upper tank, but even with that tank empty it is still controllable. Think of it as a backup fuel tank.

Sirius class interplanetary ship. Good for spacetrains whether pushing or pulling, adaptable to many missions, 5 crew capacity, 9-10k delta-v, and it fits well on top of a regular 7 tank asparagus staged booster.

Hello ladies (hopefully) and gentlemen (most likely). I lurk around here occasionally, but spend quite a bit more time playing KSP. As a send off to a long running campaign, I present this album, detailing a big Jool mission and landings (and returns) on every planet and moon that can be landed upon, save Eve. After all, Scott Manley is doing a series about landing on Eve, I didn't want to be repetitive! http://imgur.com/a/NPizI TL;DR:

--That may be good idea. I use that practice on all spaceplanes but hadn't carried it over yet.It was just this particular rocket that needed an additional rocket bottom stage. For smaller payloads it's jet only. I have experimented with a central fuel tank, arrayed engine bottom stage, but it had some stability issues. I may take a look at that design again, since you're right, this design carries more jet fuel than it needs.