Scarecrow88

And there was me thinking you were going to ask about using a bunch of screenshots for a calendar you could stick on the office wall. Jeb would be proud.

If it has a docking port, you could rendezvous and refuel it. Failing that I guess you are looking at some sort of mod that allows refuelling without docking, or editing the persist file to fill it up again. The convoluted way, without resorting to mods or cheating, would be to build a ship with some sort of grabber or bucket, and bring it down with that.

My screenshots folder was created in the KSP_win folder. However my directory structure is c:\Kerbal, though I have no idea if that could be the difference.

I pretty much posed the same question for running KSP on a crappy laptop I have, and after spending a few hours tweaking all the graphics variables I found the only way I could retain shadows was by having the render quality set to good or better. Basically means that the game is unplayable on my laptop due to lag, and all I use it for now is vehicle design.

Upload your craft file to Mediafire, which will then give you a link to that file that you can post in the forum for others to download.

I don't even know what those settings are, let alone try to lower them.

I thought so too as it seemed obvious but it isn't. I have had time to methodically go through each if the settings to see what each one affects. Turns out I need the Render Quality Level to be set at Good or higher to retain shadows. Anything below that and they disappear.

When away from home I am trying to run KSP on a low end laptop that suffers horribly from lag even with fairly small ships. To minimise the lag I can turn all the graphic settings down to minimal but I would like to know which slider controls shadows as I find it difficult to judge my landing without a shadow to warn me when I am getting close to the ground.

Pressing F1 will save an image in your screenshot folder. I think most people use 3rd party software for video capture.

As you will struggle to get a decent sized station to orbit in one launch, the secret is lots of launches carrying smaller parts, which are then assembled in orbit. To do this successfully you need to be comfortable being able to rendezvous two craft and with docking them together once they have rendezvous'd. Before starting on the station I would suggest building a small craft that is capable of getting in to orbit and is fitted with a docking port. Fit RCS thrusters so that they are balanced around the centre of mass of your orbiting stage and make sure it is fitted with plenty of mono-prop fuel. Launch the first one and establish it in a good circular orbit. Once you have done that part, you can launch an identical ship with which to practice getting together and docking. I have to say this is the part of KSP that I have found most difficult so far as despite watching plenty of video tutorials on the subject I struggled to understand the reasoning behind the manoeuvres you need to go through to be successful. However, once the penny dropped it became a lot easier. This structure forms the basis of my station - a bit of girder work with several senior docking ports. This is what it looks like after several launches to add various parts to the basic structure. I applied exactly the same principle to my Mun station, which is still in the process of being assembled.

My first mission to Mun with a rover.

Effectively you are just putting your satellites in a large Kerbin orbit that happens to match that of the Mun. I would put my satellite in to roughly the same height orbit as the Mun is from Kerbin, but leaving it small enough on side that my satellite catches up to the Mun. Once it is at the distance I require, I would then fully circularise the orbit so that it is no longer catching up.

Oh yeah, it was the name that threw me. Imagine my surprise to be told mine was full while trying to get a 5th Kerbal to board.

Interesting read. I have finally landed on Duna with enough fuel to potentially get home again, so will see how it goes.

Great feeling isn't it. Well done.

Never tried jetpacking that far, and if you did make it, you certainly wouldn't have enough fuel to get back, but if you are retrieving a rover I guess that part wouldn't matter.

Looks like a bug. It would appear that it is viewing a count of 0/0 as full, where it should obviously be 0/10. I guess it just compares the two numbers to determine if the pod is full rather than looking at the actual value of the number.

I have found it useful to standardise my Custom keys so that they always perform the same function on all my craft. Makes it easier to remember which key does what.

Just made my first landing on Duna, but in my excitement on the way down, somehow pressed the staging button, and lost the landing gear and engine, so poor old Kerbal is kinda stuck there until a rescue mission can be organised. This set me to thinking, how many Kerbals have you got out there that will require assistance to get home again?

First Duna landing Not sure why he's looking so happy. Some fool pressed the staging button on the way down and he lost the landing gear and engines, so he's stuck there now until a rescue mission can be organised.

I like the Lazor docking cam for docking, not just for the camera. Using the readouts I reckon I could do an instrument docking in full darkness.

Here's my station which is in LKO. Started building it after the release of 0.20 to utilise the senior docking ports for greater stability. All parts were lifted using the same basic lifter, and took 13 launches. The first was for the central girder section carrying the docking ports. The 6 jumbo tanks were 1 flight each, and it was 1 flight each for 2 lots of RCS tanks that you can just see behind the jumbos. Two flights got the communication towers in place and it was another flight for the science lab at the far end, together with a flight for the habitation unit at the near end. Another flight, whilst not being part of the structure, allowed me to dock an escape vehicle to the habitat block. The other ship hanging in there is my test vehicle that I am using for my first flights to Duna, and is just topping off with fuel while waiting for a launch window.

If you still enjoy docking manually, I can second the Lazor Docking cam. Not only does it give you a decent view as you get close, but it has a few readouts that give useful information as you are lining things up.

Making Mun a target gives you inclination nodes on your own orbit. Making an intercept is a lot easier if your orbit is on the same plane as Mun, and the inclination nodes will tell you how far off you are. Using the manoeuvre node to set up an intercept path will give you a blue target on your nav ball, and if you line up with this and do your burn an equal amount either side of the t=0 countdown, you should be on a flight path that will give you a Mun encounter. Once you get to the Mun encounter, burning retrograde (the yellow symbol with a cross through it) should be enough to put you in orbit around the Mun. If you are struggling to understand the nav ball, I really do recommend that you look up some of the Youtube tutorials that are out there, as they are extremely helpful.

I did a few screenshots of my last Mun mission, which shows the steps I took to achieve a Mun orbit. They may help you visualise what you need to do, but there are a few video tutorials out there that you may find more useful. Here are the screenshots in case they help.