kurja

Yay, that did the trick, thanks!

Thanks, I'll try that. But how do you mean, "damage"? Is that something you see in the craft file, I can't find string "damage" in .craft?!?

Hello Johnno & Sicarius, it was not supposed to be completely symmetrical (four way symmetry). I didn't post this for design tips, but just because it doesn't seems to work like it should and I thought it could be a bug in the game. Anyway, it was my intention to drop the two pairs of liquid boosters separately. Tanks on top of solid boosters are "drop tanks", anything in them is supposed to have been spent by the time the solid boosters run out, which is the first stage to be jettisoned. Johnno, did you try launching the rocket? The center engines do light up at launch. Issue is, that I have engines running that do not draw fuel from any tank they're connected to. Are you seeing the same? No?

So, I put some liquid boosters on my rocket, and they seem to suck fuel from tanks they're not connected to. Craft file attached, all stock parts. Look at the booster rocket on the "near side", closest to the camera, it has flt 800 and 400 tanks above an lv-t30 engine, and on the solid booster next to it, there's one more flt 400 tank from which a fuel line comes to this stack. There are no other fuel lines coming to or from these tanks. In flight, the engine runs but fuel is not used from any of these three tanks - it seems that fuel is instead drawn from the center orange tank, which in turn does -not- give fuel to the center stack engines, they only get fuel from the thin tank directly above them. I've spent the last 20 minutes trying to see what I've done wrong... But I can't find anything, please try this out and see if you get the same, or if I just missed something. craft file here http://ubuntuone.com/5VXeuw8Bdu3hxC76FGcyFf

That would use huge amounts of fuel/delta v in comparison to adjusting the orbit where the ship is now.

You see two trajectories because your path enters kerbin's soi? That encounter will put you on the purple trajectory, blue being your current path. If you put a node on the purple trajectory the maneuver is being planned for your next orbit so the Pe shouldn't change, as far as I can tell. As for why you can't put a node on your current path... I've no idea. Do you have a bit of fuel to spare? Just burn a tiny amount in radial in direction and see if your Pe comes down?

It could be used to throttle down an overheating engine, while keeping others on full thrust. It could be used to balance burn times for different engines. Or, say, your rocket has a mainsail and some lv-30 engines which are more efficient, and at takeoff you'll want every Nm you can get but approaching terminal velocity it would make sense to throttle back just the lower isp mainsail. I hope this gets implemented eventually, it should be a basic feature afterall. (has been suggested before btw)

Make it possible to rename a craft, and change it's designation (ship, probe, station, etc) while in the tracking center. After a while there's a lot of stuff going around and some of them get mislabeled, and it's inconvenient to "fly" each of them just to rename them. Speaking of, is it at all possible to rename a vessel that has run out of electricity?

science parts that -can only be activated in EVA -need to be active for a given time to yield results -need a kerbal onboard to activate -need x number of kerbals onboard to activate -yield results when activated and impact a celestial object -get unlocked in tech tree after science part z has been used for y science points -can only be activated when..... Ah, the possibilities =D I don't think Squad will have trouble creating incentive to do manned missions instead of just probes, and vice versa. Manned missions would also be much more expensive, and presumably there would eventually be missions with pre-determined goals too, requiring whatever parts and number of crew members to be onboard to be successful.

people, there's nothing clipping or touching the booster engines (unless there's a well hidden strut somewhere in there), and they are under no stress other than their own weight when they come off at the pad. No lift-off was fixed by raising the craft on the clamps just high enough to get the center clear of the pad. When the center engines come off, the ship is coasting in freefall to apoapsis >60km above kerbin. Apparently this only happens if mechjeb is active, I can't see how mj could cause this but that's how it seems. Such things could be helped with struts but really!? Well I ultimately managed a launch with all engines on as long as needed.

hmm, the center indeed did not fall off when ascending manually... curious

Here's a picture - right off the pad, you can see a couple engines missing. hmm Lamelefty, I were using mechjeb here, too, maybe it has something to do with it, I can't see how though.... but I'll try. Engines fall off on the pad, when MJ isn't doing anything yet.

I used clamps, and the boosters were off the ground. Engines seem to just drop off at random. Struts help of course but the node between adapter and engine really should be able to take the weight on it's own, it's just one lv-t30 after all, just hanging there. And -plop- Center engines are on a different stage, the twr reading should be correct. I can up a picture a little later.

Is anyone else having trouble with stack quad adapters? I made a rocket with an orange tank midsection and four orange tanks as boosters, all of them with quad adapters, boosters with four lv-t30s each and four lv-t45s on the center, and it won't go to space. At all. Most launches fail because a couple lv30s just plop off when still sitting on the launchpad, and when that doesn't happen, the whole center adapter with all of it's engines comes off of it's fuel tank, after having throttled down waiting for circularization at apokee. Probably unrelated to adapters, but the rocket has >1.5 twr just with the boosters and it won't lift off. Won't budge at all, unless I fire up the center stage as well. As if the center engines were glued to the pad. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

That's an AWESOME idea!!!! +100!

Any idea what causes this, is it something I did? Looks like a bug anyway, if a port's state can get changed to acquired when it's not in fact docked to anything?

Yes, they're stock Jr. type docking ports, like I said I don't have any mod parts (apart from Kerbal Engineer which uses a part). Editing the persistence file did the trick, now they're docked!!!!

My only mods are Kerbal Engineer redux and the one you see on the screenshot (Docking Port Alignment Indicator) which I added after getting this problem, so that I could be more certain that I'm 100% aligned for docking. I'll try the fix you posted.

Hi all, I've successfully docked in earlier version but can't do it after updating to .21.1; I've set the other craft's docking port as target and the ports are touching, but there's no "magnet effect" and they're not getting attached. Is there something new to docking in this version? What could be going wrong? Both ports are of the same type (jr. ports) and they're facing the "text side out" so they should just work, right?

What's "forward" and "backward" or "up" and "down" depends on how a craft's command module / probe core is oriented. Try rotating the probe core next time, no need to turn everything else around

Well it's supposed to have a docking port on the top, and there's ample empty space around it so I wanted to use that space, also keeping the rocket shorter... I could put a tank between the crew module and the docking port, but all properly fitting fuel tanks are larger than I need so it would make the ship heavier too. The bottom tank is larger than I need as well, I wish there were shorter tanks in this diameter. I guess I'll have to use some radial tanks.

ach, I forgot I had a stack separator between the can and tank. So no cross feed through that. However, I expected to be able to get fuel to those radial engines when I put trusses on tank and can, connected with a fuel line. Isn't that supposed to work? VAB won't let me draw a fuel line directly from that tank to the lander can, either. From the top tanks, I get fuel if I put a fuel line form each to the can. Is there a cleaner way to do this? This seems unnecessarily complicated right now Picture of it:

Lots and lots of threads about rendezvous and docking, if you look around a bit. If you're already getting close you're almost there already; -at close distances, do not use your main engines to move closer, use your RCS instead. That allows for much finer control. -keep the relative speed low, so you don't overshoot -try switching to docking mode, so you get relative speed and target markers on your navball Or if the problem is that you can't get closer than 1.5km, remember that to catch up you need to accelerate away from the target so you get into a lower orbit (which is faster). If you accelerate prograde towards the targeat ahead you'll just get pushed into a higher and slower orbit and so you'll just end up farther behind. Start firing (with RCS!) directly towards your target only when you're already within visual range. If all else fails, search youtube for Scott Manley's videos on the subject =D

I'm not attaching radially, well except for the radial engines. Small fuel tanks are on top, however not on the can's own attachment node, but on trusses because the tanks wouldn't attach on the lander can's roof on their own. Do tanks need to be attached on a node on the center stack for fuel to flow? The bottom tank is however attached node-to-node on the lander can's belly, but still my radial engines attached on the can won't get fuelled for some reason. I'll post a picture of it later when I get home.

I don't understand how to use fuel crossfeed. I made a lander using a 2-kerbal lander can, with a fuel tank under it, on top center I put a docking port and around that 8 small trusses and 8 of those small grey cylindrical fuel tanks on those, and then radial engines on the sides of the lander can - and the engines aren't getting any fuel. I was able to get fuel from top tanks by running a fuel line from each to the lander can, but for some reason I couldn't put a fuel line from bottom tank to lander can so I tried placing a truss on each and then a fuel line to those but that doesn't work... What am I doing wrong? Why isn't fuel flowing from tanks to engines through the lander can, or the cubic trusses?