Motokid600

Are you trying to construct a base with this sky crane? If that's the case ditch the sky crane idea. A rover crane is better. I made an awesome crane with KAS that I use to assemble modules. I'll post a pic if I can later when I'm home. But for now Google image boat cranes. That's where I got the idea from. Worked amazingly. Best pic I could find. Imagine wheels on the bottom of each leg and a KAS winch hanging down in the center instead if the crane boom.

PLEASE be this. My creativity is severely hindered because of it.

Well real satellites can only be scene for a few hours after and before sunset. There so high up that there still in daylight until they pass into Earth's shadow. That shouldnt be too hard to emulate. If the craft is in the sun it should be displayed as a pin head sized dot in the sky.

Iridian flares. I see them a lot. There out of commission satellites that are tumbling in orbit. Which is why they flux in magnitude.

Ever see an actual satellite drift across the sky? I see dozens every night at my mountain home. I've seen the ISS before too. So bright.. it casts a shadow. I really hope KSP can emulate this some day. ( is there a way to up the draw distance? )

Look into Subassembly loader OP. Its not updated for .20, but it can be hot patched. Then I would get into building your own lifters. If you build it then you can troubleshoot it. It takes a bit to work out the bugs and sort out the stages, but in the end its worth it. Once you perfect an ascent design clip it off your payload and drag it to the Subassembly icon and save it. Saves me hours upon hours. ... and it needs to be stock.

What exactly is it you plan on taking to Duna that it needs to be constructed in orbit?

Space planes are easy. You can deorbit whenever over KSC and just fly back. Landing right on the runway is a bit hard though. ( not if u have a real well built plane ) What I did was I set a marker like capi said. I took it a little farther though. I used 3 small rovers. Because not only did I want to see where KSC was from orbit I want to see which way the runway is facing as I descend. So I park one probe at the beach lined up with the runway. Then the second is parked out past the runway about a 100 meters. And finally the last rover is parked way out west about the length of the runway. So now I have 3 evenly spaced markers I can see from orbit drawing a straight line right over the runway. Best thing I've done to help me fly home. As for anything else its trial and error. If your looking down on the north pole and KSC is at 6 o clock I start my deorbit burn at about 8 o clock. I usually shoot for a 100km orbit so I set the nodes trajectory in the center of that sea past KSC to account for drag and planet rotation. Now this is where the skill comes in. The best thing you can hope for is a hole in one after your deorbit burn. I have yet to accomplish that. I usually put small radial engines on so that I can adjust as I'm coming in. I tend to under shoot KSC alot. So I have to make a last minute burn to get me closer. Don't under estimate drag. If you've already burned through rentry and your skeptical if your gonna overshoot into the water.. your not. Horizontal velocity gets scrubbed off very quick. Especially if you pull your parachutes. Which in case if you know for a fact that your gonna over shoot you can pull them early to kill your velocity and start falling down straight. I try to not open my chutes until a few thousand meters and let the air kill my speed. Best landing I've managed was right at the end of the runway. This is cool because I was just talking how it'd be great to have some sort of building to bring the landers too that actually "completes the mission" Menu music plays, awards, medals, hurrah! Lol...instead of just manually ending the mission and role playing. I already have a nice truck/crane that runs out and brings my landers back. Be cool to make a VTOL to pick them up out of the water in case of a splash down.

I have the same problem. My space station is all stock. And when trying to dock with it it will explode if I switch. But I found that in my case it will not detonate if im under 300 meters from it.

Very nice. Im trying to build my first base. How is it you assembled the pieces?

It just adds a real nice challenge to your misson. Plus I find it fun designing the return vehicle. It would be nice if there was a hanger or something to take your kerbals to that "completes the mission" instead of just manually ending it.

Yea my rovers kill more kerbals then anything. There's a mod for a roll cage I've been meaning to check out..

those values seem strange. Why is it 14 ( c or f? ) in the sun. Isn't it around a 500 degree temp swing?

There's always the asteroid mod if your feeling... apocalyptic.

Sorry to go off topic here, but this has been on my mind since figuring out gso's. The space elevator concept(s). Are they bs? The station would have to be orbiting at 35000km with a cable just as long... No? Making it completely impractical.

Does a thermometer pick up light/shadow temp swing?

I hope they update Jool. How cool would itd be to watch your craft fall through a thickening haze into oblivion. Dodging lightning and kraken knows what else. Speaking of lightning... Id be ecstatic to see lightning on the dark side of Jool.

If my lights are on and i timewarp around the night side I get this everytime.

Now all you need is a target.

That plugin would be nice, but the plane only has one tank.

How do you guys deal with a huge shift in weight? How do you plan for it? I have this great SSTO. It can climb up too 100k with ease and dock with my station. The problem is getting back. I'm using B9 and I have 3 mono tanks up front just after the command pod. So when I go to drain the tanks ( fueling the station with mono ). My center of mass shifts to the rear behind my SoL. All is fine until after reentry. The plane wants to pitch up. So if I give it too much input or it travels to far from prograde... It does backflips and I go into a yawrates. So.. how can I counter this? What can I change to make reentry stable, but at the same time preserve its awesome ascent stability?

I've yet to go interplanetary. I have to learn this as much as possible.

What's the difference between a Skylon and an SSTO?

is it possible to up the draw distance?

That's really awesome. How far down did you get? Sorry to go a little off topic, but I must know lol. Is it possible to create craft that can go farther down then others or is there a defined crush point?