Enigma179

I feel like this applies to only Deadly Re-entry, because from a Munar drop, when I aimed for 20km periapsis, with FAR I still had too much speed when it came time for my chute to fully deploy. Then again, under similar deployment conditions on a test run from LKO the chute managed to stay attached when I strutted it up, but I still believe aiming for a 3km periapsis is suicide with FAR in the mix.

So I've been trying KSP out in hard mode with these two mods plus the Ioncross Life Support mod. I tried to run before I could walk and set up a Mun base, but unfortunately screwed up landing on the new Mun's more hilly terrain, and eventually gave up and sent a rescue mission to pick up my three kerbonauts. Problem is, on the way home I discovered something nasty about FAR: drag isn't as powerful as it usually is. I used to have just deadly re-entry, and coming in at 30km periapsis would be enough to land me safely without even burning through half the heatshield on the Mk1-2. With FAR in the mix though, presumably because air resistance falls off after getting past Mach 1 (I think that's the physics behind it anyway), 30km sets me up for a high apoapsis. Luckily I forsaw that there might be a problem like this and quicksaved, so through heavy trial and error I worked it out that my best shot at re-entry from a Munshot was 23km periapsis. Anything below that, I'd either lose my heat shield and burn up (way off) or not have enough time to bleed off speed for my parachute to avoid snapping at full deployment (above the ocean mind you). Above that and I'd miss completely and have to come around for another pass, which I guess the pod could survive, but I didn't want to take that chance or the extra few hours. Anyway at 23km I found that the temperature of the burn started decreasing again just as the heatshield ran out, so while it heated up to 1400 degrees or so it still avoided exploding, and also that I would pass my own periapsis, causing the pod to start climbing for a few seconds before again falling, reducing vertical velocity and maximizing the amount of time I had to bleed off my fall, so that by the time I hit 500 m I was travelling at "only" 120-130 m/s, which was still nerve wracking because I only had one chute to take all that force. I'm getting to the question now: how do you go about figuring out where to drop your periapsis to using FAR? I don't know if Deadly Re-entry makes a difference, but I don't think it does. Should I just aim for 23km no matter what? I feel like from where I'd be going would make a difference but is there a guide or some way to calculate the proper re-entry angle?

If it was mid-flight when you started flying it (like you went to the space center and then back) you can't revert anymore, you're in it for the long haul.

Couldn't you build a ship with huge delta-v, exit Kerbin's SOI, make your orbit around Kerbol retrograde, set up in the exact same orbit as Kerbin, or even better with a periapsis intercept with Kerbin, then wait to enter Kerbin's SOI at more than 18.57 km/s?

In real life, this would be possible due to lagrange points, but since in KSP only one body can enforce gravity upon you at any given time, it's not, sadly. If you're talking about an orbit around Kerbin that always is between Kerbin and the sun, that's not possible either, there's no way to have a year-long orbital period around kerbin. (Lagrange points, in case you didn't know, occur at several points between two bodies, one orbiting the other where the gravitational forces simultaneously act on a third body to keep that third body always in the same position relative to the other two. There's five of them I believe, but I only know two, the one directly between body 1 and body 2, and the one on the opposite side of body 1 from body 2, which occur because of the decreased net gravitational force and the net effective gravitational force, respectively)

Holy crap that was so intense, when you got so close to the station at 2 km/s I honestly had no idea how you planned to stop but it totally worked. In the background I was starting up KSP and decided to watch your video while I waited for assets to load, and no lie the moment your engines started the de-orbit burn the triumphant sounding opening theme for KSP started up much louder than the music in your video, and for the entire rest of the video I thought that was part of it because it fit so well.

Yeah I've got deadly re-entry but I seem to recall the repair buttons still being there in stock. Could be wrong though, why?

So I took Jeb out for a little spacewalk the other day, and this might be old but I noticed the blue buttons that said "no damage" next to certain parts, and which didn't do anything so I assume that on EVA kerbals could fix stuff. Additionally using Ioncross Life Support I completely forgot pods needed electricity and stupidly ejected my electricity deprived pod with him in it from the rest of the ship for re-entry. I managed to save Jeb though, by EVA-ing him in the upper atmosphere just before it became too thick for him to hold onto the outside, manually releasing the chute's auto deploy (again, right click on the part) and it worked like a charm. What other parts can kerbals activate from EVA? I have a hitch-hiker survival pod on the Mun with a decorative undeployed radar dish, would my eva kerbals be able to deploy that? What about solar panels? Generators? Solid Fuel Boosters? I like the mental image of Jeb clinging tightly to a ladder as he puts a lighter inside the booster

I don't think that is possible. It's been out for like two days what have you been doing, firing pods into the air one by one for the whole time?

Maybe it wouldn't be, but there's one snag; when you launch from the ground, you go straight up then turn as air resistance decreases; this is because it's more effective to prograde with your apoapsis in front of you rather than behind, so you want to get and maintain vertical velocity as you give yourself the sideways velocity you need. When burning prograde, your apoapsis will get further from you; if it's in front of you that's not a big deal because if you want to burn at apoapsis you just cut the throttle for a minute or two. If it's behind you, you just gotta burn at an upward angle and pray. No doubt it'd take less delta-v than launching from the ground (should take just about 2000 delta-v I think) though.

Haven't tried a re-entry yet, the parts for deadly re-entry are still there, but two things; there's no temperature readout on any of my parts during launch, and two my stayputnik randomly exploded twice, once when I was going to one in LKO from the tracking center, and once when I put the probe onto the launch pad. There was the sound of an engine throttled up as the screen was black and loading, and as soon as the ship popped up the stayputnik was gone in a cloud of smoke. Since I haven't seen anyone else report it I'm going to assume it's a deadly re-entry bug, especially since the cause given was overheating. Also when the pod in orbit exploded it left the empty lander can floating in space, but it looks like this: Is this a known bug for deadly re-entry or stock, or is it new with this version?

I actually rarely used ASAS before, my rockets were more stable with my hand on the wheel anyway and as someone who never had the patience to figure out mech jeb I didn't mind launching all my rockets hands-on, so I don't care about the ASAS changes I'm super glad about hitch-hiker IVA, and I'll also be checking out the new Mun as soon as I see if my utility mods still work.

That's great! Anyone know if the IVAs for the pods that were just blank white rooms got fixed too?

So suppose I have two games, and one is for my serious play, and I want to be using mods for that one, like deadly re-entry, ioncross life support, things like that, but my other one is to mess around and I don't want to have to deal with that sort of thing for that game. Is there a way to quickly turn mods on and off without having to remove the files from gamedata? Granted, now that mods can be installed with one file a lot of the time, it's a lot easier but there's still got to be a better way, right?

I usually use pretty small minimalistic rovers, but on the Mun I can safely maintain control in a straight line on gentle slopes up to 15 or so m/s, but once I get beyond that I slam the brakes because once I hit 18 or so, and I'm downhill, I'm not stopping. Then again I'm also the kind of person who loves to drift on the Mun with wide skidding turns. Tip for smaller rovers; put yourself in docking mode when driving if you haven't rebound rover controls; translation controls only work with RCS so if it's not activated you can use WASD without having to worry about your rover trying to do a barrel roll (depending on the placement of the pod, on small ones my pod usually faces up).

Something worthwhile... like playing KSP? I have Jeb and Bill myself!

I believe he was supposed to break the sound barrier, but early in the jump he went into a tough uncontrolled spin he had to recover from, which slowed him down so that by the time he recovered it was too late to gain enough speed to break it. He didn't break all the records he was supposed to break because of that. Not that I'm knocking Felix, recovering from a spin like that in such a thin atmosphere must have required a crazy amount of skill and experience.

A cursory search didn't turn up anything, which hugely surprised me because honestly after strapping kerbals to solid fuel boosters this would be the second thing I'd think everyone would attempt. Just a quick flight straight up to the edge of the atmosphere and a skydive back down. Here's the album I think that this little setup will become the standard way I bring kerbals home when 0.21 comes in...

Me, I can't even get a plane into orbit, but I *do* strap my planes to rockets, EVA the kerbals over to the plane once they're done and use the planes to re-enter so I have more control over where I land. I can't land my planes either, so I usually just get close to the landing strip, cut power, circle about until I enter a dive, then hit the chutes and gently float down to landing. Who needs a landing strip anyway right.

Fired up the Kerpollo 14 mission (designed to be as close to the Saturn V using stock parts even including the escape tower and such), brought along some rovers in the lander, was going just fine, burned to Mun flyby, attached LEM and CSM, adjusted to come around the other side of Mun, then burnt into munar orbit and dropped lander. Unfortunately I figured I had enough spare fuel on previous landings that adding two rovers would be just fine, but I ran out of fuel in the descent stage about 4 kilometers above the surface and travelling straight down at 138 m/s. With some quick unexpected action group usage I dropped the descent stage to explode on the ground, and the rovers before activating the ascent stage for a suicide burn to just barely pull myself into an eccentric low mun orbit, and had to use a combination of my remaining RCS thrusters and the CSM itself to rendezvous before heading home, disgraced. Managed to still pull it off within my self-imposed life support time limit (3 hours for lander, 24 hours for total mission), so I'm happy Bob, Bill and Jeb were okay.

Those two are really cool! I've done earth (well, Kerbin) orbit rendezvous stuff before, but only for really long journeys, and it usually doesn't look pretty... Anyhow, despite having some fuel left in the tank (after ditching the escape tower I had more delta-V than kerbal engineer originally estimated due to the lost weight) I jettison the last part of the second stage, which you can see here just before I start my lunar burn.. I check the flight path before dropping the third stage, which judging by the current predicted trajectory, will end up in a highly elliptical orbit around Kerbin once all is said and done. Now comes the fun part; I have to decouple the lunar module, then spin the CSM around to dock with it. To make it a bit easier I orient the ship to face north, so that rotation caused by movement through the orbit will simply spin the ships around instead of rotating them and making docking tougher. Here goes nothing... Well the lander isn't spinning, but the decoupler and the engine casing are in the way. Mike does some clever maneuvering to nudge the ring to the side, before docking. Clutch work, Mike! And now we're on the way to the Mun, and the rest is a story everyone's probably heard before, but for the sake of making this complete (it really reads a bit like a very anecdotal shabby guide to getting to the Mun) I'll throw in a photo album or more descriptions or something when I pull it out.

Crap, there's a mission report section? Welp if a mod wants to they can move it there I guess... Anyhow, a short test flight with Jeb, Bob and Bill occurred just now, pulling the Saturn V into orbit; worked pretty much as perfectly as I could hope for, getting into a stable 90 km orbit with the first two stages. Being a test flight, I lack documentation (screenshots) unfortunately, but the real one will have it! (The ship was wobbly as hell but I have a lot of struts and after a while realized I was better off piloting by hand instead of using ASAS). So the real crew enters; Neil, Buzz and Mike Kerman! They lift off, perform a gravity turn, and continue burning until OH NO! DISASTER STRIKES! Good thing I built in that abort function... (in case the screenshots don't tell, one of the fuel tanks fell off a rocket in the second stage prior to liftoff without me noticing, causing that rocket to run out of fuel before the others, resulting in the whole thing spinning around directly into the floating fuel tank, which barely missed the command module, instead knocking engines off the escape tower. In an uncontrollable spin I decided to abort, and I shut down the engines before throwing out the command module and letting it drift down on parachutes (not pictured; parachutes and safe landing)). Time for round two! Pictures speak better than words so here's a photo album of all my screenshots during launch instead. Suffice to say we got into launch without any trouble, and with 250 dV to spare (which I'll be dropping without using before making my lunar transfer). Next up, lunar transfer and CSM/Lunar Module docking!

So a lot of people go to the Mun for some reason. I've done it too. I've done it with the simple landers where the same thing that lands on the Mun is what splashes down on Kerbin. I've done it with the more complex ones, that consist of a lander and a command module, like the Apollo missions. Something I don't see often (and point me in that direction if I'm wrong), weirdly enough, is a more exact copy of the Apollo missions. Refer to the beloved comic from xkcd, Up Goer Five. If you wouldn't like to read my clumsy explanation of the Apollo 11 mission and just want to get to my build then skip all the red text below. I might make a mistake, I haven't researched it *that* extensively but as I understand it: from top to bottom, there's the escape tower (Launch Escape System), a set of rockets designed to get the command module (and the crew) off the landing pad, high enough to deploy chutes in case of emergency, the command module, attached to the service module (forming the Command Service Module with the crew and life support systems inside), the lunar module, in two parts, for landing on the moon (separate life support systems, important for apollo 13), and below that three stages to get the whole thing up in the sky. The lander is the key part I don't see people doing: most of the designs I've seen (and all of the ones I've used) have the lander directly attached to the command module during launch. In the Saturn V, it wasn't docked with the command module during launch, instead resting below the service module, and after the trans lunar burn was performed it would be decoupled, and the CSM would dock with it to carry on to the moon. So that's what I'm going to do. Escape tower, lunar module and all I'm going to try and build something as close to the Apollo design as possible, only stock parts (aside from kerbal engineer). I *would* use mech jeb but I'm intimidated by all the buttons so I prefer to just give myself a bit more delta v than I actually need. It shouldn't be so tough to build something that looks similar, excluding the fairings covering up the lander, the lander itself and maybe the escape tower. I already have a 2-part lander design from previous missions, so that just leaves the overall rocket, plus the escape tower to design up. As I understand it, the mission went something like this; stage one and two were used to get the rocket into orbit (maybe stage three helped a bit with that? I don't know), and then stage three ejected the rocket into a lunar trajectory before being decoupled. From here the lunar module was freed, the service module spun around to face it and then docked with it, before everything continued on its merry way to the moon. The lunar module was then boarded by Neil and Buzz, while Mike stayed behind in the CSM. It landed, Neil and Buzz played around on the moon for a bit, then went back inside the module to chill out for a little while as they waited for the CSM to get overhead again. They then took off, leaving the lander legs behind (and knocking over the flag, sadly), docked, rejoined Mike in the CSM, then ditched the other half of the lunar module before launching themselves back home. The command module and the service module separated either just before or while in the atmosphere, and they splashed down in the ocean ready for recovery. We here at KASA care about the safety of our Kerbonauts, so the first thing we built and tested was the escape tower. First with RockomaxTMsmall engines, then when that failed, with slightly bigger ones. Success! Peak height 575 metres from sea level, easily enough to safely deploy chutes in case of emergency. Now that that's finished, the second stage, design of the CSM begins. The CSM must be capable of parking in a lunar orbit, and then returning to Kerbin. From experience I know that parking takes a maximum of 300 or so delta-v for me (including safety margin and what not), and returning home shouldn't take much more than that. I decide I should aim for 800 delta-v, with the lander (previously designed) attached (the lander has a bit more than 1000 dV for landing and ascent, each. A bit of overkill but I don't like to take chances, even if it might screw me as far as weight goes). Considering that the lander won't be around when we return, this should be just fine. Next just stuff the lander underneath the service module like so. The third stage needs to put the whole thing onto a trajectory to the Mun, and I know I need about 840 delta v for that, so I'll aim to have 1000 lying around, in case I need it to help my orbital adjustments or something else, or I mess stuff up on the way. According to Kerbal engineer I'll have 1018 delta-V which is perfect, but my TWR is starting to get dangerously close to 1 (not a big deal out in space but y'know how it is). The rest of the design is standard fare in two stages, although to get it off the ground in so few stages my lifter was bigger than I'm used to. I've 4800 or so delta V in the first two stages, 1018 in the third for lunar orbit, 900 in the service module (when lander is attached), 1000 in the lander for descent, and 1000 for ascent, so barring any complications the launch should go fine! And unbarring any complications, well there's always the escape tower. I'm gonna go ahead and give it a try and report back in a bit!

Apparently I need to work on my efficiency. First try I didn't even manage to get a periapsis above zero, second try I barely managed to pull it out with no fuel left; Still, as someone who usually sets aside 5000 delta v instead of 4500 for my launches, I'm happy with this result for now.

Judging by the video I think the struts can be as tall as you want them to be, the VAB's height is the limit.