strongest_2hu

How would fixing ACA to be compatible with KSPWheel make ACA dependent on KSPWheel?

You can change that behavior from the Life Support control panel at the Space Center overview screen.

Are you using tangents?

Are you using FAR (the 1.2.2 dev build on git)? I've narrowed it down to FAR causing the problems I've been having with this carrier (vessel disappears either when reaching physics-load distance in another vehicle or when approaching within a few meters in another vehicle; vessel's top speed is ~0.2 m/s) and also the unrelated but extremely relevant Carrier Accessories mod (adding OLS to vehicle in hangar causes game to hang). I assume if you check the tracking station afterward the carrier is "splashed down at the sun"? Hopefully FAR for 1.2 will be "officially" released soon and then these issues can be resolved from one side or the other. If you're not using FAR you just get the standard response: it must be some other mod interaction.

Do you plan to make the catapult compatible with KSPWheel-based wheels? As far as I can tell only stock wheels, or stock wheel module parts, are usable. This prevents using ALG and other wheel mods based on KSPWheel and the associated part modules. I assume you're just checking for the stock wheel module in order to ready and activate the catapult, so it could potentially be as easy as just checking for a KSPWheel module as well.

The "dev" FAR download doesn't come with Modular Flight Integrator (obviously), which is required. Without FAR and MFI installed B9 procedural wings work as normal; installing FAR without MFI breaks B9 wings (in addition to FAR, obviously). Check to see if that is your problem, it was mine: I made a clean install and forgot about MFI.

As requested: I used the flush catapult, the tailhook, and the arresting gear. Everything worked as described. The catapult launch of my 10-ton test aircraft was consistent and smooth, I had no catapult-induced wrecks. Even when I started doing silly things like activating the catapult with the gear up, resting on an intake, the catapult just sort of levitated me up a little bit and then launched me (not sure if that was intended or a consequence of the slight nose-up attitude it had). I tried using "control from here" to get it to launch me in unexpected directions but failed; I finally figured out how to break it when I put my root part "backward" which resulted in the craft getting launched backward as expected. The arresting gear worked well, I would blame all my accidents on me or the stock wheels. I was landing at around 100 m/s and while I don't think one cable was enough to stop me I was using several so they always got the job done. All in all, this is the best catapult/arrestor system I think we've ever had for KSP. I also have two gripes: Why does the throttle have to be at idle prior to catapult activation? Some mod engines like AJE's turbojets take a very long time to spool up, I'm keeping my planes out of the ocean by cranking up the catapult power to 200 (works perfectly at 200, no issues there) but it would be nice to be able to launch at a more realistic throttle setting rather than gliding for eternity while the engine spools up. Is there a reason the tailhook has a collision mesh? Real tailhooks hang down lower than the main gear in a landing attitude, if you do that with this tailhook it will strike the deck first and, as a rigid collidable object, causes a violent pitch down and roll to one side or the other which ruins the landing. I've been setting it to a narrow deployment angle so it can't contact the deck in my landing attitude, but the visual appearance of it being only slightly below the stowed position even while deployed kind of ruins it for me, especially because it's really just an aesthetic part. I would prefer to see it have no collision so it clips into the surface on landing, at least then it would look correct while in the deployed position in-flight. Keep it up.

Nice parts pack. I like the simplicity and large size, it lets vessels get pleasantly large while having plenty of part-count leftover, something other boat packs have definitely struggled with. I'd say the engines need a reverse thrust setting and a thrust curve (pretty simple, I added them on my install already) and that you should add a big rudder, and then it will be near-perfect. I wouldn't worry much about the (lack of) textures, textures on parts this big tend to look terrible because they're either so hugely expanded or displaying such obvious repetition. The flat gray doesn't look good but it doesn't look all that bad either.

Double nose gear side-by-side is a recipe for disaster every time.

There's an artificial hard cap? Or are you just saying that there should be one?

It's your gear.

Did you actually read what you quoted? I guarantee he's not planning to land and return with an ion engine.

Technically, they could never collide because Jool and Eeloo are in 3:2 resonance and also their orbits don't intersect.

The "tiny rocket SSTO" problem is more related to the way that in KSP most smaller engines have a similar, if not better ISP than their larger counterparts, and small fuel tanks have the same full:empty weight ratio as large ones. Assuming somebody tried to balance them and didn't just assign values randomly it makes some sense from a gameplay perspective: if the mainsail, for example, had better ISP than everything else, in addition to its superior thrust, I wouldn't ever need to use anything else (instead the 48-7S has better ISP and TWR so only partcount keeps me from never using anything else); having fuel tanks with varied mass ratios would drive people to use the better tanks whenever possible, in which case, why bother including the others. However, it does ruin the rocket equation for those silly cases where you don't take any payload. It's worth noting that you only need somewhere over a 10:1 fuel:everything else ratio to get into earth orbit (with an ISP typical of a large bipropellant rocket), so if real life rocket engines were balanced (or not) from a gameplay perspective and fuel storage scaled as well as it does in-game you could do some pretty unrealistic things here as well.

You can figure out exactly how much dV you need in each direction with some very simple math, then precisenode makes it very easy to add and subtract the exact amounts. Take (speed at plane change)*sin(desired angle change) and add that in the normal, take (speed at plane change)*(1-cos(desired angle change)) and subtract it from prograde. This will result in a node set up for precisely the correct amount of dV in the correct direction, the only source of error is your vessel's acceleration and you at the controls.

Remember that quickly entering then leaving timewarp is an easy/cheaty way to stop all vessel rotation. Given that according to your description the station is fairly unmaneuverable, you probably should reconsider maneuvering it to your tug rather than the other way around.

The entire way down you should be looking to make sure the area you picked is going to turn out to be as flat as you hoped. Make your corrections to flatter areas early if possible. In the last hundred meters or so I think it's easiest to leave the camera in the normal (auto) mode and constantly scroll the view around with the mouse to make sure there's not a better spot to land just a few meters away, and to keep an eye on how far away the ground is. In the last 10 meters or so I just watch the navball, making sure I'm landing at low speed, straight down.

I just tested it and on the first try I saw a bit over 500 kN before my plane DRE'd the intake off. Thrust was still climbing at an alarming rate, if I turn off DRE it would probably go past 600. Considering that it's producing almost twice as much thrust as I've ever seen on any other AJE-modified engine at high speed, I suspect there was either an error in the inputs or it's a classic case of "this imaginary engine isn't balanced because it's imaginary". As it stands it offers similar efficiency as the other extreme high-speed jet engines with twice the thrust, and it also functions as a rocket engine. Why use anything else?

You can use fuel pumping and a long arm to move yourself to a higher energy state without any fuel expenditure due to the way the CG moves when pumping fuel.

According to the wiki, Kerbin's radius is 600 km and a stationary orbit is at 1.009 km/s. You should be able to solve this, at an orbit as high as that your answer will be close enough.

Try taking your screenshots when not in shadow. Also take fewer.

He's using them in the trailer video in the OP, it's almost surprising that he didn't include a link there.

My bombs load with or without the space in the filename, it's got to be a conflict with something else that's messing it up for everybody.

The fix on page 92 is to prevent the load screen from getting stuck at the control surface parts when FAR/NEAR are not installed, which is what the post at the top of this page is also about. Good try though.