Daisy Blossom

An eloquent expression of a sentiment I'm sure many of us share. Thanks for sharing.

I can confirm I also have this problem with inline ports. Has this not been addressed? The mod works great for standard docking ports, so I know it isn't user error.

Nope. I had zero problem launching my giant, 200ton to LKO lifter last night that had a total part count around 800. I am guessing this is an isolated bug; the new SAS works great for me.

I also have this issue; you're not alone. Would love to hear of a fix/ workaround. Always happens right when I'm trying to setup crucial mid course corrections.

I'm an actual aerospace engineer at Lockheed Martin. Discovered this game about two months ago and it has consumed almost all of my free time since. It's been a blast dusting off the orbital mechanics/ propulsion/ spacecraft dynamics textbooks and building crazy excel spreadsheets that apply the equations/ theory contained therein to make awesome KSP rockets! I never thought my degree would aid my gaming habits but I love it! Thanks Squad! You'll keep getting my money

This. The fact of the matter is if I build a space station (say, 300 parts) and then bring my interplanetary cruiser complete with attached lander (say, 300 parts) up to dock with it for a fuel transfer, the docking turns into a slideshow and is simply not an enjoyable experience even with a very speedy CPU. I just want squad to acknowledge this as an issue they're seriously looking into because for me it's far more important than resources/campaign/more parts.

Regardless, a 400 part ship causes lag and is considerably less fun to launch and pilot than a 100 part one. This has always been the case. The above quote by harvestR doesn't acknowledge the presence of this as a serious problem and that is what I was looking for.

Has there been any direct developer response to this issue ever? With their sales clearly through the roof now that they're on steam a lot more people are going to start getting rather frustrated when their creativity is extremely stifled by a game that doesn't appear to make use of the hardware sitting in their box. We can all agree that it's no small matter to fix this but the more burning question in my mind is: will they?

The short answer: not very well. When I built this I didn't really realize that a 1000 part ship would basically grind my computer to a halt and that anything above 600 parts still wasn't the most fun to fly. With that in mind and with the great suggestion to try out the KSPX mod pack for some larger NERVAs I built a new one. This guy can go up in one launch if you're smart about moving fuel back to the launch vehicle and knowing when it's time to stage and fire up those big NERVAs. It's also WAY more structurally solid and the part count is reduced considerably (590 once you shed the launch vehicle). She weighs 138mt dry and 417mt wet giving her a total delta V of about 8.7km/s before adding tanks. 2 senior, 5 normal and 8 junior clamp-o-trons add plenty of room for landers/rovers/additional fuel. So...what am I doing with her?! Well, I gassed her up at my space station... Then I loaded a single lander, powered up, and realized...it lists more than the gyros and the gimbals can correct unless it's relatively balanced. So I added a second lander! And a rover! And a docking adapter! And put them in a semi-balanced configuration! And tried again! Then I said "f*ck it! why not?" and headed to Eeloo. I'll see you guys in a few months when we arrive for an update! (Of course you can have the .craft files- it requires KSPX and kerbal engineer redux, though. This one is technically not stock.) https://www.dropbox.com/s/73z7e6x1xvggzwk/Blockade%20Runner.craft

What troubles, exactly, are you having? I will admit I'm no KSP master so the launch vehicles could have been better designed and are not the easiest to fly. I disable gimbles on the outer asparagus stages to prevent rotation and do a lot of manual spin and attitude correction. I throttle down to around 75% after the second set of boosters is dropped because the structural integrity is also lower with the loss of those stages and their support structure. Remember to start that gravity turn around 10km! You should have extra fuel. Mine ended up in about 200km orbit after circularizing. (Which will be reduced so I can dock with my fuel depot and ride the Oberth Effect to the outer planets).

Thanks for the lesson. As stated earlier in the thread, though, I'm well aware of the math. Not to be a complete tw@t but I happen to have a degree in aerospace engineering with a minor in astrophysics. This was very clearly an homage to Mr. Lucas and not an exercise in optimal spacecraft design. I do enjoy the prospect of a more aesthetically appealing 2.5m NERVA (not to mention the reduced part count). My desire to remain stock save the engineer mod stayed my hand, though. Perhaps I'll change my mind; KSPx does look rather well done!

Whooooops. Yep, I had an engineer mod on the big RCS fuel tank that was to be jettisoned just before docking (and after using it to refill all of the smaller RCS tanks, of course). This is what happens when you're a whore for NUMBERS AND MATHS AND THINGS. I'll put it up in a few minutes!

With a solar system to conqu... errr save who can wait for long burns?!

Yea, I'm aware of zee mathz but felt as though a C90 that had to burn for more than a minute to get anywhere wasn't a faithful C90 I do like the 2.5M NERVA suggestion. Was trying to stay stock, though, although now that I've uploaded I realize there's an Engineer/ part slapped on the upper stage. Woops. I'll re-upload without that part so people without the mod can use. Hopefully the devs add both in the future. If anyone's interested, by my rough calculations the total available DV when fully fueled is ~9.7 km/s and the TWR goes from 0.67 full to 2.32 empty. I still need to bring a tanker into orbit and gas her all the way up to pull numbers off engineer. The beautiful part is the crazy number of docking ports make drop tanks a very viable option for long hauls!

It took some serious time to get the 400t thruster block up there. Especially since I'm a bit of a purist and don't use mechjeb. I had to pull out my orbital science textbook and resort to scary math. I'll toss the file link in the OP in a few minutes here...

"You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor! Take her away!" This took two launches and made use of the new Senior Clamp-o-tron in order to put them together sans wobble. The entire vessel weighs just shy of 500 tons, fully fueled and has about 600 parts. I was trying to go easy on the part count in anticipation of landing craft/ escape pods that I'll inevitably end up docking onto it. The underside has even more docking ports. There are a total of 9 medium, 8 small and 2 large docking locations on the craft. It should make for a very fun and flexible interplanetary mothership. The thruster block on the rear was by far the most difficult to get into orbit. It weighs 400t by itself fully fueled and since this ship isn't meant to ever enter a planet's atmosphere each of its 11 engine clusters sports 5 LV-N Atomic Motors each. I'm relatively new to KSP so with luck that'll be enough to get to Eeloo and back. I'm happy to upload the .craft files if anyone's interested. You'll have to pilot the two into orbit and dock them yourself, though! Enjoy. Edit: Here they are! Promise not to laugh; only been at this for a month. https://www.dropbox.com/s/umr8a3ka6ucur0k/Corellian%20Corvette%20Thruster%20M43.craft https://www.dropbox.com/s/20cohhu8xu6bfvm/Corellian%20Corvette%20Upper%20Latest.craft Edit: Here's the fully stock upper stage without the engineer module: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b485qio2csjv52m/Corellian%20Corvette%20Upper%20Stock.craft Edit: aaaaaaaand here's the fully stock thruster block. I'm forgetful sometimes. Just like Jebediah. https://www.dropbox.com/s/8cki0ocx731eufn/Corellian%20Corvette%20Thruster%20Stoc.craft