Maxwell Fern

Thinking out of the box is what makes KSP so enjoyable. The contracts says you have to test it through the staging sequence, it doesn't say anything about it not having being activated before the actual test.

My 2 cents on a new, more realistic aerodynamics model: the hard part with such a model, such as FAR, is not the aerodynamic itself, but simply keeping control of your craft. If Squad releases a realistic model alongside an overhauled SAS (or any kind of new piloting control) that helps you not put your craft in stalling (not pulling too hard) while letting you use it at its maximum ability, I don't see anyone being unhappy about it. It all gets back to good designing, and I cant wait for it

I have the same problem as pastadiablo. I'm supposed to test the XL stack chute over 24.8km, and without action groups to set the limit higher there's no way to complete that contract. Is there a way to change that limit without action groups ?

I don't really get it. Ten times less ?! So just start a new carriere, grind science and bam, techtree over, you're in sandbox again. I might understand that some people liked .25 the way it was, but I'm really enjoying the challenges those prices set.

I'm having a problem with Deadly Reentry's inflatable heat shield: FAR doesn't seem to take in consideration its animation state, i.e. the part has an insane drag value, be it inflated or retracted. The Cd value si actually exactly the same, no matter what. I got in touch with Starwaster to try and find a solution, but we ended up with the conclusion to use another part, so I was wondering if anything could be done with FAR to address this issue. I'd be happy to help in any way I can. Thanks Ferram, KSP wouldn't be the same without this mod.

Well, I didn't observe any change... drag and BC only change is something is attached in front of the inflatable shield, regardless of its animation state. ADEPT's shield seems to be broken, as I can't get it to deploy or decouple...

I'm giving it a try right now.

Let me know if I can test anything for you.

@Wanderfound: actually, stability isn't an issue. A couple of well placed linear RCS are enough to keep the ship pointed in the right direction, even during the hardcore part of reentry. Obviously there's no way to change your trajectory during this configuration, but that's the behavior I'm looking for: agressive pod-like reentry. Leaving the drag issue on the side, I've managed reentries from 300km orbits with an apo of 25 with a really decent stability. I'll eventually post seom screenshots of the final prototype @Starwaster: thanks dude, you're awesome.

My main problem is that the parts do not behave the same in the SPH as on the runway. For example, I'll place a washer-thingy on the side of my plane using symmetry, and on top of that I'll put a swept wing so that it could rotate to the back. Now if i use the group in the SPH, both washers turn the same way, meaning one wing folds back, the other folds ahead. Now if I load my plane on the runway and do the exact same thing, both wings fold back or ahead at the same time. Rotatron are even more crazy: in the SPH, on top of that problem two rotatrons will never rotate at the same speed, and if I try directly on the runway they'll spin like crazy, sending all parts attached to them flying. Which is fun, indeed, but not very useful. I also have a lot of other problems too long to list here, but basically if at one point something goes weird, I'd better start over than try to fix it. Which is pretty frustrating.

Well guys, I was wrong, you were right. Spaceplanes part shouldn't have ablative shielding, and indeed the Shuttle had reflective tiles, nothing ablative. So Mk2 parts are fine as they are, it's my reentry profile that needs a rework... However... I'm working on a spaceplane capable of agressive reentry. In a nutshell, it has the inflatable heat shield as a nose and retractable wings (courtesy of Infernal Robotics). It's actually working pretty good, but I'm facing a problem with drag, and I don't know if the problems comes from DR or FAR: - With the shield alone as the nose of the plane, the drag is insane, be it inflated or not: it actually doesn't make a difference (Cd value is the same). My several tons ship in a nearly vertical freefall with the heat shield deinflated hit the ground at barely 100m/s after a return from orbit. - puting anything in front of the inflatable shield (shuch as another shield, or an air intake) negates entirely its drag, even inflated. Which means a lot more time to slow down in the upper atmo, and more overheating. So, is the inflating animation just a visual trick ? From the amount of drag it generates, I would have said FAR consider it always deployed, but since hiding its center behind a small part makes the drag go away, I'm confused.

Thanks guys, I'll give this different reentry profile a try. Can't be worse... Anyway I'll stick to my question: is there no way to add a shield to a part ? I see DR adds one to the stock Mk1 pod, so how can I add one to say the Mk2 cockpit's underbelly ?

I'm giving a try to this legendary mod and after two hours, my brain is starting to fry. First of all: is there some documentation out there on the parts, or at least some good up-to-date tutorials ? I can't seem to find any. Now for the main problem: as a first exercise, I'm trying to make foldable wings. For each, there's an open hinge attached to the ship's body, on wich a rotating part is attached, on wich a swept wing is attached. After some trial and errors, I managed to make the hinges work as intended (symmetric, locked at certain values, assigned to a group). But the rotating part is driving me nuts. I couldn't get anything symmetric with the rotatrons, and using the "Washer", I actually managed to get the exact behavior expected... In the SPH only. Once on the runway, one of the washer rotates in the wrong way. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong ? Thanks guys.

My trajectory could probably be more shallow. I could try gliding around the world as high as possible to shake the excess speed, I could try using high altitude drogue chute, retro-rockets... KSP always offers its bunch of alternatives My wish though is to shield those parts to perform a glazing, ablative, direct reentry straight to the KSC, àla Space Shuttle. If I can't it's no big deal, but I'd have regretted not to ask. Especially because I suspect it might just be the matter of a couple of lines in a cfg.

Hi guys, I'm in my Spaceplanes period right now but can't figure out how to properly shield a Mk2 ship (former Spaceplane+). Everything quickly disintegrates when hitting the 30k mark, from the wings to the cockpit. Note that I have no problem with regular pod reentry. Do I need to up my game and design some crazy contraptions or is it possible to add directionnal heatshields on Mk2 parts (and wings) ? I'll never thank you enough for this thrilling mod. Please keep up the good work !

Now can we call it dead ? I'm considering giving it a try using some of your code. Is that Ok ?

Is this project already dead ? It sounded really promising.

Is it just me or this has become way worse since .24 ?

Of course it can: IF in orbit THEN don't limit timewarp; The only reason why timewarp should be limited is when the periapsis is in the atmosphere or below. Maybe extend that to parabolic trajectories, i.e. kill time warp if you have an intercept. Other than that, there is no sense in limiting time warp on a ship that is, for example, on a 100x100km orbit. It's not like it's gonna go anywhere. Left click + move mouse Even without the Steam Friend thing, you can focus through different bodies from the Sun to Eelo using TAB, and the other way around with shift+TAB... Wich is a very very bad idea, since Esc doesn't pause the game once you hit shift+TAB...

Event after 10 years of being happily married, sometimes you need to sit and have a talk about how to make your relationship better. Same goes with KSP after 1 000 hours of playing. KSP, let's talk. Here's a list of details that seemed insignificant when I first met you, but now annoy me more than the should. It had to come out, in no particular order: Why would you place my parachute on the first stage ? Why would you place my clamps ont the last ? There are only 4 or 5 staging icons where there are tens of different engines, decouplers, parachutes... I need to go through 3 different menus when I want to get back to my desktop. EDIT: Alt+F4 is as good a "solution" as unplugging my PC. KSC has to load everytime I want to switch building. Then unload. Please tell me why you would fill every pod of my ship with kerbals, especially when I saved an empty ship... ...Or empty the Hitchhikers I just filled ? I can't load a ship built in the VAB in the SPH, and vice-versa. Although it works great if I manually copy the .ship file from one folder to the other. Please please please ask me to confirm that I really want to build a New Ship and delete the one I'm working on Why can't I watch my ship orbiting low at 1 000x time warp, but I can from the KSC or any ship high enough ? I can't launch a ship controled by an external seat, with a kerbal on the seat. Sometimes the "closest approach" node keeps jumping from a couple hundreds meter to several tens of km, and back, for no reason (even while time warping) Why would you kill rotation when I enter time warp ? You should have known I'd abuse it. I know you can't simulate physics while time warping, but you could easily restore momentum when I get out of it. Whew, it feels great having this off my chest. I love you KSP. What's your list of little things ? PS: I know the vast majority of this issues can be solved through mods. That's not the point. They're minor inconveniences that shouldn't need to be modded in the first place.

IRL caclculations higly depend on the distance and the size of the object. While it is possible to know where a satellite in low Earth orbit is to the centimeter, it's a whole different story to know where is a distant asteroid and where it's going. It takes several observations over a long period of time to be able to say "it has one chance in a million to hit earth in the first semeceter of 2075". Which is a fancy way to say "yeah, it's getting closer to our planet but its trajectory shouldn't cross ours, although we might be wrong, we'll check again next year".

You'll have a similar problem since the tug would either be going way to fast for your lander, or would need to pack thousands of Delta-V to slow down to your suborbital trajectory, dock, and push everything back to an orbit. I'm not even mentioning how complicated it would be to synchronize both ships to rendez-vous.

Anyone ?...

Sadly, even if watching my planes torn into pieces is a lot of fun, I have to agree with you. A little tone-down would be appreciated.

I'm using Deadly Reentry in hard mode, with heat shields built for RSS (this file). How do I apply the same modifications to the SP+ shielded parts ? Any Spaceplane I build burns up even before leaving the atmosphere.