Starwaster

It's true that the stock engine is wrong, but it's also not correct to say that it only consumes hydrogen. What's wrong with stock nuclear engine isn't that it uses Liquid Fuel + Oxidizer, what's wrong with it is that the Isp for it is wrong for the density of its propellants. Nuclear engines can be designed for quite a few different propellants, not to mention LANTR (LOX Augmented Nuclear Thermal Rocket) which injects liquid oxygen into the supersonic exhaust like an afterburner. Methane and ammonia are also good candidate propellants which in spite of their low Isp provide good delta-V and thrust. Water is also a possibility for a propellant. The only problem is that the fuel rods need special coatings to withstand the effects of each propellant, and what works for one will not work for another, especially when it comes to oxidation. Bob Braeunig has posted quite a bit on the subject of alternate propellants on various forums and the only ones he had issue with were methane and pentaborane as I recall. The former because of carbon deposits fouling the elements (which he later reversed himself on) and the latter because of boron which acts as a neutron moderator.

Thought I'd stop in and share: Intended for long range. Uses Real Fuels and Stockalike RF configs. The design is a little unusual. The Asimov itself was the first part up, it has its own engine using MMH+N2O4 (RCS uses same configuration for convenience) There is also a 2.5m saddleback truss with a docking ring. Because it's open at the back, the engine can thrust freely without impediment or risk of damaging anything. Docked to that is a long range nuclear propulsion module using ammonia as the propellant. (5m diameter) Unfortunately the design hasn't been terribly successful due to massive flexing where the 5m module mates to the 2.5m truss. (Thanks Unity physics). I'm trying to salvage it with Active Struts + KAS (which I haven't had installed in half a year). First flight up installed two struts plus extra science equipment. Here then is the my Asimov. (the nuclear engines are scaled up in size; I forgot I did that and keep forgetting to delete the config responsible)

What do you mean you 'need to know were it is'. You mean where to put the license? License information needs to be in three places: Main post (you should put it towards the bottom in its own paragraph so it stands out <- just a suggestion) If you have a download page, it should be displayed there as well. Download archives (zip files, rar, etc) need to have a separate text file containing the license as well. Other suggestion: It sounds like the license you are describing is what is known as a Public Domain license. Below is some public domain text you can use that looks spiffy and professional. And yes, please to pictures. 'no pics no clicks' may be annoying but it sums up a common reaction to mods that don't visually depict what the person is downloading. If they don't know in advance what they're getting, people are in general disinclined to download it.

It might be a problem for KSP to be installed to your desktop in the same way that installing it to Program Files causes permissions problems for plugins. Try creating a Games folder just off of your drives root then install and run KSP from there. Or call the folder whatever you like.

How is it hovering? It looks like all of its VTOL engines are in the back.... what am I missing?

IRL, to some extent, yes, primarily because drogue chutes are smaller and have less drag and therefore are subject to less stress. However, in the game, the check is made by comparing only the the chute's maxTemp against the shockwave temperature. It's more or less coincidence that it happens around Mach 1. (IRL these things are intertwined, but in the game from a pure programming logic standpoint we're just looking at the temperature values and atmospheric density values) Since drogue chute parts have the same maxTemp as main chute parts, they have identical failure points. (we take 25% of the chute part's maxTemp to be the canopy's maxTemp and use 10x density) For RealChute, someday we might go so far as to actually calculate aerodynamic stress using chute size and material and look at material thermal properties to more accurately determine when they fail, but that's not something that I'll be tackling anytime soon. Edit: btw, the version currently in beta has different difficulty settings for chutes. On Easy, chutes have about double their survivability . (in the debug menu it's Parachute Temp Multiplier if you want to adjust it)

You know, I used to think Kevlar would be better too, but Kevlar gets weaker at high temperatures whereas Nylon 6-6 (according to a variety of technical sheets that I've looked at) has good characteristics at high temps and high strength. It has been the fabric of choice in high speed braking chutes over Mars. On that subject, because of Duna's thin atmosphere, yes you can get away with very high speed (supersonic) deployment, just as Curiosity's chute was deployed at Mach 2.0 (it was rated as high as Mach 2.2). Altitude about 10km. If you're using the beta version, a warning will be present on the top of your screen (just under the altimeter) telling you if it is not safe to deploy. That's tied into the same system that destroys the chutes so as to ensure that you can deploy safely when the warning has gone away. (it actually has a 3 second delay, so by the time the warning vanishes, it will have been safe to deploy for 3 seconds) As far as an Eve reentry, all factors being equal, an Eve reentry should be a little safer than a Kerbin reentry, but one of the more important factors, speed, is not equal as you'll be coming in pretty fast, especially if Eve is actually Venus because you're using RSS. (and if you're using FAR, that will probably make things a little tougher). But if you can get past the upper atmosphere then you're pretty safe and can probably even land without chutes. (I read recently that the Venera probes freefell without their chutes the last 50 km) <-- EDIT: Oops that can't be right.... that must be a typo. Can anyone with actual knowledge on those probes confirm or refute that number? I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with this. Are you referring to the beta version? Couldn't play why? What problem couldn't you isolate? As feedback goes, you've given me nothing to work with here. I need a concise description of the problem and log files (not ksp.log either; output_log.txt or player.log if on Linux or OS-X) To all: The bug that was causing problems with KAS (and potentially other mods) has been fixed but I have not pushed that version to release yet since I'm working on some other things. You can download a fixed DLL here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/moge45bumutdcwj/DeadlyReentry.dll?dl=1

Do I see VTOL engines on that? uhm how about a craft file

They need to have the FAR cargo bay module in the part. (the part with the door and shell itself, not the structural bits)

IIRC, it does mean a config error. Maybe a missing bracket or brace. (if you use Notepad++, that's easy to check for. Do a count first for { then for }. Both counts need to come back the same. [ and ] as well)

Ah ok, I understand then. I haven't played using RO in quite awhile.

It is??? Then... either I missed an update or I need to check my inventory more closely

Then, something else to consider is that constantly coming in querying about ETAs, asking if mod is still alive, etc can bring moderator intervention and/or thread closure to prevent harassment of the modder. Something similar happened with the KSO thread when Helldiver had a leave of absence. (no actual closure occurred but it was a near thing)

Clarification requested: Are we talking about cases or canopies here? Because a small canopy means you're designing for a lower massed payload, which gets easier. Not harder. Scaling up for a payload massing a lot (example, something like a ton or so like Curiosity) is where you start getting expensive. (all other factors being equal)

Complaints about unsurvivable reentry in 5...4...3...2... (I guess I'm going to have my work cut out for me...)

I still do career mode / contracts when I play with RSS on. It can be done. It's not hard.

Yeah, thing about that is that the tank's surface isn't the only place it gets heat in from. With enough insulation it might not even be the major source. There's also plumbing and other hardware which have to penetrate any insulation present.

What landing gear is that? Is that from the new B9?

There's a few possibilities One is that they are firing but the FX are too faint or for some reason aren't coming on at all even though the RCS might be. You should probably able to confirm or dispel that theory fairly easily by turning SAS off. If it's really having to compensate then it'll get unbalanced very quickly. (warning though, the autopilot/smartass WILL get confused by the lack of reaction wheels so only test by using manual control with SAS off) Second possibility is that the ship just got glitched and if you quicksave / quickload it back in, then it will fix itself. (that happens to me a lot especially with multiple MJ active ships within physics range of each other and even more especially if I've switched reference points like docking ports or if I undocked one recently) Third possibility is an old long standing bug where RCS doesn't want to fire if you hold down one of the translating keys. This is real easy to test for. Zoom in closely on one of the faulty RCS and hold down the key that should activate it in translation. Watch what happens to that port when you release the key. You may see a puff from it. (might be faint so try tapping the key repeatedly). If you do see a puff on release then quicksave and quickload as above. I know it's frustrating and it hits me all the time

I thought it was an insult, like "you mangy Scot git".... (just kidding)

Thanks, bug is confirmed fixed. I'll push a new version out later but I want to finish up some nose con heat shield configs first

Did you see the PM I sent you? Is that log with or without the DLL I linked to?

Here's a thought... And, oh I dunno maybe this is just me being STUPID... but why not report it in the Deadly Reentry thread and provide feedback on the beta?

Ok, more or less in order, the jumping away during warping itself I think you can safely ignore. I've been noticing that a long time now but didn't connect it with DRE and since the object returns to its proper distance when I come off rails it seems a nuisance but one I've ignored. I'll see if I can repro it and try to figure out what causes it though. However, that's WITHOUT KAS that I've seen that. And I take it the object shouldn't be spawning 100m away. (it should be attached to the Kerbal right?) So something else might be happening to you and maybe it's not safe. I'll look into it. When you say Kerbal RCS, you mean actual Kerbals on EVA right? And they otherwise behave normally? Can you point me at some post links for KAS discussing this or reporting it? And did they have DRE as well? (preferably NON-Linux; if this is isolated to Linux it's really going to be a PITA for me to troubleshoot since I'm not able to test in that environment right now) What I think is happening is this: DRE is trying to initialize certain things when parts load in for the first time. (during Awake and during Start). KSP / Unity can easily have that process halted if errors occur in any plugin at that time so other plugins that need to initialize after that might not be able to. Cascade failure basically. And if I can't replicate it in Windows I'm not sure what I can do about it (any other KAS users that can confirm that this problem does or does not exist in Windows?)