Superfluous J

For the 2nd time in as many missions, I forgot to bring an antenna on an "establish a base" mission. So for the 2nd time in as many missions, I'm sending up a little docking-port-sandwich looking thing with an antenna on it, to attach to the docking port that's already there but still have a docking port so the base counts.

I've never use the QBE before. I know this because when I used it now (because it was the best probe I had that could hold a straight line while a non-pilot was on board) I tried to attach it radially

This seems to work perfectly in 0.90.

I had the toolbar in the VAB and I clicked it to set the icons that would show. A little "+" symbol looking thing showed up that looked - to me - like the 4 corners of the gui border but in opposite quadrants diagonally (Lower left and upper right swapped, and upper right and lower left swapped). I clicked a single button in the KSP gui and it responded (become clicked) but did nothing, and then I could not click on anything. I had to alt-f4 out. I alt-F4'd to close KSP and reloaded it, and then tried again with the same result. EDIT: I found out what caused it. I downloaded RCS Build Aid but didn't install it :oops: so there were no available mods for the toolbar. A more graceful error condition would be welcomed in this case, however

I can see incidents where that would be good, and incidents where a more time-relaxed ("there and back" being one example) approach would be better. I mean, I used both in my little diagram

I saw the original, but didn't understand it so I let it pass, assuming I just didn't know something that everybody else did What do you mean by "Flowchart Mode"? The images in the first post, and images like mine? Where there are circles and lines and arrows? If that's Flowchart Mode then no, I support it. If there is another mode you're talking about, then I don't know if I support it or not because I don't know what it is.

Yay! Now I can use the YouTuber's Best Friend mod without the annoying nag screen telling me it's incompatible with 0.90 I also appreciate the naming the directory after the mod and not the author. Makes it easy to tell at a glance at the folder that the mod's installed.

They're doing it twice anyway, as they already did it once and now they have to do it again. And then probalby do a final pass on THAT. So the griping caused them to do it 3 times. So feel free to not understand my point of view. I'll voice it to Squad at every opportunity anyway. YES. Everything is centered around the VAB anyway. The runway, launchpad, admin building and SPH are disconnected but everything else's models could be shifted toward the VAB and make the space center look much more compact.

I think it's balanced. If anything, you need more funds but if you just take the strategy to convert rep to funds you're fine. Of course, I'm a pretty advanced player who took Normal just to see what the baseline was like.

I had a 0.25 save with every gain at 30% and every penalty at 200%, and all starting stuff at the bottom. Later I restarted with starting rep 0. I thought it was quite challenging but a bit grindy. Now in 0.90 I started a new game on "normal" because I wanted a good baseline. My next playthough will require me to purchase parts off the tech tree (I thought that was on in Normal, frankly) but may bump funds gains up a little bit to counteract the early grind. I may also disable reverts and make a pact to not restore from quicksaves. I leave quicksaves on to combat bugs and have found I have the wherewithal to to use them when I screw up I'm pretty happy with "normal." I think it's a solid experience and well worthy of the name.

I've only started one career since .90 dropped (give me a break it's been 2 days and I've been busy!) but in my experience: I did all the initial contracts. They're there, why not do them? The hardest part was not breaking the next record by accident I take every "landed on Kerbin" (a.k.a. "on the launchpad") contract I can find and most "splashed down" ones too. Once I got planes I took one part test in flight contract and one survey contract at a time. I did the part test on the way to the survey in a plane specfically designed to do both. I flew that same plane maybe 5 times and will revisit it if I get bored with the space stuff I'm doing now. I've not landed on Mun yet but I've put 2 satellites in orbit around it. I also landed on Minmus but that was just to drop a station there. I totally completely forget to take science readings. I've not taken a Mystery Goo past LKO and I've not taken a Science Jr out... anywhere I think. Still, I've already had to upgrade R&D to allow > 100 tiers and I'm knocking on the door of needing the next tier. How? I am concentrating on contracts that give lots of science.

I hate to double reply (especially when quoting the exact same thing) but I just realized you're probalby talking about my gravity turn with YOUR rocket here, not mine. Sorry about that. With your rocket I think I may have *just* got it below 40 degrees before the SRBs conked out.. It was pretty easy to turn for the first few seconds and then it was a bear. If I was going to do it again, I'd do an even stronger immediate gravity turn. I may just try cranking it as far right as it'd go. If it crashes, then I'd let up on the next try.

As I said in that other thread we're not to name: I don't care about Isp or mass or TWR. I care about how much further my rocket can go. I guess I'm more of a Bill than a Bob in that way

Oops sorry, you posted while I was typing and I never saw it I think it'd be worse, but the idea of doing it is so distasteful I can't bear to. I have the original video. If I have time I'll look at it tonight (I probably will). I have KER up all the time though I turn off a lot of the displays I don't ever use. My prograde vector went down pretty much with the direction my rocket was facing. It went under 45 when my apoapsis was at about 20 (IIRC) and was at maybe 10-20 degrees when my apoapsis was at 50 (again IIRC). At least, that was the plan, as it always is when I launch, in FAR or stock. Almost. Terminal velocity changes with altitude. Atmospheric efficiency is the ratio of terminal velocity to your velocity. If it's < 100%, you're going too slow and losing to gravity. If it's > 100% your'e going too fast and losing to drag. Things get a little complicated when you're not going straight up but it still generally applies.

Yeah just pretend you're doing a rendezvous with it, but you don't have to worry about getting an exact match with an object: Get your orbit so it's touching the orbit in the map view. When you get there, burn normal to align the two orbits' planes. Make sure you're gong the right direction! Then burn retrograde/prograde and/or radially so your orbit shrinks, grows, or turns to match the target orbit. NOTE: All of this can be done with maneuver nodes (and 2 and 3 can even be done with a single maneuver node which saves a ton of fuel) so you know beforehand everything that needs done.

I hate to throw a wrench in your calculations, but unless you're starting on Krebin (or use Extraplanetary Launchpads) then weight of the craft is also important. SRBs are so good on the launch pad because you don't have to pay for the fuel to lift them off of some other planet and transfer them to Kerbin. Kind of like in that other thread we just talked in, how the LV-909 was better on the top stage than the 48-7s and got more thrust and better dV. However the lower weight of the 48-7s allowed all the other stages to carry the rocket much further, to the point that I'd not have been able to get it to its destination without adding more fuel and/or boosters to it.

Personally, I sat on the sidelines during the whole barn thing. Squad showed us this thing, and tons of people jumped down their throat about it. I wanted to play in barns. I didn't care if the graphics weren't perfect. I didn't feel the need to voice my opinion and suddenly we weren't getting gameplay content. I've decided from now on when people complain and whine and act like 3 year olds, that I'll state my opinion as well. I would have rather had the barns than not. I would have rather had 4 tiers of buildings than 3. I would have taken them with pure white textures. Or the textures they had. I don't care, because unlike so many here I know that they're going to get another pass, and I'd rather have the game content now than have every single pixel be up to the high standards of our "community." So yeah. #BringBackTheBarn.

Here's my craft file: [defunct site link removed by moderator] Here's what it looks like: [defunct site link removed by moderator] And here's the video: Arkie, could you put these in the first post so they don't get buried?

On that thread that arkie linked to, I'm posting the craft file. There's already a video and pictures of my craft on there though and it's 18 parts so it's not like you couldn't recreate it.

I want. And as a bonus, it's not time based which Squad has said over and over they won't do (even though cleaning experiments and transmitting data takes time for no reason other than to take time).

That's the way I used to launch when I started the game. It was a terrible waste of fuel. I just tried your rocket one time, and my gravity turn was pretty bad but I ended up with an Ap over 200km when the SRBs conked out. I got my Pe over 75km and then burned to Mun. When I got the Pe at Mun at 25km, I made a maneuver node there and if I'd bothered to do it, KER says I'd still have 200dV in the tank. I never reached atmospheric efficiency but my rocket had all the firey goodness that we love in KSP.

Thanks for updating this. I've found that with all the new stuff to do, I'm constantly FORGETTING TO DO SCIENCE unless it's part of a contract. Of course, the contracts (on Normal mode) give you far more science than any pesky observations ever would, but still. It'll be nice to get that bonus...

While you were typing this I added to my post: For the record I stated that in stock aero, my testing found that it cost an extra 1000 dV (back then I didn't even think in terms of money because money was a non-issue). 1000 dV in an appoximately 6000 dV journey is far less than 20% and I considered that a massive inefficiency.

IMO 20% is a massive inefficiency. If you one store is selling something for $100 and another $80, which one are you going to buy? For the record I stated that in stock aero, my testing found that it cost and extra 1000 dV (back then I didn't even think in terms of money because money was a non-issue). 1000 dV in an appoximately 6000 dV journey is far less than 20% and I considered that a massive inefficiency. But remember that the payload itself cost $3122, so my LIFTER costs $9322-3122= $6200. Your LIFTER costs $11352-3122= $8230 My LIFTER actually costs 25% less than your rocket, or to use marketing speak, your rocket is 33% MORE inefficient than mine. For every $3 I spend getting that payload to space, you spend $4. If 5/4ths the size of my rocket isn't bad enough, is 4/3rds? Maybe we need to define "massive inefficiency." EDIT: Adding an LV909 cut my total dV from 6972 to 6110, though it did raise that one stage from 1186 to 1235. So while it's better for that stage, it's worse for the rocket as a whole. And I'll agree with one thing: it was nice to have this whole thing settled without interruption

Okay I lied. Or stayed up way too long putting the video together when I should have gone to bed It's not quite ready yet but I'm going to bed now so am going to post the link. I don't show the whole 12 minute video, but I do show what is easily the hardest part of the gravity turn. I even get very scarily close to losing control on the early ascent but keep it together. I also seem to keep my cool through the whole thing but that's just because it's post commentary. In reality I was freaking out.