Superfluous J

Jool is 6,000km radius Sun is 261,600km radius. If Jool was bigger than the Sun you'd be able to make it out as a sphere from Kerbin. Planetary objects don't collide in the game. If you're talking asteroids making craters then sure, but that's not a realism decision. It's a capabilities of the engine decision.

It's probably debris.

I don't know about KIS but you can pick up single parts that you dropped in the stock interface. I've done it dozens of times while flailing around trying to get used to orbital construction. Not being able to take the root part off a vessel is an issue though. I wish the VAB's reroot tool was available in EVA construction.

THE CONSTRUCTION INTERFACE (Image: Unpopular Opinion Bear) SHOULD WORK EVERYWHERE (Okay maybe not everywhere, but for sure everywhere when there's an engineer in the physics window. Even if they're in a chair or command pod or passenger part.

Command pod monoprop is more than enough for multiple dockings if you're careful. I only bring up extra monoprop containers if I'm mining and processing fuel.

What is the effective difference between the community getting a x.0 release with bugs, and the community getting a beta version with bugs?

@tater has also argued against (and lol'd at how all his doctor friends don't follow the rules of) wearing masks. Painting it all as a "old people who we obviously don't care about are the only ones dying and we've had to shut down the entire economy for the whole year" is just as hyperbolic as "everybody is now dead because you didn't wear a mask" and I don't really care at this point if others don't see it that way.

Thought experiment: A terrorist group says they have planted devices (no quotes) that will kill 300 thousand Americans a year (note I'm rounding down the number dead and up the time frame, just to be fair and not make it sound so bad) unless we put masks on our faces when we go outside. But mah freedoms!

In addition to the above fixes, this also fixed broken tree branches for me in the Kiwi Tech Tree mod, with pretty much only stock parts.

FYI I use this mod with pretty much all stock parts, and the currently-on-ckan "Hide Empty Tech Tree Nodes" mod breaks the tree so some branches are inaccessible. There is a beta though of that mod linked in this post that fixes the problem.

It's going to snow here all night and most of tomorrow! A very Merry Christmas from me as well!

No, only free-floating (or standing on a world) and on a ladder.

If you're suggesting we require all orbital construction to be done with a robotic arm slowly moving the parts from physical inventory spaces into place then I can't really address your concerns because they fall way outside how orbital construction works in the game.

Effectively the same as docking, no? Unless you're literally grabbing it with grabber parts and not using a Claw-type part to "vigorously dock without a docking port." If the two vessels remain separate, I'd expect that to cause issues as the placing and removing of parts causes them to move semi-randomly relative to each other. Just mentally add "and there is not an equal and opposite force from the ship onto the Kerbal who is holding the ladder such as to cause the two forces to cancel each other out" and assume I left that part out so it was easier to read.

100% agree. The more VAB stuff in Construction Mode the better I say.

THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT THREAD This is a discussion thread. Please keep discussion to seeking, finding, and discussing solutions, not simply lamenting about the issues. I've had some time in orbit and I've got to say construction is a double edged sword. It makes so much possible, but is itself very difficult and prone to error. Add to that the various issues and bugs and it can be a huge downside to an otherwise fantastic addition to the game. I'm sure all the bugs (at least the worst ones) will be addressed eventually, but until then here are some workarounds to issues I've found. If anybody has better (or even just different) solutions to these problems, I'd love to hear them. If anybody has other problems (even without solutions) I'd love to hear them as well, so we can find ways around them until they are (hopefully) fixed. RELATIVE DRIFT: Problem: Ships and Engineers drift relative to each other. This is worse than regular orbital drift of nearby vessels, as each construction action impels a bit of force to all things involved, including the Kerbal. This makes free-form construction across multiple ships difficult. It also makes constructing with a free-flying Kerbal difficult. Solution: In 1.11.1 this has gotten much better. So long as your craft are still relative to each other, they will remain so even through multiple moving of parts around. Still, they will eventually drift and I'd still recommend in most situations to restrict all work to a single craft. If you need to work on one craft from parts from another, dock them first. Take this into account when designing and planning your missions. Also, Kerbals should remain on a ladder at all times. There is a setting in settings.cfg, which is also in the settings screen, that can help your Kerbal stay on the ladder: EVA_LADDER_CHECK_END = True LADDER FORCE: This is no longer an issue in 1.11.1 Problem: A Kerbal on a ladder impels a force on the craft. This is enough to cause the craft to spin and visibly change the orbit. This is a recorded bug in KSP 1.11 Solution(s): Moving up or down the ladder a bit seems to stop most - if not all - of the odd forces. If this doesn't work, try the below. To keep the craft from spinning, the only real solution is to make sure SAS is on at all times. In a pinch, you can go into LOCK mode so the Kerbal and ship stay stationary relative to the camera, but then the entire universe spins around you. To keep the craft from wandering too far, the best solution I've found is to drop an item in space when you start construction, and then allow your craft to wander wherever it wants during construction. When you're done constructing, use the Alt-f12 menu to set the Orbit of your vessel, and Rendezvous with the part you previously dropped. It will still be in the original orbit it was in, which is very close to the orbit your station was in. Alternatively, you could use Alt-12 to set a specific orbit to put your vessel back to where it is supposed to be. SHORT REACH: Problem: The reach distance for picking up and placing parts is short. Granted, it is much further than a Kerbal could actually reach but it is still very restrictive compared to the VAB. The distance for picking parts from inventories is even shorter. Solution: THIS DOESN'T WORK FOR ME. I HAVE NO SOLUTION AT THIS TIME. In the settings.cfg file there are 2 settings. I personally multiplied them by 10. I believe the numbers are meters. Also it has been reported that you need to set the settings.cfg file read only. I've not had the game overwrite these values when the file is not read only, so that only seems true in circumstances I do not experience. However, when I changed the numbers it did not affect my engineer's grab or place distance. EVA_INVENTORY_RANGE = 5 EVA_CONSTRUCTION_RANGE = 7 HEAVY PARTS: Problem: Many parts are too heavy to move, so you cannot construct with them. Solution: Use this simple Modulemanager config: @PHYSICSGLOBALS { %constructionWeightLimit = 50000 } Note: 50000 makes Kerbals roughly 100 times stronger than they are currently, when it comes to moving parts around. Yes it's cheating. No I don't care. Make the number anything you are comfortable with. ROOT PART CAN'T BE REMOVED: Problem: You can only remove parts from a vessel away from the root part (like in the VAB), but you cannot re-root the root part (like in the VAB) so you cannot - for example - remove a probe core that was placed first on a vessel. More importantly, if a vessel docks and undocks, frequently (or always?) the docking port becomes the root part, which makes that docking port unremovable. Solution: I do not have a solution to this one yet. Maybe a mod that enables re-root in flight?

Why did you reply to my reply with what I replied to? Anyway, if you're still surprised that there are people that exist that believe ANYTHING then I've got bad news for you. There are people that believe in Bigfoot, a flat Earth, and all sorts of things. If you think that the majority of people believe that time makes products magically better, then we disagree. If you think that giving people time to make a good product is inherently flawed, we also disagree. Time doesn't (in and of itself) make a product good. Lack of it though (in and of itself) almost always makes one bad.

Because with the deploy icon (down pointing arrow) you're telling them to deploy it. Going into construction mode and dropping it, you're telling them to drop it.

There is no welding icon that I know of. Are you in control of an Engineer who is EVA? Are you on 1.11?

Like all good puns this one seems to need explaining. I never knew it was a pun and now knowing it is, I don't see it.

I've noticed this too. It used to be just the way orbit lines worked and then they fixed it. I wonder if they removed that fix with all the work they did to make kerbals have mass inside capsules or something. I don't remember version numbers, but IIRC the orbit line used to be calculated from the root part, not the vessel COM. So turning the vessel made the root part move, and the orbit was recalculating accordingly.

I think he wants the option - given a big enough container - to store a Mainsail engine in an inventory slot. From what I understand that is impossible right now due to some internal flag not being set? I've not poked around in the files yet, too busy futzing in the game. Also cool mod, This may become a must-install

I wish unoccupied seats were an inventory slot. Or 3. Load a Kerbal into a ship as an inventory item, and load their two inventory things in as the other 2 items. Or replace those things with all items and bam extra inventory. I mean I toss the groceries on the passenger seat all the time.

I have heard of no such thing. I use WarpEverywhere. It is in a very elite class of "stock mods" that I install and still consider my game to be Stock. I hear people really like Better Time Warp as well, but I like the install-and-forget-it aspect of WarpEverywhere. Plus W.E. is mine

Pictures of your ships would help. When humans were learning docking they sent up two simple ships and practiced with them. I suggest you do the same. I'm talking, top-down, a Jr port, mk1 capsule, small fuel tank, small engine. Put a couple solar panels on it and four 4-way rcs jets radially mounted, centered vertically on the center of mass. Launch two of those. Rendezvous with them. Dock them. Turn on infinite propellant and/or power of you need to. Practice. This isn't a checkbox on an achievement here. This is a skill you're learning to be able to get the most out of the game.