M4ck

I was thinking about something more like having an assembly of surface storage/KAS/drill unit/KAS/ballast with KAS hooks. First, the ballast with hooks would be lowered all the way to the ocean's bottom. The hooks would then attach to the bottom. After that, the upper KAS would be set to "release" mode and the lower one retracted, which should pull the drills all the way down without moving either the anchor or the surface module. It would be a bit more complicated than what's used currently, but you would be assured the drills stay where you want them, and there would be no need to care about all those jumbo tanks.

Thanks a lot, I'll see what I can do with it

Hello everyone. I'm relatively new to modding KSP. So far I've only created some tweaked regular parts(like a multi-size docking port made of the stock ones or a modified KAS parts that can be plugged to a wall, etc), so what I'm asking for is probably easily done somehow, but I simply haven't found a way to do it yet. The question here: what should I do if I were to add more actions to EVA right-click menu on a part? Like "repack chute", but for example applied to "activate engine" or "toggle gear"? Is there a way to do this to stock parts, or would it require digging into some plugin/module files? Could someone post a short guide here for me? Thanks in advance

The ladders are from B9 Aerospace pack, as well as the little lights, railings and flat panels. They are very useful sometimes, as you can see here, but have an annoying habit of preventing kerbals from crawling from one to another. With horizontal ones it doesn't matter that much, you can always let go, but vertical ones can be really annoying - always test your designs on the launchpad before launching them anywhere.

You can open the part's config file and check the distance between the top and bottom node. If the part is scaled somehow, you have to multiply/divide it as well. It looks like it's 7,5m tall(which seems strange), but I don't know exactly what the default rescale factor is... You would have to wait for someone else to check that.

The first thing I usually do with any mod I install is looking into the config files. In this case, there is THIS: // Replace the stock KSP buoyancy from all other non-ballast parts? This should improve realism // 0 for do not remove buoyancy from other vessel parts, 1 for yes clearStockBuoyancy = 1 So change that to 0 and do whatever you want. I haven't tried it yet, I think the drill would try to float up without this enabled, but anything supposed to float would definitely float. Other than that, you can try to hold the drills attached to the bottom with KAS hooks.

I've recently begun to simply enjoy docking, instead of treating it like something monstrous. Even when docking large, weirdly-shaped crafts together it is entertaining to see them come closer, to rotate it so it aligns itself almost perfectly(though there seems to be a level of precision I cannot overcome, about +/- 5*) and come closer, to finally join. The rendezvous, on the other hand... That still annoys me a bit, but is manageable.

Another week of waiting more... Thanks.

Hello, everyone. This will be the last episode about The Soaring Garden. The base was really great to design and assemble, but the lag was terrible in the end. The main base, without the module installed this time(but including the Bubbles docked to it), was exactly 500 parts, all the other parts(the refinery, the Dart, the rovers) were rendered at the same time as well, which made my PC cry a little. About 5 FPS before the arrival of the airship. Combined with the new addition and the fact that something on the horizon was lowering FPS anyways, I was getting between 1 and 2 frames per second... It did not actually make me angry. It made me sad that the future expansion of the base will have to wait for a looong time. As well as the clean-up operation(a big word for throwing some useless pieces into the sea, to be honest). Anyways, this post will be separated into three parts: the launch, landing, deployment and docking of the airship, a walk through the base with Al, and a relation from a short trip Al made to another island and the bay nearby. It probably is a bit too long, but I hope you will like it anyways. First, The Soarer. Now, a walk around the base at night. And the trip. It will probably be some time before the assembly of the next base begins. I will spend some time searching Eve for a suitable location. It should be a medium sized bay with a hill somewhere not too far away, maybe I'll find something like that. I already have some nice ideas for the base at the moment, but nothing precise to show you yet. Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope you liked it

"Rotor wheel" - do you mean reaction wheels or a probe core? Anyways, you can find the rename option by right clicking on: probe cores command pods MechJeb case

Another thing which might cause strange burn/acceleration mismatch: if something lies not too far behind one of your engines, directly behind one, the engine can actually be pushing against it when throttled. It can reduce the effective thrust per unit of fuel by a LOT.

Well, it will not be "floating", to be precise, as Pol doesn't have any atmosphere(at least that's what I think). More like a crossover between a regular ground base and my Mun project. You will see what I mean, but there are two more projects to do before that

Well, you say that your plane got teleported to the Mun... Now what would you say if a base, anchored to the ground with a KAS hook, got moved from the KSC runway to the surface of Kerbol? it happened to me once, it still showed as landed at KSC...

And I have already posted a half-size RCS tank in this thread, just in case you want one. It's basically stock, it doesn't increase RAM usage(it uses stock textures and models, it's just forced to be flatter) or loading times

Wow, the plane looks great! If it actually flies well, could you post a craft file somewhere here?

Use imgur for posting pictures. No information about you is needed, it's just a matter of creating an account(mail+password) and uploading whatever pictures you want. By the way, you can not "advance the node any number of orbits" unless you place the node in that place using mods, if you try to do this manually, it will simply slide along one orbit again and again.

Yet another addition to the base. This time, an airplane/blimp crossover, and a kethane extractor/refinery. The last permanent part of the whole complex, although separate from the Garden. Only one big thing to do remains. You can expect to see it in two to three days from now. This will not be a large post, only two pieces were added today, and none of them very interesting or difficult to land. The Dart has a pretty long range, about a full circle around Laythe probably. Not tested yet. In case it turns out to be less, a second refinery will be dropped on the opposite side of the moon to make going back possible. It has a useful altitude of around 6km on Laythe, as the air is a bit thinner than on Kerbin, can go between 180-380 m/s max, depending on the altitude. It lands mostly vertically, not horizontally like a regular plane, as the landing gear placed this close makes it prone to falling over when the balloon is not deployed(and when it is deployed, there is not enough ground drag to stop it). Other than that, it works well. By the way, the docking port mentioned in the album can be found here and here. The next episode will be the last one. Al will be doing some sightseeing to find a place for the future base, then he'll clean up the surroundings using the next addition to the base complex, try out the rovers to see how they perform on Laythe, fly somewhere in the Dart and have a tour around the base in a Bubble. By the way, it looks like a single Bubble can be landed on the top of the rovers, so Al will be able to move a rover to the refinery and get back to the base without lots of useless running around.

And it would be used to detach the "capsule" in case of an emergency? Well, at least you would be able to recover the test subject's most vital parts... I'm sure that would still be considered a success by kerbal scientists.

Will this do? The bolts are not round, but other than that it is just as the original, only shorter and smaller. The bottom one is stock. If yes, then paste this under the last "}" in your GameData\Squad\Parts\FuelTank\RCSTank1-2\part.cfg file. This way nothing more gets loaded into game like models, textures. It already uses what is present there and what gets loaded anyway PART { // Kerbal Space Program - Part Config // --- general parameters --- name = RCSTank1-2-half module = Part author = NovaSilisko MODEL { model=Squad/Parts/FuelTank/RCSTank1-2/model position = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 scale = 1.0, 0.5, 1.0 rotation = 0, 0, 0 } rescaleFactor = 1 // --- node definitions --- node_stack_top = 0.0, 0.25, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0 node_stack_bottom = 0.0, -0.25, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0 // --- editor parameters --- cost = 800 category = Propulsion subcategory = 0 title = FL-R1-S RCS Fuel Tank manufacturer = Jebediah Kerman's Junkyard and Spaceship Parts Co. description = A larger-scale version of the standard RCS fuel tank. This one is half the original length. // attachment rules: stack, srfAttach, allowStack, allowSrfAttach, allowCollision attachRules = 1,0,1,1,0 // --- standard part parameters --- mass = 0.2 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.2 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 12 maxTemp = 2900 // --- rcs fuel tank parameters --- RESOURCE { name = MonoPropellant amount = 375 maxAmount = 375 } } Actually any part.cfg file would do, this one is specifically the one containing the info about the stock tank as well.

How large would you like it to be? I mean both vertical size, compared to the regular one, and the amount of monoprop in it. Do you want it to be shorter and lighter, or just to have less fuel but to remain the size it is now?

Try Firespitter pack, it has some parts for landing airplanes on water, they could work well. There was also a good mod with "boat parts" in its name, but I cannot remember it right now... It had parts for massive ships, regular size ships and boat size ships.

Time warping(the non-physical one) can help here in most cases(unless it happens on something floating or flying, then it's just supposed to be this way).

Or use this, I've created it several hours ago. You just need to paste the code into any part.cfg file after the last "}" of an existing part(or make a new one), it doesn't require installing anything else. Just try not to mate two of these ports to each other, it can go a bit messy.

I haven't tested it yet, but it should work well, I'll test it soon and update if needed. Edit: Yes, it works as well, although if you build something pre-attached to it by a jr port, the Omni can suck it in again after the first decoupling. After that, after regular undocking, everything seems fine. PART { name = OmniDockingPortSmaller module = Part author = NovaSilisko MODEL { model=Squad/Parts/Utility/dockingPort2/model position = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 scale = 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 rotation = 0, 0, 0 } MODEL { model=Squad/Parts/Utility/dockingPort3/model position = 0.0, 0.145, 0.0 scale = 1.0, 1.0, 1.0 rotation = 0, 0, 0 } rescaleFactor = 1 node_stack_top0 = 0.0, 0.2828832, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1 node_stack_top1 = 0.0, 0.2828832, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1 node_stack_bottom = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1 node_attach = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0 cost = 900 category = Utility subcategory = 0 title = Clamp-O-Tron Omni Docking Port S description = Invented after a less-than-peaceful protest against the lack of spacecraft attachment systems that could make buiding multi-purpose symmetrical bases possible, the Clamp-O-Tron Omni Docking Port S allows for the firm attachment of two separate vessels regardless of the other dock's type. After docking, vessels can be just as easily undocked. Supports regular and jr. ports. attachRules = 1,0,1,0,0 mass = 0.1 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.25 minimum_drag = 0.25 angularDrag = 0.5 crashTolerance = 15 maxTemp = 3400 MODULE { name = ModuleDockingNode referenceAttachNode = top0 nodeType = size0 } MODULE { name = ModuleDockingNode referenceAttachNode = top1 nodeType = size1 } }

Interesting. How did you get the drill to sink? Does it simply go down if you extend the cable instead of floating right beside your vessel? I haven't tried it yet, but I thought that the "water" is very, very dense and nothing sinks in it.