annallia

While I am yet to see it in .21.1 in .20.2 I had this happen several times. My probe had power, it had batteries, it had solar panels deployed, it was in direct sunlight, couldn't control it. Wasn't limited to probe ships either this often happened with manned vessels as well. Usually if I waited a while control would come back to me, alternatively if I didn't want to wait going to the tracking station and back to the ship would fix it. I always just assumed it was a bug with one of my mods.

There are a few games, mostly racing games that will do this so you can watch your old race, or race against yourself. Not a new idea to gaming either has been in one game or another since the SNES possibly earlier. That said I could see the use of it in KSP. But for the very reason I see the use of it we have the debug thingy that tells us what blew up and why.

I continued avoiding work on my Duna mission and goofing off with planes. I call this one the butterfly (tested it before adding struts). Was actually quite fun to watch it "flap" its wings, though the tail fins collided a few seconds after this was taken and well... went boom.

Only thing I can think of that hasn't already been said is those little micro srb's that only burn for a few seconds. Some of my heavier crafts I place them around the bottom, few seconds before my chutes would deploy I would fire them. It doesn't do much but it does lower your speed enough that it has saved a few problemed crafts from tearing themselves apart.

The beauty of this game is that there is no real right or wrong way to play it. Doesn't matter if you go through peppery every planet with landers and bases or if you just keep building rockets that are intentionally flawed so you can watch them go boom, there is no right or wrong way to play. As to part count lag, that depends on the rig. For you it may very well start at 500. For me it starts a bit higher, about 700. Doesn't get unplayable till 1000 or so but it starts far lower. Now that station, my average station is about 100-150 parts so I am good there. But what happens when I have multiple ships docked there. Multiple interplanetary ships getting ready for a mission out to somewhere even? I can easy tripple even quadruple my part count and that is for small ships. My average large ship is a bit over 200 parts.

New favorite mod... and I haven't even tried it yet! This can replace both AEIS and Nova Punch for me... The only reason I bothered with those mods was the bigger tanks.

Congrats, I know how you feel with space planes. I suck with them too, most of my machinations wind up in booster bay... if they even made it that far. There's enough scrap metal laying along side my runway to build a death star. However my space plane problems seem to be limited to kerbin. If I make a way to get them to say Duna or Laythe which I have done successfully I can operate them just fine in the lower gravity. However once they enter Kerbins atmosphere they may as well turn into a pile of scrap.

Some say slightly off center is best otherwise you end up going over the same spot over and over again (that spot being the poles themselves). However I find that a polar orbit is still the best. And while I am unsure about ISA because I don't use it, Kethane still operates with time warp so you won't be sitting there too long (though a few days will pass in game time).

I never used the wiki missions. My first weeks were spent throwing things together and seeing if they worked. Once I figured out how something worked I improved on it, then I improved some more and so on. That said I do set my own sort of campaigns but I don't follow through and do them all at once. Operation Snow Cone, a manned rover fleet that would drill for kethane on the Dunar polar ice caps was built in stages with other missions going on while I worked on it. Operation Snack Stand, a station orbiting Duna is in the same boat. I built the parts for the start of the station, put them in a parking orbit and went on with other operations while I waited for my window to come up. Even now when I have to design the second section of the station (parts 1-3 were section 1) and a new tug I am working on other campaigns of mine. Minmus colony is being designed and tested, sent a probe to laythe, new satellites around Kerbin, further munar exploration. Point is I don't always go in one direction, I split it up to basically whatever I feel like doing that day. Yesterday was a space plane which still has some work to do, today is a vtol sto made from stock parts.

I've never experienced them cancelling eachother out. I have however experienced having too much torque. There seems to be a point where too many SAS modules make you spin rather than keep you steady. Though I have never had that problem while using just one.

I took an alternate route myself. Built a space plane (ok so more rocket than plane but I suck at getting them off kerbin) and used small rockets to act as missiles and used the debris as target practice. Doesn't really get rid of much debris, actually adds to it but it was fun anyway.

General rule of thumb, go with the LV-N. As to how many... depends really on how big a fan of long burn times you are. I find that 1 engine for every 22 tons (25 tons when you count the engine/mount) works well. Keeps most of my burn times under 4 minutes though some of the trips do take longer like Kerbin to Jool. Edit- and that 22 tons is including the weight of the fuel for the engine as well.

I renamed a mountain north west of the KSC Mt. Dodrim after Dodrim Kerbin who died when his space plane crashed into it. He tried going over but ran out of fuel and crashed on top of it. I will leave the wreckage there until I can get a ship/rover over there to plant a flag.

As for kerbals I try to keep alive... Wayland is my favorite. But only because I created him and he was the first kerbal I created so he holds a certain special place for me. Favorite Kerbal to send on a long mission that will never return? Rocas, who hasn't reared his head in .21 yet, as such my mission success rate has skyrocketed!

Taking new space plane on its sub orbital shake down cruise (next flight after a little tweaking should attempt to get into space). Saw this in the sky...

Depends on how you define it. If you include things like training flights they had a few before Apollo. Anyway, on topic. It does make me feel aggravated to a degree, though that is more due to the craft crashing than it is the kerbal being turned into goo. Though sometimes I am too busy laughing for even that, usually when I make some absurd design and decide to see if it can fly. Edit- I have to admit some of my contraptions do seem to give off a sense of not caring for my Kerbals. Things like my kerbalpult, or my rocket sled which is used to crash test rovers... It just wouldn't feel right if it weren't manned.

Yes it is another RTG. As Sierra said they have a node on both ends. This is also why I say it has 7 or 9 despite multi placings going 6 and 8. One in the middle, then the ring. Downside to this however is it adds to your part count big time. Something the size of a poodle engine (talking spatially not weight wise) and serves a single purpose yet takes 10 parts! If I were a better modder I would just make a larger RTG that looks similar to this, but since I am horrible at it I settle for my version, which is copying the stock one (but making it take a new spot in the VAB rather than replacing the stock one).

It has been for some time.

That is fine and good for those who use the mod, what about those who dislike B9 and fiespitter (personally I have no opinion on either as I don't use them) or just prefer native? I get that is the point of modding in these games but just because it is available via mods is no reason to say not to add it to the stock game.

Not entirely sure, that was the prototype. The mark IX which is currently standard issue for new stations has a total of 9 and glows! Though it uses modded RTG's so is the equiv of having closer to 30 (though I did add quite a bit of weight to make up for it). That one however more than likely just 7 or 9, maybe more but I doubt it. That said, with what MrPopcup had mentioned. If you use KAS (since docking on the ground can be... iffy) you could send down a little lander with a contraption like my power core on it and quite literally plug your base into it.

As far as I know there isn't, though it is a damned good idea. I too sometimes forget that I have an action group for this on one craft but the other craft doesn't and whatnot.

You mean this little contraption of mine?

What is your battery capacity? Also make sure your SAS is off, that will drain power at an alarming rate. When you tested it on kerbin did you do it on the launch pad with clamps? Those clamps transfer energy meaning it wouldn't go down on the launch pad. Maybe a picture of your ship (with resources tab open) would help?

Hold alt and right click both tanks, that should bring up the transfer ability.

To me if something is said to be very kerbal in nature I tend to think of what someone here on the forums said about one of their ships. That being "Overly elaborate and suspiciously functional" I forget who said it but that is what I imagine when I hear something is kerbal. Something non-conventional that somehow works. I go further into having things that are "very Jeb in nature" where it is usually something silly, dangerous, maybe even a bit daft, but somehow fun. Like putting an external command seat on top of 4 jet engines and flying it around...