annallia

Kerbal attachment system is my preferred way. Then again I never tried for a base like that one because I know how much of a pain it can be to put together. Instead I use KAS to connect all my modules. The trick there however is landing them all fairly close to eachother...

The struts were still intact, at the point of it being disconnected they would have gone as well (as they did when he nudged it). I could understand this one being weakened, we did have a dock with another ship to refuel before heading to Mun that was a little... rough but as I said, this is not the first time this has happened and the landing was very soft.

My current mission was supposed to be a manned mission to Duna. My new interplanetary cruise ship took on a secondary mission on its shakedown cruise and swung by Duna. Dropped off a communication satellite, a hitchhiker pod to serve as a life support module, and a rover before heading off to Eeloo. Bob was supposed to return from Mun and take over the Duna project but the clutz broke the mun lander and is now stranded so my new mission is to rescue Bob.

That is because the system has changed in the last year. Now your fuel is the basis of the weight of your tank, you cant simply add a ton of fuel and have it maintain the weight.

I apparently spoke too soon when I said Bob went to the Mun and for the first time stayed there intentionally rather than because of some accident.. I sent a ship out to get him, I didn't want my first manned mission to Duna since updating to 0.21.1 to be piloted by some rookie and Jeb and Bill were busy taking my newest ship on a shakedown cruise to Eeloo. So I figured what a perfect time to test the new Mun lander I had been working on and I sent a ship to the Mun to get Bob, as well as pick up a few of the other Kerbals I had stationed there. Well the Kerbals had a little trouble navigating the ladder system so I figured to hell with it, use their jet packs and land them on the ledge. First 3 went just fine, then came Bob. He nudged the hitchhiker pod, moving very slowly yet it was somehow enough to dislodge it from from the rest of the lander below now making him stranded. How can I stop this from happening? This isn't the first time a minor bump has disconnected a lander from its fuel tank. And before anyone says struts, this had 16 of the super heavy struts from NovaPunch holding it together.

New rocket failed spectacularly. At least the pilots got a pretty view as they floated back down to Kerbin.

Its fairly standard in sandbox games (at least the ones I have played). But still KSP does take the cake in this department as what you can/cant do seems to be less limited than it is in others.

My crafts usually end up in the 30-50 ton range (not including launcher). How many parts varies way to widely to give a good number but a rough estimate would be around 120-250 parts. I do however have one efficient little craft (part wise) that comes in with launcher at just 88 parts. Weighs in at just 470 tons fully fueled.

How much does it weigh? If you are not opposed to mods Nova punch has a few parts that would make it easy to get her into space assuming it doesn't weigh too much.

For the first time ever. Bob went to Mun, and got left behind for reasons other than lack of fuel or crash!

Depends on how heavy your probes are. Otherwise what you could do is use a bi/tri coupler with ports on each one and attach them to the ship that way. You can also mitigate the stress put on the ports by throttling up slowly rather than jumping strait to full throttle. There is really little difference between full throttle and say half throttle on stress once you are up to speed but kicking it in to full throttle right off the bat tends to jerk the ships connected by the ports.

Not sure where you are getting confused here. Three pictures of the same components. One picture has a piece placed incorrectly. That was picture #1 The other two ports are placed correctly. The whole point was that given a limited camera view which happens at times you cannot easily, or even with effort determine if it is rotated correctly from the side. Three people have answered it, one after being given the correct answer, and three people have gotten it wrong. Something about that tells me there is a problem here...

But the camera has limitations, which again can leave you with not getting a decent angle on the part to correctly identify it.

Even better stay on the docking controls... A small rcs burst won't hurt anything, at least not compared to what engines would do!

Again wrong answer, any moving of the camera for a different angle was unintentional and even so reinforces the point that you don't always get the best of views when building. The first was not manipulated by placing it further down, it is the one that is upside down. The reason the handle is in front is it was rotated, again something that routinely happens in builds.

Technically you could say I started with 18.3 as that was the demo I played... However my first install of the full game was 0.19.1, a day after I installed (before I actually got to play) 0.20 came out soo I guess 0.20

Proof positive that angle of view (which can be limited by the camera in the VAB on large builds) can trip you up. That answer is wrong.

The problem is the side view isn't blatantly obvious on the Sr. port. And while it may be true that looking at it from the top/bottom the camera doesn't always allow said view on say a larger build. I have decided on a little test: Find the one with the upside down port *Hums "one of these things is not like the other, one of these things does not belong"* #1 #2 #3

I tend to make my crafts mission specific so they get named for the mission. Mun Lander MK I, MK II, MK III and so on. If however there is a craft that will remain in space for a long time (non-probe) I tend to think of a different name for it. Stations as an example, They will be named my mission name KSS for example followed by what version (MK I, II, III) and part letter. A is always the core, Then B, C, D and occasionally I give names like say B1 or B2 which would mean it would use an alternate axis attaching with A. In the end however they end up with a simple name like KSS (Kerbal Space Station) DSRS (Deep Space Refueling Station) and so on. Probes get destination specific names. Duna-Orbital Probe MK I Or Duna-Lander Probe Ships if they are ones with no specific mission and will be re-used like my tugs or inter-planetary transfer ships they will be given a name, usually after a ship in Star Trek. No enterprises yet but I did have the Rotarran which was an interplanetary transfer ship. I do have tugs named Rio Grande, Danube, and Rubicon. They still get a designation as to their type so the full name would be something like OT-Rio Grande the OT standing for orbital tug.

I still think those should function as docking hubs... I mean cmon they look like what you would imagine a port would look like give us the damned hub! That said your analogies don't quite work. You don't NEED a battery to work with a probe core, you could just as easily slap a few RTG's on to it since all the cores do have some capacity to hold a charge, albeit a minor one. True solar panels are not labeled that they only generate once deployed but that is sort of a captain obvious type thing and even so, it is something fixable without abandoning the vessel, can't say the same for docking ports. I will give you the point on landing legs, but counter with ladders show as they are deployed in the VAB allowing you know exactly how they have to be placed. Point is there are only minor differences between the two, people will check if you make it more blatant. Don't want the arrows? Fine how about this instead: Modify the node from the outside half of the port allowing it only to connect with a decoupler/separator or another port. This way the game won't let you install them backwards at all while retaining their function.

And yet my peanutbutter has the need to inform me that it may contain nuts (I do find the wording disturbing... just the "may" part). Back to KSP... There are other modules that have little arrows on them despite not being exactly the same on either side... decouplers/separators come to mind. I see no reason to raise a big hooplah over the idea of adding an arrow to a docking port to tell you which side is in/out. Now I agree with you that people should check their work rather than just throwing it together and seeing if it flys but even people who routinely check their work can get it wrong if it is a large build with multiple ports or they have a bad camera angle due to the limitations of the VAB camera. Hell on my newest station I made this very mistake (though only on one of the two sr ports I put in) I had checked, double checked, and could of sworn they were on right, but one of them somehow wound up upside down. Point is it will happen to anyone simply because the difference between the two sides is so small it is not really obvious, adding a little arrow pointing in would greatly reduce that from happening.

Unless I missed soemthing you cannot maneuver a planet though... I think he just meant another place to go to see the next launch window for Jool or something like that. As for career mode... NASA often shuffled missions around and adjusted them on the fly. No reason we shouldn't be able to pick and choose missions, or change objectives mid mission (think bonus mission) when it is implemented. This is what my homemade version of career mode is like. I set myself with a budget (annual but adjusted every 106 days so 1 kerbin year) The next year gives me slightly higher budget based on my successful missions and operating cost.. I even took in to account the use it or lose it principal where if I don't spend so much of my budget within that year I might not get as much money next year. For the sake of me not being able to just decide my budget on a whim I use a RNG to determine how much of an increase/decrease I get.

Never said they could repair, said it would be nice if they could. However, as others have shown here, they can extend them. It could very possibly be that you were not close enough to the panel to do it.

I learned how to edit the persistence file to fix my glitched docking port. I also finished my station finally. Want grueling? Try moving a 700 ton station with only 3 NERVA engines and only being able to throttle up half way (otherwise everything got bendy). But I eventually made it into a near perfect 1000k orbit. I was building it in LKO but then decided why keep it at about 180k when it is intended to refuel vessels headed for other planets? So had to move it. Now I have to refuel it...

If that doesn't work, make sure your docking ports are installed correctly. You certainly wouldn't be the first, or last person to install a docking port backwards.