annallia

I will try time warping to fix it, it cannot be energy, all of my refuelers have generators on them (just in case I clip more panels on the station..) and enough that even with everything on they don't ever run out of energy. As well as an ample supply of batteries. And yes I am sure I was shutting everything down, I have my throttle controls (up, down, kill) mapped to my mouse.

Been trying to make a super tanker to require less stops at my station for me to refuel it. In the end the tanker alone weighs just shy of 280 tons. Didn't actually check how much it weighs with the rocket. Anyway, my attempts at getting it into orbit have been failing miserably. At first due to structural failures on launch which have been fixed, now my orbits are degrading, and rapidly. I have been attempting to put it into higher, and higher orbits but each time before I can send it to my station its orbit degrades and it ends coming back down to Kerbin. I started with 80km orbit, went to 90, 100, 125, 150, testing 200 now and even so I see it coming back down. If I switch to the map screen I see my orbit as showing as stable with the closest me getting to kerbin around 180 but for some reason I am continually coming back.

Started with a simple mission. To start a base on the Mun. I sent Jeb, Bob, and Rocas out in a lander to scout out a nice area. The mission however had different ideas. First launch the rocket suddenly decided to explode at 30,000 feet. Fortunately the command capsule, in fact the entire final stage managed to survive the explosion and splashed down harmlessly. Second launch went better and they got into Munar orbit. However here things went wrong again. First they were off their planned landing site, only 2km though so no big deal right? Except there was a hill there which they landed on, lander tipped over detaching the capsule and started sliding down the hill. So now a rescue operation had to be mounted. Named Operation Come Home (yeah, were not creative over here) A remotely piloted lander with enough fuel to return to Kerbin and designed specifically to land on an incline safely was made. A new rocket was made to launch the massive thing. Everything seemed to go perfectly fine. Then however I realized the lander had no chutes, even with the extra structural mass jettisoned (on takeoff from Mun) the Nuclear Engines didn't have enough thrust to land it safely on Kerbal.They also forgot to put the radial decouplers needed to jettison said structural parts. Command decided to use it as the beginning of the station, even if it was landed on a hill. It got to the Mun, it landed shut everything but the lights down (it was dark) and switch to the command capsule from the old mission to start walking my kerbals over and suddenly the rescue ship decides to flip over. So now we have two broken ships, and three stranded kerbals. It was here that Command had the brilliant idea of repurposing an older rocket design that had been used to send support modules (lander with hitchhiker can + solar array, comunications ect..) to other planets. They figured with the Mun being so close it had enough fuel to land, and take back off and bring the kerbalnautes home. With the new, new, rescue lander in orbit over Mun, Rocas went on EVA to plant a flag on a nice flat plain for it to land on. The lander set down almost dead on the flag, finally everything is going right! All my little kerbals did their eva (about 1km) to the lander, climbed in the can and prepared for takeoff. It took off, established an orbit, and went to map view to plot my course back to Kerbal. As I was setting up the next maneuver I heard something of an explosion. Switched back to staging view to see the rocket that had brought the lander to the Mun was floating away, along with 2 of my 3 engines! By sheer dumb luck I managed to be in the path of my rocket. I had enough fuel to stabilize my orbit and move out of the path of the floating fuel tank of doom. After this was done Command sent up yet another rocket (we send these modules everywhere, Duna, Laythe, Eve so we have a few laying around) to come get the kerbals. Ship went up without a hitch, got in orbit around Mun, started to plan its rendezvous with the previous pod. Got to within 150m and Rocas went Eva to transfer to the ship (no docking ports on these). Rocas moved over, had a little trouble getting around to the side with the hatch but managed. Now the ships are 500m apart. I tapped on the thrusters to close the gap slightly. When got within 100m Bill went Eva, swung over to the other ship and boarded. Problem here is my ship had passed the rescue ship while Bill was floating over and is now again 800m away. By the time Jeb was out of the ship and headed in the right direction he was 2.1km away from the rescue ship. Jeb being Jeb, did this in style. Not only did he manage to close the gap in less time than it took Rocas to get in, he had targeted the hatch so perfectly that he didn't have to grab the ladder just hopped in the new ship! (I swear I could repeat that 1,000,000 times and not be able to do it again) Finally things started to go right. All the Kerbals inside they managed to return to Kerbal splashing down just outside of KSC and the mission from hell was finally over.

The wreckage of a lander + rescue lander on Mun. Left to right, first lander which landed on top of the hill only to tip over and slide down, command capsule containing Jeb, Bob, and Rocas. The little white dot next to the command capsule is Jeb who is headed to the new rescue ship (is behind the hill) and then there is the ship that was originally intended to rescue them which for unknown reasons decided to flip over after having landed successfully.

I re-launched with heavy legs and put it in almost the exact same spot (still on the side of the hill just a little to the west of the first landing spot) and it stayed put even after switching craft and all that happy fun stuff so I am going to call this solved. Thank you!

If you are not opposed to re-building your rocket again you could copy my Duna-1. Was one of my earlier rockets before I knew I could get tanks to stay put without anything in between them (note I do use quantum struts in this). Not sure how much your lander weighs but the last two stages of this (drops fuel tanks after breaking in atmo) weighs just under 30 tons so if it should have more than enough lift to get yours into orbit if it comes in under that. It isn't a true asparagus stage rocket in that all 4 of the external tanks drop at the same time but it does reach 100km orbit with a little fuel to spare. From there you just separate and use the nuclear engines to set you on course for eve, use what little fuel is left to do a breaking burn on eve and then drop the tanks/deploy chutes. I know it's named Duna-1 but that is only because it was designed for Duna, it has since been sent ahead of every mission to anywhere with an atmosphere as my life support module, and has been retrofitted several times for rovers and other landers.

Would a ladder clipping into the ground be enough to do this? I had it extended before I switched to the command pod.

Center of Mass is right below the hitchhiker can (or was in in the VAB), Unless unpacking the 2x4 solar panels on the top changed that it should still be relatively near there even without all the fuel. All MechJeb stuff was shut down, I only used it to do the high orbit breaking burn then shut everything down and landed myself. I did try the SAS, no help whatsoever even when combined with the RCS. It was stable on the ground, I had warped until there was some daylight to charge the batteries. I stopped the warp and went to the space center to switch to the command pod, it was just as I was about to send one of my kerbals on eva to move over to the new ship that it decided to flip itself. There is a flat spot about 1.5 km away, it is where I intended to land the first time but was slightly off course (by first time I mean the first lander not the rescue lander). And while I will send my ship back up again after dropping some weight I won't need for the flat bit I would still like to know why this one decided to do a cartwheel for no apparent reason.

Ok so I sent a few Kerbals to the Mun. I picked however a rather bad spot to land, turned out to be the side of a hill (never tried landing while dark before) and my initial lander tipped as it touched down sending the command pod down the hill a little ways, all the while being chased by the main bulk of the lander! I mounted a rescue mission for my kerbals, designed a new rocket with a new lander capable of landing on an incline safely. I then launched a refueling satellite into Munar orbit for the lander to refuel before making its trip home (its 22 tons with all the fuel burned off). On the way there I realized I forgot to add parachutes to the lander and an important part of the staging that would drop a few tons of its dead weight so now it doesn't have enough thrust to land safely on Kerbal so decided what the hell it will be the start of a Munar base and I will send a new lander to pick up my kerbals later however... Perfect landing. Switch to the Command Capsule to get my kerbals out and this happens For whatever reason it suddenly hops 10-15 meters in the air and spins (yes RCS and thrusters are off). I reloaded my quicksave from when it first landed and it happened again, this time with me watching from the lander itself.

I have one of my orbital tugs adrift around Kerbal. I decided to take it for a joy ride to Minmus and it didn't have enough fuel to make the trip back. Fortunately it settled into a very high orbit around Kerbin. I did launch a rescue with the intention of refueling it but I forgot to add a dock to the rescue ship so had to do an eva to get my kerbal out. Since then my orbital tugs have been redesigned to be remotely piloted. That is the only ship I have floating around, though I do have Bill floating out in the middle of nowhere on his way out of the system after a failed attempt to get to Eeloo, sent him on eva to play around, went to space center to clean up my mess, deleted the ship and forgot about Bill.

I put in a vote for career mode since the one I really want isn't there. I know you have more planets/moons up there but what I would like to really see is whole new systems. I have a ship capable of leaving the Kerbal system (granted it would take eons to reach another one) but just the same I would like the ability (new engine type that only works in vacuum?) to travel to a whole new system and explore.

My station orbits at 320km. True it does require more fuel to get to it initially it is however not too horribly bad + my refueling rig was already designed to reach the Mun (rig for refueling the station not refueling station) so it has no trouble getting into that high of an orbit. That is for Kerbin. Other planets I don't have a station around yet but I do use refueling satellites which are basically mini-stations that I keep in the lowest possible orbit, specially the ones around Eve.

Eh, sometimes I think it is a problem with MechJeb working on my PC. I find that if I botch a landing like that. Save my vessel close the game restart the game and launch the same vessel again and MechJeb will do it right. As evidence I did just that, not only did MechJeb get it into orbit successfully it transfered to Munar orbit and landed safely without spinning it around and slamming head first into the Mun.

I am still running 0.20x and having issues with MechJeb now and then. For instance today I was trying to put a lander on the moon (after my new moon base went poof). I loaded up my favorite Mun rocket made minor changes to it (hitchhiker can, extra booster to make up for the weight) and went to launch. MechJeb failed to get it into orbit 4 times in a row and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Turned off MechJeb and did it myself, no problem. Used MechJeb to get it to the Mun, no problem, set up orbit, no problem. Go for landing.. problem. For whatever reason at about 350m above the mun MechJeb decided it would be a good idea to flip my lander around and kick the thrusters into full power slamming it into the surface. I tried to save it, as soon as I saw it flip around and start burning I canceled the auto land and tried to flip it around and start a burn myself but before my thrusters got to half power my lander slammed into the Mun.

Ok new biggest fail for me. Tried to launch a massive Munar base in one go. Built a behemoth of a rocket (850 tons!). It was problematic from the get go. Solid boosters failed to disconnect leaving me lugging around tons of dead weight (literally). I didn't have enough RCS thrusters to really maneuver with the added weight and not enough fuel to drop the main mass before heading to the Mun. Somehow, I don't know how, I managed to make it to the Mun and get in orbit. It was at this point I felt like I was forgetting something, important, but I didn't know what it was. I started my landing, got everything set up and started my decent and was dead on target for where I wanted, I just needed to start my deceleration burn. This is the point where I realized part of what I had forgotten, no landing struts!. I thought oh well no big deal, I have thrusters on the sides not bottoms of the tanks I just have to set it down gently right? Well as it turns out there were two things I forgot. I forgot to put fuel tanks on the base itself so when I detached from my main ship (after sending it careening towards the Mun) I had no way of slowing down. Very big, very expensive, very rage inducing boom...

Before Mechjeb I usually did it in a higher orbit (almost to mun). This way I could make my new vessel slow way down while near the same path and wait for the object I wanted to dock with to come around then it was just a matter of several quick small burns to get us close enough. It was tough, it had a lot of hit/miss and more than a few collisions but it got the job done more often than not. Honestly my biggest problem was matching speeds. After Mechjeb I more or less just watch... But I can now do it in lower orbits.

I havent updated yet, and don't plan to until I know the mods that I am using (my own + a few from here) won't break with it. Currently a few of my mods are broken, haven't looked to see if Mechjeb or Quantum strut are working with 0.21 yet.

The two I fell in love with are Mechjeb and Quantum Struts (no more ugly struts, just a beam of light and less struts needed overall). As for parts I keep uninstalling mods that add them to the game because I decide I don't like the parts and I hate sifting through pages of stuff to get at what I want. That said I did find a parts package that I like is NovaPunch.

Yep unfortunately they fill every seat and don't leave any room. If you want to pick up your Kerbals and don't want to lug around the hitchhiker module you can use the Mk3 cockpit (shuttle cockpit) or the MK1-2 command module and send one of your kerbals on eva before takeoff. This frees up a slot to retrieve your friend.

I started a new save finally. Decided to take all that I have learned over the months and put it into a new game. Designed a new rocket capable of lifting up to 19 tons into orbit. Launched two massive satellites (with said rocket) Redesigned rocket for heavier payloads. After 4 failed launches (difficulty maintaining trajectory during gravity turn) I slapped a few more fuel tanks on it to slow it down and allow me to preform the gravity turn at a higher altitude and still make orbit. This ended with stage 1 of my new station in place. Launched a refueling satellite (Basically a fuel tank with solar panels and docking port) Currently designing stage 2 of my station and a new Munar lander.

I have had so many its hard to narrow it down to just one... Biggest in terms of largest vessel destroyed because of my own stupidity? I crashed my space station. I spent weeks copying the design of a station I found using stock parts. Got it all assembled, got spare tanks up to it for refueling. Sent a small ship into orbit to see if using this and a refueling satellite around Duna could make a return trip. Accidentally fired solid boosters before clearing the structure degrading the orbit to the point that within a day of KSP time it had crashed. Most recent failure? Built a completely liquid fuel rocket intended to send a probe out of the system entirely after docking with a refueling satellite. Got it on the launch pad, did my little countdown in my head, pressed space to release the clamps. Forgot to start the engines..... I also recently sent a manned ship to Eeloo (tried doing it without mechjeb). Failed in my trajectory and ended up slingshotting around Eeloo and heading out of the system. Sent Bill on a space walk for giggles. Went back to the space center to start cleaning up junk and deleted the ship... leaving Bill floating in space headed out of the system.

Me too, I also like the other side of it where they have 3 or 4 boxes for garbage. Differently named of course. Refuse, trash, rubbish and so on. As to the board games there are (or were) a variety of travel board games where all the pieces were magnetic so something like that would work quite well in space.

I had a satellite go missing that was on its way out of the solar system, I figured I accidentally deleted it when I was cleaning up the space junk around... well everywhere. Though not accepting that excuse I currently have a ship built from orbit that is out there looking for it. Last time I checked in on it (letting it coast) was to prepare my landing pod for separation on Eeloo when it will pass by on its way out of the system. I have close to 3 months of in game time to wait for that, instead of time warping I am carrying on with my normal operations and checking it in the KSC every now and then.

Well my reply is awaiting moderator approval, I took a few of your suggestions and have redesigned my lander. I stuffed a smaller RCS tank below my command module and the hitchhiker can and used a lattice work of struts to secure the two together. I also did away with the nose cones on my external tanks and put more top mounted chutes on them and a few more struts securing the base just for good measure. All in all 1 MK25 4 MK 16XL and 8 radial chutes. Did a test drop on Kerbin and the whole thing held together (high atmo drop no deceleration except from chutes). So thank you for the help, once my rover gets down there and I successfully land I can start ferrying my stranded kerbals to the lander and get them off that stinking planet.. and strand them somewhere else

For myself its all part of what I can imagine until career mode comes along. As an example I recently took one of my tow shuttles from my station for a little joy ride to Minmus. Landed the ship, wandered around for a bit and took back off headed for home. I ran out of fuel before I could get back to my station and found myself adrift in space. Fortunately I fell into orbit of Kerbin but I was still a ways out. I could have just left my kerbalnaut out there drifting, I could have ended his flight in the tracking center and launched a new tow shuttle for my station. Instead I designed a new rocket to go up and and get him and bring him back to Kerbin. It is what you make of it.