Diche Bach

yeah, KIS and KAS. Oh wow, it takes a 425km orbit to achieve constant contact with the other three eh? So just ballpark, how many would have to be daisy chained to allow for constant contact at say 241km? Ten maybe? . . . orbital decay, I had that mod installed at one point, but it _seemed_ to be contributing disproportionately the the performance hit my game takes by virtue of handling 11,000 patches (about 70 "mods" I guess). I know stuff does not maintain its orientation (that takes a separate mod I understand which has an even BIGGER hit on performance?) but orbital decay is not actually a thing in the game without mods is it? Hmmm, in terms of Delta-V, the difference between A. Getting to stable orbit, versus B. ~239km orbit vs. C. 425km orbit . . . I have the sense that it won't be a very large proportional difference eh? I like math, but I have not yet got to the point of analyzing every gram of my space crafts and optimizing things down to the meter/second scale. I just know that ~7500 D-V is enough to get about 16,000 kg up around ~240km orbit OR enough to get a 6,000 kg package to orbit Minmus and back . . . and I'm probably no where near being "efficient" (and err on the side of ALWAYS bringing back 10 to 15% of my fuel I suppose).

Finally got Kerbal Space Station setup last night. Will have to post some screenies in the "What did you do today thread". . . Questions: 1. What 'in general' is the optimum height for KSS, assuming I intend to use it for a permanent base that serves as a transport hub, depot, and eventual orbital construction yard? I was thinking of getting into a fairly ellipitcal (but not extreme) orbit with periapsis at about 241 km (to allow for the faster warping throughout its orbit. But then I thought, that increases the distance that stuff has to be brought up to it considerably . . . I also intend to make it the centerpiece for my initial remote tech network (it has a crap ton of comms on it: 8 of the 50 Mm 45-degree dishes, plus two of the 5Mm omnis, and two of the 500km omnis). Figured something like: 3 to 5 additional small Communtron 32 satellites setup in even spacing in the exact same orbit as it (equatorial) . . . I know they will wander but with enough of them it shouldn't matter too much eh? Maybe add three x 3 similar ones but with a few of the longer range dishes in molniyas at each of the three planes (pitch, yaw, roll)? . . . so equatorial seems wise? 2. I noticed that two of the modules (the 2 crew command probe the ferried the second module into place and the "mobile processing lab" which will be the heart of the whole complex as it unfolds) both have "Wear: 0.22." I sent Bill (with a wrench mind you, nothing fancy) to "Perform Maintenance" but it didn't seem to do anything to this value. Do I just need better tools? 3. Can Kerbals level up while in space, or do they have to return to KSC? I'm leaving one scientist on the KSS for now, with enough life support for a year or so. Observe how that "Do research" part works, it only seems to gain about a 1/5th of a science point per day. Hoping that mulch will auto jettison, if not and the system gets "backed up" and he stops consuming his supplies I guess I'll have to send up module number 3 with a few support items (more hydrazine, a "mulch" box to move it to, maybe just go for the whole agronomy module . . .) And Now On to the 584K funds three tourist Minmus flyby that I managed to successfully do in simulation mode last night!

5. Any good tips on achieving an effective "sub-orbital" flight to complete those "Tourist over North/South Pole" missions. I get a lot of these missions, and they tend to pay well. The sub-orbital part is not hard at all, but I find it is hit-and-miss on getting the arc to go OVER the actual pole. Trying to line up the arc of the flight using the map view location marker seems inconsistent at best. 6. Where is the "point" on those map view location makers? is it the tip of the cone below the circle or somewhere in between?

Is getting close to the sun pretty much the only real use of the "radiators" and stuff? I've put them on some re-entry stuff that I figured would have issues with certain protruding parts getting hot, and it does seem to help there, but not sure what the various thermal stuff is really intended for.

Me TOO! I have it installed, mainly just because anything with the word "cryo" in it sounds cool and Nertea's other stuff is so demonstrably awesome . . . not very far into my career play and only one or two of the engines unlocked but haven't really examined how they are to be used . . .

@Snark: Kewl, looking forward to it. The stuff I'll be doing with my mentor this fall will be all C++, and likely more "turn-based" historical military strategy game engine building. He has lots of ideas and is keen to have an apprentice to implement them and learn by doing. Fiddling with KSP to get a bit of a handle on C# might well prove to be a nice break from the above. No intent to keep studying Java: I got the basics and I just don't like the language for some reason. I'd take a job in it if it were a good one, and I'm sure I could be just as good with it as with the C-based ones, but it isn't my preference . . . which sort of sucks because I understand it is much easier to get an entry level position for Java developer than for C++ . . . May also keep my toe in the water on the Stellaris and Distant Worlds modding scenes, but gotta keep an optimum number of irons in the fire . . . -=-=-=-=-=- ADDIT: and so back to the quick questions! 1. Does TWR have any real impact outside of an atmosphere? Or is it just, "a much smaller significance?" Obviously at takeoff from KSC, anything too close to / less than 1 is problematic, but I sense that in orbit of Kerbin, even a small 0.25 or 0.1 can still be effective at small work. 2. Is there a "Thrust to Mass Ratio?" 3. I notice in the Kerbal Engineer Redux, that there are no default data fields for "target velocity at apoapsis/node/periapsis/intersect." I'm still just relearning/getting the hang of rendezvous and docking, but it seems like this would be a very useful data to have at hand. Doable? Useful? 4. When I use the merge thing in VAB I sometimes find that, I'm not able to get the piece I brought into to link up. It seems that having docking ports in the mix somehow messes things up, but it still remains cryptic what is going on exactly. I can usually work it out by taking a piece or two OFF the parent assembly and fiddling, but it would be nice to know if there is a well-established "best practices" sort of doctrine for making good use of that merge thing . . . I suppose learning how to use the sub-assemblies might by solution here . . . I've been figuring out how to use that merge thing to reduce my repetition of design elements: e.g., got a probe core with like 15 lengths comprising 10 pieces of size 10% girder, all perfectly aligned and ready to be used to create super-structures an the like . . . Using the Ctrl-Z to replicate parts might even be quicker though? (remove piece and place it in the air in VAB, then use Ctrl-Z to restore the piece(s) you just removed est voila! copy of first piece ready to go!

Problem is I _like_ debris! Gives me stuff to go on future salvage missions to recover once I get that grappling arm thingy! I wish there was a mod to remove that "delete debris" button from map view and also to add "salvage missions." LOL, I've got a couple pieces of debris from rather early in my career play (one is a parachute strangely) that have somehow been catapulted several million kilometers away from Kerbol system. One of them seems to be heading to Valentine system! I didn't see anyone really answer his question: "does more debris impact game performance?" At least on my PC build (ridiculous number of mods that obviously dramatically impact performance . . . as in 95% of 8GB of RAM [plus whatever the VGA has . . . 4GB I think . . . even WITH 16GB of hard-drive space allocated to virtual memory!) I don't notice any signs of performance issues that I'd link to more debris or more objects in map view. Going into SPH or VAB, places where the enormous number of mods I have installed impact asset acquisition . . . now THAT obviously impacts performance! Build a ginormous 300 part space station launcher: game practically goes into a coma and barely retains enough responsiveness to complete the design. One of these days I've got to try to sort out why my mod build is such a RAM-pig and try to do what I can to optimize it . . . So: can anyone answer DOES more debris/objects have any inherent impact on game performance?

Yeah, I think I might have upped my UI a notch or two, and that might well be my problem (middle-aged eyes).

Is the vehicle in VAB or in orbit? If former, it might be that weird thing where they won't respond when you click "Extend" but _will_ extend when you click "Start Deployed." If the latter (and unmanned( it might be that the ship has no comms link to Mission Control so you cannot communicate with it so you cannot control it. If neither of those seem to be solutions, see if you can post a screen cap; with a bit more to go on someone should be able to help you fix it.

That was awesome MiniMatt. You really seem to know what you are doing I've got that USI Kolonization mod in my set and not quite to the point of using that stuff, though I do almost have the KSS up with some of the USI gear on it (food and recycler). Question: what screen res do you play at? Your screen looks so nice and open and clear and the NavBall seems far less intrusive than in my setup. Think I might follow your act and configure my KER windows to be HUDs instead of using the big-butt things in the middle of the window.

Sweet! I find myself making repeated use of a little 3 section length of girder reduced to size 30%. I will definitely make good use of that! @Snark: Thanks! I will look into that stuff. Right now I MUST wrap up my Java III class before my deadline expires, but going ahead, using making some stuff for KSP as a way to get into C# seems promising.

A lot of forums have a general thread like this that winds up being stickied, and I didn't see one for KSP in these forums. So, while I'm not exactly a "regular" or "old-timer" with any sort of social capital on this forum, I thought it might not be a bad idea, and maybe a mod will sticky it if folks use it. I myself have like six million questions that have arisen over the summer getting back into playing KSP, and many do not deal with mods where questions specific to those would be more appropriate to their respective sub-forums. So my first three to start with: 1. What is a "sub-assembly?" Is this stock? 2. When does the game actually load assets? I ask because two instances struck me as 'peculiar.' A. When I've tried to delete or move files in GameData while game was initialized and in play, it wouldn't let me, which I found surprising as I figured given the time it makes to load (and for ModuleManager to patch things) I figured most of the data was in data structures in the game. Just doing my first course on data structures, so my understanding of this may be out of whack. B. This morning I launched the game as I was browsing the forums, and decided I'd backup all my ship files, so I could have the liberty to delete the ones I scarcely use any more. Somehow in doing this, I managed to move the directory for my career campaign out of the saves\career directory and into the main KSP directory. Naturally I was puzzled when I went into the SPH and found no craft files! So, I moved the "ships" directory back to where it belong and PRESTO! even without rebooting the game, there are my craft files again. 3. What language is the source code for this game written in? Reason I ask is, I have a years training in C++, Java, tad bit of JavaScript and PHP, and of course HTML, CSS, XML, doing my first "post-course work" apprenticeship with a 35-year career programmer this fall (I'm 48, early retired professor, and training for second "dream career") . . . Would be good to know how to write plugins for this game, and I probably have the foundation to be able to do it pretty readily at this point.

Ah thanks a million for taking the time to provide such a detailed and thoughtful answer Zhetaan! And with that I should be able to figure out the rest of it!

Thanks swjr! That is an excellent site. I uploaded it and will upload the "more successful" version I built thanks to this thread next. https://kerbalx.com/Diche_Bach/Seagull-104 ADDIT: here is the one I built with the help you guys provided. https://kerbalx.com/Diche_Bach/Seagull-104-AB

Someone above said "Apollo sounds increasingly like science fiction." So true . . . I'm no expert and don't have strong opinions like some of you, but one sad truth I speculate on as a social scientist: the main reason the Apollo era (and the programs that led up to it) was so stunningly successful had nothing whatsoever to do with technology, economics or even "politics" generally speaking. It had to do with "war," an ideological war between two superpowers who perceived one another as mutual threats and incompatible worldviews. This was the "fuel" that drove the space race, and this is what we lack today: a common cause. I have little doubt that if some unforeseen problem that must be solved by vaulting humanities space faring abilities into the future (else some gigantic windfall profits to be had) arises, we will as a species once more make a giant leap.

@Zhetaan : thanks man! Yeah i found it Few questions: Background: I have one unmanned sat in orbit "Zal 1." This is intended to be the "bow" module of an eventual Kerbal Space Station (taking up the living quarters/victuals/labs is next mission on my list) so it is heavy on the solar power, antenna, monopropellant, alkaline generators, etc. Top View Underside (note it has like 8 DTS-M1 antenna on it, they have [supposedly] a 45-degree cone but pretty good range, so I figured long-term having them pointing in pretty much all directions would enable it to serve as a relay for future missions) Here it is with all the antenna deployed. So I launched that baby to fullfill a mission for a 'satellite at specific orbit.' the next lower stage was a docked gemini probe, and then the boosters below that. I used it to practice how docking works: got it into orbit, undocked then tried to redock . . . I figured it might be easier to learn that way. I then moved it to the lower orbit (apo < 250km) to set it up to fulfill a second mission: Kerbal Space Station. So it is up there right now, and of course, as it is my only orbital antenna it goes out of contact pretty frequently, like . . . 4 ours out of every 6 hour day it seems! Okay, my questions: 1. As you can see, I have all the solar panels in one direction: a compromise for costs/size. A subsequent version has a mirror set of panels and "edges" so it should provide more or less 360 coverage. It does have alkaline cells for backup and like 3500 electric power cap . . . I naturally orient it toward Kerbol while it is in contact, and _sometimes_ it seems to retain this orientation, but then other times, it turns right around. Is this an inherent aspect of orbiting? Is there a way to get a sat to point in a particular direction and ALWAYS try to automatically point in that direction so it doesn't loss contact/power? 2. It seems it is "not a good idea" to try to dock with an unmanned vehicle like this while it is "not in radio network?" I'm certainly no pro on docking (really just now getting the hang of it) and I also am using DMagic's "flexo-docker" on the incoming vehicle so that might be a problem in some way. What I have experienced is this: I get the incomer lined up, eliminate all radial motion and pro/retro motion and wait a bit to make sure, then slowly pro-grade in with "H" key on RCS thrusters. Get it down to 0.1m/s for the last 30 m. Then come to full stop, and watch it to confirm little to no motion, switch to target (the unmanned satellite) wait for it to come into network and turn it toward incomer . . . actually it didn't work out quite this way: I realized my window for orienting the satellite was nearly closing so I did the "orientation" at more like ~200m gap. Tired and got a bit off center I guess (not even sure how on-center it MUST be for stock let alone this modded docking port) and by the time they were close things were just a hair out of line and the sat had gone out of network. They came into contact at a slight angle and wobbled around for a while and then the sat toppled over and started drifting away spinning a bit at a very unfortunate periodicity/angle: effectively making it much WORSE than it had been. I don't know if having had the sat in full control all the time might have helped me to dock this (I suspect it would) and that is what this question is really about: A. Is it just a "bad idea" to try to dock with an uncontrolled vessel in general? B. Is there a way to temporarily disable RT in these instances (to reflect the fact that, the pilot in the incoming manned vehicle should be able to make contact with the target vehicle and effectively 'take control' of it's reaction wheels)? C. Might there be any plan to include in the mod functionality so that manned vehicles with sufficient comms equipment can "take control" of unmanned vehicles in their network even when they are otherwise out of network? It might be a coding nightmare, but it would seem cool. D. Any general suggestions on good/fun/challening/realistic ways to cope with these early career game issues while using RemoteTech? 3. Obviously I haven't got this far yet, and this is sort of a variation of question 1 above, but . . . once I do have a couple more unmanned comm sats up, is there a way to tell them to always maintain orientation in particular directions so that they don't wobble out of contact? I haven't noticed any obvious stuff in the interface, and honestly I'm just exploring it as I go, so if there is such functionality, appreciate if anyone can point me in the right direction. Phantastic Mod!! ADDIT: ah one more question: 4. Do the "cones" of effectiveness actually work as advertised? Meaning for example, the ones on that sat, supposed to have a 45-degree cone (which I assume is an actual "cone" shape with the apex and center of the base aligned on the central strut of the antenna when it is deployed?). Once I got it up there, I fiddled with setting some to target Mun, and some KSC and while the "being on the wrong side of the planet" effect certainly is clear, it was pretty difficult to make out how the "cone" effect was playing into it. This question might well also be a slight variation on #s 1 and 3 . . .

If I understand what you are saying, I am almost certain it is wrong. I routinely launch the game from a desktop shortcut with Firefox or something else running. The game will momentarily take control of the desktop until the Squad logo page is up and shows progress, at that point, Windows-key once again functions and I often tab out and surf or browse forums while it loads. Few minutes later, it has finished loading and takes over the cursor/desktop again, and forces the Kerbal Main Menu to load. Once that is fully loaded, I can once again tab out and as far as I know game does not auto-pause if this is done while in play. That last part I have not paid careful attention to, but pretty sure. ADDIT: here I'll test that last part: currently Y2, D151, 2h, 13m in my current campaign. Will check it in a minute and see if it has advanced . . . ADDITE PART DEUX: @AlshainYep, they must have changed it in 1.1, I've been tabbed out of KSP for like 5 or 10 minutes browsing the forums and my campaign now says: Y2, D151, 2h, 22m.

So I think I finally figured out what those little squiggle marks in the NavBall mean in dock mode . . . wow. So cool. Managed to get this destroyer sized rocket lined up with a fairly large unmanned probe (the start of Kerbal Space Station) . . . so cool to use that NavBall magic to swing it from an orbit 9km out of whack into a more-or-less precisely lined up deal then cancel out all motion at ~5k, then slowly cruise in. So easy to control really once you get it, except for one thing: with RemoteTech running, probes that are not under control seem to go drunk and are seemingly impossible to dock with while they are not in radio contact. Just slightly annoying as having antennae on both the incoming manned, and the target unmanned would presumably allow the pilot in the incomer to align the target. I guess I'll just give myself a 'pass' and turn RT off when I approach unmanneds that are out of network.

Wow, you guys are awesome! Thanks to your feedback and suggestions, I've managed to get a plane that I find more than just "functional;" I might even say its performance is 'good' and it certainly seems on a par with how planes in other flight sims I've played handle. No time to go into details now, too giddy with having a basic understanding of this stuff and too many kerbin based missions to complete! But here is one screen shot of my new Seagull 104-A in flight. Happy to provide more screen caps and/or description of what I did differently if anyone (perhaps a fellow beginner like me) is interested; and of course, I already have still more questions that I'll want to pose eventually. But for now gotta play with this baby! Thanks folks!

Thanks Bewing! Some good stuff. Using Alshain's comments about the wheels, I made a new one and did as he said: did not move the wheels up from where they natively wanted to lock into place. That seemed to help tremendously on the swerve on the runway. So the fuel ducts, I was thinking that was a way to insure that the fuel in the front of the plane emptied into the back, so that the plane's CoM wouldn't get further forward as it flew making landing (and nose diving) more difficult. If I were to clip fuel tanks mounted on externally inside the fuselage a bit and then link forward fuel tanks to rear with the ducts inside the fuselage, would that be a good practice or as you say, just unnecessary? So what is a reasonable ballpark for a landing speed? That Seagull I can land at like 45m/s which is nice, but slow to descend.

Hmm. I haven't done any of what Alshain refers to and I just use the Windows key to put the game into background mode. Granted at certain key points in initialization and/or while in-game transitions this is delayed for a second, but I've attributed that more to the ridiculous number of mods I have installed and the hogging of all 8 GB of my RAM while the game runs (slightly ameliorated by upping my VRAM to 16384 MB).

Thanks guys! I'll have a look at what parts I'm using in that plane and list the mods involved. I'm a bit of a mod whore Off the top of my head, the mods used in that plane that might well be causing issues: 1. Tweakscale 2. KW Rocketry (the fuel to weight ratios are slightly better) I'd have to question if this is it though. . . . . hmmm, that is all I can think of . . . not sure if the radial attached air intake is stock or not . . . there are several science parts on it, as well as some KIS stuff, but I don't think any of that should matter. I figured the heavier landing gear would improve things but don't yet have that teched. When you guys say "no clipping" on the gear, what do you mean? Do you mean 1. the top of the gear housing should sit RIGHT under the wing, just barely touching the underside surface of the wing? Or do you mean, 2. the top of the housing should at worst, be completely enclosed inside the wing? If the former I'm skeptical (the stock velocitize design has the them clipped in both ways if I recall) the latter I can believe is an issue, so I hope that is what you are talking about. Also, when you say "no angle" what do you mean by that? Reason I ask is, the gear themselves do not form a 90-degree when they are fully deployed, so which plane should be parallel to the horizontal? Or for that matter, should it be that the gear is parallel to the surface it is attached to? Or, is it that the actual strut should be perfectly vertical right at the point where it intersects the wheel bogie? I figure it is the latter but be good to clarify. Anyway, I really appreciate your feedback. Now that we've identified it, I'm almost positive the forward gear is not quite right so I'll fix that and see what it does. ADDIT: re the issue of the angle of attack . . . honestly it is not something I feel I have masterful understanding of in real life, so add in that this is a game modeling that dynamic and I honestly am pretty much lost. I know that in general the point is to get air traveling more rapidly under the wing than over, but I was under the impression that a sizeable portion of that dynamic in real life comes from aerofoil cross-section . . . whereas in KSP our options seem to be: angle of the wing. I came up with this design (the relatively massive "wing sled" with the fuselage sitting on top and fuselage tilted) through trial and error. Like I said, every other design I've tried (including the stock ones like Velocitize) exhibit horrific nose dive (stall speed I guess that would correspond to?) when I attempt to land them and a certain low speed threshold is crossed. This one doesn't suffer that issue: it practically just glides in for a landing and one almost has to point the nose DOWN and kill the thrust to GET it to drop at all! All of this would be much less of a issue if the stock designs in the game files were better performers. Based on my limited understanding of aerodynamics, and what I've gathered from trying my own designs as well as a couple of the stock designs, and then glancing at the rest of them, every single one of the stock designs is laughably bad. Some of them might look like real aircraft, but none of them function worth a damn. ADDIT: and one last comment for this post: I wonder if my horizontal stabilizers are a bit undersized relative to the wings and that might be accounting for the roll during pitch up maneuvers? It was so painful just to get to this design (which is functional, but not yet 'perfect') that I've been loath to ask questions or to try too many different things in game. But stretched out over a longer real life time span, I can see how fiddling with this stuff is very engrossing and look forward to trying more variations.

ADDIT: some screen caps added (note these are still highly imperfect, and only partly tested, but yeah, the first part I managed to get into orbit and its up there right now, zipping around, beeping . . . only problem being, I cannot control it except for about 2 hours per day! ) Had a couple missions: 1. setup a satellite in a specific orbit (unmammed apo ~1,859 km; per 295km); 2. set up Kerbal Space station (support 4 kerbals, under 250km), so I figured I'd continue my odyssey of learning how to use all the mods I have installed, how to use the builder interfaces, and how to do stuff in general, and try to design some nicely 'modular' stuff that could kill two birds with only two or three 'stones' . . . The operational plan here being: I. Launch a rocket with the first package to fulfill the sat mission, but with plenty of extra science/power/maneuver/docking facilities, so that . . . a. Zero stage is the sat Top View Underside (note it has like 8 DTS-M1 antenna on it, they have [supposedly] a 45-degree cone but pretty good range, so I figured long-term having them pointing in pretty much all directions would enable it to serve as a relay for future missions) Here it is with all the antenna deployed (they break if subjected to air stress) and all the science modules deployed (nothing quite so beautiful as a big wonky-ass chunk of metal with lots of gizmos and pointy bits sticking out, eh?) Here is the launch vehicle with the sat on top (illuminated!) And lastly, the 2nd package that is intended to dock with 1st and thus complete the KSS mission. Have not managed to dock this in simulator mode and do not have the cash to build it yet . . . gotta finish some other missions first . . . b. 1st stage is a small _manned_ section (to take advantage of my level 2 pilot) that can undock from 1st (to make the sat "unmanned") and with the intent to then . . . Here is a closeup of the upper stages. For the second module I think I might do away with the manned module, to save on costs. The SAS on the 2nd tier of unmanned core seems fairly good, so I'll test and see if it can handle all that top drag. The level 2 pilot handles it with zero problem though, so one way or another I should be able to get it up once I have the cash. c. redock with the sat, then with all the excess D-V in the 2nd &/or 3rd stages, move it to the lower orbit II. Use same rocket vehicle to launch second package (including living quarters), designed to dock with first package and then to a lower orbit to finish KSS mission. The end result intended to be: a two part space station with the top most section being a communications, solar power and science module, the next section being a living quarters, and then later sections added to bring in mobile science lab, training facility, etc. So I built this huge ass vehicle package family named after the firm that wants the satellite up there "Zaltronic." Well to be exact, first I built the first satellite (way overkill) and launcher, then I took that launcher and built the second "module" with living quarters, supplies etc. I then did the simulated flights (Kerbal Construction Time) to test this stuff and managed to get the eccentric orbit setup and then undocked. At this stage I was reminded of how difficult docking is! Turns out it might be EASIER to dock from a larger distance than from a satellite you just UNDOCKED from! It was epic but I finally managed to do it. Now I've just got to get enough funds to build the second part and get that sucker docked to complete the KSS mission. Career mode is awesome . . .

Sometimes it feels like doing brain surgery . . . with a pack of bottle rockets and a pair of hedge clippers . . .

I've got the OCD bad . . . Finally got a plane that I can more or less handle, but still some slight problems. Would appreciate any advice you can offer swjr (or anyone). Aircraft Design: Help Needed