LunaTrick

I'd like biomes on Moho, Tylo, and Duna.

v23.5 I tried landing on Jool. At 150m below the "surface" you blow up spectacularly. I tried to find the cave on Tylo. It was no longer at the coordinates that I used in a previous version. Can anyone confirm this? How about Sagan's face? The Kraken is still on Bop. The tunnel is still at Moho's north pole. The Face is still on Duna. I guess I'll look for the Magic boulder on Dres next. And then maybe go to the Henge on Vall.

I have an ascent/descent vehicle that only has a command seat - no capsule. I have been using it for several versions of the game. Recently, Jeb has been falling out of the seat and ends up in orbit with my surface samples. He doesn't fall off during liftoff. He seems to fall off during rendezvous with my space station. Any idea what is going on or how to overcome this problem? And what is the best way to rescue Jeb from this situation? Thanks

I agree. Great view also. You can drive incredibly fast in those big craters.

I drove about 350Km on Moho, from 20 degrees North to the Northern Tunnel at the pole, through all those mountains. I drove from 20 degrees South to the Southern Pole, but as of v.23 the tunnel is not there.

I visited Moho's northern tunnel as I finished up playing v.22. Now with v.23 I have gone back to Moho and drove to the southern tunnel. It doesn't seem to be there. From a high elevation it looks like its there, but once on the ground, I cannot find it. The area is flat. I drove around the pole in a spiral, searching, but never found it. Then I landed my ascent vehicle at 90 00 00S 179 59 59E. There's nothing there. Can anyone confirm?

The online manual also has no mention of the rover autopilot and how to use the waypoints.

I have been flying to Laythe and Eve. On each I perform an aerocapture into a elliptical orbit. I then use Warp Helper to warp to the AP. I raise the PE a little and then do some aerobreaking when I hit PE to lower my ellipse into something more circular. Then I repeat by fine tuning the PE at each AP approach. In this scenario I have seen MJ (dev .137 and current 2.1.1 - .147 I think) pass up the AP and go about 15 degrees farther and then slow down. It doesn't do it all the time. So its hard to repeat. I get the feeling it uses old data every now and then, but I am just guessing. When it comes to landing, MJ can get me between 10-100m from the target coordinates on Eve, but on Laythe it is 20-30Km off!!! Why is this?

I have this problem when the "control from here" is not set correctly.

I found that you have to physically touch the device while on EVA. In the case of my rover I found I could get the data from the goo canister by walking right up against it, but all the other sensors were higher up. I could only stand right under them, but was not in contact with them, so I couldn't get the data. Seems like I should just have to touch the command section of the rover, and then glean any data from any sensor, attached to the command section. I used to have annoying stuttering sound while launching high part count crafts - that is gone. But I still have sounds of engines firing between screens (like VAB --> launch pad) like last version, and sometimes while operating a fully electric rover. That is a new problem in .23. The high part count craft launch beautifully now. I still can only plant one flag when using a command seat. I should be able to get another flag by being re-seated, and then getting out of the seat again to plant a second, third, etc - flag just like if I had a command module. When launching and landing, the round and square lights start to show effect on the ground at about 300m out, yet when mounted to the front of the rover they reach out for about 10m. This should really be fixed. General question: Is the dv needed to ascend from Laythe @ zero altitude correct at 2800m? I am finding I need more than that @ about 1Km. It seems more like Tylo amounts of dv are needed to me ~3100 @ 1Km altitude. Thanks.

I have flown to Eve, Laythe (and Duna) three times each in .23 sandbox, optimizing and old craft for atmospheres. I see none of the frame rate problems mentioned at Laythe or Eve. The way rovers inertia reacts to going uphill has improved. They slow down faster and begin to go backwards, more as one would expect. I was going to report that the heavy landing legs aren't tweakable, but it is the case where you have to click up to a half a dozen times before it will "take". They are in fact tweakable. I was hoping one of the tweaks would be to drain some fuel from certain tanks. Gaven't seen that though.

I just discovered [shift] [W] makes the kerbal walk fast. Not sure if it was in previous versions.

I am using v.23 and ...139. Great job on both! I have landed on Eve and am flying to Duna in sandbox. I am checking aero maneuvers in this new version of KSP using MJ. Laythe is next.

I sampled about four of the videos. They are of some of the worst video production I have ever seen. Audio is terrible. For all the hype, I expected better. This comment is in no way evaluating what the new version offers. Just the video quality.

I saw a lot of weird shadow "tricks" on Moho. Some spooking looking stuff goes on at the poles. Quite a few times the shadow of the rover was way off to the side, and showed no connection to the rover itself. This does two things. It makes you think there is a second rover near by (shadow colored). And worse yet, there are times when the disembodied shadow makes you think that you are not on the ground and flying though the air, instead. Imagine a person standing sometime just before sundown and they have a shadow - when the shadows are long (which is always the case at the poles of Moho). This person's shadow "connects" to the body at the feet. If the person jumps up, then the shadow no longer connects with the body and you know the person is in the air because of that lack of a connection. The same disconnection happens at the poles of Moho and it makes you feel like you are not on the ground. Also, I was experiencing a weird acceleration problem. There were times when holding down on W for several seconds would only get you 0.7m/s on relatively smooth ground. Then after holding down on the W for quite a while (10-15 secs), suddenly a surge would happen and then all the speed you would normally expect would suddenly show up. I know this sounds like a battery charging problem, or something similar, but the resource meter always showed that I had 1405 of 1405 electrical units available. Each battery read 100% and the RTG said it was working at 1% efficiency at the time the problem showed up. I was thinking that maybe they programmed Moho to mess with electrical devices near the pole. I think that would be kinda cool. But I am at a loss to figure out why the loss of power, followed by a surge, kept happening. I have only ever experienced it on Moho. I do not know whether it was my rover that was at fault somehow, or whether it was environmental, or something else. Any thoughts?

I like your tagline, Vexx.

My design works on a 60 degree pitch. Does yours? I'll help you with that answer - No way. Don't tell me my design doesn't work. I have a 357Km trip that says it does. I came here to make a few suggestions, not to debate a design, or have a pissing contest. Please focus on the merit of my suggestions, not who's right or wrong.

Good luck with that design. But that is not my design. And if you tried my design, you would see that everything I said about the heading being worthless, was absolutely true. I built my rover low to the ground and with a large wheel base. When I am in IVA I am looking out the round window, I see the stars because I used the module 90 degrees different from what you threw together. My module lays flat. Round window up. And that is why my heading is more like a bubble level that anything else. Worthless. And that is also why MechJeb's Rover AP does not work. If Squad changed the module so it could be used this way, then MechJeb's Rover AP would have worked. What I need to do is to go into IVA, reach down to the seat adjustment, rotate my seat 90 degrees forward, and then say "control from here", but that aint gonna happen unless Squad changes the functionality of the module. I feel it is the best rover core, if you are not a minimalist. It gives me mass, width, some torque, and a one man seat. And plenty of little "shelves" to attach the science parts. I just took my design to Moho and drove 357Km from the 24 parallel to the northern tunnel. I am now working on bringing back soil samples from the edge of the tunnel. I have proven this design works very well. I am not changing it. And I don't want this difference of designs to take away from the original post's suggestions - better text, persistent rover tracks, and a nav-grid. An additional suggestion would be SQUAD: PLEASE make the biome at the poles of pay off big time in science! Especially for a sample returned to Kerban. I'd like to show off some pictures of this epic journey, but I have never posted pics on this forum. Looks like you have to use an online storage website with a URL. I'm not a big fan of doing it that way. If anyone is interested - PM me and I can email you some pics of the longest rover journey I ever made in KSP.

I am using the cupola module. I am back on Moho. I only have one vehicle there, so I can't use a target, like a flag or another ship. The mission is to head north from the landing site of 24 degrees N to the northern tunnel at the pole. I have found that the heading is useless. I still find myself guessing which direction to head in. I drive for a while and then revert to the map mode to see which direction I am heading relative to the lander that brought the rover there. I determine that I heading due north (eventually) and then look at the heading. It isn't anywhere near 0 degrees. So without a target I have the method I just described and one other. I use mechjebs custom editor to show lat & lon. I adjust my direction so that the northern axis is changing fast and the western axis is barely changing at all. This is very crude. Surely we can have tools that are better than this. FWIW the rover autopilot in mechjeb is still pretty useless. If you use the nav heading of the AP you end up going in circles. If you set the speed, it ignores it and maxes out the speed, like it has for the last several versions. We need better surface nav tools!

@kiwiak Easy.....I played Set The Controls For The Heart of the Sun by Pink Floyd while setting the maneuver nodes. Of course I haven't landed on Kerbol. Only cheaters can do that (I think). I am trying to get back to Moho and it is kicking my @$$. I think something has changed over the last few versions. @Nobody This grid should be part of the science we earn. Like after sending out probes, and before extensive exploration can begin. Personally, I think we should not even see the planets until a ground based telescope has found them, but that has probably already been discussed.

To be honest, I tried that. I think I was using the pink target like I would in space. But I could not figure out where to put the target on the Nav ball. For instance....do I orient the target at due north? I have a hard time using this 3-d tool on 2-d territory. I can easily follow maps. And that was where the idea for the nav-grid, I'll call it, came from. The real problem is the useless colors used for text. I could follow those IF I COULD SEE THEM. I should be able to see the target name (Tylo ascent vehicle) and the distance to it while on the ground, but it is invisible to my eyes with the lack of contrast compared to the surface background. IMHO they did a lot of great visuals throughout the game, and have completely ignored this problem that others have also brought up. If they can do great graphics in most areas of the game, they should also be able to do it in this one area (text). Consider the Nav-ball for a second. The delta-v remaining to be burned has the cartoon bubble behind it and it is ALWAYS legible. But just below that is the time to burn and it is not in a cartoon bubble. This is totally inconsistent and easy enough to fix. The same bubble should be used throughout the game where text is used. But even if the text contrast issue is finally addressed, I still think the nav-grid and rover tracks would be very useful.

I have landed my favorite rover on every body except Jool. I have probably driven my rover about 15% of the time I am in KSP, so I have covered hundreds of kilometers all around the Kerbol system. Once I am on a body, I would like a few more things that would aid me in navigation and site selection. Here is what I would like to suggest: I would like the rovers to leave persistent tracks. These tracks serve the same purpose as on earth. They show you where you've been, the exact route you took, and how to get back the same way you came. (Ever drive around the tunnels of Moho? Its a tough place to find a clear way to drive). I had one hell of a time on Tylo, trying to drive my rover to where my launch vehicle was. I would look at map mode and determine that I need to travel in a certain direction. But when you go to the planet surface view, the orientation does not seem to be the same, and you can end up driving a long ways in the opposite direction. This leads into two other suggestions: Why in the world would the devs make the text of a far off ship on the surface of Tylo have nearly the same color as the background? Gray/white text on a gray surface makes it impossible to navigate this way. I have been asking since 0.20 to put these text notes in a "cartoon bubble" that has its own background rendering the text visible no matter what the surface/background color is. Also, I would like a F key to turn on and off a surface grid showing lines of Lat & Lon as well as the equator. I should be able to do this from space and while on the surface. Lastly, I would like a way to easily determine the rotation of any given body. For the grid I suggested above, it could just be little arrowhead tick marks on the equator. When I am coming into a SOI, I would like the predicted orbital path to show me somehow whether I am in a prograde orbit or a retrograde orbit - perhaps just by using two different colors. Sorry if any of this has been discussed before. If it has, I haven't seen it. Any thoughts?

See, this is why I come here. Pure analysis. Bravo. Look, people. Others are going to have questions like mine. For those of you who think this subject was already dead and buried when I brought it up - well it's not, and never will be. New people are going to be running across these arguments all the time. Think Youtube (but that is not where I learned of it). Only a few of them are going to go research for themselves. And another one might end up in here. I don't understand everything NASA writes, and neither will the next new comer. So please chill out. And you are, gradually. So thank you for that. Let's leave a complete record for you guys to point to, when the next curious person comes along. I listed things when I first got here that sent everyone into a tizzie. There were a number of subjects listed. I could go point by point and say no one refuted point x or y, or that I lost on this point and that point. But that is not what I want to get across to you. I have looked into terrestrial radiation sources, including isotopes found in nuclear fallout, how to shield from that, half-lives, where my local nuke plants are located, what the seasonal prevailing winds are for my state. OK? But I don't know jack about space radiation other than high energy radiation like xray and gamma rays are the worst, and of course what I have read about the Van Allen belt, and the cross section pictures of it. Van Allan and NASA disagree on facts. I just know that kind of radiation is never good for humans and there was zero shielding, except for the mass of the ship itself. I want you to consider the pictures. You can say I have misinterpreted this or that. Some have already accused me of "just repeating what others have said". When you cite NASA, you do the same thing. But obviously the pictures are going to have to come from NASA, there is no choice. So as a regular Joe Layman, I download all the moon photos I could get in one evening. All the missions. I looked into this lack of crater thing. That's a label I don't like because I never expected a crater, just evidence of a change. I set aside the fact that as a preteen and teen I was allowed to stay up for all hours of the night watching all the moon footage I could. I witnessed it. I am not like the current generation who learns about it after the fact because of their place in time, I saw it live. That list of specific photos did not come from some conspiracy site. I made that list myself out of the files I downloaded because I thought they were they best shots to look at for this issue. Some missions didn't offer the greatest viewing opportunity under the LM, but you can certainly see what's around it. I have not read the NASA PDF provided above, yet. I will. You want to talk science? Then please repeat the experiment. PLEASE look at the pictures I cited. And not to beat a dead horse, but afterwords review the things I said about them, what I found, and what I expected to find, and then we include the historical story line. SEE for yourself WHY someone could come in here and say things that goes against the grain. Gentlemen, I saw both things with my own eyes. I saw the live B&W footage, and I am looking at the archival photos and it still raises an eyebrow. I know what happens if I shutdown my engine too early, even on low gravity Mimnus. Now I know a good portion of you will say something like, it's been proven therefore I don't need to look at it, you're too lazy to research for yourself, yadda yadda yadda. But I want YOU to understand something, and that is why people can think like this. Look at the photos! I swear the ground below the nozzle looks like there has been no interaction at all, regardless of the actual "blast radius" size arguments, velocities involved, whatever. There was mass. It has to slow down and not gain velocity. And I expect something to happen when my thrust, as minor as it is, hits that long undisturbed, dust layer. I think of those very perfectly defined footprints and I know that tells me that fine particle size is needed to leave those sharp 90 degree angles in the flour fine dust that makes up those beautiful footprints. That same kind of dust had to be under the LMs. If it is moved by pressure, I expect to see some pattern or design, or a clearing away; some evidence of a recent change. You never see any of that. In fact the Apollo 11 pic I cite looks like rain droplets have hit the thick dry dust, not a directed blast of some pressure level. Another picture looks like animal footprints under it (and I didn't say there were any animals involved for those who like to put words in my mouth). But these features are not only immediate to the nozzel but off as far as the edge of the LM. I think someone suggested that the LMs came down with some lateral motion. If so, then those 5' probes should have made some short lines in the ground until the vehicle started dropping straight down. You don't see any indication of lateral movement from that perspective either. If science says there would be no change to the surface, fine. I'd find that hard to believe, but would try. If science says there should be a change, then WOW, I don't see it! That's where I was at when I came in here. So, as a witness to all the live broadcasts, and as one who has looked a long time at those photos I cited, and even AFTER getting the "treatment" here, I am still going to tell you, and you can quote me "It looks like the LM's were set in place by a crane, due to the lack of any visual disturbance to the areas immediate to the nozzle." It just looks damn odd and unexpected to my eye. And I would really like the reader to understand that someone could come to that conclusion, based solely on what is, and what isn't in the photos cited. Please look. PS Please stop trying to tie me to a fake moon landing. My stance was this. The photos of the LM don't add up. That just says the photos are in question - not the landing. And that we probably landed on the moon, but I suggested that maybe it wasn't Neil. Patriotic men will do what their country asks them to do. All that suggestion requires is a swap of personnel and following orders. It's not my burden to defend a hoax theory, because I never said that. I do not require secret Saturn Vs. You do, You're going there. I am not. Secrecy? Compartmentalization? I would reference the Manhattan project. Arguably the second most important thing that America ever did. Keeping big secrets is a piece of cake, when you do it like they did. I question some of the archival photos, and the Van Allan radiation thing. That is as far as I am willing to go. I can be convinced. But I also like independent verification whenever possible. I cannot do that with space radiation, but I can do that with photos. However, the photos raised more questions than they solved. I am curious about a few other things too, but will probably no longer ask about them.

OK I want to monitor the phase angle to see just what MechJeb is up to. Do I have this right - that I display the phase angle variable in a custom mechjeb window, watch the angle countdown to zero, then I launch. Is that how you use the phase angle?

I'm sitting here wondering if I even have one working VHS. Can't remember when I last looked at a VHS. But those "NASA" tapes were not thrown out like a lot of my old collection was. Anything I had replaced with a DVD got tossed. I have the Dream Team on tape. Tracking sucks though. But the "NASA" tapes are in the cabinet right in front of me. So I guess it comes down to, which is more practical, buying a video capture card and come up with one working VHS to make a digital copy, or come up with two working VHS's and dub them.