Galane

My ship is all refueled at Duna and ready to go back to Kerbin - but now it's stuck there because I cannot get it to pop up Kerbin to target. It will only allow me to select Mun as a target from Duna orbit. I warped time to 1000x for a few seconds to see if perhaps Mun was blocking line of sight to Kerbin, but nope, can only set Mun as target. Maneuver Planner won't plot a course from a planetary orbit to a moon orbiting another planet or from moon to moon. I had to go back to Duna orbit from Ike orbit, then had some fun making another Kethane run from Ike to top off the tanks. Is this targeting being handled by KSP or MechJeb? If it's MechJeb's bailiwick then it shouldn't be popping up things or places it can't plot courses to. If the only thing in the Kerbin/Mun system it can plot a course to from another planet is Kerbin, then Kerbin is the only thing it should pop up to set as target. Another possibility is instead of just having one option, put up a list of what's close to the pointer so the proper target can be selected. That would be extremely helpful when doing a rendezvous to a ship that's real close to another, and it keeps popping up the wrong one, even when at maximum zoom in. Or how about for the transfer to another planet function, put a list of the planets in the UI to select from so the player doesn't have to try to get it to set the proper target while zoomed way out.

There's so much in the system you won't have to worry about "peak kethane" for a very long time. ;-)

I've run the converters in flight on some ships, along with TAC fuel balancer. The problem I have on some is that with the converter running MechJeb will reduce throttle, which is not a good thing when ascending to orbit.

Purple and green??? OMG, it's the home planet of the Psychlos! Or possibly Invader ZIM. While we're on the subject of visual attributes, the resource into box that appears at the pointer when the Kethane grid is turned on is displayed over the latitude and longitude information from MechJeb's Landing Guidance target picker. Makes it a bit difficult to mark a spot just where you want when dropping down to drill for Kethane. Might be a good thing to discuss with Sarbian how to move the two out of each other's way.

Scans directly below the ship, one cell at a time. Only the active ship with a scanner can scan. Having more than one scanner on the ship is only good for not missing cells at high time warp. The large scanner can do very high warp without missing cells. The small one will start missing at 50x warp so stick on two and it won't. Put up a satellite with one large scanner and a bunch of fuel for orbit changes, at a high enough altitude so you can do 50x or faster warp. There's specific orbital heights for polar orbits to scan each planet and moon in the fewest number of orbits, but IIRC the list I found somewhere is obsolete due to changes made in the game. I do one swing around the equator first to find easy spots to land and launch from, then shift to a more inclined orbit to scan a wider stripe. A perfectly polar orbit, even at the "ideal" altitude, will still miss some cells, so you'll need to shift inclination a time or two. There will still be a few cells that will take some time to get the satellite over, but there's no need to get a 100% coverage scan. You just need to find the big deposits and their overall size. I'd like to see someone with KAS installed make a nearly 2.5 KM long cable, stick a scanner on the end of it and one on the ship, then extend the cable out and see what happens. Should try it around a small moon where the cells are smaller*, at low altitude, to have the best chance of having two active scanners over different cells at the same time. *Is there a list of cell size on each body? Any have cells smaller than 2.5 KM? How about one of the "ideal" scanning orbit altitudes to achieve the most complete coverage in the least number of orbits?

Thanks! Will be able to get the ship home now.

Alan Aerospace Recycling and Packaging submits the following data for MechJeb Quality Assurance to have a look at. http://pastebin.com/5ZQgKbN7 This is from a test game with nothing flying except these two docked ships, the lander was previously coupled to the top ROC on the large one. Build 98 had no problems doing any burns, one or more in a row, with either end of this docked pair. The way the ship is set currently, build 104 will not run the throttle on the four Skippers. They are action Group 3 to toggle activation. No AG on the lander's Poodle but there is one on the lander's solar panels. AFAIK, the only mods this has to have are ReStock, my RockoOKTOClampo part, and BoJaN Quantum struts for the four strut guns on the lander. The ROC shows two control from here buttons, I clicked the top one. When using the lander's engine, it works with control set to the lander can or the docking port, which is normal function. All the mods I have installed. Quantum Struts Procedural fairings Kerbal joint reinforcement HyperEdit Kethane Kommit stockalike (jut one part, a truss cube the size of the two large stock trusses) KSPX Infernal Robotics Module Manager DROMOMAN (robotic arm parts pack for Infernal Robotics) ReStock SelectRoot Stretchy Tanks TAC Fuel Balancer UbioZur Welding Custom parts RockoOKTOClampo http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58406-AARP-introduces-the-RockoOKTOClampo Omni docking ports http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57323-Universal-Docking-Port?p=769596&viewfull=1#post769596

Saved a copy of the quicksave. Tonight I'll do a test in a new game with the same ships sent to Duna by hyperedit. I'll also see if the issue can be duplicated using all stock parts.

I went back to the 2.1 release version. Had no problems at all with MechJeb running the throttle on either one of the two docked ships. More than one burn in a row, switching control and engines, it just always worked as it should.

From what I've read on that, the easiest way is to use KAS, but that requires a Kerbal on site to haul the hoses around to make the connections. I tried doing a two part unmanned setup on Mun. Took the heavy drills off my 32,000 unit lander, added a couple of docking ports in their places, then built a rover with just the drills and an arm built of DROMOMAN and Infernal Robotics parts. I had to hit the lander hard enough with the arm to nearly break it apart to get the docking ports to connect. Driving a rover at a lander fast enough that you're worried about breaking the rover or lander or knocking the lander over is not a fun thing, especially when it takes several attempts. Once it hooked up I was able to release the brakes so the arm would relax back to where its joints weren't stressed. Then I deployed the two drills and the lander's tanks filled, mission continued normally. What decided me against continuing with the method was the lander didn't use much, if any, less fuel getting back to orbit without the weight of the drills. If it had used a lot less fuel, at least saving enough it wouldn't have to make fuel to rendezvous with the tanker, it would have been worth the extra effort to connect up the drill rover. For the current mission going on now, I was able to fly a scanner satellite from Duna to Ike, then followed with one of the kethane mining landers. Might be able to make two trips up and down from a 15KM Ike orbit before having to refuel the landers. 15KM looks to be crazy close to a few lumps on the surface. In testing I set periapsis on one of these landers to 10KM and it crashed into something on Ike. But now MechJeb is being buggy and refusing to run the throttle on the Skipper engines since the manned lander is docked. It will only run the poodle on the lander. Yes, I know I have to set control on a part on the ship with the active engines, everything oriented the right way etc. All set right but MJ just will not throttle up. I can get the ship to Ike using the lander engine but that won't get Jeb and Bill back to Kerbin. Soooo, I have a pair of perfectly serviceable Duna Ike kethane mining landers, but still need a way to get kethane or fuel up from Duna somewhat efficiently, preferably unmanned. P.S. My first Duna flag is "We Come in Pieces" "You should see the trail of parts we left getting here!"

First, make sure Control From Here is set on a command pod part that's facing the correct direction. Second, hit F9 to reload your last save and try it again. Lately MechJeb appears to be getting its directions confused some of the time. I'm going to try #109, if that doesn't get it to work the Skippers on my Duna ship, I'll try the 2.1 release build. If it has no problem correctly running a pair of docked ships, then that's a benchmark to note. If it doesn't work I'll go up in releases until I find one that does. Hopefully somewhere in there is one that will correctly switch throttle control when the user changes control pod and active engines from one side of a docking port to another. I can do a test without any custom combined parts, put together a version of the upper stages of my Duna core with stock RCS blocks (though this issue isn't affecting RCS) and a plain Clampotron on top then dock the Two-Step lander to it, minus the strut guns. Hmmm. I could try turning the strut guns off and see if that makes any difference. The Quantum struts will rigidly lock a ship's orientation if they're mounted on or the beam intersects the little Cubic Octagonal Struts*. Could be the strut guns are bugging MechJeb due to them connecting to the ROC custom part. 'Course the other time this cropped up with docked ships didn't involve strut guns or quantum struts, though I think those may have the three in one combined docking ports. *This can be a feature, locking the rotation even better than Kill Rot in smartass.

"Aaaaghhh! This isn't working! We're trying to fill a swimming pool with a pair of Dixie Cups!" "Bill, WTH are you going on about?" "The numbers on the refueling. Every time one of the Kethane landers lifts from Duna it burns nearly all its fuel, most of which it had to manufacture on the surface. Then to rendezvous with the ship it has to convert some Kethane. Then by the time it docks and converts the rest of the Kethane to fuel, there's barely a splash more than what it was sent down with. Dixie Cups! May as well get out and push the ship home!" "So, the problem is the landers are not efficient enough to get us refueled because Duna's gravity is too strong?" "Yes! And we're going to be here a long time waiting." "Gravity. Gravity... I have an idea. What about Ike? It has a lot lower gravity. I bet there's Kethane on Ike!" "Yeahhh, great idea Jeb, but we put both scanning satellites into Duna orbit. Dunno why the engineers put on two, seems to be a software issue where only one at a time will actually scan... Then we'd have to get at least one lander to Ike too." "Well, you said we're going to be here a while, crunch the numbers and see if the satellite with the most fuel left can make it to Ike, and if a fully fueled lander can make it." *sound of crunching numbers* "YES! That will work! We can get one satellite to Ike and the landers can get there too. They'll be able to deliver a lot more usable Kethane. We'll be fueled long before the transfer window back to Kerbin." *Interlude while satellite and lander fly to Ike* Satellite transfer. A definition of "circularize" with which I am not familiar. MJ got it round but way off center. Lander transfer. "Mission control, Jebediah Kerman here, we're about to initiate a transfer burn of DunaRuna-2 from LDO to LIO." "Roger that, you are go for burn. By the way, we updated the autopilot software again. Skipped a couple of versions, including one that just flat out didn't work at all. For some reason the computer module would just fall off the ship." "Uhhh, yeahhh. Real confidence boost there, control. Burn coming up in T-5, 4, 3, 2, 1, +1, +2, +3... Bill, check the autopilot is on." *switch clicks off and on* "Autopilot on and confirmed active. Engines armed. Control vector aimed the right direction." "Try the lander engine." *Poodle engine sound* "That works, I'll try switching back to the Skippers... Nope, nothing. Trying manual throttle actuation... Hey! It's jammed! Can't move it. Autopilot off, throttle up. It works! AP on and <BLEEP>!" "Well Bill, looks like we aren't leaving Duna orbit unless we fly it manually. Or wait for another update to the autopilot software. Could make it to Ike using the lander engine but that won't get us back to Kerbin."

Here's something not working. I have my manned Duna lander docked to the return ship to move to Ike orbit to finish refueling but MechJeb will not run the throttle on the four Skippers. I have control set to one of the RockoOKTOClampo on the ship, facing the correct direction. The Skippers are active, the Poodle on the lander is deactivated. Checked to make sure it knows the right way to go by using smartass to point prograde. But come the node for the hohmann transfer burn and... nothing happens. If I put control on the lander can or the lander's docking port and switch which engines are active, it works. I used the poodle to raise the orbit to 61KM so it could warp faster. But if MechJeb is going to refuse to run the skippers, Jeb and Bill are going to be stuck at Duna. With a previous build I had a similar problem with two ships docked end to end with engines facing opposing directions. Every other maneuver I had to switch which craft had control and which engines were active because it would not run two burns in a row on the same ship. Build 108 isn't doing the switch thing, just will not fire those engines and also won't allow manual throttle control of the engines it won't throttle up automatically. I wonder if it has something to do with which ship was active at docking time? The pair is shown by the lander's name. This *is not* affecting RCS thrusters. Those work on both ships. MechJeb is integrated using Module Manager and it does work on ships with no remote control part other than the ROC. The other encounter with this issue was on two docked ships without any modded control pods aside from having MechJeb on through Module Manager.

The Tilt-a-Whirl pod is what the kids in the "Explorers" book and movie used as a space capsule. Read the book before seeing the movie, it's much better. The end of the movie is kinda stupid. The battle song of the Bruunen-G. http://lexx.wikia.com/wiki/Yo_Way_Yo Skip to the 3:04 mark for the first appearance in the LEXX TV series http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XspbfrR4YIk

I already have the ships at Duna http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58167-Duna-mission-planning-and-R-D so additional mods are not going to save the day. ;P The 48-7S, eh? I see the thrust has been bumped up from 20 to 30 kN in .22 Had a thought on a possibility of taking care of the issue with the resources on-site. If one of the two scanning satellites in Duna orbit can be sent to Ike, I could send the landers to Ike too, possibly even the return ship after bringing the manned lander up to dock with it. The satellites have four LV-1R engines on an FL-T200, a pair of 6x1 solar panels, an OKTO2 and a small kethane scanner. Will have to look to see if I put anything else on them. The test design only had two engines, which took too long to make any inclination changes. With Ike's much lower gravity the landers will become far more efficient at refueling. The return ship has no kethane converter or tanks. The mission plan-ish thing was always to leave the landers and satellites there for any future missions. A note has been made that the design for the landers that were sent is not useful for Duna.

I've found that lifting 8,000 units or less of Kethane from Duna is a very slow way to refuel an orbiting spacecraft. The lander I built uses four FL-T800 and one Rockomax X200-8 fuel tanks. Had to add the x200-8 so it'd have (barely) enough fuel to reach a 45KM orbit. For engines I have four Mark 56 on it. Doesn't matter which of the Kethane converters is used, 8,000 units of Kethane doesn't fully refill the lander's tanks. I send it down with the X200-8 empty and without topping off the monopropellant tanks, then fill everything on the surface. The little splash of fuel and oxidizer in the X200-8 is all there is for gain on each trip. So I'm wanting to put together a Kethane lander for Duna capable of lifting significantly more than 8,000 units to orbit. Ideally it should need a lot less fuel to land with empty Kethane tank(s) than it does to lift and rendezvous. Experiments with some of my Kethane miners for Mun have been only somewhat successful. They can land on Duna but can't make it back to orbit with full Kethane tanks. Needs more power, which needs more fuel, which needs... arrrgh! Mods (with parts) I have installed. Kethane BoJaN Quantum Struts Keramzit Procedural Fairings Ferram4 Kerbal Joint Reinforcement KSPX Infernal Robotics DROMOMAN ReStock Stretchy Tanks Kommit Stockalike It's just one cubical girder block the same size as the short and long girder sections, used on my largest Kethane rover, built around a horizontal 16,000 unit tank. (Then there's my 32,000 unit lander, it's big, it's heavy, burns nearly all its fuel lifting to a 15KM Mun orbit, but it carries enough Kethane to make it not take forever to refuel ships.) Three-in-one and two-in-one docking ports, cfg files are here and there on the forum My own mash-up, the RockoOKTOClampo. Combines the Rockomax Brand Decoupler with the systems (but not the model) of the OKTO2 and a standard Clampotron docking port. Combined with strut guns from the Quantum Struts mod it allows for a lander or other thing to decouple then come back and solidly dock to the same spot. Will be using this for the return from Duna - when I can get the ship refueled. Other mods. MechJeb (2.1.x dev build, whatever is current latest) SelectRoot TAC Fuel Balancer UbioZur Welding Module Manager

Ooooo. Just had a thought. Should be possible to mod the game to make a close binary planet like Land and Overland in Bob Shaw's wooden spaceships trilogy or Ice and Fire in one season of LEXX. The pack needs a three man command pod made from a Tilt-a-Whirl capsule.

There's many additions that would be nice. Adjust positions and movement limits in VAB, adjust zero positions, a single button to move everything to the zero position. Such features would make it simpler to build a folding rover, probe etc, position the pieces in the unfolded state and set it all to zero. Then when it's time to unfold, just poke one button. Cooler yet would be sequenced and dependent motions so that some parts controls would be locked until other parts are moved out of the way. Would be some effort to do all the arranging and setting, but the end result... "Watch what happens when I click here..." "Oooooo!" "Ahhhh!"

I was trying out some of my Mun mining kethane landers at Duna last night. Used MJ build 106. Results were mixed. Landings achieved from 45KM with ease but (as expected) not much fuel left. Then I filled up everything with hyperedit to see how short on fuel they'd be to get to orbit. Yup, not enough. But one of them, the big 32,000 unit one, gets partway into the ascent then the pitch and yaw go off and it starts rolling around. I'll have to give it a Mun test, and another Duna test to see if it may have been just a glitch that session.

Heh, you'd like how it's flying my kethane landers at Duna. Slow burn almost all the way down, wasting a huge amount of fuel and taking a longer time to get down when I built them to be able to do a short burn to deorbit then a full throttle braking blast and a gentle touchdown. They never get going fast enough to heat up even a little. MJ 2.0.9 did that on my first Mun landing (which I did from 200KM orbit) and the lander almost didn't have enough fuel to make even a 10~15KM ascent to orbit. A choice between the two methods would be nice to have. Slow Burn or Fast and Blast. Test each of your landing ships in another sandbox game, placing them in orbit with hyperedit, to see which way is the most efficient for each lander. Enough fuel has to be burned with the engines available to 100% counter the vehicle's velocity by touchdown no matter how the descent is conducted, but there's no need to burn one drop extra. But you hope MechJeb doesn't give your rocket a spin.Another option I'd like to see in maneuver planner for going to another planet is one to go NOW instead of waiting for the most efficient time. Is it going for least time or least fuel? Whichever it is, I'll put together a rocket with enough fuel to make it there, leaving soon as it's in orbit and the fuel topped off. My kethane landers at Duna have turned out to be terribly inefficient, making barely more fuel than they use. It's like sending a truck that burns 20 gallons of gas on the trip to bring back one gallon. Make it liters, that's even worse. I'm filling a swimming pool with two Dixie cups. I need to get something better on its way right away, not half a Kerbin year from now.

OK, now you're just showing off!

I'm going back to build 102. The landing guidance in 104 is quite flaky. Here's the mission update for tonight's work at Duna. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58167-Duna-mission-planning-and-R-D?p=791859&viewfull=1#post791859 Hopefully 102 will use less fuel in the Kethane landers so I won't be there 20 years refueling the return ship. The manned lander is going to sit on the surface until refueling is done. During ascent, it will dump the three side tanks (when empty) with 909's and continue up on the single Poodle engine. With build 102 I know it can do that with enough fuel left to rendezvous. With 104? Don't know. Ascent guidance with the Kethane landers seems to work the same in both builds. Uses nearly all the fuel getting up to 45KM then will not completely shut down the engines after the circularization burn. It's not a problem with the landers turning speed causing nodes to be missed. They're short and have big reaction wheels so they can spin around fast to aim for the burns. It's not a lack of thrust, they have the same engines as on some much heavier Kethane landers I've built.

"Hey, Jeb." "What's up,Bill?" "Mission Control uploaded a new patch to the guidance computer last night, 2.1 build 104." "I think we'd better do a simulation test before we use it to send a Kethane lander down." "Good idea! If it doesn't go right, we won't be going home any time soon." One landing test later... "We are sooo screwed." "I hope we have a backup of the previous version!" The first landing, MechJeb had the engines aimed properly retrograde but also angled upwards a bit, and ran them at a low throttle setting all the way down. It finally flipped the lander upright but not soon enough to kill horizontal velocity or slow down enough vertically. When I saw the docking port and RGU skimming along like this, it reminded me of an old 1950's UFO photo so I quickly moved the camera angle low and snapped that shot. OK, F9 and try again. Success the second time, kept it aimed more or less the right direction but idled the engines much of the way down after beginning the second burn. It also pitched the lander up and down many times between the deorbit burn and beginning the braking burn. "Y'know, I think if we reset the lander's computer it might work." "Jeb, I dunno..." "We have to get the refueling started ASAP." "Well, we do have two landers..." "Ok then, lets remotely light that candle!" "Whew! It worked. Sure burned an awful lot of fuel." "When they ran the sims on these during development, they took nearly all their fuel just to get back to orbit." *runs some calculations* "Jeb, I'm real glad we're very good friends. Every trip of these landers is going to bring up enough Kethane to just more than refill their main tanks. All we'll get for the return fuel is whatever extra goes into the landers' top tanks." "Well then, we'd better land ourselves and plant that flag!" "Huh, weirdness!" "What's weird, Bill?" "The old Two-Step used pretty much the same amount of fuel it did in sims on build 102 of the guidance software, even though with 104 it ran the engines most of the way down." After the successful landing of the DunaRuna-2, the first attempt at landing the second Kethane lander went wildly worng, but in a different way from the first fail. It did the deorbit burn correctly but then got mixed up about which way was forward, flipped over prograde and tried to flee the Duna/Ike system - with the engines at idle. Reloaded from save, tried again and it worked. Both Kethane landers are identical, same craft file, no parts stuck on upside down.

Will it now be possible to have a "wide angle" scanner that covers more than one cell at a time?

One part that doesn't work with this is the 5-way RCS block from the ReStock pack. It just locks up KSP when I try to weld anything with one of those attached. It also doesn't support Quantum Struts, but those it just leaves off.