AstroRick

After some searching online I discovered a "fix" for the launch pad problem. Apparently the free anti-virus program "Avast" doesn't like Kerbal Space Program. A gc error heap problem. Making a change to how Avast deals with it's maleware "sandbox" seems to fox this problem. I'll post a link after breakfast.

I am slowly in the process of getting .90 to work. ATM seems to do wonders. However I've run into an odd bug. From the Space Center Window, Clicking on the Launch Pad will bring up the ship/kerbalnaut selection window. I can choose both ship and 'naut, but clicking on the "launch" icon takes me back to the Space Center window and... nothing happens. Clicking on the Launch Pad again causes nothing to happen. Clicking on the VAB -will- bring up that interior, allow me to load and mod ships AND launch them. Has anyone had something like this happen? Ok... off to see if I can figure out the whole "openGL" thing.

There is a trick to landing on Tylo. If a spacecraft can take off from Kerbin and get itself into orbit in one stage, then it can land on Tylo. Having enough fuel to take off again would be the trick. During my Tylo explorations I've been using the KAS mod to facilitate fuel transfers between the lander and unmanned refueling rovers. Mind you... I've yet to actually take off from Tylo yet... the mission is ongoing. But again I think if the ship could make it to Kerbin orbit, it will make Tylo orbit. My mission is being a little more difficult than it might normally be, as I've set myself the goal of planting a flag at the North Pole of every landable body in the game. Terrain has been making the missions very interesting and Tylo's pole has been no exception. I should probably have not named my kerbalnaut "Robert Falcon Scott Kerbin"

Thank you!

Which begs the question what kind of Munar orbit do I need to replicate the Apollo lunar orbit? Searching the interwebs now

I found this video (nice aside from the now-somewhat-cheesy music). A more interesting video is this HD video from a recent Japanese moon probe: The mission (which I have decided to do) is more for my own knowledge than for convincing anyone else. That orbit looks pretty low...

I am in the process of flying an airship around Kerbin. I am using volumetric clouds, plus the retro airship from Hooligan Labs which has a ceiling of about 5000m (just, as it turns out, above the level of the cloud layer). It makes mountain flying "exciting." My hats off to you for a difficult job well done!

Recently a conversation with a conspiracy-minded friend of mine brought some questions about KSP orbital mechanics to mind. To those lending credence to the Moon Landing Conspiracies have stated that certain pictures of the "full earth" taken from the moon would be impossible to take. My immediate thoughts were to plan a mission to the Mun in KSP to see if the photos could be replicated. Are the orbital mechanics in KSP close enough to those of the earth-moon system for a mission like this to provide representative answers or examples? Don't throw things. I -know- we landed on the moon. >.>

Apologies if I have missed this somewhere. The inflatable airship envelopes; is there a way to -deflate- them once they are inflated, so that they are pulled back into their container? Is it just a matter of reducing lift to zero?

I wanted to take a moment to thank Jeffersonflight for continuing to work on this mod. I recently downloaded it and have been enjoying it. I'm currently running KSP .24 (I've almost decided to stop updating KSP so I could continue to play without worrying about which mods work, until the official first version of KSP is released) and the game crashes no more or less often with KAS installed. The current project made possible by KAS is an around-Kerbin airplane flight in the style of the early air pioneers with multiple refueling hops. Even made myself a nice little biplane to fly. But I digress. Thank you again!

Does anyone know if the author(s) past or present have plans to upload SelectRoot to Curse? I also confirm that this works under KSP 23.5.

I discovered that my problem was fixed by simply changing how I build things in the VAB. I had been in the habit of builing craft from the bottom up. Building from the payload down seems to have completely solved my issue.

I am wondering if anyone else has had the problem of MechJeb not staging with the new ARM boosters/couplers? Otherwise Mechjeb seems to be working fine for me. A side (and possibly related) note, when building a ship with ARM parts in the VAB, KSP seems to want to keep the lowest part of the stack on the top of the staging order list. Pre-ARM parts continue to appear in the order in which you place them.

A minor thing. The light on the module seems to alternate between magenta and red (magenta when functioning, red when not). However, a green light is being reflected off nearby rocket parts when the module is operating. Otherwise, the dev build seems to operate for me under KSP .23

That does lead to another question. Is -where- you put the IRWs important. Stacking, out on outrigger tanks or the like? I'd like my large System "tug" to not fall apart...

Throwing this out there; can you have -too much- torque in reaction wheels on a ship in KSP? I've had several instances of ships going into wild gyrations during long burns with the end result of the ship shedding parts. I've played around with fuel routing, being sure that the multiple tanks drain in succession. Current design uses 4 IRWs. Experimenting with reducing that number to see what happens.

Pictures of the "Jool Core 2" The last image shows the position of the last, large inertial stabilizer just above the small fuel tank where the nuc engines attach. This whole bit goes into orbit, is mated with a payload, and then sent on its mission. What's not seen in these pictures are the stages needed to get it into orbit. It does go into orbit reasonably easy with MJ on. A single refueling mission of twin orange tanks tops it off.

Oddness - I have four inertial stabilizers and mechjeb 2 on a ship comprised of 7 orange tanks (one orange surrounded by 6 outer), all interconnected with fuel lines. This group of tanks is powered by 7 nerva engines. I use this setup to push probes and landers to all parts of the Kerbol system. Sometimes, even when mechjeb is in control and the engines are gimbling and thusting away the roll pitch and yaw indicators will start to creep to the extremes, and then finally the ship tumbles wildly out of control. Turning off the engines and turning SAS -on- sometimes helps, and other time the gyrations will continue until the ship tears itself apart! Three smaller inertial stabilizers are at the top of the orange tanks, distributed in a triangle pattern on three thanks, with a tank spaced between and a docking port on the central tank. A forth, large stabilazer is mounted on the end of the central core just above the engines. The ship, sans attached probe or lander, weighs about 260 tons. Has anyone else experienced this oddness?

I do want to say I am enjoying the new mechjeb. The docking autopilot is much improved! Well done.

There really does need to be a way to unlock all mechjeb features in career mode from the very beginning. I'm not interested in trying to fly manually by dragging sliders around on maps. How does one go about modding the CFG files so this happens? Much more interested in designing and flying the missions than learning orbital dynamics. Please help! Perhaps MJ's creator could add a button for this option. "MechJeb available from start" or somesuch?

I know I am not crazy. I swear that at least one track of music in the VAB is from SimCity 2000. Has anyone else noticed this?

I've been playing with stitching photos from Hullcam together with photo-stitching software, with generally good results. The software -does- ask me what the focal length of my camera is though, and I have to wonder if knowing what the virtual focal length of Hullcam is would make my results better? So I ask... what are the virtual focal lengths of the various Hullcam cameras? Thanks!

Addendum. I didn't use any kind of vegitable-based staging for that monster. After a few successful launches the thing got all explody on me! I did a complete redesign and was able to halve the parts used, all because of asparagus staging! It really is the way to go. I'll post pictures soon.

I had built what I considered to be a good "mothership" or "core" for sending probes, landers and other things off to the planets. It used a large spherical tank (mod), four nerva engines and various docking, power and science devices such as an ISA mapsat dish. Full, the ship weighs about 230 tons. Standard practice was to launch a fueless core (much much lighter) into orbit and then run fuel up to it. The large spherical tank holds about 7 orange tanks worth of fuel and the refueling ship I was using could reliably supply about two orange tanks worth of fuel each flight. I decided I wanted the turn-around to be faster between the launch of a core and the start of a mission to the planets! I started simply by seeing what would get the core off the launchpad "with some attitude" Eight orange tanks with mainsails. Then I did the same for the "Tanks, core and mainsails" package, working my way down, stage after stage. Lots of struts, lots of moving of various engines and lots of messing with staging as you might imagine! And oooh... the spectacular failures.... Finally... success! A ship which would reliably put over 200 tons into a 100km circular orbit, fueled and ready for whatever I wanted to dock on top of it. I've flown the core from Moho to Eeloo. Here is a picture of the final launch "package" in the VAB. It seems pretty stable on the way up, but I would be a bit scared to fly it without mechjeb. So the only mods used were sphereical tanks and mechjeb on this thing.

You are going to need more RTGs I think. Each ion engine can be powered by one "Gigantor" solar panel, and I think those are equal to about -20- stock RTG units?