Torminator

To anyone confused: Download Mechjeb2 normally (first link) and the patched .dll (second link) Replace the part.cfg for the AR202 case with the code at the 3rd link. Just copy and paste. OP: Bless you- Mechjeb no longer needs 500 Monopropellant to rotate 180 degrees.

Certain layouts/conditions can cause one surface to stall, and one not, leading to a loss of control. (This is what makes flat spins so ridiculous; one wing has lift, the other doesn't, and it creates a spin that just intensifies that.) A picture of a craft it happens to would probably help the smart people help you

Just out of curiosity, does anyone else find it nearly impossible to place the Turbojets in symmetry? I usually do the whole drag-in-every-possible-way dance a few times before just placing each one singly. For that matter, is THAT normal? That a large number of parts (not just B9) require several attempts to get them to "go green"? It's especially bad when trying to use symmetry. As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the way, and if I try enough times it will eventually work.

FAR changes a lot about how rockets work. Specifically, your rocket has to be aerodynamically stable as well as big and shouty. It's typically easier to get loads into orbit because there's less air resistance, but also more difficult because it's much easier for a rocket to lose control on ascent. Control surfaces work just fine out of the box. You only need to adjust them to eliminate the silly things Vanilla does, like your Rudder trying to be an aileron.

It works quite nicely with B9's Vtol engines, since they respond fairly quickly. That's an interesting point about the stability. I hadn't thought of it that way but it makes sense. I love making VTOL's, partially because I'm a fan of overly complicated solutions to simple problems. Poor Jeb has been stranded 20KM away from KSC for days because I'm determined to recover his command pod skycrane style.

Words... cannot describe that. That is an awesome piece of machinery. When you say Infernal Robotics COM balancing, do you mean something like a weight on a sliding rail? Or is there some feature of IR that I didn't know about?

Sorry I didn't offer more input. I can't say for sure what caused that issue. The game would not run at all, despite using fewer mods than I had before. I suspect the huge logs gummed up the works somehow, but I have no idea if it was Kerbcom or not. Did a totally fresh install, installed a reduced number of mods from original downloads (including Kerbcom), and started a new save, and I've yet to have a crash. Things seem to be working fine. I suspect it may have been my cutting and moving of parts and files trying to reduce memory usage that broke /something/. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. I figured out that Kerbcom's throttle controls override mechjeb's overheat protection (Just need to watch the heat myself instead of trusting Jeb). I found this out when five engines detonated while testing a large VTOL craft. Amazingly, I was able to enter a hover and land with what should have been a completely unworkable engine configuration; six in front, one in back right corner. (Is there a way to make photos smaller without resizing the actual file? I feel bad posting such huge pictures...)

I had a curiosity: Would it be doable for a total newb to edit the .cfg for B9's brakes so that FAR will see them as configurable control surfaces? Sorry if this has been covered, but this thread is massive. I don't even know if it would be possible, but ideally I'd like to be able to use the B9 brakes to help control a craft, mostly because I think it would look cool. (this is why most of my planes don't fly. They do make quite nice-looking lawn darts, though.) I will say that I finally managed to make an SSTO in FAR, with 2 B9 wide body cargo bays, and actually had enough fuel left to make it to the Mun. I was quite happy.

I can't speak to how much space it takes up in memory, but B9 is absolutely miniscule on disk. I use Disk Space Fan to get a visualization of what is taking up space, and B9 is an almost imperceptible slice compared to the three biggest: SQUAD, KW, and NovaPunch. Again, who knows if that has anything to do with how much memory it takes, but there you go.

Well, currently I can't get the game to run at all. I can say, though, that my crashes almost always happen either going from VAB/SPH to Launchpad/Runway and back, or, oddly enough, taking screenshots. The stupidly long output log basically had all of those NREs, then "Scene changed from EDITOR to FLIGHT" and then crash.

Sorry if this has been mentioned: Despite working fine after upgrading to 0.3.0.5 (It took me ages to track down what was causing the flameout bug), I opened an error log after a recent crash (they just happen. Don't know if Kerbcom is involved) to discover nearly five million lines of Null Reference Exceptions from Kerbcom. I won't post the whole log obviously, but it was a whole, whole lot of (Filename: Line: -1) NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object at KerbCom.MyRCSModule.FixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 Any ideas? The output file was actually too large for notepad to open; I had to use Notepad++

The Mk. 4 Fuselage system has a pair of massive ramps. Also, the Weyland Pegasus Shuttle has a central cargo bay with a platform that lowers from the bottom. It's also an insanely OP vehicle and will fly in atmosphere and vaccuum no problem.

Those are indeed the "Balka Solar Wing Array" panels from KOSMOS. Use them on everything, even though they almost always break because they require so much space.

There's a lot of great advice in this thread already. Docking Alignment Indicator and Lazor Docking Cam both offer good tools for figuring out how you're moving relative to the other port. If your ship is simple/balanced enough, MechJeb's Smart A.S.S.' "TGT+" function can keep your docking port pointed at the other docking port, and then it's just a matter of closing the gap and not drifting too much. Also, one thing that helped me is that slight differences in your orbits cause both ships to drift apart over time. The farther you are from the body you're orbiting, the less this happens. Docking at 500km or even 800km is much easier than at 100km. Also, the Lazor system controller (the one that looks like a pyramid) shoots out a beam when you turn it on. If you can put it on a parallel surface close to your docking port, it gives you a good "guide" to show where your docking port is pointed. Now if Docking is preventing you from having fun, there are some alternatives. If you just need it to refuel ships, try Kerbal Attachment System. It gives you a winch that you can plug into another ship, and they'll be docked, though not rigidly. You can transfer fuel easily this way. If you need to join two ships, try this: Surround each ship's docking port with four flanges. Don't need to be anything specific, just flat surfaces. The larger the better. Actually, just using a small docking port on a large cylindrical bottom will work great. On the one ship, mount winches with grappling hooks to these flanges. if you can get within 50m, and get your docking port pointed at the other, hit "2" on the numpad to fire all four winches. If you've aimed right, or have a big enough target, they'll stick, and now you can hold num3 to retract all four, bringing each port closer together. Note that you'll want to keep tension in the lines constantly, or the other ship may start to drift. Romfarer, the guy who makes the Lazor mod, also has a pack with two robotic arms. These can be used to grab the other ship rigidly, and you can just pull the docking ports together. Will take a good deal of time, though, since the controls are a bit wonky. The Infernal Robotics fork of Damned Robotics, and the Dromoman arm pack for it can let you build your own arm to do whatever you need it to.

I can't claim any expertise with aerodynamics, but my assumption was that when the plane is rolling, the rudders are pointed into the roll; in other words, the side of the rudder that's resisting the roll is the thinnest side, at the top. Outward pointing rudders are exposing their broad sides to the roll.

If I'm using a wing placed at the side of the fuselage, I usually do engines above and below the wing- you just can't see the ones on the underside. I'll try the struts method to see if it fixes the wing flex, but I've flown some real noodles and they didn't have that odd roll tendency. I mean I was using Damned Robotics hinges, which... don't work for wings. As to the stabs: Yeah, my sense of aesthetics is constantly fighting my sense of good airframe design. Inward rudders are cool. I didn't even think about the difference in roll stability, though. That's quite helpful. (Also, on that plane the stabilizers were right in line with the CoM, so they probably weren't doing much. I'm learning. Slowly.)

I apologize if this has been covered- I did try to search the thread -but I periodically get a strange behavior from the CoL indicator. Plane is built perfectly symmetrically, as far as I am aware. I figured it was just a graphical error, but while flying, it would in fact roll very strongly, even at rather low speeds. Nothing's in the hold. Also, is there a guide, or helpful post in this thread, for those of us who don't have a clue about aerodynamics? Things like "Your center of lift shifts back past the sound barrier" that I only found out randomly clicking pages in the thread. At this point, it's quite too large to manually search, and I don't know what keywords to use with the thread search tool. An idiot's guide to the data window would be especially helpful. My planes are often quite difficult to control, even though I have a fairly close CoL/CoM. Then again, I'm often trying to fly at trans-sonic speeds, so now that I know how that affects things it might help.