cybersol

A couple of times I spent 5-10 minutes struggling to get the right aerocapture without this. So just chiming in to say thanks for the update!

This happened occasionally in 0.9. I think the solution then was something like jumping to the tracking station and back or reloading the game and jumping to the craft.

Waaah, I can no longer cheat by punching through the lower atmosphere with high TWR to save dV or using cubic octagonal struts as nose cones. Oh wait, those are good things. And honestly, while the new Aero in 1.02 is a little soupier than it was in 1.0, it is a dream compared to 0.90 or before. Indeed, if I had never flown anything in 1.0, I would likely find it nearly perfect after getting used to designing and flying for it. I still have to test a lot of the other improvements, but they also seem spot on from what was in the forums: such as the nervas, drills, heatshield, & parachute fixes.

The best way to orbit in a rocket in 1.0 seemed to be to punch through the lower atmosphere with high TWR (2-4) on a ridiculously shallow trajectory (30% above horizon at 13km) until you almost burned yourself up (almost being key). With a near perfect trajectory I had a rocket that only too 2900 dV to get to a 70km circular orbit in 1.0. The same rocket needs about 3200 dV to get to orbit in 1.02, so about 10% more. Plus I suspect that rockets with lower TWR will be more similar between the two versions.

At the height of the cold war, there were several huge strategic bombers in the Mach 2-3 range. For example, the Tu-160 went mach 2 and had a loaded weight of 267 metric tons. Of course the did this only when 12 km up

The grey attachments are decouplers, so 4B is two-stage and 4C is 1-stage. That could easily explain the dV difference if you were dropping the outer stage.

I had my disappear in flight once so far, but when I switched back to the Space Center my money was all there still. So I am also thinking its some kind of graphical bug. I wasn't sure if it was a stock bug or Kerbel Alarm Clock, which I also use to jump between ships.

I present Jeb's Ore Truck. It weighed 433.35 t on the pad and separated a 113.35 t payload, for a payload score of 26.16%. It's a fairly conventional 3-stage asparagus LFO rocket with decreasing fuel fraction per stage. The photo album is here: Cheers, CyberSoul EDIT: Just saw the rule about reaction wheels and batteries. When I move those to the lifter I drop to 113.10/433.35 = 26.10%.

Wow, I actually didn't believe such as simple SSTO could pull off that payload fraction. So I rebuilt it and tried launching it... and failed to reach orbit. So I tried launched it over and over and eventually got it to 70km x 118km orbit. It turns out this rocket is actually a fantastic trainer for the new aero. It has just enough dV to get to orbit with a near optimal ascent profile. Plus it turns out that profile is crazy shallow and high mach compared to what I expected. 1200 degree parts would have melted with the near optimal profile.

After transmitting, did you try 5thHorseman's recommendation in post #2? EDIT: I think you need to use the big clamshell like orbital scanner first

In most games I also don't like to install mods, especially at first, but I also like numbers and precision. Kerbal Engineer, Kerbal Alarm Clock, and Precise Node provide that information and precision to KSP without affecting the stock gameplay in any other way. I consider them the GUI the devs would make if they played the game like the geek that I am. For example, since precise node hasn't been fully updated for 1.0, I just spent 5 minutes tweaking my manuever node to change aerobraking periapsis by 3 km, when I could have done the same thing with precise node in 5 seconds. EDIT: For example, KER puts a HUD with your that Apo height right next to your altimeter.

In 1.0 decouplers seem to work as intended now in the sense that decoupler force is applied exactly in the radial direction. Of course my 0.9 designs don't work, because then I often had to lower the decoupler relative to the CoM to prevent the off axis forces from spinning the stack into my engines. Even in 1.0, my stacks often still hit the rocket at first! For some frustrating reason stacks always seem to sit offset on the radial decoupler by default, but I can fix it if I carefully center the booster using offset mode. After doing that, and aligning the CoM of the booster to the radial decoupler center, it all works wonderfully.

I go there when the contracts say I should, which during early career seems to be a whole lot. Though I really do wish the minmus contracts showed up WAY more.

Two words: Asparagus Staging

IIUC only the atmospheric values should change. Guesstimating from the stock ratio of deltaV on Kerbin between 0.90 and 1.0, I would guess 8000 dV for ascent from Eve, 1050 dV from Duna, and 2500 dV from Laythe. Those should be enough for planning purposes for actual runs to figure out better numbers Also, Eve will still be especially tough because the further drop in ISP & thrust relative to Kerbin due to its thick atmosphere.

So the heatshield inter-stage fairing causes self destruct on the main vessel?

Wow, your orbital speed seem really high and I suspect you may be brute forcing burns towards the planets. Can you do a transfer to an airless body (i.e. Duna) using only within say 1000 dV of what is listed in a DeltaV map (http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/w/images/7/73/KerbinDeltaVMap.png)? Are you waiting for optimal transfer windows using time acceleration and a planner like http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/?

I can also confirm that the tier 2 launchpad in 1.0 still sticks to the BACC nozzles. The effect is not as strong as it was in 0.90 and the rocket can usually free itself, but usually ends up going in wonky directions from asymmetric sticking.

You can also use settings to turn on career/part mode and not put the part on your rockets. Then there are no in-flight displays as the button is disabled.

Well that's a bummer. One idea is can you visually see any of the kerbin bodies in the normal view? Second idea was if you show your ejection orbit blue line relative to Kerbins orbital path, that might help backtrack the right direction. EDIT: Ninja'd

It is definitely flipping. To get it flying well, I added three control AV-R8 winglets at the bottom between the boosters. I then moved the launch stability arms to the boosters to let the winglets clear the tower. Also, I needed to lower the booster thrust to 60%, which might still be a touch high. I finally removed the struts, as its too small to need them and they can sometimes lead to problems by themselves. Now it flies really nicely. EDIT: Similarly to Starwhip, I also lowered the boosters to lower the CoM as well. That plus putting an even lower CoL behind it with the winglets gave very nice control. GLHF!

Early career mode with only 3 techs unlocked. Though it took me 10 tries at the time due to piloting error, I can now get it to orbit every time despite its thin and fin-less physique.

Yeah, I also got a mission to Pol right after I declined my first contract. Might be a missing requirement in that particular contract. I still decided to take it, because it was paying enough to upgrade the Mission Control even if it takes up a contract slot for a long, long time! EDIT: To be clear, I pretty sure I had not even been to Kerbin orbit when I got the Pol contract and definitely sure I hadn't been outside LKO.

Yeah, much less TWR is need than before and 2.0 is starting to be excessive now. That plus turning off SAS and using the throttle to control the fallover during the gravity turn is helping me, but I'm definitely not an expert yet. Another thing to watch is your center of lift and your center of mass as you stage and use fuel. You want the CoL to be solidly below the CoM at all times. Yeah, center of lift is important for rockets now instead of just planes, which is crazy

Yes, I tried them in early career mode and they are much less useful than they were in 0.9. Indeed even before fuel lines, parallel LFO stacks outperform the BACC even before you can asparagus stage. Its sad, because I finally had a use for them in the last version, but not in this one. RIP BACC. The TRW is their best feature now, but the need for TWR also seems much more forgiving now in the lower atmosphere. They were great for me in 0.90, but honestly in 1.0 I've gotten better results with LFO and the old tried and true asparagus.