benzman

Using the utterly gorgeous FASA mod I orbited two Gemini capsules, rendezvoused them into within 50 metres of each other and then EVA'd one crew member from each ship and swapped them into the other capsule. Then deorbited both ships. Jeb landed his capsule on land 4.8 Km SW of the launch centre!

What I often do is pan and zoom until the maneuver node is visible at the edge of the screen. Looking almost edge-on to the target planet's orbit often works.

Yesterday Buzz Kerman joined the team. I have high hopes for him.

My computer burst into tears watching this video.

Had a new Kerbonaut become active today, Buzz Kerman! I think I will keep him for missions that require rendezvous and docking.

Recreating Apollo 11 with the Saturn V from the brilliant FASA mod. Sobering to think that nearly half a century ago we were capable of actually doing this.

Re-creating Apollo 11 with the utterly gorgeous Saturn V from the FASA mod. Sobering to think that nearly half a century ago we were capable of actually doing this.

She is GORGEOUS!

I think you should be able to load a stock craft, alter it and save it under a different name. Go to the top of the screen, click in the name panel and change it. Then save. I have done this in the past and I call it 'reverse engineering' or 'cheating'.

You SHOULD be able to eject that decoupler with the mouse pointer. I worked for me the last time I tried it. Can't remember whether it is right click, left click or left click, right click but one of them should work.

For my money, the Saturn V in the FASA mod would be very hard to beat. I used it yesterday to re-create Apollo 11.

Re-created Apollo 11 with the gorgeous FASA Saturn V

My biggest disaster was when I had sixteen Kerbals in a space station, the game crashed and when I restarted it the station was empty and all sixteen kerbals were shown in the lounge as being 'lost'. I hate losing any Kerbal.

Best thing is probably to make a new install just for steampunk. KSP does not care how many installs you have as it has no registry entries, Just copy your install to somewhere else, delete all the mods and install steampunk. I have four installations, steampunk, FASA, 23.5 and ARM.

Correct, and its an absolute riot! A hilarious mod!

Agreed. I have four installations, Steampunk, FASA, 23.5 and ARM. When .24 is released I will have five.

I don't think that the the developers should give any thought to preserving old saves. Doing so could well mean that the game has to be compromised and we will end up with a game that will be nowhere near as good as it could have been. What I do is that whenever a new version is released I make a complete new install just for that release and keep the previous one. If the old saves can be copied into the new release and found to work, well and good. If not, keep both versions. Disc space is dirt cheap these days.

I had precisely this problem with a very similar ship. The answer is to pan the camera to a side view, zoom in as close as possible and, with the mouse pointer, select the docking port on the LEM that is hidden by the troublesome decoupler. Right click, select undock and the CSM and the LEM will separate. Turn the CSM around, dock with the LEM and with the mouse pointer decouple the troublesome decoupler.

Got it! Version 2 worked. Had to zoom in very close to join to get the mouse pointer in the right place. The two craft separated with the decoupler still on the CSM. After successful docking I just decoupled the one on the CSM and it flew off into space. Now that I have done a test in LKO it is now off to the Mun!

I would really like to do that but I don't have the skills to either dismantle the craft in the VAB and get it back together again, or to modify the .craft file, which would be nice.

My problem seems to be that when I right click on the decoupler and select 'decouple' the two craft separate but the decoupler stays attached to the LEM. I remember reading somewhere that the decouplers act as solid plates, so that may well be why I cannot dock. The CSM is actually bouncing off the decoupler rather than the docking port. That would also explain why I cannot select the port as a target. It is hidden behind the solid plate.

Having a bit of a problem. After I decouple the CSM from the LEM and rotate the CSM, I cannot dock with the LEM. No matter how carefully I line the two ships up, the CSM just bounces back off the LEM. Nor can I select the LEM's docking port as a target. I find this puzzling. It is as if the game does not see the LEM's docking port at all. I thought that maybe I could go into the .craft file and change the decouplers to stack separators. That would mean that the top of the LEM would be left totally clear and unobstructed, But that sort of modding is way beyond a dabbler like me.

Well done! For me personally, a successful rescue mission where everybody comes home safely is by far the most satisfying part of the game.

When something bad happens hold down the F9 key and it will reload the game as of when you quicksaved with the F5 key. It is a good plan to F5 just before you think something may go wrong, such as when you are in orbit and are about to start a landing attempt.

It could be that your target is slowly rotating. If you can control it, switch to it and orient your target docking port so that it is 90 degrees from the direction of the orbit, for instance, if you are in an equatorial orbit turn the craft until the docking port is pointing north/south.