CaptainArchmage

Docking should provide science. "Return of a spacecraft that completed docking in X orbit" is a considerable achievement. NASA learned quite a few things from their first attempts at keeping spacecraft in formation on Gemini - they noticed that thrusting towards a spacecraft later caused the separation to increase, for example.

Jet engines will work on Laythe. From what I have read on Kerbin, you may only need 200-400m/s Delta-V to complete an orbit with the rocket engines with an SSTO. I haven't used Kethane and from what I read about the Kethane jet engines, they will not operate above a certain speed. Duna's atmosphere does not have any oxygen, so you would need to use those.

Yes. I'm not sure how they will do it but at the very least it would provide for interesting research opportunities. I think in one of the planet factory discussions, a black hole is already possible by creating a black sphere of the correct diameter as a planet in a specific orbit. The extreme gravity would probably rip the spacecraft apart before impact, and the spacecraft could in a simple model just explode after touching the collision mesh. The only thing missing are the gravitational lensing effects. If there are very distant celestial objects that can, at least for beginning players, be observed for science, we might get a mission to "construct an interferometer telescope in space" to observe them, so a closer black hole interacting with another star could be observed for science. In fact, this would apply to observing planets around nearby stars. The interferometer space telescope would involve multiple launches and getting spacecraft to follow specific orbits around Kerbin or in the Kerbin system, so it would be quite a challenging mission, but definitely possible given what we can do in KSP.

There was a devlog regarding 0.22 that suggested there would be research to reduce the mass of parts by something like 10%. However, none of those made it into the final tech tree so far.

I think the effects would be great. If you take a look at photographs of the volcanic plume on Io it is huge and visible, but Io does not have a significant atmosphere. On the surface you would get some kind of haze in the distance. When weather effects go in the game, this could be used to make the frozen lakes of Minmus covered in this thin cloud of dust that restricts visibility while not producing any significant atmospheric pressure. It would make landing more dangerous, and encourage landing on the highlands.

Alright, I got it working with the thing you just provided. So far the DCMS Discovery has been sent to Laythe on a 151 day transfer trajectory. Next I will send the Valiant and Braveheart. The "quicksave" on this save is the revert one, right? I haven't quicksaved since starting it.

I think I will sign up for this. When would my mission be starting? Proposed missions (may change): (simpler) Munar polar outpost: Deploy an outpost capable of hosting 4 kerbals comfortably for a long term science mission at the Mun's poles. Kethane option available. (more complex) Gilly Base: Deploy a Kethane mining base to Gilly. I would preferably get the save during a launch window to Eve in this case.

I tried both making the file I had a persistent.sfs in a save, and also tried changing some of the settings, so I haven't been able to get the save to work. It does not show up in the Scenarios menu. Maybe other people have been having the same problem?

I can try it as a persistence file. Do I need to have any mods installed?

So we can't attach a Crew Exploration Vehicle to one of the provided ships and send it out to Jool? EDIT: I can't load the file in 0.23. It doesn't show up in the scenario list when I put it in the scenario folder, and when I make a folder for a save and turn the .sfs into a persistence file, the game says the file is corrupted. Any idea on how to solve this?

Alright, I downloaded the scenario file and put it in the 0.23 scenario folder, but it isn't showing up in the scenario menu. It has the .sfs file extension, I checked that. Any idea how I can fix this? Do I need to install any mods? Edit: It says we are allowed to launch spacecraft for refuelling. Can we launch a refuelling tanker to Jool?

I downloaded this. Since it looks like everything is set up with a program go for Laythe, I will try it. If I gently caress this, how do I reset the scenario? CLARIFICATION REQUESTED: We have to use the spacecraft already in orbit to get to Jool, right? Can we make additions to them? (i.e. launch a crew transfer vehicle and keep it docked to one of the main spacecraft).

I'd like to see a start on resources, so we can establish fuel extraction on other planets at least.

Kerbol should have at least a polar biome, which can be observed from a polar orbit.

If you have a space station in an equatorial orbit, you will need to launch from the Mun's surface as the station is approaching your location. It doesn't take that much to get into orbit. If your landing site is at a significantly high latitude north or south, however, you will need to do a plane change to match your orbit with that of the space station once they intersect.

You can create a high-mass black body that conforms to proper physics (i.e. radius of event horizon) either replacing one of the planets or added to the game using the Planet Factory method. To simulate the destructive effects, just have objects explode on touching the event horizon. If tidal forces outside the event horizon are high, they may rip the spacecraft apart.

To land on the dark side, you should get an orbit at around 10km and kill all your horizontal velocity. Try to keep your vertical velocity at about 100m/s until the radar altimeter reaches about 2000m, then reduce to 50m/s until you are at 1000m, then reduce to 20m/s until you get to 500m altitude. Then you can reduce your landing velocity to something reasonable. You do not need lighting when landing with the radar altimeter, but it may help if you eyeball the last part of the landing.

You do not need escape towers. Depending on how powerful your capsule engines are, you can set your abort to use those, shutting down the other engines. Modern spacecraft (i.e. the SpaceX Dragon) have started to use this method. I have used liquid-fuelled towers, which remained on the spacecraft (using the 3-Kerbal pod) until orbit, and these could be used for emergency propulsion. They were massive, using 6 of the small radial engines and the FL-T200 tank with docking ports, so the escape tower could be turned into a probe as well.

Laythe is not like any moon in the solar system. It is probably heated by the same tidal forces as Io, but it has liquid water and a thick atmosphere. It is probably bombarded by radiation, but the moon's atmosphere may moderate that. One way KSP physics seems to deviate from real life physics is that the solar panels at Jool's distance generate half the power they would at Kerbin's distance from the Sun, according to the Wiki. As Jool is about 5 times the distance from Kerbol as Kerbin, it should only receive 1/25th the solar flux. Curious. Either solar panels in KSP are designed to be extremely inefficient at Kerbin orbit, or the solar illumination in KSP does not decrease by the inverse square law.

I have been doing career mode since 0.22 came out. If this were like PlanetFactory, I would just make a backup save and add the new planets in, but since this changes the entire layout, I would be starting over (either sandbox or career) in 0.23 with Alternis Kerbol. I don't think it is that big a deal to start over, in fact it is probably necessary given the changes to each planet.

You can definitely do an Eve or Duna mission without mainsails, and can even do it without the 2m or 2.5m tanks.

Probably they will implement cost and you will have to buy parts, as people pointed out HarvesteR said. A good 0.24 update would also include resources, so one could run scouting missions on the Mun or on other planets.

I would like to see better aerodynamics, but I would prefer to have resources, more planets, and even more star systems in first. KSP's current aerodynamics are also part of the challenge, for example while lifting off from Eve.

I tried it once, it looks like they just switched EVA monopropellant to the resource system but otherwise made it replenish once inside the capsules. I did not notice my capsule monopropellant decreasing after the kerbals replenished their jetpacks. Maybe, if you use a truly massive amount of EVA monopropellant you will see your capsule monopropellant draining out. I haven't tried that yet.

I heard there were still problems during 0.22 causing space stations to explode, which were fixed in 0.23. You might want to duplicate the save over to a new version and see how well it performs. I also noticed you're using some of the modded parts. Which mods do you have installed? I think you can have one of the Mods shift the thread over to the Question and Answer thread, or you might be able to do it yourself.