CAPFlyer

I think part of the problem is that your inclination is incorrectly formatted. Orbital inclinations range from 0 - 180 and -180 - 0. Thus a "315" inclination would be -45. If you want a launch heading of 315, then you would have an inclination of 135. For some odd reason, some references list inclinations of 0 - 270 and -90 - 0, but that's an odd way to work the figures and requires you to remember more. Remember, with inclination East is 0 degrees (the equatorial plane), so any orbit going south from the equator is negative (-) and any orbit going north from the equator is positive (+). I've been launching multiple flights with MechJeb 1.9.3 with no issues on inclination or orbit acquisition. In fact, this version seems to be a bit smoother on the control, even though I'd really like to see the proposed modifications from a few days ago implemented in the next major revision as it seems to handle rockets with aero surfaces and heavy thrust vectoring much more smoothly.

What destroys the capsule from high reentry angle is the drag, not the heat. When you hit the atmosphere at too high of an angle, the atmosphere becomes a brick wall and crushes the capsule. If you want to see the idea, take a marble or something round. Fill your bath tub with water (a sink works too, but it's easier to not splash all over the place with a tub). Throw the object lightly into the water at an angle. Note that it enters fairly smoothly with only a little splash. Now drop the object with a light push down as you drop it straight down. Notice the splash is much larger and you probably hear a very audible "plop" or "kerthunk" versus the lighter "splash". This is caused by the water's surface tension. The atmosphere works the same way. When you enter at an angle, you "shear" the surface tension allowing the capsule to slide into the atmosphere. When you drop it straight down, you try to tear it, and it pushes back, and pushes back hard, causing the surface tension to bend and then break violently. With a capsule, this bend puts massive "G-loads" on the capsule and crushes it, then when it breaks, the shockwave destroys the capsule.

Glad you are the all knowing, all seeing god of the internet. Is this all you're going to do is go around and bash authors for doing what's been done in the modding world for DECADES? These guys spent their time to make the mods. As such, under International Law, they hold the rights to that work and can restrict it AS THEY PLEASE. End of story. Move on or get lost.

Is there any plan to add intra-planetary transfer automation from launch at some point? One of the biggest issues I'm having is not only lining up the phase angle and injection, but then also having to waste energy establishing and reaching a solar orbit before being able to initiate the transfer which usually doesn't work because of minute errors on my part in the initial injection into the solar orbit. One of the things I'd like to do is recreate Mars missions (Duna missions) which, like the MSL, were direct injection launches with the Centaur placing the probe on a direct transfer, no orbit was ever actually established around Earth or Mars. Just point-to-point.

ISP only increases if the nozzle allows it. Some boost engines like those on the SpaceX Falcon loose efficiency amd ISP as altitude increases because the bells are fixed in design and thus cannot reshape the plume to a more efficient shape as altitude increases.

Can you be more clear on this point? Real world engines are tailored by using exhaust bell design by either reshaping the bell during flight or using ablative materials to reshape the bell as the burn proceeds. This has the effect of changing the ISP because the thrust stays constant as the engine is not operating at a higher fuel consumption rate.

Download worked fine for me. It's not very big, just 226 KB, so it won't take long to download.

I can confirm it's RemoteTech. I've got GeoStationary Satellites that are very basic, 2 solar panels, 2 small batteries, 3 dishes, 2 UHF antenna, and the landing engine on the large 1m tank. On 0.16 they were running 20+ FPS from launch. On 0.17, they're getting 3-4 FPS max. Tried eliminating all but 1 dish, same issue. Tried taking off all antenna and just having 1 UHF, still too slow. My guess is that if we pulled the debug, there's something the plugin is looking for/using that is no longer valid or is redundant now that accounts for the Line-of-Sight not working and for the FPS drop.

It was removed because of the new "scaling of space" that was implemented in 0.17. With it, there are more than one "InverseScaleFactor"(s) so it needs to be handled differently because of it.

Did you download and install the most recent beta?

This is why you have multiple "evolutions" of each rocket by adding strap-on boosters and even additional primary bodies a-la the Atlas V and Delta IV series of EELV's. You have a basic, non-boosted version that delivers a given payload and then you expand it to increase payload or send it further. For example, to send the 2 ton (total) Mars Science Laboratory to Mars, only an Atlas V 541 (4meter shroud, 4 SRB) was required. Juno, sent to Jupiter weighed 4 tons at launch and only required 1 more SRB (the Atlas 551 configuration) to be launched to Jupiter. By having the basic 3 sizes that launch basis amounts into orbit and then adding boosters, you can send anything you need just about anywhere with the right planning.

Depends on the aircraft. Normal jet engines get more efficient with altitude. Piston engines stay about the same. However, Ramjets and Scramjets get more efficient with speed and remain about the same with altitude, however the limiting factor with them is heat. The lower altitudes cause these types of engines to get hot much faster due to air friction thus they are only really good once you get into the upper atmosphere where you can go faster with less air friction.

The list of planets and names are listed in the Dev Blogs that can be found on the right side of the main forum page.

Have you taken a look at the Fuel Transfer Mod code and see how he did it?

I would keep it one piece, but could I suggest placing the balance point in a more realistic location? As it is now, you have the attach points and center of mass located midway between the front wheels and the leading trailing wheel. The real rover would have its center of mass much further aft, almost over the leading pair of rear wheels. The reason I bring this up is two-fold. 1) Controlability on launcher, 2) symmetry of attached parts. The reason I say this is that I tried putting a Kethane Miner on the back and a few fuel tanks under the windows (which had to be placed individually) and the cart was unbearably aft-loaded and tipped on its back. I even tried offesting with front weight, but that killed the looks. Personally, I'd like to have the following on the car and it still be "balanced" - 2 Kethane miners on the very back, 2 Kethane pumps either forward or aft, 6 kethane radial tanks and a Kethane Controller. As it is, that setup tips the cart on its rear end and is unflyable even with major modifications to the gimbal limits of the engines to try and offset the thrust enough to keep it from pitching wildly under power. Attached is the CRAFT file for what I'm talking about.

The issue is not the program, it is the engine (Unity). It only allows one connection point per part. As such, the flexing occurs if the connection points are not properly sized for the size of the rocket being attached. This is the big problem with the KW rocketry addon, they use exclusively small attach points, thus there is not sufficient surface area to give a strong attachment without use of struts, which then degrade performance because each strut is another part that has to be tracked and calculated, and thus why I've ceased using the KW pack as much as I like its balance. I think you'll find that as we move forward, the biggest issues will be that the Center of Gravity for these rockets isn't right (mainly because we have no visual or statistical way of knowing where they are) and thus they are not physically balanced right (the powered stages should have all their weight concentrated at the aft end) and this would fix many of the dynamics issues. I don't know if this is something that can be done within Unity or the future development of the program or not, but I suspect that many of our problems will be resolved once weight is no longer evenly distributed along the part and instead properly distributed in the proper location. Also, I think one thing that would help as well is enabling thrust vectoring in your stages.

I just tried to download it 4 times, always came back with invalid ZIP file - UNTIL I tried to extract it with WinRAR. Result - the file is *NOT* a ZIP file. It is either a .RAR or a .7z, mislabeled as a ZIP by the uploader. This does need to be resolved.

1.0/"full" release yeah. Didn't realize you were talking about that. As the program itself is a Beta, I always have considered any mod released as "released", no matter what the state since really nothing is "finished" around here.

Umm... Kethane is already out. Check the release forum.

The dome is supposed to be solid. Simpler/lighter that way. Like was suggested, simply move off-vector to release it out of your flight path. That's how the real one gets removed too, a slight pitch maneuver.

This is a great addon man, can't wait to start using it. Also, I agree that it'd be nice to have a small thruster on it of some sort or one that can be strapped onto the bottom if you want to use it as an escape pod or something similar on larger craft (especially for when I screw up the ZO2 system and can't get them back before it runs out... )

270 would be a retrograde orbit which is even worse than a polar orbit.

Heading would be just plain 90. Inclination is 0. -90 inclination puts you on a polar orbit, which is not geostationary.

I'm not a fan of doing tests like that to determine balance. I can SSTO almost anything if I put the right level of payload on it. There are real world SSTO rockets (Atlas is the most well known), so it's all a matter of whether it does what it's supposed to. The SPS-175 is designed for a 3-man module (not a 1-man) and as part of a heavier total package with RCS and parachute. By leaving off that mass, it is definitely overpowered. Don't forget, the Apollo Service Module's rocket was designed to make a mid-course correction on the way to the moon, circularize the lunar orbit, and then provide sufficient thrust to send them home, all on fuel that is being used to create oxygen and power for the crew at the same time and thus requiring a very good ISP to be able to provide the thrust for minimal fuel consumption. Try launching with a more representative payload for the engine and see what it does.

You need to use the addon's included unmanned remote pod to not have crew. There is no way to remove the crew once added unless you want to send him/them EVA and just stand around on the pad. Then put the crew tank below it.