DeMatt

Keep in mind that you don't have to do a contract immediately. You can let the contract sit in your backlog while you go do other things. Those icons become available when you have a pilot with the experience necessary to use them. A level 0 pilot (like the ones you start the game with) only knows how to keep the rocket from spinning, while a level 3 pilot can point the rocket in several important directions - chosen with those icons.

No, your controls will respond whether your crew has a pilot or just scientists/engineers. What pilots do is let you turn on Stability Assist with the T key; then they'll automatically stabilize the ship.More likely you just don't have enough control authority. The basic Mk1 capsule has a weak set of reaction wheels; if you want to fly in atmosphere, you'll want steerable fins like the AV-R8 Winglets. Generally such contracts are more easily fulfilled using airplanes instead of rockets. Clicking on the map point and choosing "Activate Navigation" merely adds an icon to the navball - point your rocket at the icon to go to it.Note that the T key is not an autopilot. Activating Stability Assist (the aforementioned T key) only tries to keep the rocket pointed in the same direction. The parts of a rocket are organized in a "tree" pattern. There is one "root" or "parent" part, the one you select first. Then "branch" or "child" parts get attached to it. And more "child" parts get attached to the first group. And so on and so forth. You can click on and therefore detach any part from the rocket at any time. However, any "child" parts of that part will be detached with it. If you want to remove just that part, and e.g. replace it, then you need to detach its "child" parts first. You can drop the "child" parts elsewhere in the VAB while you work on the main rocket; they will turn transparent, and you can later pick them up and reattach them.

1. Solid fuel boosters tend to be heavier for a given delta-V than liquid fuel. Also, solid fuel boosters are limited to the sizes provided in-game (unless using a mod like Procedural Parts), which may not match the actual size required. 2. There is a threshold, yes; loosely speaking, it's where drag and gravity are equal, as increasing speed will increase drag loss more than it decreases gravity loss, and vice versa. This speed is also known as "terminal velocity", as when your rocket falls down, its acceleration due to gravity will be offset by drag and thus cap its speed. The exact value will depend on your rocket design - long and narrow has a higher terminal velocity than short and fat, for instance. 3. One assumes less-than-instantaneous vector changes. Imagine the extreme case: straight up to 70km altitude, then straight horizontal to orbital speed. While you're performing the horizontal acceleration, you'll have to keep your rocket in place against gravity, yes? Why spend the effort of lifting the horizontal fuel all the way to 70km, and holding it there, when you can burn it earlier? 4. Most efficient in terms of fuel expended, yes. Simplest? Cheapest? Maybe not. 5. There are mods that do this - [x] Science! and ScienceAlert come to mind. Stock, you can look at the Science Archives tab in the R&D building to see what experiments you've done where.

The old rule-of-thumb of "turn 45 degrees at 10 kilometres" is invalid. You want to make an immediate turn off the launch pad of, oh, about 5 degrees, and then continue turning as your rocket flies. Never really getting out of the prograde circle, but continually getting further from the vertical as it moves, and thus approaching horizontal as you approach your desired orbital height. Beyond that, we'll need to see the rocket you're having trouble with.

Yay for the Forum FAQ.

I'd say cut down on the payload. You've got three Materials Bays and two Service Bays on there; why not fly with a scientist (they can reset experiments, now) and reduce that to one?

This is correct, you'll need to take a second (and usually a third) sample. If you want to do this all in one go, you'll need two (or three, if you go for three samples) crew capsules to store them in. This is because one capsule can only store one copy of an experiment from a given location.Note that there doesn't need to be any crew in the spare capsules - it's just extra storage.

As g.koster says, you can stack additional fuel tanks on top of each other, and they'll supply fuel like one big fuel tank. Additionally, two fins is not enough for full directional stability - you need at least three, using symmetry to place them as a ring. The reason you flip out is because it's a positive-feedback situation - once you start turning, without fin drag to offset the capsule drag, the flip force just gets stronger as you turn more. So I'd redesign it as follows (top to bottom): Parachute Capsule (with monopropellant removed, right-click on it in the VAB and then drag the bar to zero) Decoupler 3x FL-T100 fuel tanks 3x Basic Fins (in a ring on the bottom FL-T100) LV-T30 (with throttle limited to 50%) Decoupler RT-10 SRB (with thrust limited to 70%) 3x Basic Fins (in a ring on the bottom of the RT-10) If you wanted to do a strictly SRB flight, I think you'll need three RT-10 stages, and have fins on at least two of them. And of course actual orbit will need a bigger rocket yet.

Well, I can see that the suspension on those little S2 wheels is completely maxed out, so you've overloaded them. You should move up to the TR-2L wheels instead for something that massive.

Just off the pictures, I think A) it's got too many engines, and it's got too little wing surface. As-is, I think it's got too much "rocket" and not enough "jet". Consider swapping the Rapiers for 2x Turbojet and 2x LV-909. Half the engine weight, and the thrust should still be adequate. Also consider adding a pair of canards to the nose - AV-R8's or the actual canards. When you try to lift off the runway, these will help by pulling the nose UP, as opposed to the control surfaces at the rear trying to push the tail DOWN. One question... is this designed for stock aerodynamics, or NEAR (or FAR)?

The "Small Inline Reaction Wheel", the "Advanced Inline Stabilizer", and the "Advanced Reaction Wheel Module, Large" do not provide SAS functionality. They provide torque, or turning force, which is used by an SAS-capable control unit. Of the stock probe cores, the Stayputnik and the QBE are the only two probe cores which are not SAS-capable. Pick an OKTO or better.

No, 0.25 did not include asteroid contracts. You should upgrade to 0.90.

There you go. Aerospike heat production + poor heat dispersion (two aerospikes attached to one bicoupler) + DRE saying "burn!" = destroyed aerospikes.Try using different engines. LV-909's are the same form factor, LV-T45's offer similar thrust, Rockomax 48-7S's are light and easily clustered. None of these heat as much as aerospikes do. Alternatively, fly a steeper trajectory. Less horizontal speed and more altitude out of your jets, then allot more rocket fuel for the remaining flight.

I don't know of any navball mods that help; however, Waypoint Manager does make the waypoint visible while you fly.

Would one of them be Deadly Reentry, perhaps?

The DRE and FAR incompatibility messages that you received have nothing to do with 32- or 64-bit. They instead refer to the fact that KSP's version went from 0.24 to 0.25. Generally speaking, when KSP gets updated, mods need to be recompiled for the new version of KSP. There are exceptions, but DRE and FAR (as they make substantial changes to KSP mechanics and internals) are not among them. Think of KSP as being an apartment building, with various bits and pieces of its workings in particular apartments. Mods are built expecting certain bits to be in particular apartments, and given keys to those apartments so they can tinker with them. When KSP gets updated, maybe the locks change, maybe this component gets moved to that apartment, etc. etc. So a mod that worked on version 0.24 of KSP is likely not to work with 0.25, and even more likely not to work with 0.90. So, when KSP gets a major version update, get updated copies of your favorite mods. It may take a week or two for the modmaker to finish getting his mod ready for the new version.

Use a (analog) joystick instead of the (digital) keyboard. Then you can fine-tune how much you're steering without resorting to using trim to steer. I don't know if FAR has input-dampening assistance, but you could poke through its settings.

How do you start KSP? What do you click on? By default, the installer installs both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions, and then sets the desktop/Start Menu shortcuts to point to the 32-bit version. If you have, for some reason, changed this behaviour, then the version number in the lower-right corner of the main menu will say "(x64)" beside it to indicate that you are running the 64-bit version. If the version number doesn't say that, then you're running the 32-bit version.

...I take it you're not talking about the Vernor Engine? If you ARE talking about the Vernor Engine, then it's a thruster that uses Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer like the LV-T30, but is activated by the RCS controls. The LFO mix means that it's stronger than the standard monopropellant thrusters, so it's intended for use on large spaceships. If you are NOT talking about the Vernor Engine, then you've managed to install a part from a mod.

...Most modmakers, SCANsat among them, like to put the version number into the name of the archive you download.

Do you use the map icon filters at all?

The custom catalog is stored in /GameData/Squad/PartList/PartCategories.cfg. Not to my knowledge. The file mentioned in #1. You'll need to know the internal names for the parts, e.g. the FL-T400 is known internally as "fuelTank", while the Rockomax Jumbo-64 is known as "fuelTank3-2". This can be found by looking at the "name" entry in the part's config file... which is probably more time-consuming than the three clicks it takes to assign a part to a given subcategory from within KSP.

...That's great and all, and I even mentioned "Snacks! doesn't produce a waste product".But you didn't answer MY question, RoverDude... What does the TRUE/FALSE at the end of RecipeOutputs do? You also need to modify this line in the EZSnack.cfg: model = UmbraSpaceIndustries/MKS/Assets/Workspaceto model = UmbraSpaceIndustries/Kolonization/Assets/Workspace RoverDude shuffled around where MKS etc. put their files.

...That assumes that I am the guy who programmed Snacks! (or, for that matter, MKS/OKS) and therefore has a means of determining when a snack is eaten.

BioLab requires Substrate (from mining) to produce BioMass. Aeroponics requires Water (also from mining, or from the TAC-LS life support loop) and Compost (Substrate via BioLab, or Waste via TAC-LS). Fuel Refinery requires Substrate. So none of these will work with a space station that doesn't use TAC-LS. I guess part of the problem is that Snacks! doesn't produce a waste product, and MKS/OKS is integrated too tightly with TAC-LS to cooperate easily with Snacks! alone.