JayKay

Over a year ago I was trolling through some You Tube videos and came across a comment about a failed amateur rocket launch; the comment was simply "Kerbal Space Program!!" I googled it, and well, you know the rest.

I have a Steel Series gaming keyboard with left hand ergonomic controls (I got it mostly because it's backlit) and a five button mouse. The left hand controls are more than adequate for most operations.

Maybe rather than good Kerbals improving things, dumb Kerbals should sabotage things instead...

I just put a satellite down on Gilly a couple days ago. I had planned to put down a lander, but mysterious calamities have befallen most of my probes I've been sending there and two Eve/Gilly lander missions have gone missing or astray so far. So, to fulfil a contract, I just put down the one orbital probe which managed to make it there instead. I just landed it on its engine bell. It wanted to bounce a little, but did eventually settle down.

The solution to that is to mount your capsules with Sr. ports instead, if you have them available...

Well, since we are getting technical, orbital speed on Kerbin is around 2200 m/s at 80 km, but varies depending on altitude and eccentricity. Twice that to account for orbiting in opposite directions is 4400 m/s which is 9842.519685039 mph (give or take.) By comparison, Earth orbit is around 18,000 mph.

Mod note: Moved from this thread in General Discussion. What's insane about 10,000 mph?

Completionists will have a nervous breakdown if there are hundreds of biomes in the completed game.

It wouldn't be a steerable crawler anyway; it seems to run on rails, by the looks of it. I'm thinking maybe there will be a "time lapse" cinematic of driving your ship to the pad at some point, maybe with the option of seeing it in real time if you're so inclined. Maybe you'll have the option of taxiing your planes out of the hangar in a similar way.

It says MK-2 right on the stock nose section pod. (Oh never mind, you're talking about SP+ parts...)

I installed a new extension delivered by a rocket. However, I decided to make some modifications to the spaceplane including changing out the main engine for a rapier and adding solar panels and lights to the docking extension in its bay and sent it up to repeat the original mission. It did not go smoothly. I buggered up the ascent which wasted some fuel and then ran out of power trying to wait out a rendezvous. Long story short, I had to rescue the plane twice because it kept running out of, well, everything. I tried deploying and docking to the extension so I could use its solar panels, but ran out of monopro before I could finish, and it drifted off and had to be retrieved by another ship, and, well, it was a fiasco. Anyway, by the time the plane and its extension arrived at the station they had been separated and docked with other ships a couple times. The plane docked using the extension with the station and then undocked from the extension properly this time. The mystery is not exactly solved, but everything is working as it should now.

You know, I had a thought. At one point while I was trying to get the internal docking port to fit where I wanted, I turned the plane up on its nose to get a better view. I wonder if somehow the program decided that the back of the part was the top at that point. Something to try, I guess.

That is exactly the process for docking and the subsequent problem while undocking. I'm not sure why "decouple node" would even be an option for something like this; it's not like you are likely to try to take off with something protruding from the open docking port. In any event, it should only decouple something attached to the docking port, not elsewhere on the part. The assembly of the ship went much as you described, though there was some partial disassembly and reassembly before I was done. The interior docking port was a bit of a problem, and thanks for the tip on the Alt+click. I have been planning to try building the plane another way, but I thought I would try bringing up a docking extender on another ship to see how it goes when that part is not part of the plane out of the hangar. That mission is in progress right now.

Ok, this is the link to the save file: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/3gm6hbylydgq28j/AADE6SmZn-FzNSKO0pfSTgn5a?dl=0 The MechJeb version is 2.3.1.0 The KSP version is 0-25-0 All other mods have been removed. You can get to the right place just by hitting F9. Just select the docking port on one of the planes, and back of the plane will separate instead of the two ports undocking. The plane's port will remain locked after that, still attached to the station. There was a short patch this morning which may have changed the version, but the planes behaved the same way anyway.

I forgot about Toolbar. Yeah, I know the toolbar is not installed right. I'm not sure how that could affect this, but you never know. I removed it and every other mod except MechJeb from my install and it still does the same thing. Where can I upload my save so that it can be linked?

I'm having a problem with MK-2 spaceplane parts. I docked a plane to a space station using the retracting docking port, and when I wanted to undock, the plane broke in two instead of undocking: I'm running MechJeb, Kethane, Kerbal Alarm Clock, Precise Node and SCANsat, all the latest versions for .25. Only a MechJeb module is involved in the planes other than stock parts. The large cargo bay is connected to the docking module, and I installed a standard docking port on the wall of the cargo bay connected to the docking module. I had launched a load out of the bay before docking (a double-ended docking extension using a structural fuselage with docking ports on either end.) I brought another plane up to the station and it does the same thing.

Furlongs per fortnight? Lol.

I'd like to know what they are tracking...they are aimed south, and just about everything should be passing directly overhead if it's on the typical equatorial orbit...

When I first started playing, I had some trouble getting larger payloads into orbit, so I started a space station in Kerbin orbit made of a lot of small modules. That let me store fuel in orbit so that the smallish stuff I got into orbit could refuel and go on to Mun and Minmus. It was a good base of operations for various things back then. Now I can get a much larger ship into space so it's not so important any more. I do have a small station in orbit of Kerbin mostly because of the Kerbal rescue operations and one each in orbit of Mun and Minmus where I base test and science flights and landings.

Kinda OT, but, has anyone else ever wondered what the harmonica between the vertical stabilizers is supposed to be for?

I try not to anguish more than 15 seconds for a name for a ship. Sometimes I have second thoughts later and rename them, but not often. Right now in my present con/sci save I have: Javelin: 1 or 2 stage size 2 boosters Longshot: 1 or 2 stage size 3 boosters Brutus: heavy 4 stage size 3 booster CSMs are: Orion: 3 man with small service module (name shamelessly stolen from NASA) for Kerbin system Rigel: 3 man with large service module to act as fuel tender for stations as well Vega: 3 man with engines on nacelles for landing cargo on Mun and Minmus My stations are: Unity (Kerbin) Munity (Mun) Minmus 1 (I think you can guess...) Dunity (not yet built, but it's on the drawing board) So far no big interplanetary expeditions have been launched, but I usually use a theme; haven't thought of one for this save yet.

Funny you should ask that... Yesterday I was bringing in my lander/command ship to rendezvous with my Minmus orbital science lab using MechJeb to narrow the encounter to 50m, and as it was braking to match speed I suddenly saw a flash of green lettering and black shape streak across the screen and my ship was sent spinning. I was surprised there was no explosion, but afterwards found one of the lander's engines had been knocked off. There was no damage to the station, and the mission could continue. The lander had earlier taken damage from a hard landing, destroying its lower docking port and landing lights, so it had a hard day; I think it will need to be retired early.

The update including launches and a few extra bonus pictures is up now: Flight of the Raven: the prequel Thanks, again JK

I originally promised I would spare everyone the launch shots of the various ships which put the Raven together, but as part of the special features package on the Collectors Edition, here they are! The Raven was planned as a modular ship with docking ports holding the assemblies together. In spite of that, when it came time to launch, I thought I would try leaving the bulk of the ship assembled and launch it as one unit. One change I had to make was to replace the clusters of LV/N engines with 3 KR-2Ls. My first trial indicated I needed more dV, so I added S3-7200 tanks as part of the engine package, along with some stablizers. It turns out I never took a screen shot of the final design on the pad, so through the magic of CGI (), here is a recreation: The communication pylon threw off the balance a little, so the ship walked slightly southward off the pad: It got into space all right though (this is an actual shot of the ship coasting to apoapsis): After achieving orbit, the engine pods were ejected to allow the real engines to be mounted. This is the design used to get them into space: Here's the craft in orbit, having arrived at the rendezvous: The engine pods were made autonomous so that they could be flown over and docked with the Raven: After this, I started getting fuel up to the ship. It would take 8 refueling fights to refill the Raven's tanks, not counting the unsuccessful test fights of previous designs. Initally I designed the refuelers to dock with the Jr ports on the side of the ship's main tanks, but that proved to be an incredible pain in the rump. The loaded fuel ship was anything but agile, so took a tonne of mono propellant to get docked: As part of the refuelers, I attached an RCS tug to the back end. It was intended to collect the discarded engine pods which launched the Raven so that they could be de-orbited: Here's one of the pods on its way to a fiery end: At this point the first crew members arrived: The last engine pod mission was in daylight, so the screen shots of that one are nice and clear: ..and the last pod was moved into position. It turns out I never bothered to record any of the test flights of the landers, but they pretty much worked first time. They were a modification of a design I had worked on for a previous mission, so there wasn't much guesswork involved. The only tweaking I had to do was adding a couple of mini tanks to the top of the drop tanks on the ascent stages to give them a little extra dV to make Kerbin orbit. They weren't really needed for Laythe or Tylo, but every little bit helps. This is the launch of one of the landers: One of the landers is docked and the second one is being carefully eased onto the second docking pad. The other ship docked on a lateral port had just arrived from my space station with Jeb, Bill and Bob aboard to take over command of the ship. Here's the "care package" on the pad. This is the assembly of mission modules and tugs I was taking along to Jool. It included two tugs and two hab landers: It was at this point that I made a design change to the Laythe lander and had to discard the first one. This is a shot of the replacement arriving at the Raven: The last addition to the ship was the cupola module already shown in the original post: So that's how I got the Raven into orbit and ready for its epic mission. And here are a few more random bonus shots of the ship at Jool and various landings: Thanks, and hope you enjoyed. JK

Glad you didn't need to use the "last words" messages the crew members made in case they didn't make it back... JK