Semmel

Wow, I am surprised. I came here to ask if heliosynchronous orbits are possible (well, precession of orbits due to ellipsoidal shape of bodies really) is possible and if you would consider it for implementation.. and it is already in by looking at your last change-log! I am blown away by that to be honest! I never really understood these orbits, they seem like wizardry. I am very much looking forwards to your mod!

Thx for the hint, no I was not aware of TestFlight. I will check it out, looks pretty good.

Dear Modding community. I would like to ask for a mod with a small, but I believe very interesting impact: Certification. The story is this: It is very easy to build rockets for contract satellites and VIP Kerbals. Thats all fine and dandy, but I would like to have some extra that makes the player think more and ultimately streamline the game more. I would like to have a mod that makes contracts of placing satellites into specific orbits only available for _certified_ launch vehicles. Likewise, VIP Kerbals should only be able to go around on Kerbal-rated launch vehicles. How to implement: * A parts sub-assembly can become a certified launch vehicle by successfully putting a certification-dummy mass into a larger than 100x100 km orbit. By doing that, the sub-assembly becomes certified and can be used to launch any contractual payload. Subsequently, the satellite that is to be launched needs to be lighter than the dummy mass and needs to attach to the same node as the dummy mass, no other changes to the rocket are permitted. * For Kerbal rating a launch vehicle, it needs to be certified and it needs to make at least 5 successive successful launches, that is, bring its payload to orbit without parts failure. * The capsule needs to fulfil the following tests: (Kerbals associated to the KSC are allowed to board during tests of course): -- Pad abort: Test a launch abort system while landed at the launch site: detach transport vehicle while landed at the launch site and land without parts failures on solid surface or water. -- Launch abort: Test a launch abort system while flying at Kerbin: above 1000 and below 3000 m, speed above 300 m/s. -- Re-entry test: Land on Kerbin after being in Kerbins Orbit. * Make contract reward for VIP much higher than it is in 1.0.2 to rebalance certification costs and make the process less grindy Impact on Gameplay: * The player will think about creating launch families. This makes games easier because certified launch vehicles are less likely to fail because they are unaltered. Fiddling with the launcher to make a unique launcher for every satellite is prohibited. * In longer games, player spends less time designing rockets and more time designing payloads to fit in available certified rockets. * New contracts might emerge to create a certified launch vehicle that is capable of bringing x kg into Kerbin orbit, to reduce certification costs

Well, carreer is not entirely balanced. I just spend 20k funds to put a satellite into a very elliptical orbit and got 250k in return. The next mission was to bring a space station into orbit for 7 kerbals with a seeing copula, a science lab and 4000 units of liquid fuel as well as 1000 units of monopropellant. This space station gave off 160k and it cost me around 150k funds. I got 16 extra science, but I dont have the kerbals to operate it (dont have an extra scientist) and hireing one is not an option, too many kerbals resqued already that were not scientists. So there is a bit of a descrepency there, but who cares? I can put virtually the same space station almost anywhere with that amount of fuel, which means I have made a design that can be reused for other contracts. I would have never done that if not for the contract and the challenge. I knew when I took the contract that it doesnt give me money and I cant afford to man it properly. That will come in the future Anyway.. Its fun, thank you squad!

Sorry for breaking your selfindulging rant on the career mode, I like it and I am playing it through. For reference, I play KSP since about 2 years, cant remember exactly. So I know my way about in the KSP system. Its just.. fun to manage science as well as money. I only do contracts and i play on hard mode (save for quick loading in case the game crashes, never reloaded once so far). I must say, its very interesting with the money aspect and the science. Because it forces decisions. As a player, it is fun because its KSP. Once I am over with that, I probably will go back to real solar system mod and play sandbox again. But sandbox in KSP vanilla is just too easy. For me, it requires the additional restrictions of having to manage money and reputation in the career mode because its just too easy otherwise. Anyway, everybody can play as he/she likes, its not necessary to call the career mode pointless or otherwise. There are probably just as many people playing career as there are playing sandbox or science.

I d it similar to Empiro but slightly differently. Usually, I launch ahead and make an efford to launch in the same inclination by timing the launch properly. Any inclination errror, I fix in orbit. Then, I put my spacecraft into a highly elliptical orbit with the apoapsis intersecting the incoming trajectory. Then hit next orbit until my spacecraft and the asteroid are at roughly the same place at spacectraft apoapsis. Once they are there, I perform a normal docking maneuver: kill velocity and then dock. That way, its possible to adjust inclination and periapsis prior to the encounter. Slightly more complex for mission planing but usually saves a lot of delta v because the docking procedure is much easier. And it allowes to divert the asteroid in case it would hit the surface.

I would just go ahead with what you have got and try to land without an inclination change. Real missions fail for a huge veriatey of reasons. Bad mission planing is usually not the most common but it happens. Just bite the bullet and go ahead, its much more fun like that (at least to me).

The problem with rovers is, that there is no where to go with them. Before Beta, there were no targets at all for rovers, the whole surface of a body was equal everywhere. Since bioms are now a thing, rovers have some uses, but not much because the distances between bioms are so great that a rover is not a good idea. And you have to micromanage the rover much much more than a hopper or a one-point lander. So the problem with rovers is not so much that they are hard to drive, the problem is that they are so useless.

Looks like they Kerbald the landing ;-)

Late December is unrealistic because ISS can not be approached by Dragon between Dec 28 and Jan 07. In this time period, the ISS is orbiting at the day-night terminator which means, that it is constantly or close to that in the sunlight. That in turn puts restrictions on the heat regulation which prevents Dragon from docking. I assume that this has to do with the orientation of the ISS, which needs to e adjusted for Dragon. If Falcon launches on January 6, it will coast for 2 days and dock at Jan 8.

When this mod gets live, there are some problems with gameplay that need solving. Assuming of course you dont want to babysit every single probe. * Since orbits are a lot more unstable, it will be hard to get probes into stable 2-body situations. Like for example L1, L2 and L3 points are instable and require active correction. * Geo/Kerbo-synchronous orbits will decay over time, there needs to be active control to keep them stable. These points are especially relevant for Remote Tech since you need a fleet of communication satellites.

Well thx anyway. It certainly is not easy to do that since orientation, shape and weight have a strong impact. Would be wonderful though if it would work! I was thinking of that already. That might also give some advantage by using an offset between the geometry center of the descend module and the center of gravity to provide lift during reentry. I am using deadly reentry. That is not an option. Anyway, the largest effect of the landing location is applied after the hot part of the reentry during the thicker part o the atmosphere. The service module would be burned up at that point anyway.

Using this mod, I have some difficulties I dont know how to solve. Its probably my inability to use it properly, so please give me a hint. I use FAR and Deadly reentry. I have a maned space probe, using the small stock Command Pod Mk1 with a heat shield underneath. I set up the descend trajectory to get down at my desired location. Than I separate from the lander from the service module and prepare for reentry. However, the drag of the heat shield with the MK1 seems to line up very badly with the estimated landing location. If the initial trajectory is very flat and I aim for KSC, the actual touch down point is at the west coast of the KSC continent, at the other side of the mountain range. That is a significant difference. What do I need to do in order to correct for that? Due to the nature of the problem, I cant control the descend after the separation with the service module. Any suggestion? Edit: Thanks for this great mod btw! It makes life much much easier. I also should add that my experience is with the second to last version, the one before 1.0.0.

As Squad stated, they are approaching feature completion. Planetary body tilts is not a major feature, so it might be on the agenda for the period after 0.9 is released. If it is not on the menue, would it be possible to ask permission for the code injection? Cheers, Semmel

Thx for the trouble anyway. Here is the promised file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zavdst1yzvgaaxb/output_log.txt?dl=0