biohazard15

It's Auxiliary Propulsion System.

Starliner, anyone? Based on Apollo five-seat CM and made from BDB and stock (engine plate, solar panels, aeroskirt) parts and some offset magic. Even DEC Centaur struggles to push it on 2.5x Kerbin. Lofted trajectory is a must (MJ settings for 120x120 km orbit are: 100 m\s, 0.2 degrees turning rate, omit coast on) Final push to circularization (also, don't forget to check your clocks). By the way, it weighs 12.9 tons fully fueled and loaded, almost like the real one. Features BDB's CADS, but in theory can be used with any 0.9375m docking port. Now that's where similarities end. Unfortunately, neither BDB or stock (or my other installed mods) do not feature tiny liquid-fueled engine in 100-200 kN range, which is required for LAS. Thus, I've decided to use Gemini lander engines as OMS, and add 12 Saturn 1 ullage motors as LAS (fired all at once)\retrorockets (fired in groups of 2 or 4). The aeroskirt is made from 2.5m stock structural tube that is attached to stock 2.5m engine plate (thus forming spacecraft adapter. Centaur 4-meter fairing base is then attached to tube's top node (so it ends up inside the tube). Atlas V itself is then attached to fairing base's lower node.

Just be sure to update B9PS and other included plugins to their 1.8 versions.

After playing with NFEX in career, I've noticed a rather major balance problem. Which is: all the new stuff is available too late to make a difference (we're talking about stock tech tree). Especially if you run other mods that add antennae (BDB, Tantares, Coatl etc). Why would I need to build a feeder+reflector commsat when I already have several ones, made from stock (SIC!!!) parts without any patches that affect the antenna range? Because I, like, needed these sats for my Mun program. That doesn't really make sense. NFEX is all about "get a bunch of small antennae and reflectors to boost their range". This should be available during early-to-mid career, not at the end.

Can anyone point me at up-to-date craft file pack, or a BDB-like wiki if there's one?

Got it, thanks! Still, it's a visual issue IMO - a beam that emits out of nowhere looks rather silly in editor. That can be "fixed", though - make beam visible only when antenna is deployed (it would be always visible on fixed antennae). WRT PartVariants - this is also Tantares issue (I ran into it when trying to make a MM patch).

A MM patch for some BDB antennas: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sVZkk1cDl0d3okMhuxQ47oWe1xOS3X21/view?usp=sharing

Here's a MM patch that adds support for Near Future Exploration feeder\reflector mechanic to some BDB antennas. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sVZkk1cDl0d3okMhuxQ47oWe1xOS3X21/view?usp=sharing Supported antennas: A27-C antenna Belle B81 antenna F21 helical antenna HLR-PIO6 (Pioneer 6) mast antenna J15-D dish antenna KD2 antenna M17 solar antenna MSC dome antenna Transtage antenna Apollo whip antenna Apollo VHF antenna Note: NFEx plugin currently does not support antenna animations via MM patches. You can place feeder beam source to where it should be in extended position, but this would look somewhat silly in editor. Note 2: N100 omni antenna and Helios antenna array are not supported - the first is omnidirectional, and frankly I don't know what is the second one and where the feeder beam is supposed to be.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!! Seems to work for me, reflectors are doing what they're supposed to do (had a short "what the heck" moment first, until I realized that you have to point antenna at the dish itself, not just at the part ) Question: from what I get, "can't handle variants" means the plugin does not support MMing feed module to antennas which, err, "direction" moves with deployment (thus, no support for HG-55, but works fine with 88-88). Am I right?

That is absolutely understandable. Post it as "unsupported experimental build" For now, I just deleted the DLL, all reflector antennas and reflector MM patches. Seems to work fine.

Sad. Any chance of you reconsidering and providing a DLL that is recompiled for 1.7.3? NFeX would be really useful for exploring outer worlds in OPM, JNSQ and such, but Kopernicus is still at 1.7.3, and there is no ETA on update.

Question: would NFExploration work with 1.7.3 (assuming I'm using 1.7.3 dependencies)?

Titan LDC to the Moon:

If you're into (somewhat) non-canonical and non-ETS builds, I strongly recommend Titan LDC. A proper build can lift a full Mun mission (CSM+LEM+LEM adapter+"super-Transtage" that can boost all that to the Mun in 2.5x system) to 120x120 orbit, with some dV to spare. And if you're into career, you'll save at least 100K(!!!) of funds. Saturn V? What Saturn V? We're into Titans here, buddy. I love the smell of hydrazine in the morning.

Normally I unlock all the buildings except R&D (which I also unlock eventually) Same here. There's adapters, of course, but such setup looks... wrong. I don't know why, but it's just wrong (Not to mention certain, errr, anatomical similarities ) My current setup - MOS docking port, Gemini service module (the standard one), RCS blocks, 1.5-1.25 adapter, some batteries and Klaw. This allows me to easily replace spent Transtages (and later, dock a space station to it instead of flying in a new Klaw module).

Stumbled upon a C-class 160-ton asteroid on Kerbin orbit (135900km x 7010km x 32 degrees inclination*) while being at level 1 R&D (I often refrain from upgrading it in order to force myself to use "old" stuff). Many Transtages sacrificed their lives to bring it to more "manageable" orbit, and even more will, since the damn thing is so heavy. I hope People for Ethical Treatment of Transtages won't read this. Because I doubt they'll like putting Vega tanks as extenders. Also, BDB Titan IV rocks. *2.5x rescale EDIT: Okay, I admit I've "cheated" a bit - I've unlocked the Klaw. Without it, all I can do is bump the Transtage into the rock and try to push it into some direction. I'm not that cruel. Transtages have rights too, okay?

Got that, thanks! Guess I should check the dev version more often The "F" above stands between II and III. The best approximation for it would be BMMMS, with DEC Common Centaur on top.

A suggestion, if I may: any chance of Centaur Jr.? This one: As you see, it has the same diameter as Thor\Delta. Would be a nice option for LTT...

Gotta love Soviet engineers. Instead of flying cargo planes and playing catch, they simply put all the spy stuff into (slightly) modified Sharik, so it could be landed and retrieved at leisure pace.

Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with cherry on top? Not sure how you'll avoid that if you want to make both KH-4A and KH-4B...

Nice! A couple of suggestions for Corona: - Small science returns (say, 10-15% per photo), results are biome-specific. Obviously non-transmittable (unless you want to make SAMOS...) The satellite should be cheap and be available early to balance this. The basic idea is to launch many of them if you want good results. - Custom separator to fit two RVs (for KH-4A\B). - SCANSat support via purchasable upgrades.

Niiice. Will it work only on Corona, or with any science data? I have an idea about putting it on Gemini lander base and using it as data return capsule.

Nice! Hopefully SurveyoRanger would be balanced for 2.5x rescale, not stock.

MOL variant from wiki and craft file uses its RCS thrusters for deorbit burn, thus it doesn't really need a decoupler between SM and EM. Of course, nothing stops you from adding one if you wish Add a baby kraken instead of frog?

Looks amazing! Also, what's that teensy-weensy shuttle?