Hotblack Desiato

imagine the embarrassment: jebediah, who went to all planets in the kerbolar system, including jool, drowning in the pool right in front of the astronaut center. they just can't let that happen ;-)

hmmm the only problem I could think of is: a root-part which is mounted backwards in the plane. right-click onto the cockpit and click on "control from here", and try again. it should work...

but that's what people complained about in earlier days. for example: land an asteroid on kerbin. pre 1.0, that was quite easy. fly to an asteroid, rendevouz with it, bring it on a trajectory that intersects kerbin (not only the SOI, but the ground). and then ride a small craft with the asteroid through kerbins atmosphere. even if the asteroid hits straight downwards (no lateral velocity), the asteroid would just decelerate from >3km/s to 100m/s. and the asteroids speed is lower than its maximum impact velocity, resulting in an asteroid which hits the ground like a ball. by the way, such a suborbital flight is no problem on earth. for example space ship 2. it launches on white knight 2, goes up into a suborbital flight with an apoapsis of >100km, and falls straight back to earth. and that thing has virtually no heatshields.

you do know, that this is the challenge board. and with all challenges, there sometimes are solutions the challenge-starter doesn't know (that's what makes challenges so interesting and funny). I guess, you docked your plane to an activated claw on the other plane, isn't it? if so, KSP hates that (not only in mid air but everywhere). the unit with the claw must bei the actively controlled one. otherwise KSP crashes.

the problem is, that the capsule has torque on its own, bob is just not a pilot and can't use SAS. but in this challenge, the player is basically not able to turn the ship around without aid of the gimbal-function of the rocket engines. (which makes the MK55 a very interesting choice because of its high gimbal value). one more quite important thing: timewarp stops rotation. I'd suggest the mod persistent rotation. the spacecraft remembers its own rotation-speed during timewarp

any extra points for NOT launching with both planes at the same time?

congratulations to your orbit without using SAS. this sounds like a nice challenge on its own

are engines pointing in different directions allowed? if so, a player could set up a manual action-group controlled RCS-system.

this was a test, using the karborundum drive. afterwards I launched more or less the same thing with stock engines SSTO. it's something around 1000t capacity, the ship with stock engines was equipped with an extra planetary launchpads recycler and recycled its conventional rockets. mass to orbit after recycling: around 1600t. 0.90, NEAR, extensive use of part welding. the monstrosity here had 155 parts after discarding the karborundum drive. oh, by the way: with a nifty little 0.90 mod, this thing was capable of breeding kerbals in space EDIT: and yes, one picture shows flames, the craft exploded shortly afterwards. I had to revert.

grrr.... thank you another game, I just need to try because it sounds so interesting ;-)

basically it's related to a bug, that already existed in earlier versions. if the spacecraft is on a highly eliptical orbit (in my case, it was 15000km apoapsis, 35km periapsis), under 100000x timewarp, in earlier versions the ship would just skip through the atmosphere, not leaving timewarp (which was bad, but at least left the spacecraft intact). but now, it appears to be different. the computer stopped timewarp and immediately displayed an explosion, as if the ship warped into the atmosphere and got more heat than it could stand. is it possible to get a similar border-detection as used for detection of SOI-borders? this way, timewarp would stop automatically even if under high timewarp (the periapsis should give a hint that stepping down is necessary).

are you sure this is even possible? the heat system in 1.0.2 is rather harsh, when it comes to kerbol. ;-)

okay, I thought mentioning extra planetary launchpads (the mod) is obvious enough. simple explanation: that mod adds an ore, a metal and rocketparts, aswell as a way to construct vessels anywhere. the orbital dock and the extraplanetary launchpad-part act as a sort of docking-port, where a new vessel can spawn. vessels just cost their mass in rocketparts, yet the value in roots depends on the value of each part. for example: a small probe core is 50kg, a few instruments like thermometers and so give a total value of 100kg, and yet the vessel is worth more than 50000 roots, which can be easily recovered. in other words, the same problem which surfaced here in ksp stock already existed in several mods which by themselves added harvestable resources and production.

that's not so much different to the extra planetary launchpads funds exploit. put a vessel with metal containers, a workshop and the orbital dock on the launchpad, and produce something with a high value with low mass. scientific instruments are prefect for that.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/06/available-one-vab-high-bay-three-mlp/ honestly, is there a more kerbal way to live? your own VAB-processing facility (with its own weather inside, and its own wikipedia article, even mentioning the weather), 3 MLPs in the garage, 2 for the shuttle, 1 for ares I. okay, they are not allowed on the street, but who cares? that's way cooler than having a headquarter in a volcano ;-) besides, it's inside a nature preservation area, no nosy neighbors, and it's very quiet. the neighbors usually schedule their parties. who wants to rent it? EDIT: there are occasionally fireworks, not related to silvester or independence day ;-)

not sure if I'd ever use it (currently no twitter acc), but... a way to take a screenshot which gets immediately added into a twitter-message could be fun. similar thing, slightly off topic: taking several screenshots and get them into one imgur album, just through the ksp-game-ui could be fun too. EDIT: okay, since it is no twitter-client-mod for ksp (why not? could be fun...), forget my ideas.

I agree with the others. first, the fins on the center stage, which are currently in a 90° position, put them into 45° and 4x symmetry. that should give you additional control. then you might add a SAS module, because currently it's only the capsules SAS, which is working. a gimballing center stage is nice too, especially for flying outside the atmosphere, where the fins don't work anymore. and take a look at the procedural fairing mod, which adds fairings in the way they are supposed to work.

I just looked at the ksp-website and saw: Kerbal Space Program 40,00€ honestly, you're talking about 40$, but I would have to pay 40€ (currently 45$). where does the 5 dollar difference come from?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/117344-Launchclamps-crash-into-rocket-and-follow-into-space I had this bug here. and my flying launchclamps smashed into my rocket. so far I believe that the bug was always there, but since they were outside the 2.5 km physics bubble, they never started flying.

in theory, he can weld a single part lifter. the only rule he has to follow is: no batteries together with engines with alternator. of course, that thing can only fly single staged to space, but that's better than nothing. additionally, the part welding mod in 0.90 is not happy with several rocket motors and refuses to produce the proper particles for every engine. so the engines will glow, but that's it.

so from what I've read here, the performance boost in ksp with unity 5 will be up to 50% while launching a rocket or space plane, but it will really shine if you have a space station and fly a cargo mission with a part-heavy spaceplane, which does NOT dock, but detach its payload which then gets ferried to the space station via a small tug. and it will shine, if you have a ground station consisting of several little independent crafts, which are connected via MKS proximity logistics. it could be also quite interesting, if KAS removes its pipes, and just draws pipe-shaped objects between spacecrafts, which are not physically connected.

I can imagine, that with a sufficiently big staged rocket with enough juice to reach Minmus while just using the first stage. it should have at least one lander capable for tylo, and the whole thing should make it to minmus. refuel it there, fly to eve, detach the tylo lander, land on eve on a fuel hotspot, refuel again. launch from eves surface in non-SSTO-mode, expending most stages. refuel again on gilly, visit moho, come back to gilly, refuel and pick up the tylo lander. and then work your way towards tylo.

you went on escape trajectory, didn't you? In my opinion, the first board is deprecated, because people can go on escape trajectory or some high orbit and then it's a matter of who lets the computer run longer (no timewarp, and ksp pauses if the window isn't active). and all entries in the highest flight highscore actually landed. whereas the top speed section gives a direct way of comparing entries directly after running out of fuel.

I did something like that in 1.0.2 played with a low modded game (mechjeb, procedural fairings, kerbal joint reinforcement, deadly reentry and a few others - mechjeb for executing maneuver nodes, because I don't like to sit for half an hour in front of my computer and watch the nuclear engines to perform burns, it becomes tedious). and I thought, that could be a nice challenge. so far I have visited (swingby) every body except mün, ike and eeloo. requirement: start in an edited science sandbox, with a fully unlocked techtree (search the persistent.cfg for sci = 0 or so, edit science points in, unlock the techtree, remove the science points). this way, the system tracks every accomplished location just by sending science data back home. and start within the first hour of the new kerbal-game (maybe someone can provide a modified persistent.cfg). easy: visit every sphere of influence in the kerbol-system. medium: throw a probe on every body and SOFTLAND it (even on jool), and have at least one kerbal on the ship with a life support mod, and bring the kerbal(s) back to kerbin hard: medium + try to land the kerbal on as many objects as possible. prohibited: splitting the craft for visiting different destinations at the same time. prohibited: dive with an unfocussed vessel into an atmosphere, because ksp just calculates the atmospheric effects on focussed vessels. allowed: splitting the craft for leaving something behind, either for jettisoning or for parking something. allowed: detaching a probe outside of a planets sphere of influence, if it would land on the planet with small or without any course corrections (for example swingby at eve plus deploying an atmosphere probe). scoring: try to do it as quick as possible. faster is better. this requires some serious thoughts about the order in that quest, which moons are good for refuelling, when is refuelling better than a simple swingby, and so on. required mods: one life support mod, TAC-LS or the usi-lifesupport mod. prohibited mods: mods which give orbital fuel harvesting (means karbonite) (yet, mining asteroids is okay, because they are essencially celestial bodies on their own). mods which give very high ISP engines (for example near future propulsion ion engines... but the tanks are okay). mods which allow the production of xenon. a second scoring could be done by bringing as many science points back to kerbin as possible, either by sending them or by returning them with the spaceship.

sorry, somehow I missed your entry. totally my fault, not yours. your rocket looks interesting, I'll add it to the leader board of course. thanks