Pecan

I'm still limiting myself to ~40t launch payloads and assembling anything larger in space, using modular designs. At that sort of mass asparagus has become 'obsolete' for me unless I'm maximising payload-ratio. 2-stage serial or parallel ARM parts - or older ones under lighter payloads - can easily handle such things and are just so much simpler to build and cause less part-induced lag. Spaceplanes are even less worth the effort of flying too, although Claw convinced me to use intake spam 8~! (nothing to do with SLS/ARM), so when I do they perform exceptionally well. Perhaps I'll adjust my next campaign to have a "lowest-mass at launch" requirement, just to see what's possible :-)

Looks like you're sorted but for you and anyone else wanting more than the stock VAB/SPH action groups can offer there are two mods which might be of interest: 1) AGM (Action Group Manager) allows you to re-configure your action groups in-flight, should you find you've forgotten to set them up or done so incorrectly. AGX (Action Groups Extended) goes beyond that and lets you create up to 250(!) action groups in the VAB/SPH or in-flight. Should your keyboard inexplicably not have 250 spare keys AGX provides a clickable-button window for the groups you define.

*whisper* use MJ to 'practice'. F5, let it do the launch to rendezvous for you, not the position of the target ship, F9, do it yourself.

Tips: 1) Go back to the VAB and rebuild it with a lower TWR. While it's good to have 'around' 2 averaged over the stage's lifetime a start TWR of 2 likely means 4 or 5 by the time it burns out - possibly enough to tear the ship apart and certainly enough to give you trouble with 'fine' manoeuvres. 2) Make landers - if you have them - as light as possible and, for Duna, use parachutes on the descent. Duna's atmosphere is low and thin so set the parachutes to deploy high, giving them more time to slow you down. You will probably still need to use some engine-power, but much less than without. 3) A Kerbal on EVA can repack parachutes once near them (right-click on a previously-deployed parachute). Staging does not re-deploy such chutes, so set an action group to do it. 4) Even more deltaV is always better, but means you need to burn more fuel just lugging it around. Use a deltaV map to verify that you really can go where you intend (and back, if you care about your Kerbals). 5) Make use of aerobraking if you want to conserve deltaV. It may take several orbits, dipping into the atmosphere each time, to bring your apoapsis down where you want it. 6) If you're going far out in the system, such as Eeloo, consider that solar panels are less effective that far from the sun. Conversely, for the inner system, you may not need so many. 7) Moons have a habit of getting in the way of an encounter with their primary. Ike is particularly infamous for this. 8) Apart from the extra time it takes interplanetary is no harder to control than going to Mun or, particularly, Minmus. It's all about matching planes, matching apoapsis (or periapsis) and circularising to orbit. 9) I use action groups to toggle engines on/off. Turning them off during the l-o-n-g cruise periods means I can't screw everything up by pressing shift at the wrong time. ...which is all I can think of off the top of my head.

File a DMCA takedown action against the thief.

I hope you have seen this and similar threads. Good luck :-)

Are you planning on an Eve lander any time soon?

Yes, it's easy to miss - In the MJ OP just under the BIG text saying "DOWNLOAD HERE" the small print says "get the latest dev builds here" which is -> http://jenkins.mumech.com/job/MechJeb2/ Edit: there may still be 'issues' and development is continuing but it seems to be working properly for me. The reason it's all like this is because the person looking after has changed.

MM has been updated to 2.0.5 today.

Make sure you are not using the 'official' MJ download - use the latest dev build instead (it hasn't been happy since 0.23.5).

tavert has it all worked out for us. Just select the TWR and vacuum/atmosphere chart you need and cross-reference the payload mass against the required deltaV.

Tell toolbar to display the button. Click on the little arrow to the right of the toolbar and 'configure visible buttons' - make sure chatterer is enabled :-)

Good advice. My adapters have core and solar panels just so I can engage SAS to stop them tumbling. They are still light enough that it doesn't interfere with the actual docking.

A rar file is like a zip file. If your OS can't handle it already then you'll need to download and install an application that can.

But what about the ones you haven't kept? Reasons for uninstalling is what I'm after here.

Custom windows should be remembered automatically as they are created/amended but you may have to re-display it. Look for it in the main MJ menu window.

We've had a few threads on "what mod(s) should I use?" recently - this is the opposite. I have been adding more and more mods and even though I avoid part packs my poor old, weak, PC is suffering so I'm seeing which I would prefer to remove. Amusingly enough the only roughly appropriate antonym (opposite) of 'mod' I could find was "unfashionable" so - "fine, I'm going to make an unfashionable KSP install". Before any of this though please note: a) This is ONLY because I have a weak PC; there's absolutely nothing wrong with KSP or these mods and I'm not complaining about anything. Every one of these that fails to 'make the cut' is dropped with regret - I only installed them in the first place and kept them until now because I like them. Dropped: FAR. To start with the most important - it's a recent install and I know I really must learn to use it sooner or later but just now I'd have to redesign and relearn too much. Gone, but definitely my fault. Equally definitely to return 'when I can give it some time'. KER. Sorry; now MJ gives reference-bodies for deltaV/TWR and offers so much more I'm just not using you like I did. Heartbreak. EVE. Lovely as you are I just don't spend enough time looking at the scenery to appreciate you. Alternate Resource Panel. Great, but just not quite useful enough to make it. Aviation Lights. Not top of most people's list anyway. I'm a real-life navigator and such things 'should' be there but adding them makes my ships 'non stock' for no really good reason. Sorry. On Probation: KOS - don't actually like it much, but RT2 keeps it essential. DREC, RPM and MFD - like EVE I just don't spend enough time with them to appreciate them fully. KAS & IR - and again, underused. Just me this time though. Secure: Active Texture Management - if you're nursing a sick computer you don't shoot the doctor! Chatterer & Kerbquake - "totally useless, totally fun". I won't say I couldn't live without them. Not sure I'd want to though. Kethane, TAC LS & CLS - reasons to do stuff. NRAP, Navball Docking Alignment, SM, Proc Fairings & AGX - tools to do it with. SH-Mk2 & TT-Mk3 cockpit internals - even if I don't spend a lot of time IVA there should at least be an internal view to look at! Core: Toolbar & MM - almost everything else needs one or the other. MJ - primarily information but I do use its autopilot rendezvous quite a bit and others when I want a coffee :-) RT2 & SCANSat - the fact that I value these so highly probably means I have a 'thing' for computers. This one tells me it loves me too. [Help!] KAC - hey, I can't even wake myself up on the right day without an alarm clock. So - your turn. Which mods have you, or would you, reluctantly give(n) up? No abuse please, especially not to the programmers/modellers who put all their hard work into making the mods in the first place. [ETA: Oh man, I can't believe I made such a huge typo in the title :-( ]

Is as far as I read - docking ports have to be the same size to dock :-) ETA: Having read the rest of your post you seem to be doing very well otherwise - I suppose you were beating your head against it getting better and better but still not getting a result :-( Theory is that you click target docking port and 'set as target' and click your ship's port and 'control from here' but if you're doing all the rest without that then it doesn't matter. Stick compatible ports on the ships and you'll have no problems as far as I can see. Enjoy.

Well going to Mun would help - you have more than enough stuff there already.

Must be. I don't get many disassembly events because I tend to Esc/F3 and revert before they go completely haywire but, yes, on a few occassions I've had higher stages that snapped off activate as if they'd been staged. Edit - with pxi's comment in mind it's quite possible that the times I've seen disassembly => stage may well have been MJ-controlled. If that's so, it may have been MJ trying to recover what was left of the rocket by autostaging. (Bleh, I should have thought of that earlier. It makes the whole scenario less interesting :-( )

The most 'unneeded' windows open when you click the 'edit' button. Click it again to hide them :-) BTW - if people want more documentation I am (sweat, fingers-crossed) coming to the end of my current project and am more than happy to offer my services as a technical author.

Hehe, is it also you experience that unplanned disassembly is predictable? I was fishing for something that might be useful and I have had occassions when 'disassembly' was taken as a staging event. Not likely though, I know.

Can't say that I've had any serendipity where things have worked out better than I planned, apart from not having to hit (much of) the reserve fuel. Sometimes I've changed destination because of a 'lucky' encounter that was more interesting than the intended target but mostly the 'interesting' times have come from when I got it all wrong but managed to recover enough that it was still a 'useful' mission.

I can't really tell but from the name 'probe craft' and the engines you have it looks like you could have a huge amount of thrust at launch. Possibly enough to tear the whole thing in half and make stage 5 the active, lowest remaining one.

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