Pecan

All mods work on the steam version. I don't have Hyperedit to tell you exactly what's in its .zip file but, essentially, all mods are unzipped to KSP's "GameData" folder (I have no idea where steam hides that, presumably you do). USUALLY (but not always) a mod has everything within a single folder inside its .zip (eg; the Goodspeed fuel pump mod, Goodspeed.zip, contains folder "Goodspeed") and all you need to do is unzip that to KSP\GameData. With no other mods you'd then have KSP\GameData\Goodspeed (with the pump mod in it), KSP\GameData\NasaMission (with ARM stuff) and KSP\GameData\Squad (with most of the basic game things). Sometimes a mod's .zip includes its own 'GameData' (eg; Chatterer.zip contains a GameData folder, which contains a Chatterer folder). You can either unzip the whole thing to KSP's main folder or just unzip the 'inner' Chatterer to KSP\GameData. Either way you add KSP\GameData\Chatterer.

You don't; that's why KW, Prodcedural Fairings and other mods ADD them. If you really want to make something that looks like fairings without mods the usual way is to use lots of structural panels. This adds mass, cost and lag-inducing part-count and it is important to know that in stock KSP there is no aerodynamic benefit to putting things inside fairings. If you are using an aerodynamic mod (eg; FAR, NEAR) there is a benefit but it is probably outweighed by the mass of all those panels. Summary: if you want fairings, get a mod that provides them.

Thanks John, I shall play more with SRB-based designs. (Real life has caught-up with me again. Busy) .

Same thing with an 8t payload and the whole 45-units fuel, chutes for recovery. I could give other examples across payload masses but I think Stratzenblitz75 does about the nicest. Counter-example where a plane benefits from wings on the way up? I'd be happy to be proved wrong; it's how we learn.

Not just you :-( Squad have this view that they don't want to give newbies something so good they won't have to make their own designs. Nothing tells you that though so loads of people assume the stock ships are "the way" it should be done, struggle like mad to make them work and then complain that KSP is really hard. It annoys me that unless you read (or watch) a lot of tutorials and accidentally trip-over that nugget of information your early experience with KSP can be ruined, to the extent there may be no later experience with it. Thank you for reminding me - I must add a note about that to my tutorial some time. As to comparing asparagus and SRBs there aren't any that I can think of. Launch-vehicle design is something of a speciality as it is - most people don't bother optimising them - and there are/were a few distinct 'schools' amongst those who do anyway. As a very broad generalisation (which is therefore almost as wrong as otherwise): "Not today, thank you" - I have a launcher that can put 100t into orbit. It's fine for this 1t satellite too. "Moar boosters" - SRBs and lots of 'em, what problem? "FAR" - single-stack 'til I die "Realism" - if it hasn't been done on Earth it doesn't exist "OCD" - asparagus is 0.01% more mass-efficient in this design Basically, anyone who made launch-vehicles in one style rarely wanted to make them in another as well.

Now that's the sort of thing I'd expect to be really expensive so do you have some examples I can wander off to look at? LF engines have a high purchase cost but since you're using StageRecovery you'll get nearly all of that back. In contrast I wouldn't have thought empty SRBs were worth the effort. You say you haven't noticed but ... would you mind checking?

Actually, I don't think we'd disagree too far. My point was about the inadvisability of relying on an SRB lift stage - for additional short-lived, disposable, launch thrust they are certainly unequalled - but for anything more they really aren't worth it. On the other hand, in FAR you don't want more than about 1.2 TWR at launch, do you? If your core isn't supplying that on its own what do you do after ditching the SRBs? (Genuine question, I have too many memory problems to create another one with FAR so haven't tried it much). FWIW I'm also fine with nerfing asparagus - I'm not in love with it any more than I am spaceplanes, ions or LV-Ns that are completely unrealistic compared to real-life performance. I engineer within the constraints of the system and tools available; that used to be asparagus for mass, now it's almost anything else for cost, no worries. Doh! Please kick me every time I forget twisted candle :-(

Your signature list several videos on YouTube :-( WHY have you not published this flow-chart as a text tutorial here on the forums!!

Many, probably most, flight-simulator fans would agree with you and in FAR I can imagine it makes more difference but in stock at least wings do almost nothing to help a spaceplane get high, and obviously don't do anything for 'fast'. A VTVL doesn't use high thrust 'just' to take-off (and let's not argue that 1 is 'high') but to accelerate quickly. There are a lot of variables, of course, and I'm nowhere near the best spaceplane (SP) designer or pilot around, but my 'standard' SP ascent is 0-pitch on runway, 40-50 degrees to 10-15km, 20-30 degrees to 20km, reducing to 0-degrees at 25-30km. In contrast my standard VTVL ascent is 90-degree pitch on launchpad to 500m-1km, 40-50 degrees to 10-15km ... and then exactly the same. In practice, how low are you going to go with your SP's launch TWR? Probably not ever much below 1 because then you won't have enough thrust for speed at altitude. Aiming for 1.2? Sounds like an ideal FAR vertical-launch TWR. For the record: also in practice, I think the mass of wings and gear ARE worthwhile - but specifically for the landing, not take-off, ascent or fuel-efficiency (this isn't something I say very often because there are always so many people shouting about how great SPs are and not thinking about or listening to the contrary points). ETA: 1 turbojet, FL-T100 fuel tank, oxidiser removed and LF tweaked to 40 units and Ram intakes is a 1.6t VTVL launch-vehicle for a detachable 4t payload. It has a launch TWR >2.5 because, well, you can't have half a turbojet! How would wings and gear help, given that it is intended to be disposable?

Asparagus is no wider and creates no more drag - in stock or any other aerodynamic model - than any other radial-staging strategy, including radial SRBs. "Pancake" was always an argument used by the anti-asparagus lobby but just because someone can build bad designs doesn't mean they have to. My major objection to SRBs is, in fact, that you need to strap so many of them onto anything but the smallest payloads in order to make much difference that you end-up with something aerodynamically and structurally far less sound than all but the worst excesses of bad asparagus designs. Neither are SRBs particularly cost-effective - Tech-0 lets you SSTO and return with an LV- T30 engine and 12 FL-T200 fuel tanks (payload = command pod, girders and parachutes for recovery). Adding two RT-10 SRBs lets you remove 3 fuel tanks and save 675 funds in construction. This is heavier than the 'pure' T30 design though and recovery value is so much less that per-launch costs are 246 funds more. In other words, it's only cheaper if you're throwing it all away anyway, not if you are aiming to recover it. Three RT-10s is worse (only removes one more tank) and 4 almost impossible to get into orbit. Staging - throwing away the empty SRBs - changes this and other SRBs have different performance but 'moar boosters' is still never a good automatic choice ^^. ETA: *grin* In that case you will also want to avoid any other use of fuel-lines, rapier, LV-N and ion engines, any type of spaceplane (actually any SSTO), SAS, KSP's magnetic docking ports and probably 90% of the other parts too ^^. Do you have a problem with radial staging? If so see ESA launch vehicles. If not, the only difference is that asparagus, on a core+2 (liquid fuel) booster design, just means adding fuel lines from the boosters to the core so a) the boosters can be used and jettisoned as early as possible, the core still has a full fuel load and can burn longer. While it's not technology that has been used yet on Earth, it's usually a mistake to limit KSP's engineering to our limited historical experience. I agree that multiple stages and, especially, layers of asparagus are almost certainly never going to happen but I'm at least as happy to accept the possibility of core+2 as I am LV-Ns, etc.

Apart from the fun there are exactly TWO reasons to build planes (in atmosphere and with stock parts) - i) horizontal flight capability makes it easier to land wherever you want to, ii) lift from wings means it is possible to take-off with TWR<1. PLANES are not at all more efficient than rockets, JETS are more efficient than rockets. PLANES are less efficient than VTVL jets, because they have all that wing/gear mass and drag.

In your action group instructions, which function are you toggling? ToggleLight, pretty obviously, but there's bound to be someone who clicks Toggle Steering and wonders why it doesn't work ^^.

Are you sure you want to categorise them like that? My 'normal' SSTO is designed to carry a complete crew to/from the Kerbin spacestation. Another one I'd think of as 'normal' carries fuel, the difference between that and what I'd call a 'payload' SSTO is that the latter is intended to separate from its payload once in orbit. 'Landing' SSTOs, on the other hand, are only incidentally SSTOs at all because they happen to get into orbit before doing everything else they're meant to. If they go beyond Kerbin (or other launch planet) orbit they are much more than SSTOs. What about Rocket SSTOs? VTVL jet SSTOs? You seem to be mistakenly using the abbreviation "SSTO" to mean "Spaceplane", consider changing it. 10 intakes per engine? I'm a fan of spam myself but apparently 8 per engine is the maximum that are any use (then again, I usually 'only' get to ~2.2km/s in atmosphere so maybe I'm just not spamming enough ^^). [PS: English grammar note as you're German - apostrophes are tricky! The plural of "SSTO" is "SSTOs". "SSTO's" is possessive singular meaning "belonging to a SSTO" (eg; " A SSTO's engines..."). PPS: Wanderfound and I are working on a full-length tutorial for SSTOs of all sorts.]

1) Asparagus has always divided the KSP community because it is not practical in real-life. In KSP, however, it is the mass-optimal way to stage. If you aren't optimising for mass then don't use it. 2) SRBs are heavy and have almost no recoverable value when empty. They are of only of limited use as a first launch stage, liquid fuel (inc. nuclear) and ion engines beat them in all other cases. 3) Using a stock vehicle as an example of anything except how not to do things isn't a good idea - they are all designed to be "slightly wrong". 4) If you care about money you should work on, in order of difficulty and cost-effectiveness; i) reusable SSTO rockets, ii) VTVL jets, iii) spaceplanes. Jets are immensely more cost-effective than rockets in all cases. spaceplanes make it easier to land where you want (increasing recoverable value) than is generally possible with VTVL designs.

When you necro a thread that is more than a year out of date it's useful to know which version of KSP you are using. In 0.25 when you walk up to the flagpole outside the astronaut centre (the only one I've tried) the, yes, the prompt to press 'F' appears and lets you climb the pole.

Ooooh, right. Yes, in 'G' I found 3 x 400-units about right as well, the 2 x 700 are in 'F' for structural reasons with the two ions. I tried the separate 'drive module' when using a single ion but instead put the engine on the nose of the command-pod so it launched 'forwards' with the jet and flew 'backwards' with the ion. Not as difficult as it sounds because I put the lander upside-down under the pod so I could swap the crew and choose which way the navball faced for MJ flights. Since we have essentially the same designs it's no surprise that I can't significantly improve on what you have. It's possible to tweak below 4t but without using ions all the way even that's marginal. If anyone can reliably land and re-orbit just using the ion engines I think ~3.5t is the absolute limit - until someone has a new design idea.

Way to go :-) Only 16 posts? We need you here more :-) Looking very closely at that album now, especially how you managed all that with so little electricity. ETA: @RussaX = give Bill max aesthetics points; not only is that a very clean design but he's even increased the mass with cosmetic parts such as the adapter on the jet stage. Nice touches.

DUPLICATE: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99621-Rover-reversed-controls-on-the-Mun-%280-25-Linux%29 Dude, it's all about looking where you're going instead of starting at the clouds.

In other news ... Man wanders into trap, wonders why he can't get out of trap ... Eve's a TRAP! Not teasing you Bob, Eve's just like that. So big, inviting and easy to get to. Getting off the surface is a whole different game though. Just so you feel a bit better - I've never done it.

Challenge submission guide Be aware that the 'video evidence' requirement precludes a lot of people and will result in very high-bandwidth submissions. ETA: listening to a review of Interstellar yesterday - it got completely panned by the whole panel for, well, everything. "Possibly of interest to xenophobic TV-addicts in Kansas" was the nice comment.

I think the moderators are trying to keep all the discussion of the new buildings in http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99493-Anyone-up-for-barn-raising

Control orientation seconded here. For rovers 'forward' should be towards the horizon so if the navball isn't pointing that way your control-pod or -probe needs to be turned around. Claw did all the rest anyway.

Docked they look just like the Mun orbit injection pic, without the Oscar B tanks, legs, decouplers and fuel-lines. That black thing is 8 RAM intakes (from post 24, "Launching with Mk1 Fuselage, turbojet and 8x octagonal struts and ram-intakes (who doesn't love the smell of spam in the morning?) brings the total VAB mass down ...", except this only has an FL-T100 tank), RCS comes from the Mk1 lander can (see tweaks below). LightMun F on dropbox - I'd say 'have fun' but the many orbits gradually increasing Kerbin orbit before you can make a burn for Mun take ages. Put aside a couple of hours for flying this! As said before, once you're on your way to Mun it's all ok. I also put LightMun E (the 5.73t one) on there for those that want a light flight without the misery. LightMun F tweaks as supplied, top to bottom, there is still some room for improvement: monopropellant removed from Mk1 command pod, battery disabled (held in reserve so there's SAS-power after the ions have feasted - don't forget this is turned off at launch!). Monopropellant in Mk1 lander can reduced to 3.06 since it's only for one light docking, could be reduce more but this seemed a 'safe' amount. Fl-T100 (jet tank), oxidiser removed! Flying tips = engage SAS on the pad, throttle to full, stage to 4 (the jet). Launch TWR is >2.5 so you hit terminal velocity and can rotate to 50-degrees pitch around 600m. Reduce to 30 degrees at 10km, 5 degrees at 20km, 0 at 25km (IIRC, YMMV). Run the jet all the way to space, should get a >100km Ap but Pe stays low. Stage to 3 (the ions), action group 8 to extend solar panels (it's an old standard). Circularise at Ap and start spending many orbits gradually raising the orbit, the batteries/solar panels recharge fairly quickly but can only manage 200-300m/s per burn and take something like 5 minutes to do that ^^. Should be able to make a Mun burn from somewhere over 800km as long as you're in sunlight. You have plenty of xenon (one of the areas that can still be tweaked) so better to do several small, bad burns than even attempt a long one which is bound to be inaccurate anyway - good luck however you approach it, it's tedious. Mun injection is ok because it's only ~200m/s. If you're aiming for the memorial use the ions to make the plane-change as the lander doesn't have much excess fuel. Transfer crew from pod to lander, decouple docking ports. Stage to 2 (the lander 48-7S) or right-click activate it. The lander has liquid fuel so landing, re-orbit, rendezvous and docking are all conventional. Stage to 1 (jettison legs/oscar-bs) on/before liftoff from Mun. Transfer crew back to pod after docking, discard lander, Mun escape burn is <300m/s and can be done in one burn with just the pod and its engines. Fall down the gravity well and (stage to 0) deploy parachute to dust/splash-down. LightMun E is similar, but a lot more fun - you can tell I really didn't enjoy the ions. @5thHorseman and Bill - hmmm, I've never really done much with xenon and after this I won't be using them for any landers more exciting than Gilly! I deleted mine to keep things tidy but best to transfer one to Mun with a liquid-fuel tractor or just hyperedit for testing. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ETA: If anyone wants to try my ion lander I've put that on dropbox too, as LightMun G within Challenge.zip. This is a new, improved version of the whole thing, coming in just under 4t - if only it worked ^^. Unzip to saves, I've included quicksaves (alt-F9 to load) for i) "space", first stage taken to space, but not circularised in orbit, ii) "low orbit", circularisation, iii) "Munbound", after doing the transfer burns (which went very well this time, only took 2 orbits/burns) and iv) "Mun orbit", established in orbit around Mun. Once the Mk1 command pod is undocked and parked in orbit MJ tells me the lander itself has a Mun TWR of 1.72. It has plenty of fuel and 'sufficient' electricity - don't try a night-side landing! - but I'm damned if I can land the thing.

Easy one first - right-click the seat and select 'board' ;-) Be warned the navball orientation from the seat might not be the same as you were used to. Be prepared to 'control from here' on another part so the navball is pointing at the horizon if you have to. Ladders really are like that. You can try segments angled about 30-degrees or less from each other and then Kerbals will follow them 'around'. Once on top you can then 'space to let go' but it's still pretty unsatisfactory. Important thing is, just get close enough to get that 'board' option on the seat.

No takers for the KVV pictures then; saves a load of work. Anyone wondering just how optimised Fat Sally is may care to look at LightMun F in the Mun Challenge thread. That's my mass-optimised Apollo-style vehicle (separate 'command' and 'lander' modules) and is 4.673t including the launch vehicle - 312kg lighter than 4.985t Fat Sally on its own! (It also manages 78kg lighter than 4.751t Long Tom) You will appreciate why I said in the introduction "Optimised designs tend to be hard for beginners to build".