LordFjord

Wow, this looks amazing. Might be just what I need to get started with KSP again even before 1.1 hits us. Question on procedural stuff: do I get it right that the craters will be recreated for each save and persisted?

I had to reset my password before I could log in. Was that just me or did I miss something?

Thanks a lot Alshain (and NathanKell), that clarifies it. Soooo, I just might want to stick a "put on enough intakes to not have asymetric flame-outs" on the top and the mod becomes obsolete.

Sorry, missed your post when I updated mine. I made a test vessel for engine asymetric flameout and I might think that the mod is indeed obsolete for KSP 1.0.5. I mean, looking back at previous KSP versions, this setup would have been a candidate for a garanteed spin of death.

Cheers shepheb for the fix, I have merged it and the mod seems to run (more or less) again. Oh, and welcome to the forum :) [b]Now to the bad news[/b] However, I have taken a look at the new engine configs and I fear that the mod becomes useless unless I (or someone else) does a major overhaul of the intake to engine distribution algorythm. The reason is, that before, each airbreather engine used the same amount of intake air as a resource. Now, they have different values. The mod (so far) only took intake area of the intakes into account. Example (RAPIER in jet mode) [code] PROPELLANT { name = IntakeAir ignoreForIsp = True ratio = 6 } [/code] The Panther is also a special case, the ratio goes up from 12 to 40 when you go afterburner. => the mod might work as long as you use only the same engine type, but I wouldn't rely on the mod with mixed engine setups. edit: I have built a basic SSTO (my 1st in 1.0.5 ;) ) that should have entered the spin of death on flameout. Here's a pic of it with the intakes and engine info displayed. As you can see, all intakes feed the rightmost engine. What happened, was that both turbojets flamed out at the SAME time, while the RAPIERS were still going in jet mode. They flamed out independantly of the turbojets a bit later, where I switched mode and got into orbit comfortably. [img]http://i.imgur.com/57G0Egq.jpg[/img] Sooooo, the question now is, is the mod obsolete or not? Engines and their flameout behaviour is more complex as it was before and I did not run into the asymetric flameout issue. Can anyone, who can reproduce it, post it with a craft or some pics & info?

Thanks for the heads up guys, I will take a look at 1.0.5 and fire up a test rig to see how flameouts happen on various LF engines. There might be other changes that could affect the mod, for example air consumption of engines, it was the same for all LF engines in 1.0.4 if I remember correctly. If that is changed, then the mod is basically useless for mixed-engine vessels. Soo, give me a bit time to check things out and see if I can fix it. Until then, best build old school style without the mod.

Oooohh, nice shiny new stuff. That intake screams for a F-16 replica. And amazing what a new node attachment point on an engine can do

"Won't flip MK I", "Certainly won't flip MK II", ... (general rover names, not related to RoverDude's awesome creations )

You are probably looking for gchristopher's Sporklift/Hot Dog Bun Reusable System. I wonder if amazing stuff like in that old challenge is still possible to make - or how some would work in today's stock KSP. Got to love looking back at old insane engineering wonders. Seriously, check out that thread. It is full of genious minds (excluding mine).

My "strip Minmus from as much Science as possible" mission did a safe return to Kerbin with a very kerbal landing. The nukes were still blasting away but the whole scene remained stable. Something like 3-4k science in that lab + ~3k processed and transmitted. Take this, tech-tree!

Interesting, I didn't know that they spawn all in the same plane. This should make it a no brainer to set up a harvester somewhere in the belt.

After a longer time of only lurking the forums and do a few posts here and there, I have picked up the game again and started a new 1.0.4 career save. So ... much ... fun A few orbit flights, placing a few sats for contract and cash, a Minmus and Mun mission, ferrying some tourists around. I am in love with the game again. Next on schedule is a classic Duna/Ike mission - with the science and cash from that I should be able to unlock all the SSTO spaceplane parts that I need for more science and engineering challenges and experiments. Fjord

An SSTO spaceplane that is capable of hauling 16 tons to Minmus is no easy task. If you do not have much experiance with spaceplanes, I would suggest to start smaller. Getting one to Minmus is hard enough already without any cargo. I would guess that a spaceplane capable of doing that will be rather big - and big ones are hard to design. In the end, you probably have the same goal as many: to create a stylish plane that can go anywhere with mining/refueling, am I right? A quick search gave me this: It doesn't go to Minmus but I guess if you replace the passengers and half the cargo with fuel, it could.

The rapiers have a certain minimum speed that they need to "kick in". Aim for something beyond the sound barrier, lets say 380-400 m/s, from there the rapiers should carry it. You usually still need some turbojets to be able to get there, so try maybe a 50%-50% turbojet/rapier setup.

Without breaking your design (which is fine and totally be able to go to space), you can do this: I don't think that you need that many struts to the wings for example - the struts do have a weight (even if its just a little) and they do create drag. Same with the fuel lines. Airbreather engines draw fuel evenly from all liquid fuel tanks, so you only need to take fuel flow into account for LFO engines and nukes. Are the wings filled with LF? You might want to switch the swivels to rapiers (unless you insist on them as a design feature/challenge). If you do a testflight and barely get to orbit, observe your LF and Oxy fuel levels, then adjust it that you don't bring too much excess of one or another. I prefer to have a bit excess LF to be able to fly back to KSC if I fail to hit it on reentry. How fast/high is it going when you switch to rockets?

As others already mentioned, it's most likely your ascend path. Pitching up to 40-45 might get you up there quickly, but your speed probably will be lower -> more rocket fuel needed to get into orbit. Try a lower pitch, lets say 10-20. You will need to watch the temperature though. You have a quite many engines and the high TWR might be too much so you end up in a fireball. There is a fine balance between your speed, temperature and pitch, ideally you can get to beyond 1200 m/s and not burn up while leaving the atmosphere, from there its merely another ~1200 dV to orbit. You also might want to try to replace a few turbojets with rapiers, those perform better at high altitude and higher speeds. Good luck!

I've re-released the 1.0.2 version on KerbalStuff for 1.0.4, that also should update CKAN, thanks MacerV for the hint (and sry for the delay).

Sorry for the late answer (moving house and offline for a bit) - yes, it works with 1.0.4.

Well, what should I say? Your latest posts all have been filled with exactly what the OP described. I am sorry that you faced some bugs and your save got corrupted in the update process. However, you forget to see that the game indeed does work very well for many many others. If the game doesn't meet your expectation, try a steam refund or shelve it. There's NO need to keep on rumbling about it. You made your point, no need to repeat it in many different places. Won't help you, won't help Squad and certainly not the community. And to your perfect image of game development... welcome to 2015. Times are indeed changing. Wheather you like it or not, that's how it's mostly done these days. I prefer further development and constant updates instead of having to wait a lot of time for a lifesign from the devs. You know the saying "time money quality pick two"? Take a deep breath and maybe a step back, start a new save, try to achieve things in a different way. You might even enjoy the game again.

Let Squad do their thing. I don't think that we are in the position to give them development lessons as we only see a fraction of the whole picture. Things are sometimes not as easy as it seems from the outside. Squad has given us one of the most wonderful games of all times. I for myself trust them to fix the issues and take the game into the (very subjective) "right" direction. At least I think they do, they did not disappoint me yet. I can't think of an update (since 0.22 when I started playing) where I would say that it was a step back. So how about this: The helpful and polite attitude of the community was always the number one reason for me to join this place. Maybe we should just be more optimistic, spread some more love around, help the folks in the questions forums, teach them the quirks of the game and the science of spaceflight.

That sounds like an issue with shifting center of mass - center of lift relation. Try RCS Build Aid. It can show you your vessels center of mass and center of lift markers when out of fuel (and lots of other useful features to balance RCS and whatnot). Or, if you don't want to use mods, show us a pic with the CoM, CoL markers enabled, maybe once with(without the payload). The issue is most certainly that the craft is not balanced when you you eject the payload - and as you burn fuel it can get unbalanced as well. In order to balance your vessels, try this: - balance the payload on its own, make sure the CoM is a bit ahead of the CoL and that it stays there, even when fuel is low. - balance the carrier ship on its own - try to find an attachment point where both combined are balanced It's not easy what you are attempting there To the cartwheel issue: try to move the tail fins as far back as possible. When they are too close to your CoM, they are not helpful at all. At what speed/altitude does this happen? Is it maybe an assymetric flame-out issue?

It might not be as bad as in 0.90 because you don't spend such long time within the atmosphere and the transition to space is quicker, but the issue is basically still there. see here (was done in 1.0.2, but I don't think it has changed) @scavenger: grats to get it into orbit and the nice graphs, that might help others

Let's try to describe it without any space-specific terms. - on the right side of your navball, there is a green curved line with a red "X" button on the top. This belongs to your previous waypoint that you already have passed. You will not need it anymore, so click the red "X". - now look at the map, at the bottom of the blue line - that icon - is your ship. There is a marker roughly at halfway of the blue line - thats your closest point to the Mun. The blue circle is where you will exit the Mun's area. Ok, you want to get to Mun's orbit and if you don't do anything then you will do a flyby - which is not bad but you want to land there, do you? In order to get to a Mun orbit - a closed and strable "circle" around the Mun - you will need to "break", best place to do this is at the closest point to the Mun. - you can accelerate time in the upper left corner, try to forward a bit until you are close to the marker with "pe" on it. Or click the blue line and select "warp here". - Now, point your ship backwards to your flight path. In the navball (lower middle), the circle that has the small green "X" in it has to be in the middle - then you are flying backwards (the empty circle is pointing forward) - Now acceperate slowly and watch the blue orbit line changing. It will bend towards the Mun and finally form a circle. - stop your engines or you will further lower your flightpath and eventually crashland on Mun Dont give up and let us know if you need more help. Fjord

SSTO with wheesleys will be hard. They are simply not meant to fly fast and at high altitudes. What you probably witnessed is this: - more intakes generate more drag - the wheesley engines flame out relatively early, you probably flew with a steep ascent profile so you most likely crossed the boundary of "engine works with very low air" and "engine has no air at all" very fast -> the number of intakes does not play a big role in this case - due to the previous points, your design with the least intakes was the most successful as it had the least drag It is surely possible to build a low-tech SSTO based on the Wheesley engine, but its relatively hard. I would suggest to at least get to Whiplashs before considering an SSTO - or build one that works only on rocket engines. More info on intakes: - intake air resource flow - this is old but works still the very same way - check the link in my sig might help preventing asymmetric flame-outs Let us know if you need more help, a pic of your design will get you a lot of usually constructive feedback. Fly safe, Fjord

Hell yes, (and hello fellow hungarian) I built something like that with my dad. We span a ~50m line in the garden, built a small container for the cartridge and used some wheels from some old metal toyset to hang in on the line. Then dad used a hammer and a nail to "start" the engine - the open end of those cartridges is only very weak metal and can be easily opened this way, then the CO2 under high pressure gives some nice thrust. The container could go up all the way to the end of the garden, which made this a great success. Later, in my teen years we used small pipes/tubes and BBQ igniters to "fire up" these cartridges in an abandoned sand-mine. Place a target somewhat halfway up the sandstone cliff and try to hit it with CO2 cartridges. The BBQ igniter starting method was not as advanced as the hammer+mail one, some of the cartridges burst open on the side, sometimes also crashing the tubes. Fjord