pincushionman

If you purchased the game from the KSP website, there was a window within which you could have transferred it to Steam, but that window has long closed. By “DLC” do you mean the main game you purchased at the time, or that you recently also purchased the “Making History” expansion? By the way, you’re missing absolutely nothing not having it on Steam. Just a different launcher, if you use a launcher at all.

Could you please explain what you mean by this, with pictures maybe? Fairings are usually built up from below.

I would sacrifice at least some of the lab science and remove those alarms. Fast forward to the fun stuff.

It’s important to point out that while SAS may be like an autopilot, it is not one, and attempting to use it as one for planes is a kluge at best. If you’re on PC, there are mods available that have much better autopilot-like functions.

Is the tri-coupler still oddly non-symmetrical, or did that get fixed in the update?

This depends entirely on how dedicated your children are to the task. And how much good snow you get.

With the Steam sale on, I'm on the lookout for games I can play multiplayer with my two young sons. I mean real multiplayer, with everybody on the same screen instead of on their own 'puters. Like the good ol' days. In particular I'm wanting co-op gameplay for more than two at once. We have several of the Lego games already (which are fantastic), but only two of us can play at once. Any suggestions?

Also, since the scale of RL is 10x that of KSP, dV costs are accordingly higher. As a result, mass fractions for real craft are way, way worse. Compare the relative sizes of the Apollo/LM to the Saturn V, and a typical Mun lander to its corresponding launch vehicle; the extra constraints should be relatively apparent. Compounding this is that while the spaceflight part of KSP is relatively accurate, the actual craft engineering is handwavey voodoo. Reaction wheels are overpowered, don’t saturate, and never fail, so we don’t need RCS most of the time or backups ever; solar panels always steer perfectly without wearing out; Kerbals don’t need food, water, air, or sufficient living space; that kind of thing. Getting materiel to other locations in the solar system is the easy part; getting it there and making sure it still works when it does is what’s difficult, expensive, and heavy.

The terrain is controlled by a heightmap, not a mesh. The quality of the bitmap literally is the granularity of the terrain. So there will always be the risk of this kind of thing happening between LOD bitmaps, especially when features are close together, and depending on how the different LOD are created. I’m kind of surprised it took us this long to notice, though. This probably happens all over the place, but we wouldn’t really notice most places since there are few static features to help us determine that yes, we’re looking at the same place. But the airfield sure is one!

Know what? You’re right. I didn’t think that all the way through before I wrote it. You do want hold direction. What I meant when I wrote it was “no SAS is better than SAS wigging out and flipping you around” but I guess once it starts to turn you then you’re already hosed.

Kind of. It’s “T”. When you’re both very close to the ground and close to zero speed, you really need to disengage all SAS and finish the job flying relative to surface features. SAS is a simple tool, and is not an autopilot.

Like I have to keep telling my children, games sre supposed to be entertainment, so there’s no shame in not playing when you’re not having fun. I myself took a >year hiatus from KSP and played a lot of Elite. It was good for me.

Version 0.2 is now available at the download link. Parabolic and hyperbolic trajectories are now implemented, and a number of important subroutines and functions have been updated to support arbitrary orbit depth. See the changelog or the readme for more details. Patched-conic propagation is not yet implemented. In other news, if anyone knows which version the switch from g = 9.81 to g = 9.80665 m/s^2 was made, please let me know.

“Potatoroid” is the base part from which asteroid objects are procedurally created. They’re never intended to be accessible in the editor, but they are in fact parts - implemented as such so you can Klaw them and drag them around. That said, in the past they’ve ben findable with the part search functions or other advanced editor techniques. But any time they are, it’s really a bug.

Many CAD programs are available for free or at a reduced price for students. Since I have not been a student myself for some fifteen years, I haven’t been looking for such deals or how to prove you are a student. Other than Autodesk Fusion 360, which is free for hobbyists, startups, and students (I only know because I just downloaded it myself to tool around with). But consider what you’re trying to accomplish too - a CAD program may be the wrong tool for making concept art and models. You’re certainly not going to be getting into the technical detail level where those kinds of programs really show their strengths. A simpler CAD system like SketchUp might be more appropriate, or even eschewing CAD altogether in favor of 3D modeling programs like 3DS Max (also Autodesk, also free for students) or Blender (FOSS). Hell, Wings3D might be a good place to start, given that you’re going to be modelling essentially a static object. It’s pretty approachable.

The orbits of the bodies haven’t changed in forever, so the only values that could change are atmosphere-related segments. Has drag changed since 1.1?

If there were any lingering doubts about whether I am a nerd (if so, what kind of posts from me were you reading?!), this should dispel them. My family spent part of the Thanksgiving weekend in Dallas, and went to Ripleys! there one morning, and they had a station where you could make wax hands. So I made this. One of the staff there got excited about it, and asked if I were a math teacher. I'm not, but I am an engineer. So close enough for these purposes. Anything you guys have done lately to prove your geekiness?

The first thing you should ask yourself is: "What would be most useful at work?" If you're working, that is. And if it's not, it's still a good question to ask. For me, while being more fluent in C or FORTRAN would be super swell, most of the real coding I do revolves around automating Excel tasks - the real tools we use are made by someone else. So VBA it is.

I was going to add a Kopernicus-file reader into KOMET once I get the patched-conics thing working (so not until next year sometime), but an editor/writer wouldn't be too much of a stretch once I get that far. I've already got it plotting an arbitrary number of bodies as long as you have the spreadsheet columns filled out correctly. featurecreepfeaturecreepfeaturecreep

It looks like you have…lots of booster for that payload. Are you firing all the strap-on boosters and those three big cores at liftoff? If you are, you may well be hitting max-Q somewhere below 10 km or so, which is bad news. If your pad TWR is more than about 1.5, you may need to dial it back some. Also, you said you put decouplers on for drag? Are those the devices on top of the side cores (I can’t see very well in the picture)? If they are, they may still be ahead of the center of mass, given how bottom-heavy that vessel is. The best drag-producing devices are always fins, and always waaaay at the back. One other thing I notice is your top stage looks like four short tanks in a row. More joints = more flexibility, which will tend to exacerbate any bending going on in that portion of the stack, especially since your control point is at the tip of that spring, with the lower stages being much stiffer. You may want to replace that with a single long tank, or autostrut through it.

Well, the most straightforward way to leave a structure on Mun is to integrate the structure into a landing stage, with an ascent stage perched on top. When you leave, all that stuff stays behind. But it won’t be ring-shaped. It could be ring-shaped with a plug in the middle. If the ring is a firm design requirement, things are about to get complicated. First, you need to understand that the “tree” structure of vessels makes rings notoriously difficult to build. You can build parts into a circle, but the ends that come together won’t be connected even if they look like they are. You have two options to close the shape: struts and docking ports. Struts will simply connect, but docking ports at each end will still be unattached until physics loads. Search on this forum for more details on building rings.

@ElWanderer is right, the tricky step is the mean anomaly -> eccentric anomaly conversion; everything else is plug-and-chug. But if you have the current Excel, I’ve got your back. Just follow these three easy steps: 1. Use the spreadsheet 2. … 3. Profit! …Actually, that’s a lie. There’s more than three steps. But you’re a smart dude (I mean, you play KSP, right?) Just read the instructions first so you know how to set the time. You’ll find the anomaly values and radial positions for all the bodies on the “Body Info” tab on row 24.

Is there structural deformation? Yes there is. The physics engine KSP is using simulates structures as a number of rigid bodies connected together, but the joints between them are allowed to be flexible. The vehicle you’re showing here is very long, but the parts making it up are individually quite short. Therefore, there are a lot of segments, and by extension, many joints, which makes the whole structure quite flexible. This has an effect on early-tech-tree gameplay - all you have at your disposal are short parts, so you’re forced into building small rockets until you can buy the ability to build something not so wobbly and noodle-y. EDIT: Welcome to the forums!

Somethimes the game forgets to make the whole spent stage go all ‘spodey when it should. I’ve found mostly-intact Mun ascent stages on the ground after I’ve ditched them and left their physics bubble before they hit.

Update 2019/09/25: Version 0.4 is available! Download it here! Changelog: WELCOME TO KOMET! Or, Yet Another Third-Party Orbit Simulation! They seem to be pretty popular. KOMET is a simulation of the Kerbal solar system implemented in Microsoft Excel 2016. I wrote it to help me plan my missions better. Specifically, I wanted three things: Orthographic views. Since KSP is a game, it makes sense that there is a perspective view in map mode. But I find perspective makes it more difficult to see what's going on in the big picture. KOMET displays orbits in three orthographic views instead, like an engineering drawing. Views of SOI. I still get surprised when I make an encounter with...well, pretty near anything. KOMET draws the spheres of influence around all bodies so you have some idea how precise you need to be with your orbits. Time control. The maneuver node system is very useful, but it has some limitations for several orbit segments ahead; and of course you can't see your past track at all. KOMET allows you to view the state of the system at any arbitrary time. Here's a comparison of KOMET and the in-game map: In addition to showing you the state of the solar system, KOMET allows you to enter a user-defined orbit and follow the position of that object through time. As of version 0.4, both escapes to a higher SOI and captures by another body within the same SOI are simulated. Please see the Readme tab for more details on current limitations. KOMET is implemented in Microsoft Excel 2016, and is not guaranteed to work in earlier versions of Excel. This spreadsheet also relies heavily on macros and user-defined functions. You will need to enable these in order to interact with the tool. For those of you who are wary of macros in files you get from a stranger (and good on you for that!), Excel will disable macros unless you press the "Enable Macros" button when you open it, or place it in a Trusted Location. I encourage you to open the macro editor (Alt+F11) to inspect the code. The code is found in three places: Forms: Right-click on any form and select "View Code" to see what makes that form tick. Modules: Double-click any module. This is where more general-purpose code goes. ThisWorkbook: Double-click this object. A short code snippet is here which controls what happens when you select different tabs. Download KOMET here. KOMET is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License. Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to leave feedback! - Dan B. (pincushionman)