I feel so dirty... I just used alt+f12 for the first time.

[Renegrade]

One other gotcha with satellite contracts: "Power" means a power source, ie solar panels or RTGs. A stack of batteries doesn't count. But the game starts giving you satellites when you unlock any power source in the tech tree, and that includes the launch clamps!

Oh, is that the case? I just thought there was something in the stock version of FinePrint that loosened up the requirements or somesuch... That would make sense though...

I did too, though I think I have a good excuse. I've been experiencing some sort of glitch that has been messing up my orbits. I'll inject a spacecraft into an interplanetary trajectory and set up a nice encounter with the target planet. I'll then leave the spacecraft in cruise phase while I go a do something else. I'll then come back to it and the orbit has changed.

Did it cross an SOI during that? If you warp hard through an SOI, your course can end up rather randomized. That's why Kerbal Alarm Clock features various SOI detection/warp point features.

My trajectories tend to change themselves slowly all the time when the physics are active. Circular orbits are fine, eccentric orbits are fine, but add an SOI change anywhere and the trajectory starts bending (usually when coming from interplanetary space towards a planet/moon). Only way to stop it is to be in time warp.

Yeah; the internal forces on a craft aren't perfectly balanced as they would be in real life.. some of the force/counter-force pairs are slightly unequal, resulting in net acceleration. You can see this dramatically with kraken drives...

but you did not cheat, I mean it was almost a glitch.

If the course was 180 from what he was assigned, he most certainly did cheat. The contract said, "go right!" and he went left. That being said, all he has to do to remedy it is follow T.A.P.O.R.'s advice below.

The only way I can see to make this right, is to launch a satellite in the correct direction and wiping out the one that "completed" the contract under false conditions.

That's fair. Although there's no need for the original satellite to be deleted if he's using it for something else.

[Technical Ben]

I remember the first time i used it.

It was after I told myself -

"Either I'm going to have to redo this entire operation or i can just cheat this 50 or so m/s d/v."

it was for a all in one satelite around kerbin, i kept messing around with the inclination and apoapsis height. I was using ION thrusters and xenon.

I've loosened up a bit, I will use the cheat menu from time to time, to save time when i've been a foolish fool on a mission.

Similar for me. I generally have only used if for bugs (Eve lander/ascent that decided Kerbals cannot climb ladders that worked fine on Kerbin, and random craft bugs). But have used it recently for the first time even in my save for a return that was a couple of DV short, as I had put the landing legs on the wrong part of the pod, and ended up loosing the drop tanks early. I counted it as "not-cheating", I just pretended the legs were in the right place, and I dropped the tank at the right time... as the game is already pretend!

[T.A.P.O.R.]

Oh, is that the case? I just thought there was something in the stock version of FinePrint that loosened up the requirements or somesuch... That would make sense though...

Did it cross an SOI during that? If you warp hard through an SOI, your course can end up rather randomized. That's why Kerbal Alarm Clock features various SOI detection/warp point features.

Yeah; the internal forces on a craft aren't perfectly balanced as they would be in real life.. some of the force/counter-force pairs are slightly unequal, resulting in net acceleration. You can see this dramatically with kraken drives...

If the course was 180 from what he was assigned, he most certainly did cheat. The contract said, "go right!" and he went left. That being said, all he has to do to remedy it is follow T.A.P.O.R.'s advice below.

That's fair. Although there's no need for the original satellite to be deleted if he's using it for something else.

Oh I'm not going to delete it.

I intend to smash it with a sattelite made of panels in a pancake formation.

[Admiral-Helwyr]

Now that is a very kerbal thing to do

[T.A.P.O.R.]

This is turning out to be harder than I had anticipated.

Very close orbit, but off by enough to miss by a few km.

The smasher is out of fuel.

So now I see this as turning into a nursery rhyme ala the lady who swallowed a spider to catch a fly.

[mrclucks]

As a sandbox player I think the cheat menu is super helpful with testing a new rocket, or anything that you can easily do, but takes a butt load of time or finesse (ie; I used infinite fuel and RCS to bring a satellite around kerbin that has less than 1 twr, is quite heavy, would have more than plenty of dV to get up there, instead of having a game time launch of 20 minutes or taking my precious time to build a huge rocket with enough twr and dv to leave the atmosphere but is so part heavy that it would take half am hour real time to launch)

Careerers shouldn't use cheats IMO AMD science mode is in the middle ground of maybe

[Snarfster]

I use F12 a lot whilst testing stuff. Reload database is a godsend when you're debugging a part add on.

[Dire_Squid]

I... can't use my F12 (it's responsible for my WiFi connection... aka it turns it on and off).

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

Dont feel dirty, you just have seen the light

[T.A.P.O.R.]

Still no success at counter orbit destruction, it'll wait.

When I'm rolling in kerbucks I'll make another attempt at kinetic disassembly.

Edited March 28, 2015 by T.A.P.O.R.

[StrandedonEarth]

I... can't use my F12 (it's responsible for my WiFi connection... aka it turns it on and off).

But if you use ALT-F12 it shouldn't toggle your wifi; ALT makes it a different function. Besides, it's not like you need wifi to play KSP. My laptop also uses F12 for wifi and I haven't had that problem. My keyboard has a fn key; when I hold that and push a pre-assigned function key, it doesn't do the pre-assigned function. Like if I don't hold fn when I take a screenshot, the windows help window pops up instead.