Helpful 1.0 observations

[rollatorwieltje]

Not sure what's going on, but I think my Kerbals ate too many tacos. Every time I do EVA they let one rip, sometimes they even fly off. Clean 1.0.2 on Windows.

[icantmakemodels]

Fins are a must for spindle rockets, especially in early career.

(You start out with basic fins now, yay!)

start your career game like so:

launch a mk1 command pod (on its own)

do a crew report

do a eva report from the ladder.

store experiments (right click on the pod while near it)

eva report standing on the pad

store experiments

run over to any other ksc mini biome (the conveyor way is nearest) and do a eva report

get back in the pod.

recover vessel.

get basic rocketry and engineering 101. (you should have 11.9 science)

good luck.

--

edit:

setting min pressure on chutes to .3 is just right to be able to activate them above the atmo.

Edited May 18, 2015 by icantmakemodels

[sjwt]

Not sure what's going on, but I think my Kerbals ate too many tacos. Every time I do EVA they let one rip, sometimes they even fly off. Clean 1.0.2 on Windows.

They aren't clipping that antenna you have on the pod for no reason are they?

[icantmakemodels]

possibly. does this become a problem in orbit, rollator?

EDIT: try putting the antenna on the other side of the pod (opposite of the hatch)

Edited May 18, 2015 by icantmakemodels

[rollatorwieltje]

It's not the antenna, just the command module is enough:

It's the same in orbit, just no whooshing sound, but the violent camera shake is visible.

[Callmedave]

This is difficult to explain, but il try my best. When you have a pilot and are using the extra nav modes, (points at waypoint, point normal etc) these only work when your relative velocity is over 1.0 m/s. I nearly always dock by having one craft facing normal and one facing anti normal (so they don't change as you orbit) but once my speed is below 1.0 relative to the target I can only choose normal sas. If I was to change my nav all mode to orbit, then the options would come back. I don't think this is a bug and I hope I've explained it well enough.

[radonek]

…but once my speed is below 1.0 relative to the target I can only choose normal sas. If I was to change my nav all mode to orbit, then the options would come back. I don't think this is a bug and I hope I've explained it well enough.

Imagine you are descending to mun, gently reducing speed to soft touchdown… and then a meter above surface you give a bit too much thrust and instead of 2.5m/s fall you get 0.01m/s rise. Can you see it coming?

[Red Iron Crown]

Yeah that's a feature. It does the same thing when pointing at a maneuver node, as the m/s remaining approaches zero it goes to stability assist to prevent the vessel from changing direction drastically.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Honestly, that has saved my bacon way more often than I've gotten annoyed at it. Really though, if you're close enough to your target that you're moving less that 1 m/s relative to it, you can probably eyeball the right direction easily enough.

[Voyager275]

Aerodynamics- Fins are a must now Launch stages are easy to tip over without them. I find with fins you have a larger area to deviate from the prograde marker.

My Jool 3 can launch without wings.

[SirJodelstein]

Fairing shape matters! A well-shaped fairing is much more important than saving some fairing weight for a blunted fairing. Pointy is the way to go, and that is true for the lower (growing) part as well.

Experiment setup: empty fairing, simple SRB throttled to 45% max thrust to get an initial TWR of about 1.7. SAS on, launch.

from left to right:

#1: mass 7.25t, max height 13.455m

#2: mass 7.29t, max height 13.970m

#3: mass 7.75t, max height 16.545m

#4: mass 8.15t, max height 16.295m

from that point on, the additional mass really starts to hurt, but you get the idea.

might be an interesting challenge for the challenge forum: built the best fairing for a given launcher, while requiring to use the max fairing diameter at least for a short section.

[kurja]

An observation: folding solar panels of the un-shielded kind, can no longer be retracted after deployed.

Had a couple of these on a duna lander. Had.

[Starhawk]

Physics

Phyicsless parts are no longer physicsless. They contribute to the mass of the craft, and also to drag.

Happy landings!

[OhioBob]

Fairing shape matters!

Yes, I did some testing on that and got similar results to yours. I tried one example in which the height-to-radius ratio of the conical part was 1:1 (half cone angle of 45^o), and another example in which the ratio was 2:1 (half cone angle of 26.565^o). My rocket's drag coefficient was about 20% less using the higher ratio (i.e. pointier).

[problemecium]

Today this happened:

This looks like an exploit, but beware! As I discovered, while you can store massive quantities of data by processing a bunch of experiments at once, as soon as you begin research the lab cuts it off at 500, meaning all the "extra" data is lost, plus it can no longer be processed so the potential data from those experiments is effectively wasted.

[Wjolcz]

^ This. It is no longer viable to have parachutes all open at 50m, as they will take too long to reach full effect and the ship will smack into the ground before they open all the way.

I actually menaged to pull off something like this a few times. They were set on 500m but I opened them at about 100m. Every single time the capsule survived but it was a hell of a ride. Good thing Valentina was on board. Other crew members would sure get grumpy after a series of such agressive landings.

[Starhawk]

Physics

A useful comparison of nosecone effectiveness can be found here.

Happy landings.

[Blaze1068]

Noticed that it was easier to get into orbit around the Mun. (Or is that just me).

[Wjolcz]

The small solar panels give only about 0.02 electricity on the surface of Eve.

[problemecium]

1.0 seems to have revealed a lot of confusion that was present in the community on what to call various types of spaceship, so here's a helpful diagram (really it applies to everything, but I thought people would be most likely to see it here):

[Mardec]

I have just started my own lets play series of the kerbal space program. If you wants some inspiration go check out my channal at: https://www.youtube.com/MardecGames

[BlueCanary]

Don't know if this has been said before/is obvious, but I'm flying a cargo plane to the North Pole and found this:

-The colder the air, the lower the speed of sound (at least that's what seems to be happening). So if you have a plane flying a constant speed (in m/s, not mach) and altitude going north/south, the planes mach number will actually be going up as the air gets colder further from the equator. By adjusting speed to keep a constant mach you can actually geta quite noticeable fuel saving.

-Control surfaces make more drag the more they are deflected. So if SAS needs a big input to keep your plane steady, it's making more drag. But by pumping fuel forward and back to shift the CoM you can reduce the control surface input needed to stay steady and get a small but noticeable drag reduction and fuel saving.

-Normally physicless/negligibly draggy surface attached mod parts, like the BDArmory autopilots and Flag Decals flags, now create drag, and quite a bit of it, enough to push a craft normally supersonic at sea level down to subsonic.

[Iceblade02]

The atmosphere is much thicker in 1.0.2 making fairings a must and winglets on upper stages necessary!

- - - Updated - - -

The thicker atmosphere from 1.0.2 has made finns necessary on all atmospheric stages (from my observations). Fairings are now a must for non-aerodynamic payloads.