Simulating another Planet/Moon

[THobson]

I am building a rocket and I would like to test how it would behave on another planet or moon. Is there a way I can do this without having to fly it there? Is there somewhere in the quicksave file that I can change what body it is on?

Also could someone please remind me how to hack gravity?

Many thanks

Edited November 4, 2015 by THobson

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

a mod called hyperedit, teleport to or land anywhere.

[el_coyoto]

Yup, Hyperedit for a quick simulation and Kerbal Engineer Redux during the design phase : it has a window that lets you check the performance of your rocket (TWR mostly) on any planet or moon.

[KerikBalm]

Is there somewhere in the quicksave file that I can change what body it is on?

Yes, in the save file, each craft has information specifying its location, and in that information is a reference number, which corresponds to a celestial body.

Here:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Orbit#Reference_code

is a list of what number corresponds to what body.

For example:

VESSEL

{

pid = ba7492a929ef42299dffc0e243ae6454

name = Ast. HSJ-227

type = SpaceObject

sit = ORBITING

landed = False

landedAt =

splashed = False

met = 0.02

lct = 0.02

root = 0

lat = -2.8344803789345

lon = 181.081316647413

alt = 14594729406.395

hgt = -1

nrm = 0,1,0

rot = -0.2984337,0.402898,-0.8173988,0.283672

CoM = 0,0,0

stg = 0

prst = False

ref = 0

ctrl = False

ORBIT

{

SMA = 15240609649.3306

ECC = 0.10916060241322

INC = 2.8722365514098

LPE = 2.11728744156682

LAN = 261.773338746346

MNA = 6.22770567918413

EPH = 2043585.75608398

REF = 0

}

This asteroid is in orbit around the sun, because it has 0 as its orbit reference code.

If you want to place it in orbit around kerbin, you'd change that code to a 1... but you'd also have to change the SMA to something much smaller.

For something in a ~200 km orbit around Kerbin, you could just change the reference code and have no problems for pretty much any body except the sun, Jool... and gilly.

I'm a bit rusty on what you need to watch out for if its a landed craft... but moving your vessel to orbit around the target is already quite a time saver.

or you could just get hyperedit

[THobson]

All very helpful thank you.

[cantab]

You can also estimate performance based on knowing the relative gravity and atmosphere density between Kerbin and your planet of interest. For example you can fairly easily work out speed under chute descent on Duna if you know it on Kerbin. It's also not uncommon to test a lander on the Mun or Minmus before going somewhere further away. Of course that approach has limits, it's never a perfect simulation.