Why you should always read the missions before you accept them

[Spatzimaus]

You guys have a funny definition of "easy." With the SRB/parachute trick I can do at least 2 or 3 (if not 5+) test runs for every 1 run you do. The "waste" of SRB fuel is far more than made up for in the not having to drive a rover around KSC

It's not about the cost of SRB fuel, it's about scalability and potential risk. Sometimes the mission is asking you to test something small while splashed down, in which case a simple SRB-based setup is more than enough. But what happens when it's asking you to test a 20-ton part? Are you SURE you put enough chutes on it to safely hit the water? And is your SRB setup controllable enough to get that payload to the water without tipping over from the weight? With a rover, there's none of that; any part can be mounted on the top of the rover, and there's no question of whether it'll survive entry into the ocean.

Besides, it's not that difficult to drive in a straight line down the runway... as long as you've upgraded it to level 2, so that it's not all bumpy.

[Superfluous J]

It's not about the cost of SRB fuel, it's about scalability and potential risk. Sometimes the mission is asking you to test something small while splashed down, in which case a simple SRB-based setup is more than enough. But what happens when it's asking you to test a 20-ton part? Are you SURE you put enough chutes on it to safely hit the water? And is your SRB setup controllable enough to get that payload to the water without tipping over from the weight? With a rover, there's none of that; any part can be mounted on the top of the rover, and there's no question of whether it'll survive entry into the ocean.

In short, yes. In long, with the COM marker it's trivially easy to set up parachutes to land a huge part sideways.

And yes, I can comfortably say that 40 chutes is enough to land whatever I can possibly test. And with 97+% returns, only one of those chutes gets lost in the ocean.

Besides, it's not that difficult to drive in a straight line down the runway... as long as you've upgraded it to level 2, so that it's not all bumpy.

No, it's not difficult, so it is true you correctly used the word "easy." However, I'd still rather toss one in the sea on an SRB and then get back to what I was really doing.

[psyper]

just look at his signature guys. look. at. it. O.o Anyone that can fly an asteroid in the atmosphere knows a thing or two about moving one!! That being said - pulling an asteroid makes more sense than pushing it even when you have the CoM nailed down. Most of my heavy transporters have the engines radially at the front of the CoM as it makes it less likely to wobble about and you could certainly place a lot of fuel tanks between your craft and asteroid without too much trouble too.

[Sof]

As a tip I learned from Scott Manley; if your asteroid pusher has a manned command pod, you can go into IVA and use the kerbals eye zoom function to get a good look at the nav ball. This allows for much much more accurate results when using the nav ball to point the claw towards the COM.

[lazarus1024]

Minmus outpost? Piece of cake.

THERE! I landed it, and it's all in place. Batteries, solar panels, antenna, a 5 kerbal habitat... and I left the bloody RESEARCH LAB AT HOME.

Meh, could be worse. I build one, landed it and it wouldn't complete. Then I looked closer...said friggen GILLY. DOH! At least I could still revert to launch, tweak things a little on the launcher for a few hundred more m/s dV and get it there (the Minimus launcher for the hab had a few hundred m/s surplus dV). Thank goodness for Gilly's low gravity. I ran out of fuel when I was barely in Gilly's SOI and still had to slow way down and land. I had JUST enough RCS to pull it off. I think I was left with about 20 units of monopropellant as I touched down.

Phew.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm sure I'm not the only one, but yesterday they tried to give me a contract to put a Class E in orbit around Gilly.

Thanks but no thanks.

Wouldn't that risk disrupting Gilly's orbit?

[Windspren]

If you look at Gene's reply on the contract screenshot, it says "we didn't read the details"

[Xacktar]

Impressive work, Rock!

[EladDv]

Wouldn't that risk disrupting Gilly's orbit?

i'd bet gilly would disrupt the asteroids orbit....

[RocketBlam]

I just got a similar mission, similar in difficulty anyway. I didn't misunderstand it, its just... Well, it was a mission to retrieve a Kerbal from solar orbit. "Oh, that's cool, sounds like kind of a challenge, its something different!" So I figure he's somewhere near Kerbin. No, he's out by JOOL. And I got this mission before I had even landed on the Mun I think. Anyway, it gets much worse.

This guy is in a RETROGRADE solar orbit. Orbiting the opposite direction of the planets. What?!?

I still haven't launched the mission... I don't even have access to the kind of parts I am going to need to put a ship with something like 10k d/v into HKO.

- - - Updated - - -

Overheating or breaking is not the issue. It's that anything less than perfect (which KSP makes difficult though some mods help) alignment with the asteroid's COM will cause divergence, either of the craft from prograde, or of the asteroid from centered. This gets progressively worse as the asteroids get bigger, your burn times get longer, and/or your TWR goes up. Also, time warping is right out.

I can push an E-type asteroid around for small things. Securing a Kerbin orbit. Intersecting Mun, maybe, to alter the orbit to more equatorial. Things like that. More than that - in my experience - is painfully impractical.

This is exactly it. I tried pushing it first, but the claw is so wobbly that it was impossible to control. Heck, it was hard to control pulling it.

That's what the infernal robotics parts were for, BTW. I was trying to stabilize the claw by pushing against the asteroid with 4 pistons. Didn't work. The pistons did not touch the asteroid surface, they just went right through. A limitation of the physics engine I guess.

[Temeter]

That's what the infernal robotics parts were for, BTW. I was trying to stabilize the claw by pushing against the asteroid with 4 pistons. Didn't work. The pistons did not touch the asteroid surface, they just went right through. A limitation of the physics engine I guess.

Different parts of a vessel don't collide with each other, that's why those things move through the asteroid (which was part of your ship after docking). Try quantum struts, they are pretty good for keeping things in place.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/93818-0-24-2-QuantumStrutsContinued-1-1-Magical-Struts-for-Rigidifying-Outside-the-VAB!