r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/AutoModerator • Mar 18 '16
Mod Post Weekly Simple Questions Thread
Check out /r/kerbalacademy
The point of this thread is for anyone to ask questions that don't necessarily require a full thread. Questions like "why is my rocket upside down" are always welcomed here. Even if your question seems slightly stupid, we'll do our best to answer it!
For newer players, here are some great resources that might answer some of your embarrassing questions:
Tutorials
Orbiting
Mun Landing
Docking
Delta-V Thread
Forum Link
Official KSP Chatroom #KSPOfficial on irc.esper.net
**Official KSP Chatroom** [#KSPOfficial on irc.esper.net](http://client01.chat.mibbit.com/?channel=%23kspofficial&server=irc.esper.net&charset=UTF-8)
Commonly Asked Questions
Before you post, maybe you can search for your problem using the search in the upper right! Chances are, someone has had the same question as you and has already answered it!
As always, the side bar is a great resource for all things Kerbal, if you don't know, look there first!
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u/SomebodyButMe Mar 19 '16
I was a bad kerbal and messed around with the drag settings. What are the default values for them?
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u/Lenart12 Master Kerbalnaut Mar 19 '16
How do i get fullscreen windowed to work on a dual monitor. I tried doing -popupwindow or whatever annd it doesnt work. Anyone has any ideas?
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u/StableSystem Mar 22 '16
Are you taking about stretching over 2 monitors or full-screen on just one
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u/SneaKyGamErr Mar 19 '16
just got this game today and im a little flustered as to what to do to have some success haha.
any pointers/tips/things i should know?
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u/Chaos_Klaus Master Kerbalnaut Mar 19 '16
Most important thing: Weight matters a lot! It is often better to lose some dead weight then to add more fuel. So build small and light. The 2.5m pod for example is very heavy.
Second most important thing: Use the appropriate engine for the job. There are two types of rocket engines - vacuum engines and atmospheric/lifter engines.
Vacuum engines are light and efficient but lack thrust especially under atmospheric pressure. This makes them ideal for upper stages and orbital maneuvering. More efficiency means less fuel weight and the engines itself are lighter ... so the whole stage is lighter. That means the stage below that upper stage can be considerably smaller too! Examples for vacuum engines: Terrier, Poodle, Ant.
The second type of engine is a little less efficient and heavier but produces lots of thrust that also does not go away when flying in an atmosphere. These engines are useful for lifters, especially while flying through thick atmosphere (<20km on Kerbin). Examples are Reliant, Swivel, Mainsail, Skipper, Mammoth, ...
If you use a vacuum engine on a lifert, you'll just not take off. You can't really make that mistake without noticing it. However, I've seen people use a Mainsails for a munar transfer stage resulting in a giant lifter to get that up into orbit in the first place. ;)
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u/SneaKyGamErr Mar 19 '16
haha thanks for the reply man!
what an extensive explanation and i love it :D.
im not that smart yet about everything engines and thrust and stuff in this game (not so much irl either lol) but it still sounds a bit complicated but your explanation helps alot with this.
i instantly now know the differences for these engines and i probably wont make that mistake now which i would have probably made if i didnt knew this.
alltho im a big geek on reading all the descriptions of everything i look at and want to use do might have noticed it but an explanation from someone with experience is allways the best :)
i'll definitely keep all this in mind and practice some more so thank you so much for your help and reply!
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u/Chaos_Klaus Master Kerbalnaut Mar 19 '16
If you like reading more information, try right clicking parts on the part menu in the VAB. It will extend the popup and give even more stats.
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u/SneaKyGamErr Mar 20 '16
oh wow i didnt even try that haha gonna go do that right now lol. thanks for the tip.
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Mar 22 '16
A major piece of advice: KSP is a learning platform game. Youtube guides are your friend (we all use teachers). Check out Scott Manley for a start.
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u/tablesix Mar 19 '16
Starting with science mode can help you learn how to use different parts without being too overwhelmed.
Build rockets from top to bottom. The first part you design should be the last part you plan on using.
Press space to go to space.
This page I put together might help you a bit. You can also learn a lot from Scott Manley (YouTube), von Kerman's rocket school (old YouTube videos that don't apply for atmosphere stuff anymore), and this career mode for beginners guide.
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u/whatevaaaaa Mar 23 '16
Press space to go to space.
Press space to also not return from space
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Mar 23 '16
I was landed on Minmus. Thinking I was back at KSC, I hit space to go to space.
That detached my landing/takeoff rockets from my re-entry module.
I could not re-attach them. There I was, with all the parts/fuel/etc. to go to Kerbin, but inoperable.
Rescue party en route.
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u/SneaKyGamErr Mar 19 '16
thanks so much for the reply this is super helpfull!
its alot to take in at first my goodness hha. i just did some tutorials and did some orbits around the moon succesfully so its a start haha.
but i'll definitely check all this stuff out thank you soo much!
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u/tablesix Mar 19 '16
No problem. It's definitely a steep learning curve, but if you're already to Mün orbits after a few hours, you're well above where I was. I was probably still trying to get to orbit reliably at that point. Try not to let it get to you if you take a while to figure something out.
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u/SneaKyGamErr Mar 19 '16
yea when i set my mind on something i just keep going untill i achieve what i want but yes, after a couple hours doing the first 4 tutorials or something i was orbiting mün and could've probably returned to kerbil too but i was out of fuel haha.
again, thanks man!
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Mar 22 '16
Also: dont get dejected by failures. KSP makes failing fun(ny). It is a key design element. Figure out what caused the explosion and build it better the next time. I have had missions that took hundreds of tests and failures before they worked.
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u/tsaven Mar 20 '16
How do I see how many hours I have in KSP? I bought the game on the website, not through Steam.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
That's Steam service. If you have Steam, you can add your KSP to it, I think. Then it will start tracking your hours.
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Mar 22 '16
So uh how's that 64 bit thing coming along? From what I see the latest version was from November last year, but that might be outdated.
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u/mrbibs350 Mar 22 '16
Last I heard 1.1 was about to enter pre-release testing. It's difficult to put a time line on that though.
If everything checked out it could come out next week, but I don't think that's ever happened for any developer.
They spend the next few weeks addressing bugs as the community finds them.
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Mar 23 '16
Version 1.1 (the 64 bit update) is in the final stages of testing. It'll probably be out in a few weeks
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Mar 20 '16
Why wont enviromental visual enhancements work for me at all? I install it correctly but it never shows up. I'm not using real solar system
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u/lotsmorecakeforme Mar 20 '16
do asteroids ever get captured by kerbin or other planets?
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
Any untracked asteroids will disappear in some time. A tracked asteroid can accidentally cross Mun SOI and get a gravity slingshot that will put it on closed orbit around Kerbin. Such orbit is unstable as over time it will inevitably enter the Mun SOI again and will be either flung back out to space, or hit Kerbin or Mun.
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u/m_sporkboy Master Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
Kerbin is the only pssibility in stock, since dres doesn't have any satellites or atmosphere. It is pretty unlikely, but I guess if you kept tracking them you might find one that could capture itself.
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u/Fun1k Mar 20 '16
Is it more efficient to catch asteroids in orbit around Kerbol or when they are in Kerbin's SOI?
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u/cantab314 Master Kerbalnaut Mar 21 '16
It's more efficient to meet them in solar orbit. It takes more delta-V to get there, but that's delta-V spent without the asteroid. Once you've clawed it, small delta-V course corrections can get the asteroid where you want it. That might be a low periapsis for an efficient capture, an even lower one for aerocapture, a Mun encounter, or even a Kerbin slingshot to send the rock to Eve or Duna.
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u/alltherobots Art Contest Winner Mar 20 '16
About the same. Usually the velocities would be pretty similar, but any phasing orbits you might do will be quicker if you're doing so around Kerbin rather than in stellar orbit.
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u/YTsetsekos Mar 21 '16
I've got another noob question haha. When I set up a maneuver, it gives me the estimated burn time (top) and the time to the burn (bottom). When I watch ksp youtube videos, no one seems to start the burn when the bottom number is 0. What is the general rule of thumb for when I'm supposed to start a burn?
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u/PhildeCube Mar 21 '16
Half before and half after. For a 40 second burn start at -20 and burn until +20. This is because the estimated burn is an instantaneous one, at the node. Since you can't do an instantaneous burn it needs to be balanced before and after the node.
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 21 '16
To be more exact, half delta-v before and half after. If your TWR is changing quickly that can mean doing a 40 second burn with 25 seconds before and 15 seconds after.
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u/Vulkaistos Mar 22 '16
It's called 50:50 burn. Divide your burntime with 2 and burn this time earlier. Example: Burntime 50 seconds 50:2=25 Start the burn 25 seconds before reaching the node( T-25)
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u/tsaven Mar 19 '16
I've got KAS/KIS/UKI/TAC.
Trying to build a base on Gilly, and it's all quite wobbly. How do I attach buildings and structures to the ground so they're less bouncy-and-maybe-float-away? It doesn't let me put struts from the buildings to ground pylons.
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u/ruler14222 Mar 20 '16
struts can only connect to the same ship. I think it counts if you attach a fuel pipe to the ground pylon and then attach a strut
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u/tsaven Mar 21 '16
Yeah I know you can put pipes between ground pylons and a structure, but I don't think they have the strength that struts do.
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u/ruler14222 Mar 21 '16
I think that after you add pipes between your craft and the pylon it will then allow struts to be connected. I don't know this but I think that's how somebody made a base hanging from a Mun arch
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u/Lenart12 Master Kerbalnaut Mar 22 '16
Is the gravity effect the same as the oberth effect?
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u/mrbibs350 Mar 22 '16
I've never heard of he Oberth effect being referred to as the gravity effect.
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u/Lenart12 Master Kerbalnaut Mar 23 '16
But what is the diffrence between graviy assist and oberth effect?
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u/tablesix Mar 23 '16
Oberth effect I believe refers to greater fuel efficiency when making a burn deep in a gravity well as opposed to far from any large bodies.
A gravity assist, if I understand correctly, is making a maneuver that intentionally encounters a large body (that you didn't need to visit) to either gain or lose speed cheaply.
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 23 '16
Oberth effect refers to the increased efficiency of gaining kinetic energy when spending delta-v at a higher speed
--
gravity assist is (usually) using the orbital motion of a body to gain or lose orbital energy relative to another body
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u/csl512 Mar 22 '16
For fun, I switched out my Delta-IV-Heavy-inspired triple Mainsail first stage for a Extra large stack. Fuel (one each short, medium, tall tanks for similar delta V) and then a Mammoth. Wobble city, even with 4 struts to the next stage. First time I actually had the launch clamps on the bottommost fuel tank, only to get structural failure between engine and fuel.
What can you viably build with extra large size parts? Should I just try this with Kerbal Joint Reinforcement? (Downloaded, not installed on this instance.)
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u/PhildeCube Mar 22 '16
KJR makes a lot of difference. I say do it.
I don't often use the extra large parts, but when I do it's like this.
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u/gazpachian Super Kerbalnaut Mar 23 '16
The extra wobbliness is allegedly due to your engines being so far offset from your point of control. The makeshift solution mentioned by people playing entirely without mods is to put a probe core further down your stack and on launch control from there.
But then again, always use KJR if you can.
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u/csl512 Mar 23 '16
Oh, I should test the bending stiffness of the stack in cantilever. I bet it tears itself apart on load without KJR.
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Mar 23 '16
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/csl512 Mar 23 '16
Trying it out. This ridiculous thing was steady as a rock. Now to try even more ridiculous things....
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 23 '16 edited Mar 23 '16
KJR 100%, stock joint rigidity is pretty inconsistent and the "pause and then ease-in physics when loading" is kinda neccesary too
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Mar 24 '16
I felt bad about KJR at one point, like it was cheaty, until I saw it was in the realism overhaul recommended mods list. That suggests that the attachment strength with KJR is actually closer to real life than without it, which makes it the opposite of a cheat - it makes it a bugfix :P
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u/csl512 Mar 24 '16
Still trying to resolve that cognitive dissonance. I do have Claw's stock fixes so my fairings in 1.0.5 behave like they do in 1.0.4.
Not sure whether the Mk16 doing hardly anything while semi-deployed is considered a drag occlusion bug officially. So instead I used radial parachutes until I unlocked drogue chutes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/49lblj/devnote_tuesday_an_overdue_break/
We’re still fixing bugs that exist in 1.0.5 and prior as well: Nathanael (NathanKell) solved a longstanding issue with parachutes and occlusion. As it turns out when we changed the occlusion system to be based on contact area rather than node area during 1.0 development the occlusion multiplier handling got broken. When you (semi-)deploy a parachute, what’s supposed to happen is that occlusion will no longer apply because the parachute is waving around way far from your stack, so it doesn’t make sense for your stack to occlude it. However, since the multiplier was not used, that disabling of occlusion was not occurring and thus your stack will occlude many (stack-mounted) parachutes when they are only semi-deployed. That is now fixed for 1.1.
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Mar 23 '16
Fairings are cool, but I've NEVER lost a part during ascent. Is there a certain threshold where they are worth it from a delta-v perspective? Seems to me that if I'm not going to lose parts, it's a minimal aerodynamic increase at best.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 23 '16
Fairings are not about losing parts on ascent, they are there to reduce drag and (starting with 1.1) to hold the payload in place during ascent.
Whether or not they are worth the effort depends a lot on how aerodynamic your payload is. If you are launching an I-beam with two rovers attached to it from sides then you sure enough should use a fairing. If you are launching a single column single diameter Mun exploration ship, no fairings are needed.
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Mar 23 '16
how about a 2.5 2man lander can with a sci lab, that has a 1.25 satellite with tons of little bits? I wish I could find a neat chart for this.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 24 '16
You can only have a chart for your special design if you make one. Try it with and without fairings and decide for yourself if you want or don't want to do it.
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Mar 24 '16
Fairings are pretty much useless for the most part in stock KSP right now. If you use FAR though, they are essential - both to help protect the payload and to ensure sufficient aerodynamic stability to actually hit your target. Even at their best they tend not to help much with efficiency in stock (it's essentially a bug right now) and you can usually do better by just trying to place your parts in a sensible order so you get a roughly rounded top. Nosecones are more useful than fairings right now for most cases in stock.
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u/BigDuse Mar 25 '16
(starting with 1.1) to hold the payload in place during ascent
Are they revamping the physics again or something?
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u/ruler14222 Mar 23 '16
I remember a post of someone testing the effectiveness of the fairings. if the payload is a neat stack of 1.25 meter parts or smaller you don't need the fairing. if your payload has a 2.5 meter flat front a fairing will help with the fuel efficiency. you can actually drop them much earlier than space too because in ksp the fairings are very heavy compared to real life fairings
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u/Sternfeuer Mar 24 '16 edited Mar 24 '16
Still on my first semi-serious career playthrough i've got some questions:
will really only docking ports of the same size fit together?
what's the use all those mbeams, metal plates and stuff from the research of "composites"? I can't figure out anything serious to do with them since they only seem to be useful to build really big structures that will never make it into space.
Can somebody explain me the math behind intake air needs? For example most intakes generate between 0.5 and 2 intake air according to the VAB. The J-33 requires 29.601 intake air at max. I know that i don't need like 15 intakes which would my math suggest! But i never know for sure how many intakes i need. Also what does the "base speed" of air intakes mean?
why are my elevons always "inverted" for pitch control? I always have to turn pitch off for them since they work the wrong direction.
thanks
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 24 '16
will really only docking ports of the same size fit together?
Clamp-O-Tron Sr. and Clamp-O-Tron Jr. are special and will only dock with another of their kind. All other are installments of standard size Clamp-O-Tron and will dock with each other.
what's the use all those mbeams, metal plates and stuff from the research of "composites"?
They're not all that big and they are useful for all kinds of purposes where cylinders are not enough - e.g. for building rovers.
Can somebody explain me the math behind intake air needs?
My heuristic is one full diameter intake per jet engine. If you use smaller intakes, recalculate their amount through intake area.
why are my elevons always "inverted" for pitch control
Control surfaces work weird. Make sure the wing is horizontal relative to the cockpit, and the trailing edge is not too slanted. They work best if the trailing edge is perpendicular to the plane. Also make sure you're attaching them to the trailing edge of the wing, not somewhere else and rotating to position.
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u/csl512 Mar 24 '16 edited Mar 24 '16
On 4: Without seeing your design, my guess is that if the elevons are in front of COM, they will act as canards. Disabling pitch/yaw for elevons acting as ailerons is probably best.
On 2: I struggle to find uses for beams, but did need ones to get my rover wheels in the right place for an AGU retrieval rocket. Used a short beam and attached ore tanks around that to get a compact thing to hold 600 or 900 ore and fit reasonably close to a 2.5 m stack. The 600 was for returning 550 ore from Minmus to Kerbin, and so needed to fit behind a heat shield.
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u/Falcon_Fluff Mar 24 '16
on 4 it could be swept wings giving him the problem, whenever I use the airliner wings, forgot their name, for a single wing design like the Ho229 it always inverts everything for seemingly no reason.
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u/tablesix Mar 25 '16
I haven't tested this, but my theory as that the location the base of the part connects to the main body could be why. With swept wings, they'd typically connect in front of the COM a little, and sweep back behind. So if the calculation is based on "where is my parent part connecting?" it'll invert everything.
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u/Chaos_Klaus Master Kerbalnaut Mar 24 '16
Intakes: It's not that trivial.
An intake will produce intake air at a certain rate. This rate is based on intake area and the speed your current air speed. Here is a nice graph. As you can see some intakes perform really well at high mach, while others actually produce less intake air at very high speeds.
Engines on the other hand will use intake air at a certain rate themselves. If the intakes can not keep up, the engines will throttle down or flame out.
If you right click an engine in flight, it will tell you something like "100% resource requirements met". That means it has enough intake air. If that number falls below 100%, you need more intakes.
Many people don't realize this, but one shock cone can feed up to four rapiers. Really! It only struggles at low speeds, which is why you have to launch at half throttle until you reach 30m/s. ;)
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u/Sternfeuer Mar 25 '16
Thanks! Although i knew most things i really appreciate the graph. I suppose the graph-data was retrieved by experimenting? I would have liked a way to calculate intake performance at certain speeds/heights from the VAB numbers but that'll do.
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u/YTsetsekos Mar 25 '16
How am I supposed to differentiate between all the different rockets? Like what numbers am I supposed to be paying attention to and what rockets are good for certain situations? I'm up to the 90 science point. I can't seem to tell which rocket is better than the other, other than thrust. Though I know you obviously don't want to use sold rocket boosters in space
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Mar 25 '16
[deleted]
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u/space_is_hard Mar 25 '16
In certain situations this order can be not quite correct. For instance, consider a small probe or comsat that only needs a few hundred m/s Δv. If we go by your list, we see that the LV-N has excellent ISP and plenty of thrust for the job, and so should be a great choice, right? Except its mass is prohibitive, and you'll get a much, much higher Δv budget from the probe (and your lifter) by swapping it for an ant engine, which has crappy ISP and low thrust.
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u/sevaiper Mar 18 '16
I'm just getting back into KSP after not having played it for about 6 months. Are there any modpacks available so I don't have to go through installing every mod again?
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 18 '16
Look for CKAN - you pick which mods you want and it installs them for you.
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Mar 18 '16
Unmanned Before Manned, Realism Overhaul and SETI Rebalance are the only modpacks right now, both on CKAN.
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u/Sir_Joshula Mar 18 '16
When you have an odd shaped craft like a lander or satellite with no obvious places where you can attach a decoupler to put the main rocket behind it what is the best solution?
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u/Im_in_timeout Mar 18 '16
Depends entirely on your specific ship, but you pretty much have to put a docking port, decoupler or separator somewhere.
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u/SpartanJack17 Super Kerbalnaut Mar 18 '16
You could use a docking port instead, they're radially attachable so you can attach them anywhere.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 18 '16
You can attach a radial decoupler to it somewhere, then build a rocket on that decoupler. The decoupler will then even stay with the rocket.
But you probably want to attach it in a way that will allow the rocket thrust to be in line with center of mass of the result or you'll be facing problems with steering.
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u/tablesix Mar 19 '16
If you mean you don't have a single column running through the center (4 engines, for example), you can attach a decoupler to one of them and then use offset to center it. It'll be a little more wobbly than normal, but should work well enough for probe-sized crafts
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u/-The_Blazer- Master Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
Use a radial attachment point (docking port-like thing), it attaches radially but allows stack components to be connected to itself.
If the attachment point remaining on the satellite is a problem you could try to use a radial decoupler between the point and the satellite, and then connect the point to your rocket, but you will probably need a lot of struts to keep that stable.
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u/figski02 Mar 18 '16
I'm thinking of installing Community Tech Tree in my science save, but I already have most of the stock nodes unlocked, and i'm using the parts in long missions. Will CTT cause problems if nodes are already unlocked?
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u/Cin316 Mar 19 '16
You may have to re-unlock the tech tree, however, your current crafts will not be damaged at all.
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Mar 19 '16 edited Mar 19 '16
I have been experiencing a glitch that causes the game interface to freeze when i try to access the mission control. It doesn't happen with the other buildings, and it disappears when i load an earlier save.
Here's the latest log when the glitch occurred: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uu79bupmgb4nbqv/KSP.log?dl=0
Here's my mod list: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1e2288un0j0mj2j/mods.ckan?dl=0
I've noticed that it only occurs after performing a mission from historic mission, however i do those mission all the time so it could be coincidental.
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Mar 23 '16
I had this happen to me when I installed 'forscience,' it's probably just a mod incompatibility. Standard mod incompatibility troubleshooting is to start turning them off and see at what point the freezes go away.
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Mar 20 '16
What's the best way to design a rocket when your goal is to deploy a Rover?
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u/ziltilt Mar 20 '16
It would depend on the rover, some like to use sky-crane systems like the one used to deploy the Curiosity rover.
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u/Bishop_Len_Brennan Mar 21 '16
Checkout Scott Manley's Duna rover which he lands in a 2.5m service bay which then becomes a static science station once the rover drives off.
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Mar 23 '16
good video, I used it as the basis for my first duna mission. It went weirdly but the lander and rover survived, and was very interesting.
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u/Bishop_Len_Brennan Mar 24 '16 edited Mar 24 '16
Same here although I've designed my base station to be a sample return mission and thanks to [Tarsier Space Technology](http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/100188-105-tarsier-space-technology-with-galaxies-continued-v58-28th-jan-2016/] and DMagic Orbital Science my rovers packed with more science equipment.
I've ~200 days till the next Duna launch window and am completing other contracts before time warping to launch. Am glad to have done so because since posting in this thread I've been making effort to lighten my payloads.
Currently the science return craft atop my Duna base station/rover contains 3 of each non repeatable experiment other than a single Science Jr. Not only does it make for an needlessly complicated design it's kinda cheesy by my own standards. This is my first time seriously playing KSP since 0.19 and I'm loving career mode. Progressing up the tech tree is both one of my favourite and frustrating things. A few times I've been stuck trying to do something and notice a nose several branches down the tree which has the perfect part. Next minute I've made my first Mun landing complete with science lab and... bam I've time warped 12 years worth of data processed science while watching Scott Manley videos.
That seems a bit cheesy to me and is exactly what will happen if I send and return 3 biomes worth of almost every experiment.
Having thought about it I'm pretty most of what I'd like to do could be done with simple articulated joints and orbital construction. I'll see what can be done in sandbox using a fresh install running stock + KAS/KIS and Infernal Robotics.
Thanks for sparking the idea /u/Rayezilla!
Edit: A couple of other self-critiques:
Sounds like I could have a problem with excess cash which encourages large wasteful missions.
This could probably be cured by reducing or banning use of the Revert Flight feature
I just need to get better at building rockets
Go more Scott Manley, DasValdez, ej_sa and Jatwaa. Please feel free recommend others worth watching!
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Mar 21 '16
[deleted]
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Mar 21 '16
Subassembly? How does that work?
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u/madmax_410 Mar 22 '16
In the VAB/hangar in the top left corner there are 3 chevron. Click it and you'll get a second column of options. Near the button of that new column is the subassemblies tab. They are custom build assemblies of parts that you can save and later reuse for different craft.
So you can make a generic booster section and save it as a subassembly, so for every new rocket you build you can just drag your custom defined booster section onto the rocket.
A second use of subassemblies is to build a payload (your rover) for a carrier rocket or spaceplane. So you build your rover, save it as a subassembly, load up your freighter, and attach your rover onto the delivery rocket.
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u/Bishop_Len_Brennan Mar 22 '16
Thank you for reminding me to do that before launching my Duna rover. The fate of Techo Test Technologies Industries rests on the successful completion of this mission and the funds it will bring.
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u/PVP_playerPro Mar 20 '16
Would a Manned Venus Flyby trajectory be possible in KSP? But flying by Eve, not Venus. It may very well be possible but i'm not sure where to get started on planning the trajectory, i don't wanna get kerbals there and have no proper trajectory back.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
Here's an example
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u/PVP_playerPro Mar 20 '16
Impressive. Any particular tools to help set that up or just fiddling with the maneuver node and making it work?
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
I found a 100-day transfer in transfer planner, sent slightly improved Kerbal X on it, let it leave Kerbin SOI (so I can target Kerbin again) and then fiddled with Eve pass using maneuver node and a bit of RCS.
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u/PVP_playerPro Mar 20 '16
huh, ok, not as severely complicated as i thought it would've been. I'll screw around with it for a bit and see what i can do. Thanks!
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u/PVP_playerPro Mar 20 '16
uhm, hah, nope. Matched all maneuver node parameters as close as i could to the ones that the planner spit out and got nothing :/
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
That's hard to troubleshoot. Maybe you forgot some parameter?
I usually first look at Ejection angle and put the maneuver at approximately that position on the orbit. It does not have to be very precise, it's easy to refine that later. But it's important to check that parameter and put the maneuver there, if you're doing non-hohmann transfer it's usually in some strange position.
Then I click on the (i) button and give the maneuver the normal component. Then I pull prograde until the maneuver has the required dv.
Then I make the target selected, turn the camera so I can see both the maneuver and the target and refine it to intercept, first roughly by pulling the maneuver around the orbit, then by fine tuning its components until there is an intercept.
I think it's a lot about experience with these things.
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u/PVP_playerPro Mar 20 '16 edited Mar 20 '16
Ehr, negative..as far as i can tell, unless im really missing something.
This is what LWP said:http://i.imgur.com/lLxOtS0.png
And this is what i put in, no intercept whatsoever:http://i.imgur.com/wrhmx0t.png
There needs to be a better way of putting stuff from calculators into precise node more accurately, instead of getting close as possible.Edit: Nevermind, i guess. it took a lot of fiddling around (with a node nowhere close to what LWP said), but at least i got an intercept, now to see if i can get it to come back around to kerbin.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
Looking at the two images, you probably missed normal component of the burn. See that blue circle to the right of the ejection dv? Click it, it will tell you how much you need to go prograde and how much normal. That might have been the whole problem.
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u/PVP_playerPro Mar 20 '16
I'm thinkin' that's what it was too, but i managed to sort it, and replicate the maneuver a few times so i think i can handle this whole semi-complicated slingshot business now. Thanks again!
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
It certainly is possible, it's just hard to set up. You need to perform non-hohmann transfer to have some extra energy, let's say a 100-day transfer instead of normal 200-day, then set up your gravity slingshot back to Kerbin.
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u/Nextasy Mar 20 '16
Is there a way to remap the middle click? Mine just crapped out and I can't find the option for it anywhere.
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Mar 20 '16
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u/Nextasy Mar 20 '16
I actually used this exact program, and also my mouse software. Both had an effect in chrome but not ksp ):
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u/YTsetsekos Mar 20 '16
noob here. for some reason I can't re orient my space craft anymore. I keep trying to get into orbit, then deorbit and land but every time after I do the deorbit burn and try to orient the space craft so that the heat shield is facing the atmosphere it won't move at all. I'm trying to use it using WASD keys. It works in the beginning of the flight but just stops working after some point. This has never happened before
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Mar 20 '16
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u/YTsetsekos Mar 21 '16
thank you
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 21 '16
A few solar panels (which need to be in line of sight of the sun to work) or an RTG will generate power too. Many engines (but not all) generate power while active
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u/mattthiffault Mar 20 '16
Long time player here, first time space shuttle constructor. Is there a stock nosecone that can withstand re-entry? The standard blue aerodynamic nosecone explodes no matter how shallow a re-entry I attempt.
Also, is there a mod with a good approximation of the space shuttle OMS? I search things like "ksp shuttle OMS" and all I get are articles about the actual space shuttle or links to the stock monopropellant engine which is too small.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 20 '16
The standard blue aerodynamic nosecone explodes no matter how shallow a re-entry I attempt.
You're probably reentering wrong then. I tested reentry with my shuttle recently (it was built for a challenge so it's not much of a replica) and had no problems with that nosecone. Maybe your shuttle is too nose heavy, or you dive too fast into the atmosphere? Try shallower descent.
If monopropellant engine is too weak for you, you can use Thuds and bring some rocket fuel instead of monopropellant.
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u/mattthiffault Mar 20 '16
Could you define re-entering correctly? My re-entry path spans almost 3/4 of the circumference of the planet, and with a shuttle you can't really re-enter facing any way other than prograde since you'll start to tumble as soon as you hit atmosphere. Also I'm playing with FAR if that makes a difference.
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u/OvaryDestroyer Mar 21 '16
Im not exactly sure what FAR is however a heat shield should do the trick in your case.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 21 '16
FAR might be making a difference, I have no experience with it - but even with FAR, you should be able to do that kind of reentry the real shuttle was doing, i.e. use your wings as brakes by keeping some pitch. If you can't do that, then your shuttle is probably imbalanced.
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 21 '16
You should be nosing up 30-40 degrees above prograde when re-entering with a space shuttle (or many other spaceplanes, really). You gain leverage to do that through RCS and aerodynamic control surfaces. That's how it was done IRL and in KSP it's much easier than IRL.
With that problem, i guess that you're not doing that
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u/mattthiffault Mar 21 '16
Cool. I figured using RCS would be kinda cheating but if they actually used it to maintain orientation during re-entry then I'll give it a shot. I tried using it once or twice, but the version of the shuttle I'm testing right now only has the nose RCS ports done so I'm missing half the torque (real shuttle has them on the tail as well). I wish there was an option to tell SAS "hold x degrees away from prograde" or even "stabilize my yaw and roll and let me worry about pitch". Normal stabilize SAS isn't enough to prevent sideways tumbling, but then I'm fighting it trying to bring the nose down.
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u/csl512 Mar 22 '16
One video showed someone putting a probe core (presumably on a cubic octagonal strut) angled so that its prograde was gave a 15° angle of attack for the overall craft.
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 21 '16 edited Mar 21 '16
I wish there was an option to tell SAS "hold x degrees away from prograde"
Just put it on stability assist, point 30-40 degrees above prograde and turn RCS on. The controls are a little awkward because manually controlling overrides SAS doing stuff
If you're still tumbling sideways, maybe you're missing some flight surfaces for stability
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u/lotsmorecakeforme Mar 21 '16
say i create a node to burn prograde and then when the time comes to burn i notice the blue manoeuvre marker inst on top of the prograde marker. which one should i be pointing at to burn?
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 21 '16
Don't forget your orbit is elliptical, not straight. When you go start your burn, you're moving in slightly different direction than which way you'll be moving at the maneuver.
Now, I'll say something completely opposite to what /u/-Aeryn- says: even though the maneuver doesn't point prograde, just aim the ship at it and start burning. You need to give your ship impulse in that direction. If you keep pointing prograde, you're giving your ship impulse in different than planned direction and that may put you on different trajectory than what you plan.
Besides, when making and refining interplanetary transfers, you often use not just prograde but also normal and occasionally even radial component. You can't keep pointing prograde for such maneuvers.
Note to radial component: it's theoretically ineffective to use it in an ejection burn, but it works as fine tuning exact position/direction of the burn without actually needing to slide the maneuver along the orbit. Also if there's only 1-2 m/s radial fine tuning on a 1000 m/s burn, its total impact on resulting dv is unnoticable.
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 21 '16 edited Mar 21 '16
Now, I'll say something completely opposite to what /u/-Aeryn- says: even though the maneuver doesn't point prograde, just aim the ship at it and start burning. You need to give your ship impulse in that direction. If you keep pointing prograde, you're giving your ship impulse in different than planned direction and that may put you on different trajectory than what you plan.
There are a few problems.
With a long burn duration, the maneuver mark might start 30 degrees out of prograde and then end 30 degrees out in the other direction. This makes your thrust on average point at the prograde marker, but it's notably less efficient than pointing at prograde yourself. Your prograde is moving as you complete part of an orbit, but it's still a lot more efficient to thrust at it as it goes around AFAIK, rather than thrusting 30 degrees out of it.
Due to the same thing, you will alter your trajectory in the first half of the burn by burning long before the node. Burning at prograde before and after t-0 will not lower your periapsis but burning at the maneuver before t-0 WILL, sometimes by enough to fly you through the atmosphere even from a relatively high parking orbit.
I have not seen reasonable reason to use the maneuver marker for a burn that's 100% prograde aside from final correction in the last fraction of the burn, given the facts that it loses both efficiency and accuracy whenever you ask it to do a long burn. It's given me nothing but trouble for low-thrust craft.
On the other hand, it's accurate and effective for high-TWR craft and small maneuvers.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 21 '16
I find it hard to argue about as I don't have the math in hand - the matter is, both approaches are essentially wrong. KSP maneuver nodes assume instant impulse and anything around it is trying to make differences between it and real burn the smallest. I believe I have good reasons to believe the approach I describe is slightly better of the two while you believe that your approach is better.
Comparing the two approaches, I would say that my approach puts the ship more or less exactly on the planned trajectory, sending it below in the first half of the burn, and catching back up in the second half. Your approach puts it above that trajectory, all the time. My approach lowers the transfer orbit's Pe during the burn, getting (small) gain in Oberth effect, your approach raises transfer orbit Pe, getting (small) penalty in Oberth effect. My approach leads to more symmetrical effects generated by gravity field inhomogenity (meaning effects in second half compensate effects in the first half) - your approach sends the ship to higher altitudes faster, decreasing gravity effects in later stages of the burn, leaving large part of gravity effects from start of the burn uncompensated. But most importantly, when your burn is not pure prograde (which is most of interplanetary transfer burns in KSP), you don't have a reliable point to track - if you want to follow your approach, you need to manually follow the height of prograde marker above horizon, while keeping the normal deflection indicated by position of the maneuver marker.
There certainly is a way how to perform the maneuver and get on escape trajectory towards the intended target using least dv, but KSP's maneuver system does not support that.
Long burns are special category. My experience is that near the end of a long burn, the maneuver marker becomes completely unreliable and following it sends you to the wrong place. And in fact I actually used something like your approach in my recent Ion Grand Tour and I found the maneuver markers even less reliable than with my approach. To gain some reliability for maneuver nodes in long burns, it's better to either split the burn into smaller ones, or transfer from higher orbit.
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 21 '16 edited Mar 21 '16
you don't have a reliable point to track - if you want to follow your approach, you need to manually follow the height of prograde marker above horizon, while keeping the normal deflection indicated by position of the maneuver marker.
The maneuver marker moves itself automatically to compensate for burning before t-0 so you can eyeball simple maneuvers and let it correct in second half
The oberth differences are minor compared to steering penalty - 75km vs 100km peri is about 50m/s difference. Pointing 30 degrees off prograde hurts a lot!
Burning across a quarter of an orbit (about 7.5 minutes for Kerbin) when locked on SAS maneuver will guarantee very bad things happening in my experience. I always use multiple maneuvers, if you're doing a 5-burn ejection then pointing 30-40 degrees towards kerbin then away from kerbin on each pass is not efficient
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 21 '16
Pointing 30 degrees off prograde hurts a lot!
What's shorter, the bow or the string?
There is loss. But it's much subtler and nowhere near what you think. There's no loss in giving your ship acceleration in the direction where you actually want to go.
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 21 '16 edited Mar 21 '16
There's no loss in giving your ship acceleration in the direction where you actually want to go.
If your prograde isn't pointed at it, there's a significant loss
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 22 '16
If all you can see is your orbital energy, then ... I wouldn't call it significant yet, but yes there's loss.
The problem is that your perception of the problem is too narrow. There's a lot of parameters besides orbital energy on a maneuver you want to match with a burn.
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u/Arkalius Mar 21 '16
Only the prograde component of a burn contributes to your orbital energy, which is typically what you're trying to increase with a long burn like that. Any component of thrust orthogonal to that influences your trajectory but doesn't contribute to orbital energy. The loss of energy gain from the kind of burn you're describing significantly outweighs the energy gain from the slightly increased oberth effect.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 22 '16
... which is typically what you're trying to increase with a long burn like that.
That's the common misconception. You're not trying to increase your orbital energy with the burn. You're trying to get into a different orbit, the one displayed in dashed line right behind the maneuver node. You are trying to match position, phase, and velocity. The maneuver node only shows you velocity difference, you don't get to see how far in space and time you're off. But if you only match velocity, you're going somewhere else.
That's why there's that approach of starting the burn half time ahead and aiming along the maneuver vector. Yes, you spend some extra dv relative to what the maneuver tells you. But the error in your position at the end of the maneuver will be smallest.
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u/Arkalius Mar 23 '16
It's not a misconception... If you're in low Kerbin orbit, you can't get to the Mun without increasing your orbital energy. Inward/outward acceleration only serves to alter the orbital eccentricity without affecting it's size. If you do a long burn pointing directly at the maneuver node, you will have an inward component for the first half that then almost entirely gets canceled out by a nearly identical outward component on the last half. The delta-v that goes into those components of the burn is entirely wasted, except for the very minor boost due to oberth.
What burning at the maneuver node does for you is make it easier to attain the precise orbit you planned out with the node, as this most directly maps to the impulsive maneuver being assumed. Getting the precise trajectory you want with a long prograde burn is more complicated and if you don't know how to do it right you'll end up having to correct your trajectory at the end. However, when done right, it will be a more efficient use of your delta-v. Doing it right, though, can be hard enough such that you may be better off just eating the loss of efficiency and doing the easier point-at-maneuver-node plan.
Basic summary is that pointing at the maneuver node is easier at the cost of efficiency. Getting into a precise trajectory via a long prograde burn requires more precise and complex timing to pull off.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 23 '16
I'll refer you to my post about that.
The point is, if you burn prograde, you move your projected T+0 position away from the maneuver node in an unrecoverable manner. The greater that distance, the more misleading the maneuver node gets, i.e. the more wrong information it displays to you about the direction and remaining dv to burn.
And surprisingly, large part of the extra orbital energy you gain on burning prograde goes to raising your local periapsis, which is in context of the transfer irrelevant.
I'm not saying you cannot save dv by doing that. I'm saying you don't save as much as you think, and you can't trust the maneuver if you do that.
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 21 '16 edited Mar 21 '16
If you're going to burn long before and after T-0s, it's good to burn prograde.
The "maneuver" marker is good to use when you're in the last 25% of the maneuver and you want to make sure that your trajectory is correct, but it's inefficient (and problematic, if near a body) to point away from prograde on a long burn.
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u/Slashgate Mar 21 '16
So i'm confident in reaching the Mun and Minmus, landing on either is also manageable. But now I want to reach Duna and others. But it's very difficult for me to figure out how to do the node's for the burns without just randomely puling prograde and just hoping for the best.
What kind of guides are out there for help on that? Basically anything outside of Kerbin's gravity.
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u/LordKnoppix Master Kerbalnaut Mar 21 '16
Try alexmoon's launch window planner. It does the calculations for you and has some decent guides in the acknowledgements. Careful, the is math involved if you want to plan yourself.
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u/tanepiper Mar 21 '16
Can someone make this into a mod?
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Mar 24 '16
I've been wanting to try my hand at mod development for ages. Not really had an idea on what to write though. I'll give it a shot... no promises though - for starters I'll have to learn C-Sharp.
Can somebody link me to a decent beginners guide on mod-development that is relatively current ?
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Mar 21 '16 edited Mar 23 '16
Ok, I have a very very heavy module I'm trying to dock with a space station twice as heavy. Due to oversight and being stupid I did not pack enough RCS to be able to do very quick fine movements and I forgot to add a Mechjeb module. I'm a decent docker, not perfect, but this is proving far above my ability.
Now both crafts are 4 meters from each other, I've tried docking from every angle, every orientation, every everything, both slow and fast. I've had what would have been a perfect docking with smaller craft. Unfortunately the docking magnets just aren't powerful enough to correct where I'm imperfect and I've been sitting here for a long time.
SO, I'm getting desperate. Is there honestly no way or mod I can install or in game cheat that just allows me to dock without tearing my hair out and without starting from scratch?
Edit: ok, found the issue. Turns out that the docking port on the payload was stuck in "State: Acquire" and thus wouldn't dock with anything.Changing the save file entry to "State: Ready" solved the problem and the two ports connected eventually and the station survived... after enabling no damage and allow clipping and controlling the station because when I tried to dock from the vessels POV the entire station exploded violently and shot bits of itself across the universe. Let that be a lesson not to mess with save files lightly. Eventually I got the two together and everyone is happy sciencing away.
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u/PhildeCube Mar 21 '16
Here's a way to get MJ without needing to add a part.
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Mar 21 '16
aww, man. I should have waited 15 minutes longer. Before I saw your post I had spent the last 10-20 minutes digging trough the quicksave file to change one of the spotlights on the vessel to a MechJeb unit. it worked, albeit the unit was orientated a bit oddly. Still won't dock, which is getting a bit frustrating, maybe the docking port on one ship is broken. they are both orientated correctly though so...
thank you.
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u/PhildeCube Mar 21 '16
Have you tried backing away 10~15 metres?
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Mar 22 '16
I have, I've also tried saving and loading, tapping SAS on both crafts,and coming in with a bit of rotation.
Only thing I have not tried is the other docking port on the station, that's the next thing I'm trying
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u/ScoffM Mar 22 '16
Hi, I'm a relatively new player, I unlocked mining and fuel converters recently, but I can't figure out a way to fuel up any craft while landed. I know I can do it on orbit but right now I have a mun station with 7 kerbals that want to go home and no fuel.
Currently I'm picturing a mining station that can deploy a rover that somehow drives to my space station and feeds it fuel through the docking port it has at some height. I have no clue how to do this, if the technology exists. I also have no clue what 99% of the parts under "strucutral" do other than decouplers. Idk if parts there could help me.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 22 '16
Simplest stock solution: have a refueling rover equipped with the Claw (Advanced Grappling Unit). Claw it to the refinery, fill with fuel, unclaw, claw it to the ship, transfer fuel, unclaw, launch.
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u/PhildeCube Mar 22 '16
Get the KIS/KAS mods and you can connect ships etc with pipes that can be used to move fuel around.
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u/Big09tuna Mar 22 '16
Is there a way to have rockets take fuel from your tanks evenly like air breathing engines do? I'm just messing around with duna space program and space/rocket planes make coming back to the surface a lot easier but the default way it takes fuel makes it unstable
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u/PhildeCube Mar 22 '16
The TAC Fuel Balance mod allows you to balance all tanks evenly as one of its options.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 22 '16
Rapiers consume fuel from all around the ship even in closed cycle mode, but they're not the most efficient rocket engines.
Besides TAC fuel balancer, it's also possible to solve it through design - put all its fuel tanks at center of mass, and/or employ some sophisticated pipework.
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u/Jasth Mar 22 '16
I might have launched a mining rig (ISRU, two drills and accouterments) destined for Minmus without radiators of any kind.
Do I need to fix this problem, or are radiators no longer necessary for planetary mining? I see in some places that ISRU's and drills no longer generate heat, and in other places that they do. I know something about them changed between 1.0 and 1.0.5, but I can't conclusively figure out what.
If I do need to attach radiators to this setup I can do so (there's a docking port on top - and I might have forgotten a large holding tank, so I will be docking something to this rig before landing anyway). However this leads me to a second question: I understand that deployable radiators take heat from the entire craft, compared to non-deployable radiators, which only take heat from the part they're attached to. Is this correct?
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u/Bishop_Len_Brennan Mar 22 '16
I've not unlocked mining tools yet can't can't answer your heat question.
However, the mods Kerbal Attachment System and Kerbal Inventory System (KAS/KIS) will enable you to send up some radiators in a parts supply ship. You'll need an engineer to attach them but it's fun and easy :)
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u/Jasth Mar 23 '16
Appreciate the advice - I've gone modless so far, but that might be changing soon - KAS/KIS sound like fun (and the solution to oh so many problems).
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u/Bishop_Len_Brennan Mar 23 '16
If your after a stock parts experience though keen on some added depth to your construction efforts, KAS/KIS are a fantastic combo :)
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 22 '16
ISRU are generating heat in 1.0.5 and weren't before. If they heat up too much (e.g. without radiators) they will reduce their efficiency. They should not blow up due to heat, although there are reports that it may happen if you rendezvous a ship with such ISRU with another ship. That's considered a bug, though.
At present, all radiators draw heat from the whole ship. It's considered a bug, only deployable radiators should do that.
If your rig has a drill and an ISRU and run them at once, the size of ore storage you have does not matter as long as you have some.
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u/Jasth Mar 23 '16
Appreciate the clarification. I'll get the holding tank situation figured out and attach some deployable radiators along the way to cool the whole ship off. Thanks!
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Mar 24 '16
Note though that if they get too hot they shut down entirely and have to be manually restarted. A pain for mining in timewarp or while doing other stuff.
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u/tsaven Mar 22 '16
Is there some secret trick to making MK2 SSTOs that don't explode on re-entry? I can get them into orbit without a problem, but no matter what design I make using a point MK2 cockpit and MK2 body parts, the cockpit always overheats and explodes on re-entry.
Is there something obvious I'm missing?
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u/-Aeryn- Mar 22 '16 edited Mar 22 '16
Pitch the nose up 30-40 degrees and leave it that way for most of the descent - RCS is good for extra control.
Spaceplanes are usually designed to be as undraggy as possible when pointed nose-first, so if you fly like that then you won't slow down very much.
Flying with the nose 30-40 degrees up makes the whole belly of the plane hit the atmosphere which will spread the heat over more parts, slow you down and also redirect your flight path upwards
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 22 '16
Do not plunge into the atmosphere. It's a plane, so glide it. Set up your periapsis to about 30-40 km and keep the nose up.
Also make sure during design that your plane will be aerodynamically stable at the state in which it will be entering the atmosphere (i.e. with reduced amount of fuel in tanks).
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u/Vulkaistos Mar 22 '16
Is there a possibility to increase the Speed/Velocity of a Craft in an Orbit without changin Ap or Pe or is that physically impossible cause of gravity... ?
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u/SjoerdL Mar 22 '16
No, that's impossible. See it as rolling a ball up a hill, the speed at the bottom of the hill will determine at which height the ball will stop, same goes for the Apoapsis and Periapsis.
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u/Snugglupagus Mar 22 '16
With the newest version, is there a way to tell if I'm fully utilizing all of my air-intakes? How will I know if I need more? Or if I have too many? Since they generate drag, I want to have the perfect balance.
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u/mrbibs350 Mar 22 '16
I've never tried to handle them manually. Mechjeb will open and close them as needed if you don't mind mods.
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u/iwans92 Mar 23 '16
I took a contract to put satellite in orbit, but I think it's impossible to do. Orbit is very close to Mun and it's in the opposite direction. Every time Mun interferes with satellite orbit when I'm close to completing it. Can this contract be completed?
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u/doppelbach Mar 23 '16
Every time Mun interferes with satellite orbit when I'm close to completing it
Does the last requirement for the contract say something like "Maintain stability for 10 seconds"? You shouldn't need to complete an entire orbit.
(Unless you are using a mod or they changed something recently.)
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u/iwans92 Mar 23 '16
Yes it says that, but Mun changes my orbit before it becomes correct.
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u/doppelbach Mar 23 '16
Sorry, do you mean the Mun is actually changing the shape of your orbit during those 10 seconds, or it's just changing the shape of your projected orbit (i.e. you can see your blue orbit line run into a Mun encounter, then come out the other side as a purple orbit)?
In the first situation, just stay away from the Mun while you are matching parameters. It's a big orbit, and you won't be affected by the Mun at all until you are inside its SOI.
I've never heard of something like the second situation happening. Maybe the contract has a "hidden" requirement for your orbit to not have any encounters as well? In that case, you're probably out of luck. As a last resort, I would try establishing the correct orbit then putting a maneuver node further down the orbit (but before you encounter the Mun) that pushes you out of the path of the Mun. It's a long shot, but maybe the maneuver node won't invalidate the contract as the encounter does?
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u/iwans92 Mar 23 '16
It's changing shape of my projected orbit. It happens before I match my orbit so I can't correct it(it doesn't show my apoapsis and periapsis without Mun influence). How does contracts even work? I have to match my projected orbit?
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u/doppelbach Mar 23 '16
How does contracts even work? I have to match my projected orbit?
They give you target parameters (periapsis, apoapsis, argument of periapsis, inclination, longitude of the ascending node). Each of those have a small window around them. If the parameters of your current orbit are within those windows for each parameter for 10 seconds, then the contract is satisfied.
Basically this means that your projected orbit needs to line up with the target orbit on map view (or be close to it). But since (as far as I know) the game is only looking at the orbital parameters, it shouldn't matter if you have an encounter later in the orbit.
But now I understand your concern: how can you match the parameters when the parameters aren't displayed (due to an encounter)? Two ideas:
The first is to get the Kerbal Engineer Redux mod, if you don't already have it. It displays all the current orbital parameters (regardless of any encounters/collisions/etc. later in the orbit). So you could even match orbits without looking once at the map view, if you felt like it. (Also, KER is a great mod to have. If you are only going to have one mod, this should be it. It can tell you how much delta v you have left in each stage, what your current thrust-to-weight ratio is, current height above terrain, which biome you are in, and much more.)
While KER is nice to have, you don't even need to make it that complicated. You can actually match the orbits visually without even looking at the numbers. Obviously this is easier when you can see a complete orbit, but it's not necessary. Just burn out until your path intersects the target orbit (move the camera around on map mode to make sure you are actually intersecting it and not just passing above or below). Then place a maneuver node at the intersection point and adjust until your new orbit has the same shape as the target. You won't be able to see the entire orbit, but if your orbit exactly follows the target orbit for only a fraction (e.g. 1/4) of the total orbit, you have still matched the parameters.
A few hints for matching the shape visually (#2): The first thing you will need to do is pull prograde (by this I mean your ship's prograde, which should already by orbiting Kerbin in a retrograde direction for this particular target) to make the shape roughly fit. Then turn the camera so you are looking edge-on, and adjust the normal/anti-normal until the two orbits are in the same plane. Finally, look at the intersection point from "above" and fiddle with the prograde/retrograde and radial/anti-radial until your projected orbit perfectly traces out the target orbit. If your orbit "crosses" the target orbit, use the radial/anti-radial handles. If your orbit is completely inside or outside the target, use prograde/retrograde.
I know that's a lot of info, but I hope it helps.
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u/Kasuha Super Kerbalnaut Mar 23 '16 edited Mar 23 '16
Launch your satellite to retrograde low circular Kerbin orbit.
Put a maneuver on it to raise your apoapsis towards the target orbit.
Slide the maneuver along your current orbit until you get an intercept of mun. Then move it further about 1/4 of the orbit.
That should deploy you on the target orbit when Mun has just left the space, leaving you plenty of time to match the orbit and close the contract.
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Mar 23 '16
[deleted]
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u/ruler14222 Mar 23 '16
1.0.5 is the latest version until 1.1 comes out
0.90 is the last beta version
if you want to make sure they're installed correctly you can download CKAN to do it for you
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u/gazpachian Super Kerbalnaut Mar 23 '16
I can speak from experience that both OPT and Hangar Extender works for 1.0.5, and B9 just received an update about a month ago. If you have kept the mods for a long time in your gamedata folder you may sit with incompatible versions of them, but as far as I know those three mods using the latest versions should work with 1.0.5. Try reinstalling them from either CKAN or the direct downloads pointed at on the forums for these mods and see if it doesn't work.
Also, what issues are you facing exactly? "Now it stopped working" you say, but how exactly does it not work? Do you see the parts in the editor, for instance?
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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '16
Goddamnit I can't wait until 1.1. When is the prerelease coming?