That's hilariously awesome!  

Through a time acceleration incident I leveled off about 800m over the surface of Laythe (now climbing to 6k):



It's not exactly the easiest to control. With a 45* right roll, to make a 90* bank I lost about 2.7km altitude while maintaining 300m/s forward. Difficult to maneuver.

Here's why I needed the 90* bank:




AAAAAAAND I crashed. Time to reload autosave before Laythe intercept.

Alright. here we go! Successful(ish) attempt:



















And 300m behind the craft, and the reason for the angled picture:





Just landed James about 1.7km from Jeb and Bob, driving the Rovulator:

I have managed to get a decent satellite network up and running.  The pretty pattern is from 9 satellites in 100km obits.  I launched 6 at a 45 degree inclination 1 hour apart and 3 into a polar orbit 1 hour apart.  They all have a large omnidirectional antenna so anything within a couple thousand kilometers of Kerbin should have a constant connection.  It also provides intermittent coverage to my missions in the polar regions so I can transmit science.  In equatorial orbit is 4 older comsats at 500km and 4 geostationary comsats.  I am being forced to gather all the science possible on Kerbin, Mun and Minmus before doing all the hard work required to send interplanetary probes for loads of science.  I am glad to see Scott Manley using Remote Tech 2 in his latest video series, it is good to see him make the same stupid mistakes I was making when learning how the mod works.  Manned missions are essential early on, but be prepared to haul as much science back as possible because spamming science and transmitting it back is way more complicated.

Those of you who suffer from verbophobia should skip to the end.
My first play through of career mode has been remarkable in that I
haven't lost one Kerbal, either killed or marooned on another body.
Admittedly, exploring the other planets has been mostly robotic so
I've only needed to rescue Kerbals on the Mün or Minmus.  The Minmus
rescue missions were notable in the number of phases required to get
them home: land small landers on Minmus with enough delta-V to get the
castaways into Minmus orbit and then send a Kerbin-return vehicle to
ferry them home.  Surprisingly, it worked which gave me enough
confidence to attempt rescuing Mün-bound Kerbals.  The Mün rescue
missions were largely a repeat of the Minmus rescues, albeit the Mün
is a higher energy environment than Minmus.
In my hubris I dispatched Jebediah to Eve in a wholely inadequate
lander.  He arrived at Eve without mishap, however he dipped too low
into Eve's atmosphere and did not successfully aerocapture.  Instead
he was forced to land immediately without picking a landing site.
As Murphy's law is not unknown to Kerbals, he landed in the drink.  He
bravely attempted to turn his lander into an improvised boat and pilot
it to land. Unfortunately there were insufficient stores of fuel to
get very far.  Jeb was well and truly stuck in a purple sea with land
just visible over the horizon.
The Kerbal Space Program swung into high gear, devising a multi-phase
plan for rescuing Jeb:
Phase 1: Land a boat near Jeb to get him to land
Phase 2: Land an ascent lander near Jeb and evacuate him to Eve orbit
Phase 3: Rendezvous with Jeb in Eve orbit with a Kerbin-capable vehicle
Phase 4: Profit.
<cue montage of vehicle development footage>
Phase 1 was implemented as a set of jet-powered pontoon boats that
would descend on parachutes.  The boats would be delivered on a small
final stage rocket which would deorbit the boats and be discarded.
The boats would separate and land independently: the primary boat
would navigate to Jeb and get him to land.  The secondary boat would
be held in reserve.  The boat-delivery package (Boat Trailer 1) would
be propelled to Eve via a large propulsion unit ( 5 Rockomax Jumbo 64s
festooned with RCS tanks, solar panels, big batteries and pushed by up
to 5 MainSails).  The propulsion unit was delivered to Kerbin orbit
nearly dry, as were the boats. A grueling series of refueling missions
were carried out, fueling the main propulsion stage and the trailer.
The trailer and the propulsion unit were joined in high Kerbin orbit
and a final top-off refueling mission resulted in the final Phase 1
vehicle.






The trip to Eve was relatively uneventful.  A lucky alignment of
bodies resulted in a co-alignment of Eve orbit intersection and
ascending node, so I was able to conserve delta-V by not matching Eve
inclination.  Using ion engines and a small shift in eccentricity I
was able to encounter Eve and achieved a periapse of 100+ km.
Entering the Eve SOI at +16 hours to periapse, I decided to attempt a
second aerocapture maneuver.  This time I used a calculator and
determined a periapse of 62 km would result in a 1000x60 km orbit with
time to raise periapse and fine tune delivery of the boats to Jeb.  
I admit I nearly panicked during the aerocapture.  I was watching
apoapse decrease at a rapid pace and I was sure that the orbit was
going to decay before the vehicle exited Eve's atmosphere.  Instead,
as predicted by the calculator, the vehicle aerocaptured into a 980x60
km roughly polar orbit.  Sixty seconds of terror.
As I waited for Jeb to rotate beneath the polar track, I re-staged for the
final part of the mission.  I had conserved a remarkable amount of
fuel between not having to match Eve's inclination and the aerocapture
maneuver. It seemed like a waste to use a small portion of it to
de-orbit the boats.  I decided to leave the propulsion module in orbit
to act as a near-Eve fuel dump for future missions.  A fateful decision.
As Jeb rotated into alignment with the track of the boat's polar
orbit, it was time to seperate the descent stage and commit to a landing.
The descent stage undocked at 180 degrees from Jeb, just a few degrees
ahead of my track.  I configured a deorbit burn in a maneuver node and
counted down the seconds.
I forgot to goose the throttle after undocking to re-initialize the
maneuver node system, so the node I configured for deorbiting the
boats was expecting the delta-V of a MainSail, not a Poodle.  The
deorbit burn went from 60 seconds to 300 seconds, which would result
in the boats overshooting Jeb's position.  If the burn was postponed it
would be quite some time before another favorable alignment happened
between Jeb and the orbital track. If the boats landed long, they could
navigate back to Jeb and continue the mission.
The decision was made to proceed with the de-orbit.
The descent staging worked beautifully.  After entry heating subsided
around 50km altitude, the vehicle continued to a powered descent and





a new problem was identified.  The boats would be feet dry given the





current trajectory unless we could deflect with main propulsion.  Seconds
after slewing the vehicle to the proper orientation, the main tank
went dry and the vehicle was ballistic.  Tracking towards land.
Hoping to get the boats to the ocean, the final separation sequence
was triggered.  The boats would separate, roll 90 degrees as they
drifted away from the de-orbit stage, hold heading on the horizon and
deploy chutes.  I hoped that the drag of the chutes and the high
altitude would result in a "water" landing.  
As the boats separated, I switched command between the boats obtaining
the correct attitude and triggered the chutes.  I was worried that the
thicker atmosphere would result in a higher-gee load when the chutes
deployed, however the boats rode the shock without a bend.  Panning
down, the boats were now over land by a few hundred meters.
The boats were equipped with jet engines as their means of propulsion,
and testing on Kerbin had shown they could operate for great distances
at 1/3 throttle reaching a sustained velocity of 10 m/2.  At 15 m/s
the boats became less stable and at 20 m/s they would break up.  During
those test runs, I discovered that the boats could be flown while
under canopy using the jet engine.  I also found that the boats were
far too heavy to move on the ground using the jet engine. If the
boat landed on dry land, it was stuck.
Hoping to use the paraglider technique in a last ditch effort to get
the boat to water, I started the jet engine and slewed the boat's heading
towards the sea.  The jet came to life with a re-assuring whine and I
started easing the throttle forward.
And as most of you probably have already guessed, that's when I
learned that Eve does not have any oxygen in it's atmosphere.  The
whole premise of the jet-boat mission was flawed from the get-go.  I
was proud that my execution of Phase 1 was keenly realized ( if not
expertly piloted ) but after all was said and done, it resulted in two
stationary jet boats stranded on dry land less than 30km from a Kerbal
stranded in an alien ocean.
"Damnit.  What now?"
tl;dr: no oxygen on Eve, jet engines do not work.
 
 
 
 


 
 

Nice.    Only a year ago I wouldn't have known what the fuck you were talking about.  It's amazing that KSP can make someone sound like a real half-asstronaut.  

FWIW,  using a lander (based on nothing more than a FL-200 and a LT-145) to descend to the Mun or Minmus, re-orbit, transfer back to Kerbin, and land with parachutes with a decent amount of fuel left over.   I usually burn it up in atmo because I'm not a fan of crashlanding on a fuel tank.

I usually kill my orbital delta-V with my interplanetary stage while still in Mun orbit, then jettison it and descend with the lander alone.   'Course that's just a one man deal, but I suppose you could hang extra Kerbals on the ladder and let them cool their heels in Kerbin orbit for a few cycles.

There's supposed to be a Q&A at http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1qjoe2/we_are_the_makers_of_kerbal_space_program_ask_us/ in about half an hour. (12 Noon EST) Just FYI.

 

I tried but reddit's format confuses me...

40% off on Steam this weekend.

Hey guys!  I'm Back!



Just got my new desktop up and running.  This game pretty much fried my old comp lol.   And I just started playing again with the new patch.  



I am really liking career mode.  Just landed a few Kerbals on Mun and Minmus and a few probes on Duna.



Anyway I can't remember what key flips parts in the build area.  Anyone know off hand?

WSADRQ flip the parts in all directions.

WASDQE

Thanks guys!



I think those were the only keys I didn't try!

So they put up a picture at the end of the Reddit Q&A with the date for Kerbal Kon.





Dec 12 2013





Don't have any details really as to what web events they are going to do or what web address everything will happen at yet.  I think we can count on live web feeds with the Devs and some special guests... and probably contests.

 

LoL SoL

Not sure what I'm looking at but I kinda like it.

its the Satellite of Love.  I guess there is a Kerbel named Joel stranded up there forced to watch crappy movies with 4 robot friends..

Did you magic it up there or did you launch it?  I'd like to see the launch vehicle to get that hot mess delicate assemblage into orbit



 

I didn't do it.. found it on another site.. think I might replicate it. if I can..

I have been away from KSP for over a week since I had to go out of town for work.  I am continuing on with my Remote Tech career mode.  I have had to do multiple missions to different biomes on the Mun to get decent amounts of science.  Next missions will be to Duna, but my new ship needed a couple of test runs to the Mun.

This is my MK2 Ranger XL, the earlier version didn't have Mainsails or orange tanks, but the lander stayed the same.


The first version barely had enough fuel to make it back from the Mun.  The docking ports are going to be used for refueling, hauling fuel reserves and for towing a set of comsats that will be released in orbit around the destination planet/moon.


Landed on the Mun, good for about 800 science.


Safe return.

I see a mechjeb module in those pictures.

Good eye.  It is neat in career mode because as you move through the tech tree more functions are unlocked.  My last save game I did no MechJeb and tried to land a bunch of stuff in the same spot on Duna.  After lots of swearing I decided this time around I would use MechJeb.  When using Remote Tech is is very handy as well, knowing all my orbit info and being able to put my comsats in a perfect orbit keeps them from getting out of sync during big time warps.  I still do most everything manually, unless I am playing drunk, then ascent guidance may get used .

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I use the shit out of mechjeb, to automate repetitive tasks or fine tune things.

I can plan and fly whatever mission I want, and did it manually many times over.

I've got no problem using mechjeb to handle some stuff.

Navigational computers and autopilots and things are within the realm of reality and possibility.

That said... if you make mechjeb do EVERYTHING, you're a tool.

I need to get the full version eventually.



I've been playing the demo a bit.  Got to Mun and crashed.  Second time landed, but I don't know if I have enough fuel left to even escape Mun, let alone get back to Kerbin.



I won't know either way, as it seems I didn't line up the ladder with the hatch, and can't seem to get Jeb back into the module.

While on EVA press 'R' to engage the rocket pack.  Shift for up, Ctrl for down, WASD for the rest.  After a few tries you should be able to get Jeb close enough to the hatch to grab on.  If it is dark press 'L' for helmet lights.

You don't need much fuel at all to escape Mun and get into a Kerbin sub-70k orbit.

You can send a rescue vessel.  Or you can always get out and push:

It is exciting when get out and push is just enough to make it home.

This happened right after the new update came out.  Landed on the Mun but burnt too much fuel finding a suitable landing spot.  Enough fuel for escape, but not enough to get my periapsis inside Kerbin's atmosphere.


Time to push!


Win!  It took a several orbits to reenter, but close enough.

I do wish they would fix aerodynamics and fuel balance.  Currently it's more like flying a picnic table than a spaceplane.

I've been messing with space planes a lot lately.

I agree that the mechanics are a bit wonky.

That said, with SAS enabled you can come up with some pretty cool designs. I've made quite a few interesting atmospheric jets.

Flight computers were a requirement to get things like the SR-71 and F-117 to fly.

Guess we need them to fly ours, too

I have a few working SSTO designs.  Since wings don't generate lift, I usually have problems getting my craft to pitch up properly to 45 degrees after reaching terminal velocity at 20km.

canards, reaction wheels.

Yes, but tweaking the pitch on your canards drastically fucks up the center of lift and makes the craft unstable.  Fuel draining from the front to the back doesn't help either... I'd rather have all fuel tanks feed a central tank that feeds the engines.

whats the best way to start on this game. I picked it up when it was cheep and preceded to slaughter 4 of my pilots. is there a better step by step than the tutorial?

https://www.youtube.com/user/szyzyg/videos

Flip through Scott Manley's videos.

He's got plenty of tutorials, and other informative videos, and you will actually learn some shit too.

I'll just leave this here.

How does one get Mechjeb into the career side of the game?

Once you've climbed the tech tree far enough, it SHOULD show up.  If not, there's a way to edit the config files in the mod to assign it to one of the very first tech tree stages.  You'll have to sift the KSP forum thread on MechJeb to find the exact instructions, don't remember the details offhand.

You need Mechjeb patched stock pods or it won't work right.

The latest version of MechJeb should already be integrated into the tech tree.

If it is, it isn't included in the techtree's wiki page.

um... of course it isn't... because it's a mod and not part of the base game.





Any mod with parts can include in their part descriptions which tech tree nodes they want those parts to be on.  When you add the mod then those parts will be added to the nodes.





 

Oh.  Well that makes perfect sense.  

I'll have to add it to the career side of the game.

I have been dealing with some annoying PC issues lately.  I built the machine in 2007 with a Q6600 processor (2.4 GHz quad core) and it has had everything replaced at one point or another except for the mobo, processor and optical drive.  I recently switched out my giant 260 GTX video card for a 640 GT, which is quieter, cooler and uses much less power.  Since then I have been having random restarts anywhere from 2 min - 2 hours from startup and I spent the past 4 days trying to pinpoint the issue.  I did pretty much everything including re-installing windows, pulling everything out and checking connections, switching video cards, and running endless diagnostics, but I couldn't get any closer to an answer.  I have a nice Corsair 650W power supply that should be overkill for my setup and is only a few years old, but it may be the only cause of the problem that I haven't been able to rule out.  All of a sudden it is working fine with no crashes for the past day.

I saw this Corsair Vengeance case the other day, now I have the itch to build a new system:


During all of this madness I managed to corrupt my latest save files, so I had to start all over with a new career mode save.  I used the latest KW Rocketry mod and I love the new sound effects and battery packs.




And yes, I also have MechJeb installed

That's a good looking case. Sometimes I get the urge to want to swap to a nice simple case like that and sell my water cooling stuff.

I've got that case.  I like it.  I didn't spill a single drop of blood doing the swap into it.

I started messing around with water cooling on a setup I was helping a friend build about 4 years ago, what a nightmare.  The tanks, tubing, fittings and leaks were a headache.  This case is designed to fit one of these self contained units in the top, which seems to be much less of a hassle.  I am already drooling.

Yeah, I've been doing it for years, but I don't think I'm going to do it again in my next case. It looks cool and allows you to overclock your CPU farther than air while remaining quiet, but it's expensive and a headache to plan out and assemble.

I overclocked my 2.4 GHz to 2.6 with air cooling and had no issues, I tried 3.0 GHz and didn't seem to have any heat issues, but there was some stability problems that led to my screen turning funny colors and the system locking up.  I have tried to look at forums to see what voltages and other settings people were using, but it was confusing and I didn't notice much improvement while playing KSP so I have been keeping things at stock speeds lately.

FYI KerbalKON or as I like to call it K-KON Starts tomorrow Dec 12th and goes through the 13th.





They'll be live streaming on http://www.twitch.tv/ksptv


A schedule of events has not yet been posted but they tweeted out that they would be posting one today.



Schedule http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60806-KerbalKon-Schedule-Videos