Kerbal Space Program

Yes

You can change the command module to be the root part. You have to click on the “Root” button in the editor gizmo bar (top left of the screen next to the part bar.) Then click any part of your ship that’s not the command pod. (This seems nonsensical, but I believe is intended to allow multiple subassembly hierarchies or something.) Then select the command pod.

Probably this one, or maybe a docking port. The RoveMate core has a control point facing forward, if you use it to build a rover, so if it’s in command, the navball would be facing the horizon rather than facing the sky on the launch pad.

Thank you all !! :)

This was like a murder mystery. I couldn’t figure out why I kept banking to the left when I was trying to do a gravity turn to the right especially with everything well balanced. Then all the controls seemed to just not respond like they needed to. The Navball looked different but I figured my brain was fried from surgery. But re-rooting to the command capsule, the navball is back to normal and and the rocket actually responds like normal. So looking back at it, I was trying to drive the rocket from the rover which was suspended flat and it’s orientation was of course not in sync with the cardinal directions I was used to. All the tippiness was not because it was way too heavy up top… it was because my gravity turns from the dumb probey rover was taking my commands and messing them up.

Off to the Moon now. Yeehaa!

@jpinard Another trick I’ve used in the past to save a flipping rocket design is to turn off the top fuel tank until you get a bit higher in the air, making the fuel from the bottom get used first. Then turn it on when you need it. This has the benefit of leaving the top of the rocket heavy, which helps keep it flying straight…

If you turn on the advanced tweakables option, you can set fuel drain priority to do the same thing. I ought to try that sometime. My relay satellites are light enough that they don’t provide much of a shuttlecock effect.

What’s the rover for if it has no science? You hoping to land near the edge of a biome.and get crew and rocks from both?

It has a medium size arm sampler. I was able to study a moon rock and a moon crater with it :)

PSA: If you’re running the most recent KSP release 1.7.3., you might want to hold off on using deployed science from the Breaking Ground DLC. Those experiments will spam your screen with “Deployed Goo experiment returned 0.0003 science” messages up on your screen every minute or so, so when you warp anywhere, you’ll have several hundred notifications in your message queue that you have to delete one by one.

https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/23172
https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/22757

I hope they fix this soon. It is ridiculously annoying.

Speaking of rovers. I’ve never been able to really deploy them before, and I so stop trying a while ago.

But I’ve got a mission that basically needs to use the new scanner device on a rover in breaking ground.

So what is the secret for landing rovers? I’ve tried dropping them which didn’t go well. There seems to be some cool hinge parts which might let you off-load the rover similar to how it was done on Apollo 15.

In the past, I always secured mine underneath the lander, high enough that the lander’s legs kept it suspended above the ground. After landing, I’d just decouple the rover and drive it out from between the lander legs. I bet those robotic parts can make it pretty cool though.

The folding wheels from the Making History pack (I think) are a big help, too.

After I deployed them on the moon it absolutely destroyed my frame rate. At least I hope it was just that. Will I be able to go in and remove them without a trip back to the moon? Like from the tracking station?

Does this seem like terrible contract pay for this kind of tourist trip? (land on minmus)

It’s a little wimpy in my opinion, yeah. I got completion bonuses of √80,000 just recently for a similar mission.

How are people getting multiple smaller engines under a single fuel tank? Are they using an engine plate? Which leads to my next question. What is an engine plate for and how do you use it?

Also, what would you unlock next if you had these points?

None of those things. I would unlock nuclear engines.

EDIT: To add to that, the ISP on the nuclear engines is massive compared to everything else up until now and I think the only engines that beat it in certain circumstances are the ion engine and the rapier. It is horrible in atmo, but once in a vacuum you will use it everywhere.

Try it out in sandbox mode? :) (and a quick google shows that yes, they’re for using multiple smaller engines on a single tank. Back in the day we had to mess about with struts to get lots on there)

I’d been messing with it for hours lol. But… someone gave me a clue about a widget thingie? So I looked at all the items on the right-click menu and I had passed right over something about “add node”. Clicked that and now I got those options!

I can unlock that too! So I will grab it. Wow, I did not have any idea their vacuum ISP was so amazing. So do people then launch their rocket into orbit, then switch to nuke engines from there to go to the moon and other places?

But why is a nuclear engine using liquid fuel?

Exactly!

The NERV’s real-life analog, the NERVA, heated hydrogen fuel for exhaust using a uranium-based reactor (there was no chemical reaction).

Yeah, in the nuclear engine the tank provides the propellant, whereas in the normal rocket engines it’s both fuel and propellant.