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[Mephansteras]

Having a bit of a problem building my new MunBus lander.

I have a long connector strut that is going to go on each side of the side struts to make a nice, solid box.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That went well enough, and the first long strut is in place. However, it's not connected on both sides, despite being lined up properly. The top circled part here isn't connected, even though the bottom one locked in fine and it's sort of bumping back and forth on the connectors that it's supposed to be locked into.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anyone have any good suggestions on how to get both sides to lock into place?

[ank]

I think that the length is very slightly off.

It has to be perfect for it to dock that way.

Your ship might be 1 cm too long and it won't dock

[Fikes]

If you want to make sure your docking ports line up perfectly, you really have to reuse the parts from the first craft on the second craft.

For example, if you go back to my "getting heavier things in orbit" tutorial, the orbit stage from that craft would have to be the same as the orbit stage from the next craft you use.

What I do is build the orbit stage, complete with panels, control (the probe control), and RCS. Then I attach my payload and booster stages to it. That way no matter what payload I am sending to orbit, I can always dock the orbit stages together.

I am not sure that makes much sense, but I can sum it up by saying this. Never try to manually build two similar pieces, always reuse the first design on the second ship.

[Skyrunner]

GreatOrder, download the Orbital Construction mod, and you now have legitimate, 1 ton per part supplies to bus to and from the Mun to a space dock of your choosing.
I tried shipping 800 tons of that to an different planet, but 1.8.2 happened.

[ank]

When you say one ton per part, do you mean one ton for say, an orange fuel tank?

[Skyrunner]

"Spare part" is a resource name. It weights 1 ton per "1", so a SpareParts Medium module weights around 26 tons. When you create ships and deploy them into space directly (instead of from Kerbil), it uses 1 Spare Part per ton of your ship's weight. So in the end it's not cheaty at all, since you paid for every single ton of your ship with rocket fuel. But it's probably useful for getting ships into orbit without pesky launching every single time.

[Mephansteras]

I think that the length is very slightly off.

It has to be perfect for it to dock that way.

Your ship might be 1 cm too long and it won't dock

Hmm...well that's problematic. I'll have to rethink this design. Sounds like I'm going to need to create some sort of universal strut to create the base of the ship. Which should be doable, I suppose, but it'll make things a little more difficult.

[Twi]

You can do many a silly and fun thing with planes in air, but I've never really done much with getting them to space. It's simpler to use rockets most of the time.

That said, the idea of using a spaceplane for a landing is something I might try. I've been meaning to do some SCIENCE with spaceplanes and high-speed reentry for a while now.

[Twi]

Things that help with airplanes, for me:

ASAS, obviously. Note that you CAN in fact turn with ASAS on with some difficulty, I do it all the time. Or turn it off for short bits.

Precision Control, which you can toggle with the caps lock. Makes the controls less sensitive: to be exact, makes it take longer for them to go from 'not manuvering' to 'full tilt'. I.e, while you can still turn as hard as before, you can't be quite as sudden about it.

Balance your center of mass/lift/thrust! Torque is a thing that can happen, and you would like your plane to naturally want to orient itself reasonably close to horizontal, perhaps slightly pitch up.

For jet engines, remember: air intakes, air intakes, air intakes.

[forsaken1111]

So did I mention this mod already? Because its bloody awesome.

http://kerbalspaceport.com/quantum-strut/

Quantum Struts!

When unpowered, they do nothing. When powered, they are a strut! Attach things to things! With power!

Recommended for orbital construction, and with lots of power generation.

[LoSboccacc]

I prefer this to the lasery one
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36914-PLUGIN-PART-0-18-2-Docking-Strut-%E2%80%93-V-1-0-0-0

[bQt31]

Hi guys 

So I finally decided to buy this game, I'm starting a space station and stuff but I'm having a problem with my latest module.

It's a small vessel (don't know how you'd call it irl) that will do 'ground' work near my station (moving modules around, these kind of things). I designed one but I'm having trouble assembling it in the ship editor, it won't let me put it on top of my rocket :
http://www.noelshack.com/2013-03-1358338428-screenshot5.png
Never mind, I reassembled it piece by piece from the top of my pod.

Also I'm pretty sure I saw somone who had a robotic arm on his station. I'm guessing it can be used to move modules around, probably even more easily than it would be with my vessel. But I can't find anything like it in the rocket editor... Is it a mod?

Btw I already tried to put a decoupler on top of my rocket and it worked without problem... That's why I just don't get it.

Aside from that I landed on the moon!:
http://www.noelshack.com/2013-03-1358338494-screenshot0.png yeah I know.... 

Also I have to thank you for making me discover this game. Seeing this thread often on the top persuaded me to buy it and I'm not disappointed at all

[Skyrunner]

Yes, this game is awesome.

IMO, it's more awesome with a few mods that are pretty much what should be in vanilla, like the abovementioned Docking Struts, or Orbital Construction, or Larger Trusses...

[bQt31]

Truly awesome indeed! I'm gonna keep my game vanilla, at least until release. I want to keep my save in a working state 
What I really "hate" so far is docking... It takes me like 30 minutes to dock a new module to my station 
They should make a new part to help with this; everytime, I have to align with the station then press T so my asas keeps me the way I am, then remove it, press R to activate RCS. Move a bit towards my station. Then press R and T to stop my ship from changing angles... During that time my ship probably rotated on itself, forcing me to rearrange the rotation 
I hope I'm doing something the wrong way, else it requires tons of skill. I'm sure IRL they have all kind of assistance devices.
edit:Maybe a device that gives your ship the same speed on all axis than the station... I don't know but this is really frying my brain

[LoSboccacc]

You aren't making proper use if the docking altrnate control modes

Using space swithes between translation and rotation.

In rotation asas is off and controls rotate the ship
When you switch to translation asas is switched on automatically and holds your orentation (the best it can, remember to place rcs on both sides of your module...)