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[Nao]

So I was thinking, are there planetary orbits hard coded? Like, if you got enough engines pointing in the right direction on Minmus, say, could you move it's orbit?

They are 'on rails' as the devs call it, so are your ships in high time compression. Unity isn't exactly designed to support this sort of thing, it's impressive they making it work as it is.

You don't know for sure until you try it!
Let's create a forum game and start bringing fuel and NERVA engines to Gilly (smallest moon). W will need only 15827 millions of tons to move it by 1m/s DeltaV. Thats only half a billion of orange fuel tanks, no problem for our dwarf industry .

[tryrar]

Scot Manly already tried that. He has a video explaining why it wont work(you'd need a cluster of engines and fuel tanks that are basically the size of the moon you're trying push, even if they weren't on rails and thus can't be affected at all!)

[DrPoo]

Hmm any practical use for spacelanes besides s cool way of flying?
Arent rockets much better than spaceplanes for carrying cargo?

[lastverb]

even if they weren't on rails and thus can't be affected at all!

Huge docking base!
To test if that's even possible would be much easier by cheating Armok blessed engine.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Hmm any practical use for spacelanes besides s cool way of flying?
Arent rockets much better than spaceplanes for carrying cargo?

Carrying cargo, yes. Saving on fuel and having to replace discarded parts that don't quite make it to the ground intact, no. Rockets are great for lifting stuff in bulk. SSTO spaceplanes, and even normal spaceplanes to a degree, are better for lifting stuff for cheap.

Which means that no, currently there isn't a practical use for spaceplanes besides being darn cool. Once Career mode rolls around though...

And besides, the only limitation right now is the godawful aerodynamics model stand-in. Once it gets improved, I'm sure people will be able to build quite nice heavy-lifting spaceplanes.

[Chattox]

Ion engines, how do you make them work effectively? I can't get enough delta-v from one to make any kind of impact on my probe's trajectory before it flies way past the window of opportunity

Also, the fact that they're in utility and not propulsion bugs me immensely. I can see the reasoning behind it but it still irks me xD

[Putnam]

I mostly just use them for leisurely orbital adjustment and deorbit burns.

[Sean Mirrsen]

IRL ion engines are sometimes used for stationkeeping. I've been trying to find a way to make Ion RCS work (i.e. needing both power and xenon), but so far no luck.

And the reason they're under Utility is because... well, calling them "propulsion" is insulting the other engines. Ion engines are only good on very light probes that don't need a whole lot of acceleration to move, and the fact that most of the time you need excruciatingly long "burns" means that they're a supplementary propulsion source at best. Thus, "Utility".

[Chattox]

At the risk of making myself look retarded, they're not meant for interplanetary transfers of ultralight probes, then?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yes, they are. I said as much. But that's their niche, and they're nigh useless outside of it.

On the game-dev side, the Ion Engines are in Utility because batteries and solar panels are in Utility, clustered together with their powersource. Rover wheels are also a method of "propulsion", but likewise rather limited (to the ground). Therefore, they are all listed as "Utility", or supplementary items.

[sneakey pete]

Generally Ion engines are currently used with a on and off set of thrusting as the orbit spirals out. Not as efficient use of thrust for a transfer, but due to the higher engine efficiency, its more mass efficient.
However, it requires lots of long periods of thrusting and a much longer transfer time.... something which isn't exactly easy to do with KSP

[lastverb]

Is there any way to make Mechjeb and RemoteTech work with each other? If there is any of remote command modules, all of mechjeb's autopilots don't use throttle controls (ascent, nodes etc.), while rcs in docking, staging works fine.
There are a few posts about that in threads of both mods, but I haven't found a solution anywhere.

[forsaken1111]

Ion engines, how do you make them work effectively? I can't get enough delta-v from one to make any kind of impact on my probe's trajectory before it flies way past the window of opportunity

Also, the fact that they're in utility and not propulsion bugs me immensely. I can see the reasoning behind it but it still irks me xD

The best way to use ion engines is not in single adjustment burns but successive burns which slowly alter your trajectory. Burn a bit, orbit to the same position and burn some more. Slowly your orbit will change.

[jocan2003]

Is there any way to make Mechjeb and RemoteTech work with each other? If there is any of remote command modules, all of mechjeb's autopilots don't use throttle controls (ascent, nodes etc.), while rcs in docking, staging works fine.
There are a few posts about that in threads of both mods, but I haven't found a solution anywhere.

If you look some of the last page of remotech somone made a patch.

[forsaken1111]

The start of my new orbital station:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Small docking nodes are for eventual escape pods. Medium nodes are for vessels. The open end of the habitat module (the one with the 3 inflatable bits) is a large docking node where the station will be expanded. There's another on the other side of the power module. The blocky bit in the middle is my 'lab module'. Really just another habitat.