Problems with attitude in reentry

[jlvinals]

Hi, thanks for this amazing game.

I am in the last mission of the Mercury campaign (Hawaii) and I have a doubt (which also affects my free play missions). I am told that I need to do a manual reentry, so I change to manual flight mode but I have no idea which is the correct attitude to reentry earth. I have already manually activated the 0.05G but I drift perpetually and nothing happens. I know that the part of the capsule where the heat shield is must face Earth, and I position the capsule in this way, but I do not know if I have to input a very specific attitude.

When I press the "check reentry" button NASA says something as "we see you at XXX nmi", and I do not know how to interpret this number (it is usually a 200 something number that changes as I drift). Also, although I can pitch, roll and yaw the gauges do not move at all (?), I thought that an attitude would be three numbers, but NASA only returns one (the 200 and something) and my gauges do not move anyway (but the gyros are working as I can pitch, roll and yaw):

May you help me please?

[jlvinals]

Sorry I meant "check attitude", not "check reentry"

[jlvinals]

I am thinking, if the gauges are not working, maybe the gyros are failing even if I can pitch, roll and yaw (in this case sorry if I misunderstood what a gyro actually is). But as I cannot use the periscope to measure attitude during reentry (it must ve in), this means I can only use the screen for correcting attitude, is that so?

[jlvinals]

Sorry, I made a mistake, the button says "checking altitude", not attitude, please ignore that part

[jlvinals]

I believe I figured out by myself and by the help of a couple of Youtube videos...

[LyraCreative]

Originally posted by jlvinals:

I believe I figured out by myself and by the help of a couple of Youtube videos...

Saw this just now, but that is great! What did you do that solved this? :)

[jlvinals]

I had missed the message that says that the gyros are not working (it is an intentional challenge in the scenario), so I stopped panicking about them. This means you are expected to maintain attitude by visual means, so I used the window and the periscope to maintain 0,0,0 attitude. I also used the map to chek that I was in the Hawaii area. Then I manually forced retroengines and jettisoned them. Then I waited to reach 0.05G and started to pitch 40 degrees in the right direction for reentry (If it is not exactly 40 it is OK).

This is wonderfully explained in this video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXzhrhzGU9c

What this video explains should be part of the manual to be honest; the game is wonderful and strictly speaking the manual touches all things, but this part does not get a proper treatment in my opinion and the explanations should be clearer.

[Queen_of_spades_1334]

Bro I’m glad you fixed your spacecraft and nuclear as some of call him is amazing at what he does. He’s a wonderful teacher.

[LyraCreative]

Originally posted by jlvinals:

I had missed the message that says that the gyros are not working (it is an intentional challenge in the scenario), so I stopped panicking about them. This means you are expected to maintain attitude by visual means, so I used the window and the periscope to maintain 0,0,0 attitude. I also used the map to chek that I was in the Hawaii area. Then I manually forced retroengines and jettisoned them. Then I waited to reach 0.05G and started to pitch 40 degrees in the right direction for reentry (If it is not exactly 40 it is OK).

This is wonderfully explained in this video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXzhrhzGU9c

What this video explains should be part of the manual to be honest; the game is wonderful and strictly speaking the manual touches all things, but this part does not get a proper treatment in my opinion and the explanations should be clearer.

Thank you for sharing the solution, and "Nuclear and Space Education" has some amazing content for both Reentry and NASSP. I'll take a note of your feedback, the mission itself might be a bit too hard for players at this stage too, so maybe more in-game guidance would make sense too.