MonkeyFuzz

I leave the WASD controls alone, however I have the translation controls bound to the number pad. They are: 8/5 Up/Down, 4/6 Left/Right; 7/9 Forward/Back.

Aaaaaand the hype train seems to have derailed at Download Station. KSP site hasn't let me start the download. /I can wait a bit longer.

Not just what was said above, but their real progress is when these updates are in the /scratchpad/ section. That seems to be where the Release Candidates go for final review, but even when they get there it might be hours or days yet before a true release to the public. /my best understanding.

Choo-choo! Here comes the hype-train to the tunnel! Chugga-chugga! Open wide!

Captain, the hype train cannah go any faster! She'll fly apart!

In stock KSP, I'll begin my turn at 10km to about 45*, then gradually tilt further as Apoapsis rises. By the time it's around 40km, I'm usually tilted towards 70-80* and once AP hits 50km, I tilt to the horizon. With FAR I'll begin my gravity turn by 0.5km and gradually tilt ever farther as my course indicator moves lower. By around 5km I'm near 45*. Since I end up hitting 1000m/s+ while still below 20-30km, the biggest worry has been my parachutes exploding due to excess heat (Deadly Reentry, of course). With that approach, the correcting final burn for orbit insertion is ~20m/s.

I'll make my radial burns prior to a SOI change to nudge the periapse to where I want it to be, usually at the minimum safe altitude above a body so I can make my orbital insertion burn requiring the least power possible thanks to the Oberth Effect.

I didn't see it picked apart by anyone, but several people have said that these video preview versions only get released to Scott Manley and the others only shortly before their release. In Manley's video he compares his parachute problem to a NASA test in Hawaii that happened "over the weekend". http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/28/nasa-launch-saucer-vehicle-parachute-hawaii-mars That test was on Saturday, June 28. It would seem he made this video before the end of that week, so by Friday, July 4. They probably got their copies a week-and-a-half ago.

It's been mentioned elsewhere by devs (sorry I don't have a link to cite with) that money, science, and reputation will be exchangeable between one another. I don't know what penalty or cost there will be (if any) in converting them.

That sounds like a solid plan, Rowsdower. Like everyone else, I'm happily looking forward to the release, whenever that might be.

For the last few months I've played with the Kerbal Engineering and Mission Control Extended mods. They make a good combination for career play as you have to pay money to launch each vehicle and get paid for completing contracts. If you do some math over the weight of your payload vs the cost of the launch/orbital insertion stages, you can figure a rough estimate on launch prices. Most of my launchers cost between $6.5k-$8k/ton of payload. Those are on flights that cost over $125k total, where pay offs are between $150-220k. Yesterday I managed to muster a relatively heavy lifter (~18t tons to LKO) that costs just over $5k/ton.

Early on (maybe around 0.13 or 0.14) my greatest achievement in terms of velocity was making a manned sun-dive. When nuclear thermal engines first came out I went on a interplanetary spree with testing their efficiency. I stranded a Kerbal on Duna and another on Moho. During an Apollo-style Mun mission I failed to realize that the ascent module's fuel had been drained through bad design. Launch off of the mun got me up a few hundred meters and the craft fell back to the surface. The lander's design was such that it carried two mini lander cans atop the ascent engine and tanks. When it crashed back into the surface it pancaked, destroying the engines and lower can. The upper can survived the crash, stranding the one living Kerbal.

With that restriction: a city, no. A village, yes!

Now we have the escalation of the company logos being released Urge to constantly refresh KSP homepage: Rising.

While it's no longer practical for Squad or the KSP devs, I enjoyed Ye Olde Tymes when releases would be sudden and out of the blue. They were a happy, wonderful surprises that would appear from nowhere like a good gift.