chainedlupine

I always roll my eyes at these situations. People complain that game dev companies are too tight-lipped and incognito about what they are working on. But yet when a company decides to be more transparent and reveal information, particularly about what features will be in the next release or even when said release will do done, then people will give them no end of grief if they happen to miss deadlines or have to cut/modify features. It happens. Software development is a fluid, complex thing. I wish people would just cut Squad some slack. They have just recovered from a fairly major blow to their public-facing community systems, so I am sure there has been a lot of fire-fighting/re-org related to that.

You can remap the keys. Some people do, using the IJKL keys that are used for RCS translation mode. A simpler solution is to just enable LIN docking mode. As long as you have no RCS (or keep RCS turned off if you have it), then this a "dead" control mode that does nothing -- but will still drive your rover because the wheels respond to the WASD keys by default.

I have a feeling that any NASA employee would immediately turn green as a Kerbal if they saw a typical KSP space plan... Nonetheless, kudos that Squad's game gets mentioned by NASA.

Nice! I've considered something like that, because I have a very active Mun station (with Kethane refinery for refueling). However, I've yet to build a spaceplane that has enough dV left to get to the Mun. I usually have just enough dV left over to return to Kerbin.

Even with multiple ASAS modules, I don't have that problem. (Multiple ships docked, if I hit T and it will stabilize.) Do you have RCS enabled? I could see that causing a station to rip apart if ASAS was turned on while RCS thrusters were enabled. This is why when I am docking, I make sure my RCS is disabled 1-2 meters before contact.

I had that happen once to a Duna launch. I had two Gigantor solar panels. Both were extended. But I hadn't noticed the orientation of the ship before engaging time acceleration, and when I arrived I was surprised to find out I had no power (and therefore, a derelict craft). The craft had rotated during my ejection burn from Kerbin. One was in the shadow of the craft, and the other was facing the Sun, but edge-on and not receiving power. Argh! An easy way to fix this is to put a few extra OX-STAT panels here and there, along different axis of your craft, so at least ONE should get solar energy at all times. Or just use PB-NUKs, which is what I mostly do now.

The physics comment is just flat out wrong. KSP does indeed use the PhysX physics engine, because that is what Unity utilizes at its core. In fact, the problems with rockets going all wobbly without tons of struts is a direct symptom how PhysX works -- And not just PhysX, but almost all contemporary physics engines.

I'm in the same boat as Tw1. I have a satellite orbiting most planets and moons, and my pretend justification for sending it (aside from just getting something there in the first place) was to expand my deep space communications network. Though in reality, we can do that fairly well from Earth alone without the need for relays. Early probes were planned around planet/moon radio-shadows. They were able to do their jobs, usually by executing via simple pre-programmed steps (in the era before computers!) and by storing all telemetry data for later play back when the satellite/probe was within LoS of Earth again. However, in a modern space age, I would expect at least a few relay satellites just for safety sake and allowing the crew to keep in touch with their comrades. For modern semi-autonomous systems, a relay is required.

No mention of Independence War 1 and 2? Those games were great. Tough-as-nails (particularly the first one), but Newtonian physics and semi-realistic space ships and setting. I say semi-realistic because they had FTL drive. But it was executed reasonably (with limitations), and the linear-displacement drive was just so dang cool -- I loved engaging it in the solar system and watching Saturn and Jupiter rush at me and swing past.

Aha. So that's why the 3-man capsule has that bizarre name of "mk1-2pod". I wondered why it wasn't just called the "mk2pod."

I hope not. I sure would miss launching giant bricks into space.

Here's the lifter I use for a similar sort of rover: As Qumefox said, wider is better than taller in KSP, due to how its physics works. Tall rockets are inherently unstable, unless you strut the hell out of them.

Heck, I find a lot of the time that I over-estimate. I can make a stack that has exactly 4500 m/s dV (atmo) to get into orbit, but of course that value changes as I get higher up or depending on what sort of cluster stack I use. So I end up with booster stage in orbit that still has, say, 900-ish dV still kicking around. It's like Christmas. Woo, free dV to apply towards my ejection burn! But still, means I am not very good at estimating my dV requirements. But that's just it. I'm estimating, based on what Kerbal Engineer Redux tells me. What I get for not mathing it.

It's not a problem that most physics engines for video games are meant to resolve. Pretty much the only hack-y fix that exists has already been given to us -- creating our own cross-bracing joints via struts. Unfortuantely, as most of us have found out, more parts means more struts, and this greatly increases the complexity of the physics simulation and frame rates spiral out of control.

40 tons LV-N to get close to the sun? Heh. I like that. And ROFL, it's more than a "bit." You're moving very fast. I don't have numbers handy but I am sure it's well over 15,000 m/s for a circularized orbit around the sun. Update: Durp, Cerate mentioned the number in their post. 30,000 m/s dV.