SRV Ron

KSP has been setting on the back burner since Ark Survival Encountered came out. Day 170, which equals the number of hours in single player and have a variety of pets and crafted items to make life easier in that game. Waiting on version 1.05 before starting a new Career game on the new gaming computer that Ark forced me to invest in.

Best way to avoid bloatware is to have a system built instead of buying one from the Big Box store. That way, you won't have all the crap the manufacturer installs on your computer running in the background. You can also avoid a big chunk of bloatware by not using Micro$oft Office. Instead, use Open Office or WordPerfect Office. Only run stuff that you actually use or need. Your computer will boot up a lot faster as well.

Explorer One was launched from a Redstone missile that then staged a cluster of spin stabilized Solid fuel sounding rockets to place it in orbit. You can play with the concept using the FASA mod using its pre built real world craft files.

There are PC laptops that have the same issue where you need to use the Function key with F1 for screenshots, quick save, and other function key KSP commands.

I don't think that the drogue part of the MK-16 is working. The flea pod combo points down until the main opens. Speed is not slowing down much from 250 m/s until the main opens. This is likely the cause of hard landing from flights coming straight down. They hit the ground before they have slowed down fully under the main chute opening.

Had no problem flying the flea with two Goo canisters. I tweak the flea to about 33%. It reached almost 8,000 meters. The ship landed OK on flat land East of the pad. You turn it in flight slightly to do so. Beware that a single tweaked BACC will now fling you to over 160,000 meters or can burn you up on powered flight. A real scary ride.

First two flights in Career normal. 1. Flea set to 33% with pod and two Goo capsules. Hit almost 8,000 meters. Gathered 33 science points. 2. Second flight with unlocked BACC SRB at about 45%, four fins, decoupler under pod. That went way suborbital to almost 170,000 feet, wasn't expecting that kind of performance. A harry ride due to frictional heating before burnout and a hot reentry, but safe recovery. Flight was stable with the fins even at the supersonic speed. Back to more testing.

The busy summertime doesn't leave much time for video games. Of the several projects, there are. 1. HO train club setups at the county fair. 2. Gardening. 3. Lawn mowing jobs for some extra income. 4. I am cutting up a large tree that the wind blew down. 5. The train club has purchased a 24 foot trailer that will be needing custom loading racks constructed by me. 6. The barn needs painting. 7. Am busy making hay for the mini horses. 8. Steam had their summer sale of games. KSP is one of those games on sale along with Space Engineer. 9. Ark Survival Evolved became early access last week. The game, far different from the usual survival fare, is awesome. You can play it as single player,local, but you cannot pause the game when you are running it. (You risk being eaten by a carnivore.) That leaves little time for KSP at the moment even though I have a Career game going using the latest updated KW and Novapunch Rocketry mods.

Some mod engines required a second or two to reach full power. They should be fired before releasing the launch clamps. In addition, throttle defaults to 50% until you use Shift to increase it to full. That should be done before launching your rocket. Regardless, without a picture or a Craft file, there is no way to determine what your problem is during launching.

You can launch low cost one way probes to the planets once you get solar panels, SAS, some basic instruments, and the better probe core. Send several on their way, but continue testing contracts and exploiting exploration of Kerbal, Mun, and Minmus while those probes are on their way. Place a low cost probe with thermometer in orbit around Kerbal, Mun, and Minmus to fulfill those data contracts for easy funds. An example of a low cost lander probe early in Career. Prior to KSP 0.90, this landed on Mun. Experiment in Sandbox with low cost designs to find what works best with the limited tech in KSP 1.02

Indeed. If that has changed, there would be problems in using mods, especially those that alter the KSP universe, archiving older versions of the game, and placing backup copies on portable media for the purpose of loss prevention in case of a hard drive failure or fatal malware attack.

Orient your ship prior to landing on a planet or moon to the same compass headings as you used when taking off from the launch pad. It makes landing and takeoff a lot easier.

While you can have multiple installs to your own personal computer, or computers, highly desirable when using mods or comparing upgraded versions, you are only allowed to run one licensed copy at a time. IE, no running two or more copies at once on your two or more separate computers. Example, I can legally run two copies at the same time because I have purchased the steam version for the desktop and the standalone version for the laptop. However, letting a friend run a copy on his computer, or placing a copy on the older laptop and running KSP on all three computers at once would be in violation of the EULA.

Wireless mice and keyboard are the way to go. Battery life is quite good even with heavy daily use. They will alert you when the battery gets low, usually a month for the mouse and a year on the keyboard. There is a switch on the logtech modules to turn them off when not in use. Mine are on 24-7 for the desktop. They go on sleep mode when not in use otherwise to save on battery life.

Great engine for light probes to land on moons and other planets. Under pre 0.90, this cheap rocket on the left made Mun and Duna with the Stayputnik probe.