Captain Vlad

Your kid just won KSP.

Buying on day one. Been waiting for a stock Gemini-style capsule since I bought the game, and the mission editor looks fun.

I'm a cat owner. You damn near made me cry. Awesome post.

Eh, necromancy isn't so bad. I found some of this useful.

The Wheesley is my go-to engine for any non-giant aircraft I'm planning on landing on non-runway terrain, and I tend to build a lot of those, so I end up using it way more than the Panther.

They're unified. They're peaceful. They're smart enough to realize that they could use violence. They're smart enough to know that's kind of a silly way to do things when there's an entire universe out there to explore. I feel they'd regard us as primitive and naive if they could watch from afar. I don't imagine them as being divided into countries; I imagine they wouldn't see the point in that. I also don't imagine there's as many of them as there are humans on Earth. Cities, yes, companies, yes, but I feel they deliberately leave Kerbin as unspoiled as they possibly can, which includes population controls....with the caveat that the exploration of the stars is worth whatever they have to do. I think they have a long-term survival strategy, long-term enough that their star's lifespan is a worry. They want to be out there in the galaxy long before that even starts to happen. I don't think they're perfect. I think they sometimes err far too much on the side of bravery and have a "MORE POWER!" fixation that rivals Jeremy Clarkson. I think they can confuse pragmatism and timidity. I feel they're stubborn as all hell; they may not go to space today, but they WILL. GO. TO. SPACE. All of them, eventually.

Older guy and don't care about other people's opinions, as others have described. Do get pretty attached to the brave little kerbonauts, though, and my affection has inspired rescue missions better than any sci-fi movie I've ever seen.

Currently I have no abandoned craft. But on my first career, I launched a returnable Mun 'base' (really a very large lander) that I landed at an intersection near multiple biomes. It's accompanying craft, launched with a second rocket, was an overbuilt six-wheeled rover I made in order to drive around, sampling as much science as I could before taking it back to the lander for collection. I spent hours driving the thing around, trying not to crash (it did not flip easily, but I tend to be an enthusiastic driver). And then I sent the big lander back home. I'd known starting out that I would be leaving it behind since my expertise level at the time didn't fill me with confidence so far as a recovery mission goes. But I'd gotten so attached to it during all the samplings runs that I couldn't just delete it, and let it sit there throughout the rest of that career. Actually turned out to be a handy navigational reference point on more than one occasion.

So long, Felipe. Thanks for the passion and energy that allowed us all to waste away the hours in a way that can never actually fit the definition of waste. My imagination owes a debt to you.

Here's the rocket I was talking about. Sufficient to launch, orbit, do up to a 150K rendezvous and return, though at that altitude fuel gets alarmingly tight. Nosecone is the usual, but I don't thing a shielded port would affect drag enough to prevent similar performance.

I've got a three-Kerbal rocket that uses the Mk 1 inline cockpit, the two-kerbal cabin, a Rockomax fuel tank and a pair (or it is three...) of Thuds that doesn't currently have a docking port, but I feel replacing its nosecone with a shielded port wouldn't affect it too badly. It's sufficient to make a 150K rendezvous with my space station and return (great for LKO rescues and tourist hops, too). With four radial chutes it's recoverable without decoupling anything but the SRBs I use to kick it up to decent altitude, so you're only out the cost of fuel and boosters. I'm now curious to see whether or not I could replace the cockpit/cabin setup with the three-man pod (which I also like the aesthetics of) and still have similar performance. I can post pics of my current ship when I get home, if you want, and I can do some experiments with the capsule tonight.

Glad this is back, missed it all weekend.

Once I design a Mun lander, for instance, I usually keep using the basic design but make small improvements to it based on mission performance until I can't think of anything else to make it better. And then I'll keep using it as long as I keep needing a vehicle that does what it was designed to do, or if it can accomplish something different with some small tweaks. I'll also do variants of older craft modified with new stuff I've unlocked. I do build some 'one-off' craft. Some are those that just don't work the way I wanted. Some were meant to accomplish something I then found a better way to do. And some were meant to do a very specific thing that I didn't have to do again (a long-duration Mun lab paired with a rover to sample the last few biomes I hadn't gotten in my previous career is a good example). There is also this great little category of craft that I like so much I will find ways to use them just as an excuse to fly them. I'm the most prone to that with jets, but I currently have a LKO rocket I'm very proud of. Fully recoverable except for the SRBs, and can work as a crew transfer vehicle, an LKO rescue rocket, a tourist hauler, etc. I love that thing.

[quote name='I_Killed_Jeb']I agree with others in this thread who don't believe that redundant parts should be added just for their own sake..[/QUOTE] The problem with this statement is that the parts being suggested aren't redundant. They are aesthetically quite different, and while I know you're speaking from an entirely practical standpoint (ie: what the part can 'do')...such a standpoint is unworkable given that aesthetics play a part in most people's designs. And that this is partially a game based on creating said designs.