samstarman5

All these worlds... This world is not yours. Attempt no landing there. Don't use it together. Don't use it in peace.

...is the best you can do. Any version after 0.13.3 is priced product and can not be shared.

As JamesL86 said. If you are finding yourself advancing in tech very quickly, then it is time to up the challenge. You can get to Duna with Tier 3 parts, so working with that might be something to aim for next. There are bound to be more parts to come, but I wouldn't count on more tiers. The trick is customizing the difficulty to suit your playing needs.

It is also a good time to figure up just the right amount of fuel to give your satellite itself to establish full orbit, and make sure the last stage you deploy it from remains sub-orbital. When I have the funds or am just playing sandbox, I will go ahead and just attach a drone to the last stage for a controlled re-entry. You need to make sure there are some batteries and one or two solar panels included, as any drone other than the yellow HECS carry very little power on their own. Any debris that dips into the atmosphere but remains in orbit(I've determined so far that anything that doesn't go below ~60k won't get removed if it is on rails), I will go ahead and terminate as it should have burned up anyway. So even if I oopsie and still establish an orbit for a disposable stage, it isn't necessarily going to remain there if it has a Peri under 70k. Of course, with this rule of mine in career, it can be a pain for kerbal rescues since they now come with a capsule of some sort. Unless I have THE CLAW unlocked, that capsule is going to remain in orbit and remind me of its presence every time I go to the map. And for those going to ask, I choose not to redesignate it to debris. I'm stubborn like that.

It wouldn't be Hard, but it would require a whole separate coding to determine the positioning and such. When you add in it happening with more than one body in the solar system(Jool's system would be bonkers), that adds up to a lot of memory and processing. Which adds to the lag. And likely a lot of issues.

It is, but the game's rendering doesn't allow for it beyond a set distance. That distance being set due to limitations. Rendering lighting and shadows is highly taxing, and gets even more so the longer the distance, and KSP involves a lot of distance. Mods that incorporate drawing the shadow onto neighboring worlds and craft involve a workaround that doesn't really do the effect justice, such as that image of Ike casting its shadow on Duna. Looks more like the Black Spot on Jupiter as seen in the movie 2010.

I did do the get out and push thing, and I did stick with it for about five runs. But after the fifth run and almost not managing to get into the pod before running out of EVA fuel, I just turned on infinite fuel and finished it that way, writing it off as me just fast forwarding the whole affair. I do try to balance using cheat mode by wasting funds on a mission or the like. It's not something I proudly do. But if you don't at least try Get Out and Push at least once, you haven't actually lived the whole KSP experience.

You didn't have to go down to 35km. Anything about 55-50km would have done the trick faster, even if it required another trip around or two.

I was most careful with my wording. You read it as such. It really sounds like you have the issue with opinions that differ from your own. But that's all I am going to say about it, as this is way outside the subject of the thread. If you feel the burning desire to respond, that is on you.

Funny. I express my opinion and you retort that everyone has a right to express theirs. I am not saying anybody doesn't. Deal with it.

Not yet, anyway. I am willing to bet the 64-bit upgrade might just make that a solid stock possibility. Just gotta remember for the time being that even if you can't see the shadow, your solar panels do.

Which is why I actually tested it. I honestly expected the docking port to explode when deploying the chute, or the chute to not deploy at all. The nose parachute doesn't even interfere with docking. It really does pay to give the stock vehicles a look-over for ideas.

A little idea I picked up from one of Squad's stock vehicles for those who want a docking port on the nose, ala Apollo/Soyuz, but not so eager to put radial chutes because of their size. Attach the main chute to the nose, and then you can actually place a docking port on top of that. Using the move controls you can move the port so it looks more attached, even hiding the chute. Even with a covered docking port you can still deploy the parachute without opening the port, but you do have to be more careful that you are selecting the right part. You don't want to pre-deploy your chute while trying to just open your docking port. Load up the Kerbal 1-5 for an example of it in use with Mk 1 parts.

They are more ideal when going out to Jool and Eeloo where solar power is a lot less efficient, and for ground bases where you might expect long nights. Otherwise I don't see them being for inflight missions except as auxiliary power.

Just going to give fair warning that many players accept that KSP is a game and has everything working their own way in this universe. Some of them do feel a bit tired of those who are all about the realism. KSP, while it is a fantastic primer on rocket function, ballistic flight, and orbital physics, is still just a game for fun and enjoyment, and not an actual simulator. If you came into it expecting realism, welcome to the other side.

Minmus, indeed. Cheaper to land on than the Mun, and it's a great waypoint for interplanetary travel when you have the nice gravity well of Kerbin to give you a boost.

You might be surprised how many astronauts spend a lot of time crunching numbers before a mission and not even feel bothered by it(Like, "Why am I doing this and not already docking with the ISS?"). For one thing, they are doing their part to ensure mission success, and another, it's in their blood.

So many kerbals have suddenly found themselves re-entering Kerbin's atmosphere sans even just a cockpit this day. I am damn sure of that. I should iterate my thoughts on the matter are in the context of the game alone. In no way do I base this on thoughts of actual human re-entry in just a spacesuit, nor do I encourage anyone to try it. Unless you are Adam Savage and still have access to Buster and a good spacesuit. SpaceX and/or the Russian Space Agency should be willing to give you a lift...

Would a couple of them be PunkBustrA and PunkBustrB? Because you definitely want to remove those. They are invasive and screw up any other program they are not meant for. Almost as bad as that DRM program, I forget its name, that came with Spore and the like. Really messed with people's systems. Sometimes it is good to get stuff off your chest. A lot of folks just get so dang frustrated that they can't think straight, so they post their frustrations online. And sometimes a clear head pipes in with a suggestion or two that actually helps them. It is best the rant posts stay in General, as they do fit there, and will likely get the help they need.

How well you do in re-entry always depends on how steep you go in. Look at it this way. An approach to atmosphere is like jumping into water from a diving board. The lower the board approximates a shallow entry into atmosphere. The higher the board, a steeper descent as water becomes more resistant to your kinetic approach. Hitting atmo anywhere about 3km/s is pretty much the same as jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge into the bay. That water is going to be like hitting solid rock from there. Unless you are merely aerobraking and not just going straight down, something is going to go boom. If you want to successfully survive re-entry via EVA, you will want to go in as shallow as possible while making sure you don't just skip back out. Lithobraking, as in landing with a kerbal that just has an EVA pack, is a completely different story. You could always take Bill's approach as far as that...as seen here:

I'm just gonna leave my two cents here. I experienced crashes in 1.1.2, all while performing staging. Yes, it was frustrating. I came on the forums and found some advice to make sure my computer was cleaned up of extraneous trash, useless temp programs and such, the stuff CCleaner looks for. I also made sure everything else was working nominally. While I have experienced a crash or two since then, I have had complete play sessions without a single crash since then whereas before they were guaranteed to occur sometime during a launch or transfer when a staging would occur. While this does not state KSP is running awesomely, as it is still rather glitchy, and no two PC's are built the same and therefore presenting unique issues to each, this just makes me wonder if the ones who really are ranting that KSP is unplayable are also ones who run a lot of other stuff in the background, haven't even run a virus scan ever, or do anything to maintain their computer, expecting some third-rate software they found in a cereal box to do the work for them. Even with a smoother game, I do feel 1.1 was rather rushed. I was shocked beyond belief when I saw the announcement it was released as I was expecting at least another month or two of QA and Experimentals on it. I am clueless why it was rushed, as I am sure we would have been just fine still playing 1.0.5 while Squad took some time off. I would have been fine with that. There's a saying...I forget who, maybe the guy behind Metal Gear Solid, who said, 'Better a delayed game than a rushed one full of bugs and glitches.' Maybe it would be best if Squad put that up on their walls. I love KSP. I have actually been getting more enthusiastic about it than ever before. But it is high time it was treated as a released product. Yes, we want more content, but we also want that content not to make us feel like we are back in the Early Access Alpha stage. It might be best to focus on optimizing the game right now, making sure it runs as smooth as possible with the new Unity 5, and then look forward to new content like the Communications system and such. I feel KSP is at a cusp of some awesome potential entering into the 64-bit era. I'd hate to see it hit a roadblock and fall on its face now.

Nope. The only way that would effect Rep if during the time warp a contract expired, which would also reduce funds and possibly science. It's actually not so easy to reduce reputation unless you are really into kerbal genocide or like accepting contracts that have an expiration date and you do nothing with. That's actually one reason I have yet to upgrade Mission Control to Tier 3. That 7 contract acceptance limit helps me behave.

Gonna say, you lost me at "If I was on the development team things would have been different...." You aren't the first to say that, and sadly you aren't going to be the last. If you honestly were so motivated you would already be working on your own project instead of trying to sound so wise here. That alone just makes me take any of your other arguments not seriously at all. End of line.

I wouldn't expect more news on 1.2 until 1.1 gets more stabilized, for one. It was stated the communications system was being developed, and just postponed to 1.2. When 1.2 begins to get close to Experimentals and Q&A, we are bound to get dev notes on what to look forward to with the features there, including the communications. Anything else is just hype and speculation. Me? I am hyped, as it adds a fun new technical detail to the game that by all appearances is not going to be absolutely necessary to a full career game. From what I gathered, it is only going to make certain functions easier and faster, but there will still be other ways to get what you want done. There's no 'you absolutely have to do this or your game is going nowhere' about it.