pandaman

It was the right decision to leave it out IMHO. Yes it would be nice to have, but if it's not working as they want then it makes sense to get it right before releasing it.

I don't think I'd use it much myself, though I do like the idea. As long as the current - in game, offline - system is not compromised, I really resent having to have an Internet connection to play a single player game.

Hi, and welcome to the game and forums. If you are suggesting a 'simulator' for checking how stuff files while designing and before committing to launch then yes I'd support that too if it's done well. You will also find that it has been suggested and discussed quite a lot previously. Check out the 'common suggestions' thread at the top of this forum, there should be a link to it so you can follow and join in the existing discussions. Hope this helps.

Ah ha gravity! So that's where the money went!

I makes sense to me to already have the tech to build a car of some sort at game start up, perhaps even a stock 'Ford Kerman Model K' in the SPH as a starting point, and basic tech for sounding rockets, to prove the concept that an explosion in a tube can actually make stuff go UP rather than just BANG to introduce the basics. Then open up options for manned/unmanned rockets and planes to suit player preference

Thanks for the heads up Kasper. Much appreciated.

I installed and tried it tonight. It works well. Thanks again for the link

Welcome to the game and forums. All opinions are valid, especially so with the much debated MJ issue. I do recommend that, whatever your preferences, that you do learn to fly manually even if you don't do it a great deal. It feels great when you achieve things yourself and there will be times when you can do it more reliably than MJ or may not have a choice.

I agree with all you said, but I don't think things needing to be fixed down in loading bays etc is an issue with the 'aero' system as such. That needs something like an automated or toggled 'strap load' function when loading bays are closed.

Thanks. Just had a look at the link. I will give that a a try.

It's great to keep a record of our exploits by taking screenshots, but it's all too easy to get carried away with the moment and forget to hit F1, only to realise afterwards that it would have been a really cool photo. So how about an Automatic Screenshot taker? Simply set it up so that it automatically takes a screenshot at a regular time interval, which is settable by the player either with a slider or textbox type input. If its accessible from the Esc. Menu then it will be easy to toggle on or off, or change the timings, in play to enable you to increase or decrease the frequency depending on the situation.

@godefroi apologies if I grabbed the wrong end of your stick. You may well be right, on paper my old system wasn't that bad (2.4Ghz iirc,4G ddr2) it played KSP fairly well with the same frame rate issues I notice mentioned on here a lot. It was running slow generally so some underlying other issues were likely contributing, which was one of my considerations, but i didn't want to put too many resources into keeping a sick horse in the race. A while ago I did consider a bit of extra ram to help it along and buy me some time, knowing that it couldn't do any harm though.

Evantis got the best end of this deal

I built a small manoeuvrable; high lift, plane along broadly similar lines to the stock Aeris 3. Added a probe core (so I could move it nearer to the pilot if he had walked a long way off) and parachutes. I flew close to where the target was and used the chutes to land if I needed to then re pack them before doing anything else. I would taxi, or fly around slowly if I needed to search the area and when close enough continue on foot. No need for specific rover wheels, and a decent amount of lift means you can turn very tightly and take off in a very short distance. I got to all the Kerbin anomalies with this method.

Then yeah, based on that, my 7 year old cpu and ram were probably not helping much either, I suspect it was the graphics card that died in the end, but as I wanted to upgrade before too long it made sense to not waste resources trying to fix the old one. Like most people, given a bigger budget I would have gone newer, bigger, better etc. What I have now is what I consider a fair balance of performance, reliability and budget. Could I have done a bit better? Could I have done worse? Almost certainly yes to both.

Yeah I know it's not new tech by any means, and I think my loading time was more hampered by my 7 year old HDD as everything was taking it's time. The whole system was that age and I wasn't too surprised when it gave up. Ram I can, and will, upgrade easily at some point. 16 was my ideal minimum target too, but 12 is better than 8 (and the 4 of DDR2 I had before) and it does the job for now.

Thanks for all the responses guys. Yes, I was hoping for something that would let me play with the UI visible, but have it not show on the recording. I figured if there was something out there then it would be quite 'high end' at least, but thought I'd ask anyway - nothing ventured nothing gained. I'm not planning on doing anything serious, I just figured it would be fun to play around with filming some of my projects as they happen, then edit and save them for posterity, and have them look a little better, so it's not worth a lot of hassle setting up mods and systems that would allow it. I have played a bit without the UI, out of interest to see what it's like, and it's viable for some simple things. If I ever want to do anything more 'properly' then I'll look at MJ etc. Cheers Pandaman

As @Rocket In My Pocket says above 'rescue' missions are a part of the game. Your kerbals are safe where they are. Life support is not a stock thing yet so they can stay there without risk until you can develop your skills enough to get them home. Enjoy the challenges and learn from your experience and failures, that's what makes this game so great.

Okay, take 2... without trying to quote this time. What the 'no icon showing' indicates is that there were no new posts since you last looked

Some great experiences on here. Here's mine. .. In an earlier version (pre reentry heat damage) I planned a Duna expedition to plant flags and return home from the three anomalies there (coordinates courtesy of the@MalfunctionM1Ke spoiler thread). My plan was for a 2 crew team for each anomaly in their own ship with four probes to provide inital reconnaissance and location reference, a lander/rover drive around to find the anomaly if my landings weren't too accurate and a separate lander to collect the crew from the surface and return them to orbit as well as providing a rescue capability. This would be supported by another 'auxiliary' ship for the return of all crews to Kerbin in one vessel that also carries a spare rescue lander and probes - just in case. Due to my inexperience and cautious nature I decided to double up - again just in case. This brought my total to 8 ships, 6 Explorers and 2 Auxiliaries for the expedition. The launch and initial transfer phase went to plan with encounters with Duna set with a few days variation due to flight trajectory variations. Sadly 2 Explorers succumbed to a Kraken bug on Duna SOI entry and were lost (lucky I brought extra), I was deeply saddened by the loss, but thankful it wasn't my direct fault. The probes deployed effectively enough near their targets, and the crews followed using the probes positions as markers to get closer to the anomalies. The Curiosity Camera and SSTV crews found their objectives without undue drama, while the Face crew got a little 'over enthusiastic' and wrecked their rover forcing them to take a (frankly deserved) long walk to their destination. So, anomalies found and flags planted it's time to head home. Landers were despatched to collect the crews who all had fairly short drives to get to them, apart from the Face crew who had to walk again. The SSTV and Curiosity crews got to orbit and rendezvous with the Auxiliary safely, but the Face crew had problems (again) the lander ran out of fuel and couldn't get a stable orbit so one got out to push, which failed, so he tried to get back in, which failed also. This left one Kerbal in an out of fuel lander and another effectively in freefall from orbit. So, the free fall guy was able to use his jet pack to get a 'safe', but awkward 40 x150 orbit while the other was able to redeploy the lander's chutes to land safely back on the surface. A 'spare' lander was dropped to pick up the guy on the surface while the 'spare' auxiliary managed to pick up the orbiting Kerbal and get him to the return vessel. Now with all crews safely in the return auxiliary it was time to wait for the transfer window and go home. The feeling of relief and achievement when the chutes opened safely on Kerbin then the cabin came to rest on flat enough ground and the 'recover vessel' tab opened is one that will live with me forever. I now plan to do similar expeditions to all bodies in 1.1

As a range of different science tests and experiments to perform, perhaps with the chance to find actual evidence of microbial life then, in principle, I like it. In practice though, if it's just another set of things to click then it won't really add anything new to game play.

Whilst I like the idea of persistent terrain scatter collision meshes, it is important from a game play angle to ensure that sufficient clear areas are left so that we can actually land somewhere.

These are good points ^^. Perhaps what's needed are separate toggleable default on/off settings for the runway and launchpad. Also... We can set the 'starting' position in the editors part by part, but how about a ship specific 'start with brakes on/off' checkbox in the editors?

@Snark @AbacusWizard Both you guys have suggested stuff here that I thought was missing for ages, but for some reason didn't get round to suggesting (I've no idea why). Have a cookie, each (it's not fair to make you share one).

Thanks. There was a thread discussing this, and the default throttle settings, not long ago actually. Unfortunately brief 'there's a mod for that' replies don't help everyone, or add much to the discussion, but it's nice to be pointed towards them.