gom jabbarwocky

Yesterday, after performing the final maneuvers on a painstakingly planned out Munar landing mission, it turns out it coincided with a syzygy. Solar panels useless, my electric charge slowly dropped to zero and I was dead in the water. Boom.

Is this still true in 1.0X? I was unsure if the Klaw could still be used for fuel transfer.

MechJeb is real, but I would say that as a new player, resist the temptation! I, too, once thought as you did, ezequielandrush, but persevere and you will learn the ins and outs without sacrificing your agency to our robot overlords! I kind of have to agree with regex here - not that I would chastise someone as being a cheater for using MechJeb, but that in using MechJeb you are cheating yourself out of learning to do this stuff yourself. Yeah, it's hard, but when you figure it out you'll feel like a space wizard.

Huh. Good to know. Next time I won't go so far out of the way for my biome science!

Congratulations! It's moments like the ones you described, DarkGravity, that make KSP the best. When you have a breakthrough like that, you feel like a space wizard, it's awesome. I've been playing the game for almost a year now, but I've barely scratched the surface (I've barely left Kerbin's SOI, and spaceplanes remain my greatest weakness!), but I know that someday my perseverance will pay off! Then, there will be no more worlds to conquer.... Until I install some mods to add more planets and star systems, of course.

Most of the time I don't even read the ridiculous gobbledegook. However, if you read them out loud in an authoritative voice, they're usually hilarious.

Personally, I utilize offset clipping sparingly. Usually to clip batteries halfway into my command pods or to stick a probe core into an advanced inline stabilizer or whatever. Going crazy with clipping feels, I don't know, dishonest? That's just how I play the game though, I've seen a lot of cool crafts on the forums that use clipping, and I'd hate to rain on their parade. I feel similarly about mods, as I'm also a strictly stock player. Just not my thing, but I don't consider it "cheaty". It's a single-player game, so there's no harm done.

I figured as much. I also figure it won't be long until someone makes a mod so that tourist xp might actually be relevant and not merely an odd side-effect.

Man, I feel like a weenie, but I use nodes pretty much constantly if I'm in space. Circularizing to orbit? Maneuver node. Going to the Mun? Maneuver node. Orbital rendezvous? Maneuver node. I'm totally lost without them. In early career mode I grind away to upgrade mission control and the tracking station as soon as possible. I suppose if I really tried, I'd do okay without them, but I like my magic feather just fine, thanks.

Incidentally, this is usually why the first facility I upgrade is mission control. Nice to have some breathing room for taking more contracts. Also, maneuver nodes!

What is the story with tourists and XP? Does it actually do anything? Can you get repeat customers? I haven't had any. It's rather goofy. "Gwenchelle Kerman has advanced to level 1!" Level 1 of what? She's a Level 1 Tourist? Does that mean she gets new special Tourist-related abilities? So far, I've just thought this was a funny quirk, but I'm curious if it has any actual game effects or whathaveyou. Perhaps someone with more knowledge or experience can shed some light on this.

Huh, okay, so I'm not the only one who has seen this. I thought maybe it was a bug I had caused due to incompetence on my part, but, nope, just a regular bug/weird quirk.

Is KSP fun? Man, I sure hope so. I don't want to have to question what I've been I doing with my life if I haven't been having fun. I mean, if it wasn't fun, what was it?!

I don't blame the new aero for my failure to successfully build spaceplanes. I couldn't successfully build spaceplanes in old aero, either. Every update to the game just has me feeling like that turtle trying to climb out of a well.

I can understand why some prefer to play sandbox, but I like my space program having a history and a "nothing wagered, nothing gained" attitude.

The story of how I found out about KSP was actually because of an article I read on a blog just after the Curiosity landing. Someone was speaking with the JPL guys and they mentioned how they played this game, Kerbal Space Program. I had no idea what it was, but I figured that if actual NASA scientists and engineers were interested in this space game, it was worth investigating. Some additional reading, a few youtube views, and I downloaded the demo. Then I was hooked. This must have been, I think .19, or .20? I didn't join the KSP forums until much later, when I was struggling with a particularly pernicious bug which plagued my program in .90. As for the article which started this all, I can't for the life of me remember the name of the article, the journalist who wrote it, the blog it was on, or the people interviewed, but memory is funny that way.

I'm always pretty choosey when it comes to the contracts I take. So far I haven't gotten any really krazy ones, but they certainly are good for a chuckle.

In my mind, Val is the more professional pilot, and Jeb is more foolhardy and headstrong. As the program continues, they rub off on each other. They start off having a tense rivalry, which becomes grudging respect, then a friendly rivalry, and then friendship, buddy-cop style.

I like to keep plenty of irons in the fire. There's always a contract to do, or science to get, so why wait?

I use SRBs because I am too lazy to faff about with asparagus staging most of the time.

I usually forget to check the Engineer Report before taking my craft out for the first test launch. It seems like half the time when there's a problem, it's usually some knuckleheaded noob mistake that I would've caught had I checked the report. When I do have the sense to check the report, it's usually because I also had the sense to build a rocket right this time. Sigh. Amen, brother. That's the other half. It feels like I always underbuild my rockets.

What the heck, I'll give this a shot.

What. I had no idea this was the case. Now I feel really dumb for never checking myself!

Huzzah, the wiki is back! Great job, guys!

Huh, well, now I know it's not a problem on my end! That's at least sort of a relief.