AviosAdku

Whoa, this is actually happening... I must say that this is something I am actually looking forward to this to an extent (albeit with a degree of solemnity in recognition of 10 years of development). I personally adhere to the "it's not dying, it's reaching completion" mindset, the game isn't going anywhere and, personally I like completed games. To be able to come back to the same game months later (my interests come and go) and it to be the same thing I remember, for mods not to fade away as they become outdated after their developer finishes working on them or for instructions to remain good for years is a kind of stability I crave. While I agree that KSP 2 may very well come to overshadow the original in terms of publicity, shouldering the burden of its legendary predecessor as the game that brings space flight to the masses, the one that started it all is still here. Concluding words are hard and there's still the risk of leaving a bad aftertaste if things go wrong. My greatest hope though is that the developers are able to do a good job in stabilising and polishing the game, they are the final word in its development and the version they settle on will be a major part in this great work's legacy. Maybe I waffle on too much but I've been hanging around this game on and off since 0.20.2 and to see it finally reach completion, I can only hope that it's final version proves to be a great (and stable) game that can be the platform for this talented community can use to ply their "trades" for years to come: Making (and operating) great flying machines, creating stories and even, expanding on the game, turning a single product into an infinite variety of different games we can pick and choose from.

Me and my brother always called them the "44 thousand gallon drum" While I can remember a number of game features that are quite archaic nowadays, the thing that really hits me is seeing when others got their start. While I only registered post 1.0, I was something of a lurker round here from not that long after I got the game (started playing late 0.20.2). As a result, I always thought of the "old guard" as those who had experience in the 0.17 era with 0.18 being rather prominent in my mind as an era before mine, to see 0.23 (a version I consider to be part of my KSP heyday) considered an early era and with all the people who got their start post 1.0 ... all of a sudden, I felt rather old. As for game related memories, well, there is 1.0 aero change, finally killing off (as far as I could tell) the infiniglide bug (which had made the idea of X-20 like spaceplanes feel "cheaty" to me) ... and pretty much negating a good chunk of rocket design and piloting knowledge I had, resulting in me having to pretty much relearn how to do it (e.g. do not turn sharply at high speed unless you are here for a rocket rodeo rather than a ride to orbit). Also, another archaic memory relates to my excitement when I found out that Kraken drives are a thing again (by which I mean the piston type systems as was pioneered by the likes of @Comrade Jenkens, @Rune and probably others I cannot recall), I was absolutely fascinated by the things when they were first invented, I even tried to invent my own (didn't get very much success although the JD Gv2 copy I made was a lot of fun to mess around with). I also remember their disappearance back into obscurity with 0.23.5's joint reinforcement messing up much of the first generation designs if I remember correctly (which as something of an ousider to the situation, I probably do not). After thinking about it some more, there is something that really marks me as from an earlier era: part names. While all engines now have names, I remember back when many of them only had alphanumeric designations, to this day I still think "LV-T30" and "LV-909" more than "Reliant" and "Terrier" for example. AviosAdku

Agreed, nice breakdown @Ultimate Steve Based off said breakdown (and due to the fact that graphical overhauls often cover several versions), you could probably use both systems of sorting in parallel, the gameplay/development direction era and the (much more loosely defined) graphical era. By those terms, my experience with the game (before a long hiatus) was primarily in the 1st & 2nd refinement eras and thus the 2nd generation graphics. AviosAdku

Yes, in fact that was how I came up with some of the figures. At severe risk of sounding condescending and my sincerest apologies if that does happen (I'm not the best at conveying ideas at times and I sometimes people end up answering a different question to the one I was trying to ask, not saying that happened here, just worried it may have happened again), my intention was to see how people subdivided the history of the game as it's aesthetics and "meta" has shifted several times, especially if a person has played during those phases and noted a difference in experience. I had a bit of a hiatus between 1.1.2 and 1.7 and even then, I've mostly dealt with the early career stuff so I don't have a good feel for how the paradigms have shifted since 1.0. Also, I only started in 0.20.2 so while I have read of the development of the game beforehand, I never actually played the earlier paid versions (I have messed around with some of the old free versions) so I'm not sure where to draw the line between the eras as 0.13 is a very different game to 0.20. AviosAdku

Greetings I've just been wondering about the evolution of KSP as a game. While each version often has significant changes, I feel the game has gone through several phases of aesthetics, gameplay capabilities, etc. In light of this I'd like to ask how you would divide up the version history of the game? For example, I am not that well versed in version history before I started and during my long hiatuses from playing but I can note a few distinct "eras": 1 - Early game: Including the early free versions, notable for the lack of planets and early aesthetics such as the FL-T500 fuel tank and the original command pod 2 - The addition of larger (Rockomax) parts and planets, the phasing out of original ship parts (starting ~0.16 or 0.17 perhaps?) 3 - Change of space Centre design to modern aesthetics, SAS change, addition of career mechanics (starting 0.21) 4 - 1.0 release, changing aerodynamics and adding heating concerns From here I'm not sure but with the change of textures at some point (~1.5) would make for at least one new era although I'm not all that versed on the 1.x version history (although I played a lot of it) so there may be another in there. AviosAdku

At the moment, my Launch vehicles are typically "Stage and a Half" affairs with a large core stage with a decently efficient (but atmospheric capable) core stage that burns all the way to orbit (vacuum upper stages are primarily used for deep space work and as such are considered part of the payload) with boosters (usually SRB's) to make up the needed TWR at liftoff. This may be related to the fact that my first orbit mission in career is usually an SSTO with the LV-T30/45 (whatever they're called now, the old name is pretty ingrained as they are my favorites) and I like to base my launchers around it as the idea of a family of launchers is appealing to me. For bulky or similarly aerodynamically awkward payloads (like spacegliders), I usually go for multiple core stages wrapped around the payload, booster style although I don't remember if these are boosted as the only thing I've built like that vaguely recently had a built in rocket stage that made it into the second stage. AviosAdku

Well for a start there's landing aircraft ... well, on a runway in one piece that is. I have done it don't get me wrong but lining up to a runway with KSP instrumentation (One thing I miss from Orbiter was the Horizontal Situation Indicator MFD, once you learned how to use the confusing looking thing it made runway approaches so much easier, even in space gliders) and then managing vertical speed while trying to get on the runway quickly is a high time pressure situation which is never my forte. Though the most frustrating for me is coming up with visually interesting designs and/or implementing them. I typically design heavily for function, as in I basically put together a collection of parts which add up to the performance required and I understand there is a niche for that but even then, they are usually laid out in such a bland way and even my attempts at asymmetric design (thanks to RCS build Aid) don't even result in an appealing brand of frankensteinian, instead looking even more slapped together. AviosAdku

I just checked my oldest screenshot so I'd say I started somewhere in July 2013 although I mainly think of it in terms of version. I started playing in 0.20.2 but it wasn't that long until 0.21 came out. AviosAdku

Greetings While designing my latest craft, I was trying to work out what parachute setup will be required but I soon discovered that there seems to be a relative lack of information on this topic that can be easily found with the majority of information being vague rules of thumb for Kerbin sea level or an admonition for a simple "guess and check" approach. My hope is to find some more general purpose formula I can use to calculate the required parachute area for a given desired terminal velocity, vehicle mass and atmospheric density so that I can perform these calculations for other bodies or more exotic environments and manoeuvres (and perhaps find a way to work out the usefulness of a drogue chute in certain circumstances) without going through the laborious task of using cheats to test an as yet incomplete design, a prospect I am somewhat averse to, particularly in my career game. So far, the following forum/reddit posts and subsequent discussion have provided some information as to calculations but unfortunately they don't seem to provide any hard numbers with regard to the relationship between parachute spread in symmetry grouped radial chutes and their effectiveness. - https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/156287-boring-maths-on-parachutes-in-12/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalAcademy/comments/7cfwab/parachute_calculations/ As I lack the needed understanding of the physics or the ability to figure out how to work out the game's calculations to figure out the formulae to perform the necessary calculations (Spread angle effect and parachute calculation). I thereby make this request for assistance in finding said information. I apologise if this is in the wrong forum as I felt it could fit into either gameplay questions or general discussion AviosAdku --- EDIT --- While performing some quick tests with RCS Build aid (thank you @luizsilveira for the suggestion of the mod), I can confirm that the spread angle is actually a factor for all parachutes and can affect individual parachutes as well as symmetry grouped ones. However I was unable to determine the exact effect of the spread angle which seemed to tail off with the higher symmetry levels (in testing with Mk2-R Radial Mount Parachutes, the cutoff where further angle had no effect was around 8 degrees with 6x symmetry and a 577t mass but around 6 degrees for 8x symmetry with the same mass). Thank you so far

Well, in addition to some casual flying in some planes I made in 1.9, I decided to take another crack at my old Flying House project from a couple of months back. After completely redoing the engine pod system (dropping the nacelle rotation functionality and attachment system) and adding some reaction wheels when I discovered that the Thrust Vector control provides zero yaw control, I finally managed to get a flying house that doesn't flip over and explode within the first 3 seconds, then I took it for a test flight hovering above the KSC. That said, while it didn't crash instantly, it still had all the handling of a drunken elephant (and aerodynamics to match) but I was however, able to put it down again (relatively) gently. While I wouldn't call the thing elegant by most stretches of the term (not helped by my piloting skills), I am quite proud of the bonkers contraption. AviosAdku

It depends on the definition The in game folder: empty That said I regularly empty it out, keeping the ones I find interesting/useful for remembering what happened on that mission before naming them and saving them to a separate folder. (in fact I just cleaned it out as I was reading this thread) That folder currently stands at 2.88GB and 3,104 files (although at least one of those is a brief text file, I don't know if there are any others) since version 0.20.2 AviosAdku

Impressive Off the top of my head, I can think of one thing although it may be stretching definitions. A couple of years back, I designed and launched my first craft to be reused several times: a 2-Kerbal Mun lander with a detachable Munar Transfer module. The idea was that the craft would take on crew and fuel in LKO before departing to the Mun (or Minmus) for a mission before returning (no aerobraking) whereupon the crew would be retrieved and taken back to Kerbin. Unfortunately, the Deep Space Utility Module as I called it was rather lacking in Dv and in the end, I had to ditch it during the return to Kerbin. However, I had also designed a disposable bulk tanker craft but by coincidence, the design was functionally similar to the DSUM (a big fuel tank with docking ports at both ends and twin LV-909 engine nacelles) so I got the idea of using one of those (with a few modifications) as a replacement. As it turns out, the Tanker was better at the job than the specially designed piece of hardware, with a more generic purpose, the fuel load was significantly larger and, being designed to manoeuvre independently, it had its own reaction wheels and a much more effective RCS layout. As a result, the lander/tanker stack was much more manoeuvrable (especially when the parts were detached) and had a significantly improved range. Not only that but for another Mun mission, I needed to land a habitat or the like and no prizes for guessing what delivered the payload to Munar orbit. Designed as a crucial but specialised piece of deep space infrastructure, those tankers became my workhorse space tugs as well, arguably better even than the later nuclear powered reusable tugs I designed specifically for the role. AviosAdku

Wow... I've been puzzling over what to say for way too long but I'll say that this story's last few chapters did not disappoint, a rollercoaster that actually made me feel … quite a few things actually. That alone puts it up with those relatively few works I consider greats and I am deeply honoured by the mention in the end notes. Since I first started visiting these forums years ago, I've tended to gravitate toward the fanfiction section (a common trend with me), yes I visit other places but here is where I come back to (event though I actually look at very few) and in particular, this story is what I would return to whenever I decided to come back and look around, as I did today. To see a work of such quality reach completion is … (I can't think of a word). Too often a great work like these will be swallowed by circumstance and fade away unfinished. I know the praise is all so common here but I would also like to add my thanks for this work to you and those who assisted in the creation, especially the PDF release. I don't exaggerate when I say that I was incredibly excited to see a neat, well formatted manuscript and the appendices! I love worldbuilding and with the various explanations all in one place is much appreciated. As a final thought, I must also thank you again for sharing your writing process back in 2017, I still keep those notes handy. And now, I submit my addition to the tide of tribute rendered to this titan of KSP fan fiction and bid it farewell*. to @KSK I thank you Sincerely AviosAdku * Not that I won't read this again (although it will probably be the PDF version that gets the most use going forward). The end of this era deserved, in my opinion a degree of flowery sentiment.

Ever since I read/listened to the Randall Munroe book How To, and in particular the section that mentioned the logistics of moving a house with jet engines, I've wanted to try it. Today I did. After 3 evenings of work (last week, yesterday and today), I finally finished the house in question and fitted some jet engine pods for VTOL. This has probably got to be one of the least airworthy things I have made that wasn't some ground test platform (and as a furnished aesthetic build, something outside my typical style). Once it was finished came the testing and refining … … there's still a ways to go on that front. Possibly the most surprising thing I've discovered so far is that with the notable exception of the solar panels, this house is remarkably resilient, often coming to a rest in one piece (minus the jet engine pods and solar panels) and with no injuries to the two Kerbals on the verandah. AviosAdku

Well, one thing that inspired me just now was going through my old screenshots (not a bad idea in and of itself) and in particular the reminders of the time I made some multi-mission craft. To briefly explain, the AEV Shadrach was a 2-crew Mun lander that, when paired by a deep space propulsion module (swiftly replaced with a standardised tanker spacecraft) would fly to the Mun and to perform the landing mission I had at the time, return to LKO where the crew would return using a simple capsule type crew shuttle. When another Mun landing mission came along, it would receive a new tanker and a new crew would be flown up and it would repeat the process. To me, remembering the storied history of that ship was something I really want to recapture. Also another idea from that game was an idea I tried: a general purpose spacecraft (able to land on the Mun, re-enter Kerbin from Minmus or beyond without ablative shields and coming in several variants), it's quite a challenge, trying to balance multiple conflicting requirements to create such a "jack of all trades" design but to some there is a sort of appeal to be able to perform almost any mission with an "off the shelf" design. Also, if you are so inclined, you could chose to roleplay it with various subplots going on and factions within the space program competing for budgets and support of the administrators and Kerbinauts or even the major contractors influencing decisions regarding what parts to include in a program for example. In the end, making a game enjoyable depends on what kind of things in this game appeal to you. Sometimes I enjoy some intensive engineering problem solving and sometimes I've found that simply taking a plane out for a joyride, cruising serenely and just watching the scenery go by or taking a Kerbal up in a rocket and paragliding around on the way down can be a nice diversion from the more "gamey" play that I find it easy to slip into in career. AviosAdku

Well, I was giggling like a maniac just looking at it. As to my dumb creations, it's hard to tell, I tend to be pretty conservative with my designs and even when I do something stupid like firing an SRB powered super sounding rocket straight up to hit the Mun, the craft itself wasn't exactly a "dumb" contraption. That said, depending on one's definition of "impractical", perhaps some of the drag racer type designs I made once may qualify. I don't have screenshots and my memory is a bit fuzzy but some of the designs I think consisted of a bank of enormous rocket motors and a small crew cabin, basically the definition of "too much power", borne out by the fact that if I recall correctly these designs would invariably loose control and enter a transonic flat spin on the runway. AviosAdku

A bit like @scottadges and @razark, I have a bit of a proclivity toward keeping records of everything (including screenshot documentation of all flights). My thinking is so that I can keep track of the history of the save (and remember what number in a program I am up to) but I agree that the paperwork can take on a bit of a life of its own and wind up restrictive. With a system like this, it was hard for me to just take out a craft and fly for fun and I won't even start on the formalised programs with their budgets and Roleplay factions tracking I did in my last career game. This time I'm just keeping a list of Kerbinauts (with a note or two on their significant accomplishments) and making a note as to the official program's flight numbers … so far. Seeing that flight record spreadsheet really awakens that side of me that once wound up producing a project log that included edits to the grammar of a note about the backstory of a project. Aside from that, I also find myself spending way too much time agonising over what kind of designation system to use for my craft files (either proper names or an alphanumeric code). AviosAdku

This was a hard choice and not just because I don't really have an absolute favourite anything in most cases. In the end it was a choice between Scott Manley and Stratzenblitz75 (Danny2462 and Hazard-ish also making the short list) and for completely different reasons. While I am subscribed to and watch Scott Manley far more, my interest is in the space news and science videos rather than KSP. On the other hand, the reason I enjoy Stratzenblitz's videos is 100% KSP related with the mind boggling creations on display (case in point: a SSTO VTOL Submarine) and excellent cinematography. Because of that, I ended up choosing Stratzenblitz75 in the poll. AviosAdku

Impressive As someone who doesn't use parts mods as a general rule, these robotics parts seem particularly exciting for me and the path editior, from what it sounded like would overcome one of the biggest problems I encountered with the robotics mods the one time I tried using them. As for the experiment station, I (unsuprisingly) was drawn to the impact detection feature. One idea I recall a while back was to simulate this kind of experiment (no "actual" science return, just a mission idea). Although my idea involved a series of modules around the body in question and an asteroid as an impactor. Although I guess I won't make it to Duna on this save either. With all the changes and and my tendency to keep game saves only within the version they were started in. As an upside, I get to first experience Duna (or any body beyond near Kerbin space for that matter) with the new planetary features. AviosAdku

I did a few things, which could be summed up for the most part as "Trial and Error" While tweaking the design and coming up with some new variants, I flew some more missions with my workhorse Ekymia spacecraft. The first mission (a rescue/tourist mission) went great, the second (a test flight using remote guidance to carry 3 tourists) didn't end so well. As it turns out, tourists don't know how to operate the staging system. I think you can guess how this ended. In other endeavours, I tried to get my new Skyfire rocket plane flying. The plane was pretty decent, its booster … Attempt 1: Craft flips out at pitchover leading to emergency separation and the booster promptly making a run for it, I didn't think my flying was THAT scary. Attempt 2: Much of the same, this time I was worried about coming down with nearly full tanks so I bailed out. In the end, I redesigned the booster with some huge wings for stabilisers and while I ended up flying a very shallow ascent, I still was able to glide the thing all the way from the Dessert field to the KSC. Pictured: Passing the mountains on approach to the KSC. The Skyfire may be a bit fidgety at times (and especially at low speeds) but it is truly a great glider. Finally, there was the most "Trial and Error" undertaking. Earlier on I had been goofing around with "Sounding Rockets" (basically a SRB fired skyward with a minimal payload, although one did carry instruments for a contract). Then at some point today I decided to use this architecture to fire an impactor probe at the Mun. No fancy navigation, just going straight up as fast as I can get away with without exploding critical components, timing the launch so as to assure an impact. It didn't work out first time round. The initial design was unstable during 2nd stage flight when not launched from Woomerang (no idea why), prompting at least 3 redesigns/tweaks. Pictured: a Sharika 4, the final design settled on, probably the 6th or 7th flight attempt. The other issue was the timing. While I was able to make some quick calculations, I goofed with my analysis of each miss, aiming subsequent flights even further ahead. Eventually I realised what was going on and after a quick guess, I was able to get an impact trajectory: Unfortunately, it was at night. This one is probably the best one I have of the approach. However, that was my first Munar "Landing" in this career. AviosAdku

Now that is something impressive, being able to fit a pre-existing name into the developing old Kerba conlang and it making perfect sense (if I understood the linguistics discussion correctly, seeing that makes me realise how little I understand this field). AviosAdku

Impressive. I'm not exactly sure what else to say. I just used the transfer window planner for a quick "back of the envelope" calculation: it turns out that the Dv requirements aren't that far apart for Kerbin or Duna transfers (a few hundred m/s between optimal transfers). It's refreshing to see space fiction that actually gets it right, one of the great things about working with KSP I guess AviosAdku

Okay, I've caught up again. It's been a while since I followed this but the recent few weeks/month/s have really been my return to KSP (although my forum conversation skills are as stilted as ever) and to leave out the first major piece of KSP fiction I followed? I don't know if I've ever said this but this story has actually been a notable influence on my writing style. I couldn't help but notice the reflective tone to the past few chapters, quite fitting with the conversation about the slower times on the forum (which come to think of it, I have noticed myself). Also, that mention of Geneney being responsible for the procedures made me think of Gene Kranz's autobiography. I just checked something, this story started about the same time period as when I first started with KSP (almost 6 years ago), even more fitting. I don't know quite what to say but it's nice being back, although I can't help but feel a little old when I realise how many things have come and gone around here since I started visiting. Glad this is still going AviosAdku

Impressive Especially after what looks like it was an "interesting" trip there (I take it the asymmetric engine layout wasn't in the original blueprints). By the way, that's a cool trick for aerobraking with a spaceplane. AviosAdku

Today's activities have been dominated by my attempts at a rescue contract (well, two actually, I only finished one of them today) with my brand new Ekymia spacecraft, a re-entry pod based 2-seat spacecraft, the launcher it turns out is an SSTO. The first attempt didn't go well, thanks to me accidentally staging twice just before orbit insertion, the capsule re-entered … a bit earlier than planned. However, I did manage to get something out of it. A good way to pass the time between parachute full deployment and landing, paraglide around the capsule and follow it down. Needless to say, as much fun as Jeb had, he had a job to do so it wasn't long before another Ekymia went up to make another go at a rescue contract. This time, after a rather hectic orbit full of manoeuvres, the passenger was collected. And then I noticed something … The Ekymia has a fair amount of Dv (over 1700m/s) and thanks to the SSTO launcher, it had nearly a full tank and it felt wrong to waste it so ... In all fairness, I did have a contract to orbit the Mün and the mission hardware designed and ready but they were most of the way anyway and it's not like I haven't done this before (come to think of it, the Orbitan I mission went almost exactly the same way). So I flew to the Mün, entered orbit, did a quick spacewalk survey and came home. I'm not a good shot with Re-entries but by a fluke, I came down a couple of Kilometres east of the space centre. While Phofry watched the reports in the capsule on its final descent, I flew Jeb back to the KSC on his parachute. Incidentally, that would be my first controlled runway landing in this save game. AviosAdku