Zeiss Ikon

If you're playing on Steam, updates are generally automatic. Try opening the actual Steam client, rather than just the game -- that should trigger an update check. Make a backup copy of your Saves folder first, though, just in case; updating the game is likely to break one or more mods, if you use mods.

There's also Ship Manifest, that lets you dump both resources and waste products (it's set up for use with a life support mod like TAC LS). No thrust from Ship Manifest dumping, say, Jet Fuel; the drains are just abstracted away.

FWIW, I occasionally wish for a middle ground -- I may, at some point, try an RSS/RP-1 install without KCT and Test Flight, so engines don't fail and rockets don't take months or years to build, just to be able to advance the tech tree far enough to see what's possible. Yeah, I know, I could just build all that stuff in RO sandbox, but that wouldn't let me look at what depends on what along the way. Still, the only player time costs with the full install are a few seconds to a minute or so watching time warp while waiting for a build to complete, and having to deal with engine failures (and the consequent risk of bankrupting your program). And the latter is where I keep landing. I'm not the greatest game money manager alive...

@Bob Schaefer Yep, that number of patches is normal. I apparently have a few more mods (I added a number of engine and parts packs); mine runs around 85,000 patches. Fortunately, Module Manager will cache the patches on a successful start, so that the next time you start, all of those patches load from cache in a much shorter time (it's still a pretty slow startup compared to 1.8.1 even with both Making History and Breaking Ground, but faster than actually performing the patches). NB: if you make any changes to your mod set (add or remove a mod, for instance) MM will detect the change and rerun the entire patch process. For that reason, if you're going to make changes, it probably pays you do do them all at once (the only good reason to make a small change and start the game, then rinse and repeat, is if you're chasing a bug via elimination and putting the potentially problem mods back one at a time until the bug reappears). Did you follow the installation order on the Realism Overhaul Wiki pages? There are some mods for RO that you can't install via CKAN; normally you'd do those after the CKAN ones are all installed. Short version: install the bare game (with DLC if you want to use it), start it once to generate log stubs and such (some of which are needed by CKAN or various mods). Then install the mods that CKAN can manage, and start the game (this *should* go well, though you may have to change CKAN settings to allow installing "obsolete" versions of a few mods -- at least I did, when I installed RO on 1.6.1). Once that's done, install the stuff CKAN can't, like Principia. Each time you start after installing one or more new mods, you'll sit through the entire patch process -- I'd recommend that as a good time to take a break. Grab a cup of coffee or a soda. Take the dog for a walk. Write a novel. If you follow the order of installation and recommended additional mods as given in the wiki, it ought to work fine. When it locks up as yours has done, if it does it a second time, probably best to delete the whole install folder and start over.

FWIW, I have [X] Science in my RO save(s), and it's great for displaying your status. I've also got, Science Alert Re-Alerted; they do slightly different jobs. [X] Science can display, at any time, your current situation (i.e. Space near Grasslands of an Earth), what science is available with the experiments on board your craft (or optionally, all science obtainable with any instrument in your current situation, or all science, everywhere), and what if any portion of that science has already been collected. Science Alert Re-Alerted gives an audio notification and stops warp (this is a setting, so can be disabled) when new science becomes available, and when the window is open, shows a menu of buttons to automatically perform available experiments either individually, all at once, or all except EVA (up to you to keep or transmit the data from each experiment's dialog). When Science Alert Re-Alerted notifies, it'll also tell you how much actual Science you'll get from each experiment in the current situation. It won't notify you for experiments that have already been saturated for your current situation (i.e. you've already gotten all the "Temperature Scan, Flying over Shores of an Earth" you can gain from, it won't offer you that experiment again in that situation), but it will notify you for those that (for instance) you can only get a fraction of the science for from a given experiment generation (like Early Film Camera, which can only get 1/4 of the Planetary Photography science, will continue to notify on later flights, but you won't get any gain for the photographs). I also recommend Ship Manifest, which lets you transfer data from the experiment to the storage module (usually either within a command pod/cockpit, or a dedicated part like Science Jr. aka Experiment Storage Unit) on board the same craft, so that "recover only" experiment results can be stored on recoverable parts of the craft, and one-shot experiments (like Early Film Camera or Biological Sample Capsule, aka Mystery Goo Container) can be re-readied without discarding the data. This *may* require a scientist on board, BTW -- I've only actually used it for aerial photography missions over northern Mexico in a two-Kerbal recon jet, where you can mine six biomes (Shores, Water, Grasslands, Tropics, Mountains, Desert) for up to 7 "Flying Low" science each in a single flight of about an hour and half including return to base at Brownsville (and much of that can be done at 4x physics warp).

Anyone who played There (MMO sandbox-ish world) long ago ought to be comfortable with the blue ocean floor. The first six or eight years of There, the oceans of that were were "blue concrete". They added water eventually, about a meter deep, with waves, to the great disappointment of some folks who'd been used to being able to drive a dune buggy at 500+ km/h on the smooth blue ocean.

I agree, it takes careful design to make a flight weight drain valve for pressurized gas or liquid that doesn't produce at least a bit of thrust -- and if you're on a free-fall trajectory, it doesn't take much thrust at all to make a significant (i.e. troublesome or useful) change in your vector velocity. That said, an Isp of 5 or so seconds isn't going to replace even a tiny RCS thruster in normal use; the S-IVB used propellant venting in that flight stage because it was through pushing the Apollo and didn't have (other) RCS of its own, as well as having propellants that would self-pressurize enough that they had to be vented anyway to avoid tank rupture (which would produce much larger thrust in a roughly random direction, making the hulk a potential hazard -- not to mention the fragments that get blown free). No disagreement, however, that there should be net drag (roughly equal to that of an intake that's blanked off at the back), rather than net thrust, when attaching a drain vent to an intake, and that overclocking ought to be blocked (a given drain vent will be designed for X flow, and it takes considerable additional pressure to exceed that figure by even a tiny bit). Presumably the config bug that permits this is an easy, quick fix at the Squad end.

I've pulled it from that install, and since it appears RO is specific to TestFlight or TestLite, I doubt I'll get to test OhScrap! any further -- aside from RO, I normally don't use a bunch of mods; ran a career for a couple years with only Better Burn Time, and most of that capability is now built into 1.8.1, but tied to pilot skill (new pilots don't see any of the extra stuff, experienced ones gradually gain things like when to start a burn for a node, presumably eventually when to start for an intercept or suicide burn as well).

Hmm. Perhaps in the sense of making Oh Scrap! partially not work. I never see anything in the inventory panel, for instance, but I do see generations and flight count increment correctly, and a rocket that's been flown and recovered successfully both increases safety rating and changes "least reliable part" designation (instead of WAC Corporal engine, for instance, it'll become Mercury Mini Parachute). As far as I can tell, aside from no failures (which might be Oh Scrap! making Test Flight not work), Oh Scrap! is working. And I just checked the RP-1 wiki page, I don't see any mention of Oh Scrap! or Scrapyard, either as recommendation or warning. They point to Test Flight and TestLite (one or the other, not both) for engine reliability mods. @severedsolo Well, that's interesting. I haven't started the game in several days, and the ~/Downloads/KSP-RO_1.6.1/GameData/Severedsolo/OhScrap/Logs is empty. I'm reasonably sure this indicates something isn't quite right. Going to start the game now, and I'll check that Logs folder again after launching something. Aaaand after launching a Tiny Tim/XASR-1/XASR-1 to suborbital height and recovering most of it, the Logs folder is still empty. Given RP-1 is really designed to work with Test Flight or TestLite, I'll just take Oh Scrap! off. Scrapyard might, possibly be useful for later in a career -- being able to recover and reuse your Shuttle SRB analogs would save significant money, but with what sounding rockets cost in the early game, it's barely worth bothering to put parachutes on them, even if you can get them to land intact -- and if anything goes wrong, the cost of the parachute wipes out everything you might have otherwise saved.

Thanks! I'll have time to play tonight or tomorrow, I'll try to remember to get the logs zipped up tonight, first thing.

I'll try to remember to do that, next time I have time to play. Been busy this week with a GURPS character build.

Oh, boy. Time to install RO on 1.8.1 and get away from the 1.6.1 parts bin graphics bug...

I'm not the expert here. I've had Oh Scrap! installed for a couple days, and neither that nor Test Flight are in Kerbin-based installs where I might reasonably get to the point of having significant crew population -- in RO, where I have them, the longest I've ever gone is uncrewed Lunar flyby and impact missions, near the limit of technology based on ca. 1960-1961 Atlas-alike boosters and pre-Agena single-ignition upper stages; I've never orbited crew in my RO saves. That said, from reading the Oh Scrap! mod thread (at least the last four-five pages), failures that don't immediately destroy your craft (like loss of thrust in a large SRB during early launch, or an engine explosion) are at least potentially repairable, sometimes remotely (from the ground or from inside the pod), other times requiring an EVA (and likely an Engineer rather than a Pilot). Test Flight, as far as I know, only affects engines (ignition failure, loss of thrust, rarely an explosive failure) and I wouldn't expect most of its failures to be repairable, if only because most engine failures are relatively catastrophic (cooling passage break or clog, injector failure, turbopump failure, nozzle wall burn through -- none of these are anything I'd expect to be able to repair in flight). Kerbalism has a parts failure component , from my reading more an afterthought than a core feature. Dang It! is another parts failure mod, and was the original inspiration for Oh Scrap!, but Dang It! doesn't incorporate parts reuse, while Oh Scrap! is tied to Scrapyard, which puts recovered parts into an inventory that are then reused (with ability to override reuse or discard parts intentionally) to help cut costs as well as improve reliability (a tested part is more reliable than an untested one, especially in early engineering generations -- at least until it starts to wear out). I'd generally suggest using Stage Recovery, Scrapyard, and Oh Scrap! together. Put parachutes on your booster stages and configure them so the parachutes can open without being destroyed, and you can save a bunch of funds as well as seeing the effect of limited reuse of parts. Add Kerbal Construction Time to the mix, and you can "Recover Active Vessel" (for things like airplanes and intact-recovery rockets) from the KCT menu, then simply refuel and relaunch without repeating the entire construction period.

Okay, I just skimmed the last four or five pages of posts, and I didn't spot anything like this -- is there any known problem in using Oh Scrap! alongside Test Flight? As I understand it, they use very different methods of computing failure probability, but do they then independently determine failures, effectively (on a naive level) doubling my chance of a failure? If it makes a difference, I'm referring specifically to a 1.6.1 RSS/RO/RP-1 install, with both Test Flight (original to the install, a couple months ago) and Scrapyard/Oh Scrap! installed (last couple days), both via CKAN. I started a new save after installing Scrapyard and Oh Scrap!, generation counts and "flown" figures seem to be incrementing correctly, and I have seen "safety rating" and "worst part" changing from launch to launch (I also have Stage Recover and installed parachutes on the booster, so the same Tiny Tim has flown three times) -- but in the WAC Corporal generation (i.e. first engines available) sounding rockets, I haven't experienced any failures -- and Test Flight alone usually generates one or two WAC Corporal engine failures before I can upgrade to the next version (XASR-1). I made no ground tests, and even (likely because I reused a craft file from another save) forgot to order R&D on the WAC Corporal engine before first launch. Not complaining about lack of failures -- when you're trying to get from WAC Corporal/Tiny Tim to orbit in under ten years, failures are very, very frustrating and prone to bankrupting your program. Just checking if I've introduced a conflict that might cause one or the other or both failure mods to malfunction.

I've recently installed Scrapyard and Oh Scrap! in my RO save (1.6.1). Those two mods are meant to work togther. The general idea for Scrapyard is that if you "Recover Vessel" (or Stage Recovery does it for you -- which may involve putting parachutes on your dropped stages and ensuring they're armed at the staging event), all the parts from that vessel go into the Scrapyard inventory -- so, yes, you have to buy the parts at least for the first use. Then, when you take that same part from the parts bin in SPH or VAB, there's an option to installed a "flight proven" part (to use the SpaceX wording), which, because it was already in your inventory, has low/no cost. Oh Scrap! then keeps track of usage history for reused parts, and adjusts their failure probability. Unlike Flight Test, however, Oh Scrap! manages part failures, not just for rocket engines, but for everything. You can have antenna failures, parachute failures, flight surface (i.e. aileron or rudder) failures, landing gear failures....on new parts as well as on reused ones. The mod will also display on highlight (at least when the vessel is out of the editor) whether a particular part is new, or how many times it's been flown, and can optionally display the least reliable part on a vessel in its current state (i.e. this might change if that was a new WAC Corporal engine on the first flight, but after recovery/reuse, it might be a used parachute) as well as a "safety rating" (since I'm still in the sounding rocket years in my newly started RO career with these mods, I generally get 0, 1, or occasionally 2 ratings -- not sure how high they go, but those aren't very good). My limited experience so far suggests the failure probability, at least for Realism Overhaul historical parts (specifically first-generation sounding rocket engines) seems awfully high compared to Flight Test (which uses data based on actual engine flight and test burn data from back in the day, if I've read correctly) -- if every second WAC Corporal engine had failed, either to ignite or with loss of thrust or early shutdown, Project Bumper would never have existed. I need to dig around and see if there's a setting to "dial back" the failure rate (or maybe I need to remove Flight Test to let Oh Scrap! work correctly). To the OP -- if you're mainly concerned about being able to fill out the entire tech tree with a couple biome-hopper missions to Minmus, try installing RP-1 and the parts packs that go with it. Start with a WAC Corporal and even on Kerbin I guarantee you'll be quite some time getting to the point of even getting to Minmus, never mind maxing out the (much larger) Tech Tree. One likely way to be sure you have the parts mods to avoid empty nodes would be to do a full Realism Overhaul install, but use Kerbal Size Real Solar System instead of Real Solar System -- extra planets, extra moons, several asteroids instead of just Dres. You could also just not install a planets mod at all and play in the stock Kerbol system, of course...

Full Realism Overhaul now supports 1.7.3. The full setup generally runs about a version behind, because it takes time to update the various included mods to match changes in the base game.

Back in the late 1940s, American space exploration got a huge boost, not just from the German rocket scientists (Werner Von Braun, Willy Ley, etc.) who were "invited" to come to this country, but from the stock of completed and partially completed A-4 (aka V-2) rockets that were captured. Those rockets formed the basis of much of the early use of rockets as science tools, as opposed to weapons. They were far ahead of anything America (or Russia) had of their own, capable of reaching space right out of the shipping crate. The only thing was, there was a limited number of those rockets, even fewer spare parts, and some of the parts (specifically in the engine) were subject to aging effects that made them less and less reliable as the years after 1945 added up. Is there a mod or setting available, ideally for use with Scrapyard and Oh Scrap!, that would let me put a limited number of A-4 engines into my inventory, and when they're gone, they're gone? Having, say, a couple dozen of those but with the knowledge that once they're used up (destroyed in accidents, not recovered, etc.) they're gone would be an interesting add-on for the early days of an RO career. A means of having their reliability drop off over time (due to material aging) from early 1951 (should be 1946, really) would be even cooler. Yes, sure, the RD-100 is an exact copy. Except it isn't, quite. It's dimensionally identical, and its performance is essentially the same, but it used different materials that were more available in the Soviet Union than what the Germans had used in 1940-1945 during the development, testing, and operational manufacture of those engines. I'd like to be able to introduce the RD-100 as what it was -- newly made copies of the A-4 engine, developed as the stock of actual A-4s dwindled.

Yep, Realism Overhaul is the way to go. It works in 1.7.3 now, as I understand it (my current install is on 1.6.1, but I'm about tired of the parts bin graphics bug). Start with sounding rockets, because that's about all you can build, and that's what the contracts call for, and work your way up. Oh, and did I mention you're playing on a full sized Earth, in a full sized Solar System? Once you can build a spacecraft that can get there, Mars is nine months away by Hohmann orbit. Jupiter is multiple years. Want a real challenge? Play in "hard" mode, no reverts, no quickloads, no respawns, signal required, plasma blackout, lightspeed delay (twenty to forty minutes round trip for a signal to Mars!) -- well, the list of ways to make it more challenging goes on for a while. I've bankrupted eight or ten saves playing that way, but when I finally got to Low Earth Orbit (and ready to shoot for Lunar flyby or impact) it really felt like an accomplishment (and who cares that it took until 1965 to get to orbit, right?).

Ah, thanks @Zhetaan -- the "concise version" is a little too concise, but the first answer you linked gives me enough to at least know where to look to figure it out. Blue button at the top in either SPH or VAB lets me put craft into the "building plans", then I can start a build from anywhere I can see the KCT menu button. This ought to be a significant time saver for those times when you need to launch the same design serially (like when playing without reverts and trying to get past repeated engine failures, or during the sounding rocket era when you just need to launch the same rocket with, perhaps, an edit of how much sounding payload is aboard). At the least, it'll save the (non-trivial) load time to get into and out of the editor(s).

As long as all the other parts between tanks have crossfeed, you can feed fuel ( more generally, resources) through the port. If you're using Passable Parts mod, what the port is mounted on will affect kerbals passing through the port as well...

In 1.6.1 RO, specifically Kerbal Construction Time, there's a tab that's new since I played RO in 1.4.1: Plans. What is it for and how do I use it? I haven't seen any indication of streamers using it, at least that shows in their YouTube videos (not that there are a lot of 1.6.1 RO videos anyway). There has to be a reason for it, but it's not clear what to put there, how to do so, or what I gain by it

Hosting pictures rapidly turns into a) an immense amount of storage requirement, and b) a big moderation headache. Given that there are a number of sites that accept those issues and provide free service to the public, there's nothing to be gained by this site hosting those images.

If you have at least a large fraction of a G, brachistochrone is easy -- point at your target, boost, correct for target movement near turnover, then stern chase after stopping at the corrected location. If your target's orbit is known, rough calculate trip time and boost for where the target will be. Honestly, I think many of the physics errors in Known Space are the same ones other authors have made -- writing about stuff on the cutting edge, only to have the physics change -- and aside from fixing the Earth's rotation and retconning the rim engines in Ringworld, he kept everything else as it had been for the sake of continuity. The first of the ramscoop stories (Protector, in order of publication) was published in 1967 (as The Adults). Pretty sure most of what we now know won't work about a Bussard ramjet hadn't yet been thought out. I was actually thinking about doing that with something that runs on liquid fuel only (NERV), or modifying a RealFuels config for something to run on a unique resource, which RealFuels will let me put in a tank.

Thanks, @DeadJohn and @Zhetaan. Better Time Warp is part of the puzzle (I might get that anyway, except that at present I'm playing a 1.6.1 RSS/RO/RP-1 and a 1.8.1 MH/BG stock game). Having to find ways to import bits and pieces of this and that, however, seems like it's beyond what I have the time to learn to do, especially since it seems almost certain that at some point there'll be coding in C# or C++, neither one of which I currently have any proficiency in (getting started in modding looks like the equivalent of a 2-year college degree, at least from here). I might look into modifying engine configs to use tiny amounts of specific fuels, however. I did launch a test vessel, the most basic version of this, in a 1.8.1 sandbox. Mk.1 cockpit, tiny wings and a little fin, way-too-tall small retract landing gear, a tiny fuel tank (because apparently the game won't admit you have any fuel, even with infinite propellants, unless you have at least one tank), and a Spark, and flew it to orbit and through a reentry (saved from an overheated cockpit by turning over and using the engine to slow down). Having done that, I think it might make more sense to look at the various warp drive mods. I seem to recall one where the warp drive applied an acceleration, rather than just "pop, you're supraluminal" travel with what Doc Smith used to call "intrinsic velocity" conserved. BTW, the other part of the ramscoop that Niven handwaved a good bit (or ignored) was the speed limit on any kind of jet: can't exceed its own exhaust velocity (unless you can avoid accelerating the incoming fuel/reaction mass as you collect it). Niven wrote his ramscoops as doing this, at least in Protector and World Out of Time (don't think he went into detail about the ships in The Leshy Circuit stories or Destiny's Road and Beowulf's Children, certainly not in Buidling Harlequin's Moon). The limit I've read for Bussard Ramjets (effectively, the point at which scoop drag equals thrust) is about 12% c. Too slow to be useful for anywhere further than the nearest planets in Known Space (Home, Wunderland, and Jinx, as I recall). And Niven's handwave method of using the scoop itself to compress the interstellar medium to fusion density just won't work without accelerating the gas to ship speed. Not to mention the fusion cross section of protium is apparently too low to get useful thrust.

Still using Windows (just by way of asking the questions you wouldn't think to ask)? If you've switched to Linux recently, you need to use right-Shift in place of Alt.