DunaManiac

Probably my favorite shot of a new save I've been doing. A scene of an MCTV docked to Cornerstone Station for the first temporary expedition to the station.

Launched the Minmus In-depth Orbital Investigator, (MIOI) combined with a small lander. It's armed with some mid-sized scanning equipment and a large antenna. It'll operate for the next 250 days in LMiO. Once we're in high orbit, I deployed the lander to land in a polar highlands region with a large amount of ore. Upon landing, we discovery the area has an ore concentration of 11.33% - perfect for a base. But I wouldn't choose this place just yet. Meanwhile, Cornerstone is starting to become more recognizable. I added the truss portion. Soon after I finished my Minmus mission, I launched Merlin IV, with the aim of visiting the station temporarily, as the Logisitics module containing the majority of our supplies hasn't yet arrived. Several hours later, we arrive at the station and dock just as night falls. The Merlin crew will have to wait for a couple hours for the station to pressurize and heat up so they can board it. In the morning, the crew finally enter the station and start to spread out throughout the station turning on vital systems. Notice Mission Commander Valentina's rage at discovering her pathetic excuse for a control center. Meanwhile, Mundee begins his spacewalk to check recyclers and scanning equipment. One thing he does notice however, is the fact that the magnetometer is at an odd angle. Clearly the automated docking system must have erred and docked it at the wrong angle. As such, Mundee gets to work. He installs the magnetometer on the bottom of the Science and Utility Module, allowing the magnetometer to deploy smoothly.

I've been thinking about the next step beyond Cornerstone's completion. The next step would be to set up a station and a mining base on Minmus to serve as a launching pad for future missions. However, in the near term is MASS: the Moon Advanced Survey Strategy. It involves a series of probes and manned missions to explore the Mun and Minmus to gain suitable information about them to launch bases. This includes the shadowy Project DEPTH, of which considerable resources will be expended towards. But first, the Program launches its first Mun probe - an orbital surveyor and impactor called the Mun Impactor and Orbiter (MIO) It involves by far the smallest rocket I've launched in this save (it feels like returning from a long Hiatus that every rocket I build is overkill). Took an agressive gravity turn, so we start feeling some heat. One of my great joys in KSP is designing probes. I'm not sure why. However, I love to subvert the simple antenna dish + okto + solar panels + battery + engine that most people use. It contains some rudimentary survey equipment, and an impactor. A burn is undertaken to speed the impactor on it's way once we've reached the Mun. The impactor unfurls its short range antenna, as well as a prominent boom. The purpose of this boom is to slightly extend the life-time of the probe, so that it can measure the force that the surface imparts on the impactor. By taking into account the velocity and angle of the impactor, we can then make a rough estimation of the surface texture (hard, soft, granular, dusty, etc.) and an estimate at composition. Cheaper than a lander, I suppose Several minutes later, the Mun Impactor and Orbiter conducts orbital insertion, where it will continue to survey the Mun for the next 6 months. In addition, I designed a couple of probes:

I do think that the KSP1 subforum should, perhaps, be lower than KSP2's subforum. However, it shouldn't be this low, to the point of being below the community subforums. They're still quite active and contain the vast majority of posts in this entire website. I think they should be at least above the community subforums. I think this kind of arrangement would cause more harm than good. They should be arranged by game rather than by topic, because that make it much easier to accidentally post in the wrong subforum.

Began assembling Cornerstone today: First up is Triple-C: Core, Command, and Control. Contains power supplies for the station before the truss arrives, some KIS storage, RCS for the station, and a small amount of supplies. Second up is General Habitation Module, containing a spacious habitation module where the crew can eat, relax, and sleep. To spice things up, I launched Cornerstone at a 30 degree inclination. Third up is the Processing and Scientific Experiment Module. It's central feature is an MPL Mobile Processing Lab, and it's storage module also contains scientific equipment, as well as more recyclers for the crew. I also played with using Merlin as an LKO scientific platform as well as a . The second Merlin mission involves Jebediah as pilot and Bob Kerman as Science Manager. Together, they launched Merlin into polar orbit with a Scansat radar antenna attatched to it. Over the course of 5 days, they mapped 90% of the planet. After spending the last few minutes of relaxation before reentry to admire the auroras of Kerbin from space, they approach the KSC from the south. Now here's something interesting - I've flown countless SSTO missions, and I don't think I've ever tried to land a single SSTO from a high inclination. So certainly a new one for me. A much smoother reentry than last time, we bring in Bob and Jeb for a much smoother mission. For Merlin 3, I launched with a small relay satellite, with the goal of scanning kerbin with a multispectral scanner. The satellite is launched with no issues, again with a crew composition of Jebediah as pilot and Bob as Science Manager (only the 4 veterans have been properly vetted for the Program at this point). Reentry, however, wasn't as thought-out as last time. I nearly overshot the KSC, and found that roll authority really was too much. However, I was in fact able to bring it down. Merlin makes another successful landing.

It's a small station by my standards Anyway, I'll probably start assembling Cornerstone tomorrow. For now, I've been playing with the Multi-Crew Transfer Vehicle (MCTV), or "Merlin." I decided to avoid the typical SSTO crew transfer vehicle I use in my saves, and used a small, rocket-launched spaceplane. It's closest equivalent in real life is the Dyna-Soar. To test it, I launched it from a modified Stearwing A300: (I thought the idea of replicating the Enterprise test was pretty good) I separated it, and glided it down to ditch in the water below. Now for the real version: The rocket has rather large fins to make sure it's stable, and as an extra precaution, I'll be maintaining a vertical flightpath till 20km. It's one problem is that it has a rather nasty habit of shimmying during Max-Q, but this is fixed by quickly turning of SAS and turning it back on. Separation confirmed just as first light arrives. In orbit, the spaceplane has a propulsion bus attatched to it. On this mission, it won't be doing all that much, as it's primarily designed for facilitating rendezvous with Cornerstone. After a day in orbit, we use the avionics pack for the first and only time to deorbit the vessel. I chose a rather shallow reentry, which proved to be a mistake later on. Several minutes later, we're flying at the KSC like a bullet, just as the last red light of the sun disappear. I probably should've undertaken a steeper reentry. Thankfully, it didn't break apart due to it's rather small size, but that also means that it will flies like a bullet in the upper atmosphere. This is when things go a little off-script: I overshot the runway and had to do a U-turn and come at the runway from the east. However, I managed to bring it down. The MCTV is a success.

Conviently, you ignore the other problems with KSP2's maneuver nodes. Firstly, there isn't a way to fine tune them like in KSP, and it has the same problem as KSP1 where at certain angles you can't pull the node, forcing one to awkwardly mess with the camera to get to it. It's even worse, in fact, due to how wide the arrows are. There isn't a way to fast forward it multiple orbits, pretty critical for rendez-vous. Also, they're missing burntime until after you start the burn, which in my view is rather important. I want to know whether I'll be here for 1 minute vs 5 minutes. It's just a basic QOL feature that isn't hard to implement. I maintain that it's an edge case, for KSP1, in case it wasn't clear earlier. In the vast majority of rockets, you don't usually exceed 5 minute burns when it becomes a necessity. For KSP2's scope, it is necessary because missions will last for months or years under constant thrust, so it is rather important. But for KSP1? It remains an edge case, as it only applies to large ion engine craft (which no-one makes) and large interplanetary vessels, which are also rather rare. Just because I call my preferences "basic necessities" doesn't make them one. I dispute this. Intercept has got off a on pretty bad foot too, so I'm not sure why you seem to commend them. I'm also not sure what Squad did to deserve such enmity from you, to seriously state that "their output was pathetic for a dev team," and "KSP 1 could have been developed by literally anyone else and it'd have been better off," with no evidence to back it up. In indie dev years, 10 years is practically forever, and I think that they at least deserve some commendation for that feat. I mean, look at it's competitors. SR2 is by all means cleaner, more polished, and less buggy than KSP1, and yet it didn't really catch on. Before you accuse me of I'm by no means doing that. Firstly, I'm not sure why you believe that there is some kind of "bandwagon mentality" focused on "praising squad," obviously in opposition into your completely calm, utterly unbiased approach towards KSP1. However, KSP2 does have one commendation that I think is impregnable: You can't just say, "oh, you can just redo what KSP2 does in KSP1 with mods," because while you can, doing so in KSP1 is seriously stretching the game's capabilities. Believe me, I've tried. I had bases that would jump and shift for no reason, space stations that involved 2 dozen man-hours to build suffering an utter RUD (destroying a large spaceplane docked to it as well) because of a wrongly placed antenna, performance issues. KSP2 on the other hand, promised to do that from the outset. But what I've already seen so far calls into question whether it's any better than KSP1 in that regard.

I've fired up KSP once again, and I decided to start a fresh new save. The first objective of this save is a small station planned to be inserted into LKO It's a pretty small station - about Mir sized, with 6 modules attached. It has some amnesties, such as an experimental gravity wheel experiment a cupola, and a science panel. I've already designed rockets for most of the modules - all that's left is to finish that and launch them.

This I think is a valid point. The rest of this is not. It essentially amounts to a rant about how KSP1 didn't really fulfill your preferences. I would argue that persistent thrust really only matters for interstellar travel - which is why it was introduced in KSP2. Otherwise, it's essentially an edge case that you won't encounter, except in the example you cite most often, ion engines. Procedural wings are again, an intentional simplification whose merit's are debatable, but aren't a serious issue except in solely your view, apparently. KSP2's part menu also has it's own problems, such as performance issues. You continue to criticize KSP1's UI apparently without even reading my previous objections to it, based completely on your own pet peeves about it rather than on its merits. I'm really sorry you feel so strongly about this, I really am. However, I think that if you take out KSP1 and judge KSP2 completely by itself - it's a rather poor game. This statement is questionable. There are many who could have done a worse job. KSP was maintained for 10 years. It remains to be seen whether KSP2 will be able to top that.

I think that's the opposite. What we're faced with right now is a game that is a lot more unstable than KSP1 is. I mean, perhaps the patch will improve things, but it's a real shame. To be fair, KSP2 UI has it's own issues. Sizing for example. KSP2's UI readability right now is pretty poor. One of the things that I liked about the KSP1 UI as opposed to KSP2's is that firstly, KSP2's UI is really too large for the screen. Secondly, I think it was a good thing to have the altimeter so large and hard to miss, as opposed to KSP2's when it's rather small and doesn't offer the same readability. It's interesting that you're hyperfixated on nuclear engines, to the point of calling them a bug, as opposed to other simplifications that KSP1 did. Reaction wheels are ridiculously overpowered compared to real life for example. However, this was simplified simply to make controlling vessels much easier, not to frustrate your preferences. I think it's ridiculous to call a simplification "a bug," in the same manner that fact that KSP's rockets don't have limited ignitions is "a bug." I'm sorry that Squad didn't seek your input on your preferences when coding their game. I don't think enjoyability is at stake here. If it is, it's pretty easy to modify the configs in-game. I mean, while you may support changing the nuclear rocket, others would be opposed to it. Making a change like that would essentially break every past vessel that uses a nuclear engine engine, which I think it's fair to say the majority of interplanetary vessels have. For people who use steam and have no way to roll-back or prevent the update, this would wreak havoc on essentially every past save. In the end, I think the reason that not many sweeping changes were made past 1.0 is for this reason.

One could argue the exact same thing about KSP2, just with the references switched. But KSP2's many game breaking bugs and foundational issues are not? I mean, given KSP1's easy modability the nuclear-rocket/jet-fuel problem is an easy problem to fix if you personally don't like it. It would be more difficult, in my opinion, to manage several fuels on one SSTO - I've built numerous ones, and managing two fuels is already a handful - would be more difficult.

I think that this is a little unfair. The fact that all engines burn the same kind of fuel isn't a bug, it's an intentional simplification for gameplay purposes. I'm not here saying that the fact that KSP's planets are 10 times as small and as dense as they should be is a game-breaking bug. We can debate whether that simplification is worth it or not (given the lesser scope of KSP1, I think it is), but don't insult the team for doing so.

I never said that I didn't think that they can be fixed, I'm just saying that it's an ominous problem for future stability. As an example, KSP1's console releases had a similar problem with saves corrupting, and in order to fix that they had to essentially abandon the former version of the game and completely rewrite large portions of the game, resulting in the "Enhanced Edition." Before you say that I don't understand that KSP1's console release is different from KSP2, I'm just making a comparison here. Ultimately neither of us know for sure whether it's deep-rooted or a superficial issue, but I think that saves getting corrupted is less likely to be superficial problem. I mean, look at the state of the game right now and tell me that that's not shaky. You have craft falling apart on quick load. Even when that gets fixed, it could spawn other issues. It was impossible to rid KSP1 of every issue because of the way it was designed. It's possible that KSP2 will be similar, with many issues being unsolvable because, as you said, it was rushed out only being 3 years old. Already, it has inherited many of those issues, such as poor performance, large crafts behaving iffy or when multiple are near each other, etc.

You seem to be pretty sure about that, but me, less so. What was limiting KSP1 was the fact that it's codebase was created 10 years ago by a couple guys who weren't even software developers. No amount of shine can really fix that. KSP2 seems to have a similarly bad foundation. I would suspect that many of KSP2's problems are simply unfixable because of the way that it was designed. Rockets may become less noodly, for example, but you can't completely get rid of that because of how KSP2 was designed. KSP2 still has problems with things clipping through fairings, just like KSP1, or problems with aerodynamics. Stuff like corrupting saves may be less easy to fix, and I don't think that KSP1 ever did that (if you don't count the console versions). It may be possible that down the road it'll get better, but wasn't that what KSP2 was supposed to avoid in the first place?

Although you are correct, KSP1 was never designed for interstellar distances. Inside the Kerbol system, it works quite well, and even a distance much, much farther than that (such as in RSS or several kerbal-scale light years), it works pretty well. Although we don't know much about how far exactly the systems will be from one another, it may be that KSP2 might be able to handle distances just as well as KSP1 can. It certainly makes no difference at the moment.

That's just semantics and is ultimately a meaningless distinction.

See, you missed what I was trying to say. I think that gameplay is more important than those two right now. While we're talking about the fundamental elements of the game, I think KSP2 just as bad as KSP1. You name "non-impulsive maneuvers" and "persistent thrust," as improvements over KSP1, but you neglect the fact that the code base is every bit as dysfunctional, unintuitive, buggy, and unoptimized as KSP1 ever was. You could have all the delta v calculators, transfer wimdow planners, innovative new systems you want but that won't make the game any better if you don't have features. If you have veteran KSP1 players struggling, then how will the newbies fare? Also you and I have very different definitions of functional, as is somewhat inevitable, but it's interesting that you claim that KSP1 is overpriced but KSP2 is not. It'll be worth $50 when it reaches 1.0, and that version will be worth $60. You accuse me of having a sentimental attitude towards KSP1, while you completely ignore your own bias in the opposite direction. It seems you look at KSP1's failings and see them as making the game "overpriced," but look at KSP2's equal failings, and discount them. That's the issue - they're doing exactly what squad did. They catapulted a barebones version that wasn't ready out to the public, they created a bad code-base, they went early access and will probably be stuck there for years. They designed bad systems that will probably have to be substantially reworked (i.e part manager, maneuver nodes, etc.). Let me counter your ion engine example with the maneuver nodes in KSP2, one of the most crucial, but frustrating, things about KSP1, which are at best buggier versions of the existing ones. They were daft enough to do that without thinking about what that would mean for 75% of the game?

For the record, no, I don't think so. I was one of the people who was saying "take your time," and to be honest, it all seems quite hollow now. I suppose it comes down to the question, is a buggy game better than any at all? I believe that no matter what KSP2 was doomed to disaster, even if it made it's early 2020 release date. Then we would have got a game with worse graphics than what we got, even less features, and even more bugs. I wouldn't go as far as to questioning their competency. However, at some point you can't keep making excuses for the devs, you must hold them accountable for the game they've made - which was to push out a game that clearly wasn't ready.

While you ignore the fact that KSP2 is missing a lot of features that KSP1 currently has, (Ore-mining/resource gathering, science and career modes, thermal effects, quite a few missing parts, various QoL features that KSP1 currently has) that are a lot more important gameplay-wise than those two. A lot of what KSP2 offers above KSP1 at the moment are purely graphical improvements (better UI, graphics in general, KSC). Albeit this will be added sometime in the future,™ when exactly is up in the air, and need I remind you, these were all promised at launch. When it comes to the actual meat and potatoes of the game, the features, these are quite empty. And to your point, KSP2's maneuver nodes are even more frustrating than KSP's. What makes this worse is that this is the foundation we're supposed to be building off of before all that other stuff becomes possible, and if already the foundation is rotten, how can we build more? To be honest, the whole point of the sequel was to resolve the bugs that KSP1 couldn't fix due to the bad code-base, and the whole point of the delays was to grant the time for the developers to get it perfect. And did intercept succeed in either of those two points? As a side-note, one of the most annoying bugs I've encountered in KSP1, jumping landing-gear, appears to have made its way into the sequel.

In my opinion, I think that whether KSP2 will succeed or fail as a sequel is based on three criterion. Only the latter was explicitly promised, but I think that they were the problems that only a sequel could completely fix. I should probably make it clear that I don't have KSP2, nor can I afford it in the foreseeable future. I'm merely basing this on what others have said about the game. The first criterion is better performance. So far, I believe it's failing in that regard. To even play it, you already need pricey graphics cards that could run the vanilla KSP1 extremely well. I think it's been a performance downgrade on all fronts compared with the original KSP. It's clear it's unoptimized and requires a lot of computing power for a game that has very unpolished graphics and I think is at best on-par with what you can get from some visual mods from KSP1 (and ironically, ones that I can play at a playable framerate even with my extremely old GPU.) This is one of the major complaints and it's a shame that the developers weren't able to do it. It's a massive red flag when people with high-end PC's are complaining about performance. The second criterion is less bugs, and overhauling the coding mistakes that haunted KSP1 since its launch. I also don't think that was fulfilled. Based on what I've been seeing, KSP2 has been routed on that front. Many of the krakens that plagued KSP1 are back with a vengeance. Some of the same mistakes are made in KSP2, such as noodly rockets (except worse, it seems), parts shifting when they shouldn't, parts falling through the surface, etc. It's clear that at best, it will repeat KSP's long road of endless bugfixing. And the third criterion, newer and better features, it's clear to anyone that it is an abject failure. Even if I did have the specs to run KSP2, as much as I love KSP1 I still wouldn't buy it for $50. Not only were all the features that were supposed to really set KSP2 apart are pushed back "for the future." It has less features than even KSP1 had way back when I first started playing in 0.25. I hate to be that kind of person, but I think it's indefensible to ask more money than the original game when you have less features than what the first game already has. And to be honest, I feel like the defense "well you've never actually handed over your money, therefore you have no reason to complain" is dishonest. The fact is that 50% of potential customers apparently don't recommend the game (according to steam) and many more potential buyers have been turned off is a massive indictment to it. I mean, say for example, that some company was selling faulty lawnmowers at premium prices. No one would say "well, since you haven't actually paid for it, you have no right to condemn this company for their abominable business practices." It's just that when it comes to video games, suddenly people view things differently. And as for "oh well, it's early access guys, it'll get better," it's equally wrong. Early access isn't a shield that you can use to defend any and all criticism. It isn't an excuse to publish a bad game, nor is it an excuse to publish something broken beyond repair.

Designed an amphibious tank. It's an ordinary medium tank of a mothballed, obsolete model with pontoons attached to it, allowing it to float, as well as a modern anti-tank missile launcher attached. Seen here alongside a more standard battle tank, the ATLT-94. Seen here floating. Now, a propulsion method...

Designed a small armored car that can be deployed from a medium-length mk3 cargo bay, to complement my new VTOL cargo plane. The rest of my vehicles up until this point: my light armored truck, my light tank, my medium armored car, and my truck-driven AA missile battery.

Designed a tank, the 94 Air-Transportable Light Tank. It's stock, aside from the BD Armory weapons and armor plating. It has an M1 Abrams primary cannon and a 30 cal anti-infantry cannon. Although it doesn't look half-bad (if I may say so myself), it's not a particularly good tank. A repurposed AA gun can shred these, and a well placed shell will cause an explosion that will blow the cannon clean off and break the tank body in half. So don't try to use these against entrenched positions. It's primary advantage is that it can be deployed from a large cargo plane several at a time. So its niche is counter-insurgency operations. It can quickly storm a poorly equipped compound, and round up the enemy with little resistance.

I designed a few bases with Kerbal Konstructs to facillitate my battles with BD Armory. The first is a logistics center with a runway running 50 degrees north (to allow easier transport from the KSC) and a runway running directly east-west. The cross-runway intersection to quite a while to perfect. The second is a small TV Station with a radar emplacement.

Took a little drive from my small Munar base to a probe that landed a year earlier to service it and deploy a drilling unit and seismometer. Its a 35 kilometer drive to the northeast. I encountered this arch completely by chance. Technically I found it when I landed the lander earlier, but I was dying to visit it.