FrostedShoe

That would only work if your reaction wheels were strong enough, but if they were that strong you could put the plane where you wanted it any way without another probe core. Plus controlling from an off centre probe core pointing at a funny angle will do all sorts of weird stuff to the control surfaces. This method has some novelty, and people do similar things to control a vtol.

I dont understand the mk2 hate. For the last year, mk2 planes are the only ones i could get into orbit - its only in the last month i have managed to get a mk3 to perform as well and i still can get a decent and useful mk1 into orbit. But then again i might just be a bit odd. I do have a tip though - give the plane one use (ie passenger shuttle) and build around that. Dont try and do everything. Im trying to build a mk3 VTOL refueling science SSTO and its almost done but its not worth the grey hairs.

I spent a whole day getting a space station that would travel to Dres to orbit in one launch so I wouldn't have to assemble it in orbit. Most of the time was spent trying to work out what broke half way up before it disintegrated so I could fix it on the next go. Did it eventually so time well spent.

What, like Earth? Or am I missing something...?

I think to chuckle at my old concepts would require me to be doing something more sensible... and thats not gonna happen.

So... aerodynamics. Problems and solutions Firstly, all my spaceplanes yaw all over the place down the runway, turning off engine gimbal helped Second, My planes wont leave the runway. I fixed that by setting the authority of the canards to 150! Can't believed they didn't stall but ok... Third, my standard Mk 2 plane couldn't get above 4000m or 300m/s on it's normal climb. I solved that by climbing at a shallower angle. After relearning how to fly my planes I'm pleased to report they all have similar if not better performance. My Mk 3 test plane that couldn't fly before because it didn't have enough wing now gets to orbit fully loaded with more fuel than it's modified (extra wings) sibling. Some of this feels like a deliberate tweak and some of it feels like a bug. However relearning how to fly has given me something to do and it's not broken so much nothing works. I also managed to get my planes in the air by adjusting the drag in the cheat menu so I have to option of flying my old planes still too. As I work out more solutions I will post them here (assuming more come to me)

Where I work some software was released to the end user without proper testing (and no instructions but that's a different matter) because it's cheaper to fix problems as they are discovered instead of spending lots of money testing. It might just be a cultural shift, KSP is not the only game to be released with bugs.

Got impatient landing on the Mun, warped far to close to the ground and couldn't slow down in time. Rather than land my ship on its side and send it skidding into the rim of a crater I made a last ditch effort to save the mission by pointing the engines directly at the ground. Saved the ship but my sideways velocity carried me quite a way from my intended landing spot before I got it all under control. Still had plenty of fuel to get back home because I plan for my own screw-ups.

Once I ended up with all my solar panels facing away from the Sun so I had to EVA and turn the whole SSTO. It was big and heavy but it got there in the end.

I would have thought a rocket was a fast bomb as a bomb just falls under gravity?

How to you make sure you release at the right time? I would love to try this just for laughs but I can see me making a huge mess.

You could plan ahead sending unmanned probes full of supplies before long missions that the main ship can dock with at the destinations. Some sort of stock transfer window planner would be helpful for this.

It is, but also really handy if you were not paying attention to the altitude!

The space station explodes when the food runs out? Will they be using the food as some sort of glue?!? I assume there is some sort of simulated maintenance going on that stops when the Kerbals die, but if you wanted to go for realism you would have to think of how this applies to unmanned probes (although the space station suddenly going kaboom is pretty Kerbal)

I would suspect that your pod will overheat and explode, but I have never tried it.

I don't use FAR, but I have a similar problem, planes never quite staying on centre. You can adjust friction using advanced tweakables, I use it to lower the friction on leading landing gear. You could try getting the plane into the sky with a rocket just to see if it can fly in a straight line, it might be torque from slightly uneven aero surfaces or engine balance. Most of my planes have a tendency to drift even though I make them symmetrical - no idea what that is all about.

I can't help but think building a multipurpose craft would just be easier, but then again I lack imagination. Do you have some sort of example?

Spent hours rescuing Kerbals I had sent on Science missions to Duna and the Sun with a mk2 SSTO that had only one Nerv for space (6 RAPIERS but all the oxidizer was used for the final push to orbit). I think a redesign is needed, it practically flies itself to orbit so I could probably swap out some RAPIERS for Nervs.

It's not just atmosphere you need to make it like star wars, it's no gravity too. You would also need to ignore heating effects and drag if you wanted any fun out of it.

Physics doesn't work when you are not looking at the rocket so it won't slide when you are at the tracking station. It would probably be because when you switched back to the rocket the physics loaded and spazzed out. The only fix I can think of is to use alt-f12 and set unbreakable parts.

Forgot to add a heat shield or engines that work well enough in an atmosphere to my Duna lander. Luckily it didn't burn up so it was in one perfectly functioning piece when it hit the ground at 1km/s. Was even going too fast to deploy the chutes (the only thing I remembered to put on) so I don't know if they would actually work. On the plus side I remembered to put a probe core, solar panels and antenna on the transfer stage so I have a rather big relay sat in orbit to show for my efforts.

That isn't a water world, it's a world with water in it. The point is you think there should be a feature in a stock game that has no need for it. By water world I mean a world covered totally in water where mining has to be done under water and survey contracts at various depths. Without that there is no need for neutral buoyancy readouts. Of course you could add these features on any world with water, a water world would just force the issue because there would be no dry land. Also, you have to take off from somewhere, land somewhere and you fly through the air inbetween. So they have a place.

How about the fastest time to the bottom? The smallest craft by weight or part court? No dropping bits off or a return category? Different categories seem to encourage people rather than a set of rules as it allows people to play to their strengths.

Granted but that is a tiny part of the game, now if Squad was to implement a water world, that would be a different matter... and awesome too.

Yup, landed in and science gathered from, none of these activities require a boat or neutral buoyancy, or any kind of readout.