EndOfTheEarth

Because every game should have one level that you can show to your friends and hear them say, "Wait, you actually managed to beat it?!" Eve returns are the KSP version of that level.

On the bright side of things, I've finally landed Kerbals on a Joolian moon! On the not-so-bright side, my interplanetary tug is completely out of fuel, and all that I have left is what I brought to the surface with me in my lander. My supplies manifest looks like: 138 Monoprop 880 Liquid fuel 1075 Oxidizer And here's a pic of Al and Bartden at their landing site. I hope they like the scenery; they're going to be there a while. Anyway, my plan was to send another tug, but without the lander as I do in my usual config, ditch most of the Bop lander once I was docked to the rescue ship, and fly home. Here's a picture of my lander and tug during a slowdown maneuver past Tylo: So the vehicle returning to Kerbin would look like this, after the remaining fuel is transferred: Since I'm on Bop and I have enough fuel to make orbit and probably even break orbit into regular Jool SOI, I wanted to know if my best option would be to: a) Send tug to Bop orbit, rendezvous with tug, fly home. Send tug to Jool orbit, escape Bop and rendezvous in Jool orbit, fly home. Also, if you were to eyeball my tug design, would I be alright just sending one tug, would I need to send another ship to refuel the rescue ship, or should I be looking into a new tug design?

Could someone brighten up the buildings in the first picture? I'm curious to see what the detailing on the new buildings looks like.

Alternately, switch out that engine, tiny decoupler, and conical bit and replace it with the large decoupler and poodle engine. I think falofonos is on the right track though. I've run into similar issues for similar reasons.

1) What kind of engine are you using? You may be running out because of engine efficiency. Nuclear engines are the best. 2) How heavy is your payload? Weight matters in KSP, just as it does IRL. Go for the lightest possible payload. 3) Do you have a backup plan? It helps to have more than one docking port on a tug, so you can send an emergency refueling mission. 4) Are you sure you brought enough fuel to begin with? This isn't a flight to Minmus; some of these flights can take a lot of fuel. Yes, it will mean building a larger launcher. 5) Are you trying to bring everything up in one go? While this works if you're trying to send a tiny probe, it runs into problems if you're trying to send a big ship. Try a multipart ship? For reference, this can get into orbit around anything: Here is the ship I use for one-way lander probes for all bodies except Moho, Vall, and Tylo: And this is how I recently got to Ike: Notice how each of the principles of weight, engine type, and docking is applied.

I do this most of the time, but I usually check first to see if Kerbin is in one of the sweet spots where I can just burn straight for a planet without having to get out of the SOI. Helped me with my manned Ike mission.

All your strut connections are to the engine, instead of higher up, where the actual weight is. Try moving the radial set of struts so that they connect from the radial boosters to the SM main fuel tank. Also if this is a mun tug, then you might be better off with a different engine.

Three way tie between: -First Mun Landing -First interplanetary emergency refueling mission (happened on my first trip to Duna) -Satellite that orbited all the moons of Jool before a parachute-assisted splashdown on Laythe.

I usually write the action group things on a post-it and stick it on the side of my screen. Whole checklists are time-consuming.

Based purely on game mechanics and my observations of regular players, someone who is CAPABLE: --Can get a ship into orbit --Can do a transfer to Mun/Minmus and back. --Can land on at least one of the above. PROFICIENT: --Can dock. --Can perform interplanetary transfers. --Can land on the surface of another planet, or a moon of another planet, at least one-way. PROFESSIONAL: --Can carry out a single mission that visits more than one planet other than Kerbin --Can land or dock three or more spacecraft on the surface of another planet, such that they form a "base" (spaceplanes have been discluded from this list because capability seems to vary wildly from person to person)

Recon-2, designed to get into orbit around anywhere, and land a probe on planets with atmospheres, or with Mun gravity or lower.

From what I've seen of Squad's development patterns, they use Agile methodology instead of Waterfall. This means that the deadlines aren't as tight, and, as a work in development, the compromises are based on where they are in terms of functionality, rather than pure profit. Honestly. Agile. Look it up.

Could you add a little flag into the top right corner of various ribbons for multiple manned landings? I know that the Probe vs Lander thing generally covers this, but it doesn't allow you to make the claim if, say, you take more pride in your space station or multipart ship than the actual landing, nor does it allow a person to show that they've been to a destination more than once. With flag planting being on the horizion, it seems like a logical thing to do.

I help to moderate a server that is the most complete 1:1 minecraft representation of the Walt Disney World theme park on the net, so waves of newbies and noobs aren't new to me, nor are they a problem if you know the tricks for dealing with them. Your best bet is to produce a standardized FAQ somewhere, and include a link in your signature that says "New Player? Click me!" Granted, this only solves about 50% of newbie/noob complaints, as many won't bother. For these people, give a brief response copying the link that you've got saved to the FAQs. At that point, if they're still whining, it's okay to ignore them. The most important things are to remain calm, not get upset, and keep in mind that those who want to stay will stay, those who want to leave will leave, and those who want to stay and troll will get banned eventually. I would close with some happy quote from Ghandi here, but I don't know any Ghandi quotes. Just imagine a Ghandi quote here with a happy takeaway about peace and whatnot.

Keep in mind that 20m/s is roughly 45mph (source: http://www.unitsconversion.com.ar/speedunitsconversion/mileperhour-meterpersecond.htm). This is over five times the top speed of the lunar rovers from the Apollo program. Consider yourself spoiled.

If you're looking for an easy landing after an interplanetary flight, your best bet is probably Ike. Ike has roughly the same surface gravity as the moon, and sits in a conveniently circular orbit about Duna. In short, landing on Ike is merely a matter of picking your favorite Mun lander and hauling it there. Granted, the downside to this is that the terrain is identical to the Mun, and the only distinguishing feature is Duna in the sky instead of Kerbin, but a landing's a landing, right?

The Space shuttle only works IRL because it has its engines gimbaled all the way back to account for the weight issue during launch. This doesn't happen in KSP. A better approach would be something closer to the Dream Chaser design: Gets to orbit and flies back, but the heavy weight at the top of the rocket means that you need to be really, really careful about stability and the gravity turn.

1) Orbit. 2) Select destination with the set-as-target thing. 3) Mess with a maneuver node until you get an intersect. 4) Find the burn time, begin a full-throttle burn half that time before you reach the node. 5) Profit. The key thing is, again, maneuver nodes. As an oldie I remember all the old guess-and-burn methods for getting to the mun and minmus, and these simply don't work when your target is a five-meter tin can, or floating millions of kilometers away. And don't worry about docking. Actually, build a one-way probe to another planet first; this is suprisingly easier than docking, since you already have about 90% of the skills involved if you can get to the Mun. Strange as it may seem, practicing flying to other planets is good training for docking, rather than the other way around. Fun fact, the first space probe to make it to another planet (Mariner 2) happened three years before the first space rendezvous.

This couldn't be more true. Most of the atmosphereless moons in the Kerbol system are within the same gravity range as the Mun and Minmus. Kerbin's gravity and atmosphere makes it fairly easy to test Duna and Laythe vehicles, having two moons lets you practice orbit transfers. Technically, the only two things you can't practice in the Kerbin system are high-gravity no-atmosphere flights (like on Tylo) or high-gravity thick atmosphere flights (like on Eve)...but if someone has found a way to do this, please let me know!

2015--New Horizions 2016--SLS gets canceled last minute due to administration change. 2017--SpaceX goes bankrupt due to capsule issue. 2021--American part of ISS de-orbited. 2023--NASA shut down due to claims of "sustainability" ... 2065--Chinese moon landing, American political parties blame each other, consider restarting NASA, but decline, again due to claims of "sustainability" 2078--Chinese moon base, claim moon. American parties consider effort to retake moon, but decline due to claims of sustainability. 2107--Moon base becomes self-sustaining. 2132--Large nuclear war on Earth over population issues, due to sustainability not proving to be sustainable. Moon base survives by not getting involved. 2159--plant-damaging virus wreaks havok on moon colonies, resulting in increased tension. 2163--War on the moon, plant resources destroyed. 2164--Last human dead. 1,036,721--Voyager and Pioneer space probes rendered unintelligible by interstellar winds. 1,670,339,212--Europans/Endeladans show Earth to be uninhabited, uninhabitable mess. Mission to send maping probes declined due to being considered unsustainable.

I'm inclined to disagree. Based on: 1) We know about resource opportunities including He3 and heavier metals. These are modern economic interests, just as furs, plants, and some metals were of similar interest in the 16-1700s. 2) Early American settlements were faced with similar supply issues, and it took them decades before they were able to produce technologies (including a decent food supply) natively. Heck, it took almost century between the first settlement and the first paper mill. It's still resource management now, just as it was then. 3) You don't think that once we do start putting people up there, this idea won't come up? People don't colonize places because of convenience. Wyoming, for instance, is perfectly settleable and in a temperate environment, yet the population density is very low, not because it isn't lacking for resources, or supply access, or privacy, but because there isn't much interesting going on. The moon, on the other hand, is the moon; it's still a unique destination with a lot of romantic ideas around it.

Absolutely to colony and research. People didn't take an interest in the Americas either until they found about a business potential. Once there are mouths to feed up there, the money and tech will follow. Slowly, at first, but it will get there.

Theme for this impresses on me just how much we need some kind of stock music for landings.

I use stock.

I haven't landed Kerbals everywhere yet, but of the two bodies I've visited with manned ships outside of Kerbin, I would have to say that Duna was the trickiest, namely because, up to that point, my only experience with Duna's atmosphere was a one-way lander probe. During the descent I was doing a rather mad-scramble landing under rocket and parachute. When it came to the ascent I had no idea what I was doing, having only been able to test the lander on Kerbin, and only a vague idea that it might work due to how little fuel I had left and only the slightest understanding of what Duna's atmosphere was like. I did make orbit and rendezvous with the tug for the return home, but it was equally as tense as the landing. Ike, on the other hand, was comparatively easy; it was just a matter of shipping one of my Mun landers out there and sending a probe down first to get some idea of the surface altitude. I intend on using the same lander and tug setup for manned landings on Dres and Gilly this summer.