kujuman

Yes, this is a good way to measure interest. But before we think about pFairings, we need stock Mechjeb, and stock FAR, and stock OKS, and stock TAC, and stock RT, and stock RSS, etc. Or you know, all those views could be people posting that they have a problem or don't understand how something works, and then they need to check for responses. Or people check it out, and say, nah, not for me. It's just very hard to gauge how the community feels about something based on views, particularly when we have non-forum discussions of KSP etc.

Throw me in the camp of "bigger Kerbin, please". Not that I think 4.5km dV launchers are anything magical or anything, but it's something I've always wanted: space stations, even at 70km, look really distant from Kerbin compared against real pictures from the ISS. Kerbin just feels too small, and the resizing in 0.16 didn't help; 1m parts to the Mun and back was an epic adventure. I'm interested in seeing how much of a drop in dV to LKO we'd actually see from the new aero model. We're making assumptions it'll be like FAR or NEAR, but we really don't know how Squad will end up balancing it. Though anything will help with ascent from Eve.

That's perfectly fine - - - Updated - - - The code should work fine, but you'll need to create a custom runway definition since the real KSC runway is in a different location than the fake KSC.

The Teflon bar RCS prototype included in the newest boxsat pack is a bipropellant http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91616 It has three thrusters on each block, and each thruster will fire...mostly. On the only orbital test of them I've done so far they sometimes are not responsive at all, though this may be because I'm playing with RT2 and all sorts of other things. When the block works at all, all the thrusters on it work.

Scroll down the list to the VAB/SPH section. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Controls The wiki's a good starting point for a lot of info, but people don't necessarily update it much, so parts of it are out of date.

I use the translate mode (press "2" when in the editor) to move the forward gear up into the body of the plane.

You mean like this? Why not just do that?

Optimizations would be great, but yeahhhh, I've always thought that'd be after Unity 5 was out. Of course, I also thought Unity 5 would be out before "1.0". Physics won't be touched until then. Better RAM management of course would be amazing, but I have no idea what's actually involved in doing that properly. As to mod-ability of the new aero: as long as it's done remotely similar to how it is now (ie, having public variables attached to parts and part mods for surfaces), it shouldn't matter what's running under the hood for FAR to override it. We did survive the transition from part types to part modules okay, and the move towards partless plugins, so I wouldn't say that we're exactly doomed from the get go.

When testing Nav Utilities I noticed something odd, that stutter happens every 6km. So it's krackensbane recentering the universe. It's an issue with larger ships because every part has to be recentered. At least, that's the most probable answer.

As an addendum, apart from modeling time and design time (and RAM, but I hope that may possibly maybe get improved at some point), I don't see why KW style and p-fairing style fairings couldn't both be stock. save p-fairings for the end? Or make them much more expensive (2x?) than using standardized fairings? They both have their places, but my main thrust is that IF WE ONLY HAVE ONE STYLE, I think they'd best fit the game if they were KW style or dimensionally limited p-fairings. - - - Updated - - - It's the idea that p-fairings (that shape themselves, although this is making some big assumptions as to implementation) change based on payload, meaning that standard launchers aren't quite standard. One F9 launch looks the same as the next (unless there's a Dragon) because the fairings are standard sizes. This is very easy to do ensure with KW style fairings as opposed to p-fairings. I'm not really saying that people on here desire to limit others (rather, they want what they would like best as a primary motive); if we get dimensionally limited p-fairings I'm not going to enjoy them just because I can lord it over people who have the same desires as Brotoro, I will enjoy them because I enjoy them. I imitated Brotoro's language to demonstrate that arguing for p-fairings because the other half of KSPers want to limit creativity is not an argument for p-fairings (if I can use the same "argument" against p-fairings as can be used for them, then it's just rhetoric, not an argument).

Limited fairing size IS conforming to the laws of physics. One can't just cantilever a fairing 10 meters out to the side and expect some simple linear (in some number of dimensions) growth in cost/mass to be appropriate; the torsional and shear forces will accumulate pretty quickly. No solution Squad chooses will be able to account for all edge cases, so bringing them up as examples of what players might build is not helpful (because there will ALWAYS be a limitation to a chosen implementation). P-fairings can't be balanced (cost mass etc) as well as KW style fairings; and depending on how they might get special physics, they are still point masses and point sources of drag etc, which is not ideal from a physical accuracy perspective. As to the "urge to try to limit what OTHER players might want", this is a statement used to shame others, rather than to convince them. Not to mention that it flies contrary to how Squad has thought of KSP; it's a space Lego game, not a space Modeling Clay game. Not to mention that players can still launch ridiculous payloads even if they don't have a fairing. Or they could presumably roll their own fairings the way people have been making stock fairings forever since they're aiming to have occlusion (which I'm taking to mean that we won't need parts labeled "fairing" to act as fairings, as is the case in NEAR/FAR). I personally don't get the urge to try to limit access to premade fairing parts to OTHER players I've seen in this thread. Forcing us to use P-fairings will limit our creativity in fitting payloads to rockets. And then we can't build launchers with payload fairings like this Where the fairings were standardized and makes it so rockets fly the same payload to payload and look the same. Why won't you p-fairing fans allow us to build nice clean rockets like this? Just like in real life?

I'm really tired of these kinds of responses on this forum. The emphasis on "tried" takes it from helpful update on p'fairings to condescending. That said, I never said p'fairings didn't have limits, just that there ought to be limits on any p'fairings squad makes. Which really means that p'fairings would save part count more than anything compared against KW style fairings.

Yeahhhhh, about that... Fairings for modern launchers are standardized. Custom fairings for each payload would require new jigs every time, engineering every time, testing every time, etc. So let's take another look at your statement: "I don't get why people keep making this argument. [Right back at you] Having fixed fairing sizes was never a challenge in real life [exactly...which is why we don't see the equivalent of custom fairings] (it's just an aeroshell- they design it to whatever specs are needed)[not for every payload. think, "it's just a fuel tank- they design it to whatever specs are needed"], and it wouldn't be a challenge in the game even if they did things that way either. [Great, so standard fairings aren't a problem?] All it would be is annoying- you would just have to use fairings a full size larger than your payload if the payload was just a *tiny* bit too large to the closest size... [squad should also include procedural engines, since it's annoying that you'd have to use engines a full size larger if your payload is just a *tiny* bit too massive to the closest size. And procedural crew. I only want the brain of Jeb to control SAS, I don't really want to lug around his whole body.]" The way KW fairings work is great for basically everyone who isn't launching space stations in one go. And because they are modeled and textured, they always look the same. For people who are launching space stations in one go: just don't bother with the fairings! Launch the way you did in all versions of KSP until 1.0. Just brute force it the same way you're brute forcing a crazy payload, moar boosters and moar tailfins. I'm not opposed to p-fairings in concept, but unlimited p-fairings are just silly. Maybe max diameter is 2x base diameter? Max height limits 10x base diameter?

I'm torn on ISRU, at least until I know more. If we can harvest resources anywhere, it's a bit too easy, and gamebreaking if we can harvest on Kerbin, particularly if we can create xenon. But I also don't want super complicated resource trees. Still, yay! Although I wonder if we will get proximity fueling for ground bases or KAS like pipes.

It'd be interesting to compare the dev time of the SLS to other engineering projects. Say F9/F9H, new jetliners (787, 350), and the like. Clearly engineering takes more time now than in the past. Now, we might need to adjust for funding/effort to compare these contemporary projects, but if the SLS is same ballpark then we can say the SLS isn't taking so long: It's just average. Another factor contributing to perceived longness of the SLS is that we found out about it before very much engineering work or budget allocation occured. Let's say SLS and F9H take the same duration of engineering work. We didn't find out about the F9H until at least some preliminary engineering work was done AND SpaceX had committed itself to the project. We knew about the SLS before that work had ever occurred: Not so with the SLS.

I'm on again off again with FAR. I love having flaps and airbrakes and percent responsiveness to different axes on control surfaces, but it's such a chore considering how annoying other parts of it can be. My mates shuttle has many of these annoyances. Split rudder airbrakes? Sure, they work great on the runway. They work great in low alt testing. But they give a rudder hard over when trying to fly reentry, every time. FAR's drag by node is kinda a pain with certain shuttle designs, where there are a lot of large nodes at the end (engines, radially attached girders etc). Figuring out proper camber and thickness on delta wings is...hard. FAR isn't "hard", but it is time consuming. And it makes designing things to look good hard when so many parts have unlogical CoM already. But when it works right? And your time pays off? Amazing.

Another factor is that for SRs, the entire casing is the chamber, whereas the chamber in a LFR is pretty small (it's part of the engine). A large, powerful SR needs relatively more structure than a LFR of similar performance. I don't know what development costs are for different variants, but I'd guess adding SRBs to a lifter is a pretty simple to get a small increase in mass to orbit compared to adding an LRB for the same performance. A very large number of launches in the US are to support military (or otherwise GOVT) operations, so there's a subsidy for liquid fuel rockets as well.

I'm not sure how applicable this is to the aerospace industry...I'd imagine a lot of that tech has export controls (so you can't export the engineering). And why do you think engineering costs are inflated in the US (compared to their value)? I was thinking about this some today, that the big improvements for lowering cost to space (for sat operators at least) is the relatively large improvements in sat life. A sat that lasts 15 years instead of 10 has 33% lower launch costs all by itself. To get back to the OP, I think the F9 S1 has some form of thruster at the top for orientation, they may be able to angle the rocket enough to provide body lift away from some particular target, though I don't think that'd be the simplest engineering solution.

I think that's more of the idea that gimballing is an after market addition to an engine nozzle, and its inclusion on any particular engine is tweakable (for a cost/mass penalty).

I disagree with the condition that the launch rate must be increased for reusability to make sense. It's all about the marginal costs. If refurbishing a stage costs $10 million and a new stage costs $15 million, you're better off refurbishing. Production space that used to be used for building Falcon 9 stages can be put to other uses, such as Dragon2 construction, construction of the Raptors or the next lifter design. At the very worst, production space can be sold/subleased to another company, assuming SpaceX isn't able to use the space themselves for something else. The Hawthorn facility is 1,000,000 sqft or so, and the cost of the space, is probably no more than $40/sqft/year. Assuming refurbishing saves SpaceX $5 million per F9 launch and only refurbishes two boosters per year... 1) the reusing customers probably get some discount, let's say $2 million/launch. (40% of the gains from reusability) 2) let's say the "wasted" part of the facility is worth no more than $2 million / year (5% of total space, assume 50% of sqft is F9 S1 production and SpaceX goes from 20 S1 -> 18 S1 built per year. Probably bad estimates, but on the conservative side) 3) PROFIT! of ~$4 million/ year for SpaceX Any discussion of per vehicle development cost is a succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy; we should only consider the ongoing costs of developing the reusability aspect (not trivial, the Grasshopper and Grasshopper 2 and the pad in TX and engineering the grid fins and landing legs etc aren't free, and are unnecessary for a disposable rocket. None of this is to suggest that reusability (in the manner of SpaceX) is a magic bullet for lower cost access to space. In the fictional example above, the customer is only better of by some figure, maybe $1.5 million (insurers will almost certainly demand a higher premium for using reused rockets). I have no idea the cost of a F9 launch, the CRS missions from a quick search are ~$200 million. So a customer of a reused F9 might see a savings of ~1% of the launch cost. Not exactly a revolution, but still a good start (any cost savings are a good start, even if it's free snacks for employees in lieu of $1,000 more in their paychecks )

Yay! New parts are always good I just did a search for space shuttle computer and I got this page http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/flyout/flyfeature_shuttlecomputers.html I like the style of rack mounted computers with plugs for ground testing and such, so I just made it fit in the US container. Yay computers!

So I'm just getting into kOS, mostly to support a shuttle program I'm in the planning phases of. I have a few scripts to automatically perform life support and other mundane tasks (this is also getting ready to support my station efforts). Anyway, I like simple, so each LS task (fuel cell, purification, etc) runs on its own CPU. Now for the meat of my post. Is anyone interested in additional CPU models? I have one made that is radially attachable and fits inside a Universal Storage science bay. If so, I'll improve the textures a bit and throw it up on kerbal stuff.

I really wish the gizmos didn't have the dang gui toolbar thing. Because I always end up clicking over to it rather than using 1-4. In short, my mouse hand gets quite a workout. More seriously, the gizmos are still buggy enough (having to reselect parts sometimes when changing modes, having to click a few times before the part changes) that I try to avoid them for gross adjustments. Once I'm just tweaking for fashion (as dasvaldez would say) I do use the gizmos a bit more. Although TBH, the one part I could not use were it not for gizmos is the slanted elevon (Elevon 5 I think) because getting it oriented correctly is a nightmare. And even when it's close, it's still off. I have a love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with that dang elevon.

Thank you for that compliment! It's phrasing like that which encourages modders to spend their time to make the game as deep as it is. And to be honest, depending on how the stock one is I may just spend the time to make this one better. The stock cockpits so far are terrible for actually flying (I somehow think the artists haven't actually flown a plane before) since you can't see down very well at all. The instruments are also located in bad spots. Granted, I think the SP+ cockpits were intended to give room for RPM, but actually trying to land in one is pretty hard without it. So while this cockpit doesn't look very nice, I find that it's very functional; functionality keeps me wanting to sit in IVA. Otherwise internals are a "gee whiz" factor and a background for kerbal portraits.

Yeah, that engine cluster totes rolls. Gimbals controlling roll is relatively new, maybe a .25 or .24 addition. It doesn't look like it rolls because the gimbal angle is so small. - - - Updated - - - From the 0.25 Changelog