Wolfos31

I'll see if I can sit in on this. I think it'd be pretty awesome.

I laughed a lot harder at that image than I should have while browsing the forums at work...

So happy to have a new Brotoro mission report to read! Welcome back! Got a good laugh out of the flight crew's reactions to the new physics.

Have a rocket with a TWR of over 1, Go suborbital and roughly get your landing trajectory to pass through the area you want to land. As drag draws your trajectory down, counter it with blips of the throttle. Once you're close to your destination use your rocket to fine tune your trajectory. Reentry heating shouldn't be a big issue as you really won't ever get above say 1600 m/s and any drops you do should be shallow.

Well they're central time aren't they? So I think we could be waiting another 4-6 hours depending on what their typical office day looks like.

Despite playing KSP since .18 I have only just started to make use of SSTOs. And even then it's only in sandbox because I need every advantage I can get to make the darn things work. Part of my problem is definitely the ascent profile, I don't pay close attention to the steps as I've seen some people do. I don't note pitch angles or speed really. I just sort of point up and go until my jets flame out and then I switch over. My other problem is payload fraction/delta-v on orbit. Typically I can just barely manage a low orbit and that's not even very useful as everything I launch with a rocket typically ends up in 100km or higher orbit. My latest success is a Mk3 spaceplane that can carry a modest 9 tons to orbit and land safely. But the plane itself I believe weighs over 40 tons, I'd have to double check.

I like that it exists simply because it looks different and is an obvious tribute to the first satellite in space. No, I don't very often use it either, it has been on my early career probes a number of times and occasionally I'll use it for aesthetic purposes but otherwise it's just another part in the list.

@Evanitis It took longer than I'd like to admit looking at the second set of photos to realize the rapiers weren't mounted at a 45* angle backwards on the wing, that WAS the malfunction. I somehow missed the first photo in the sequence. "Why the devil does this guy build a plane that way? What does he need THAT much atmospheric braking for?" *looks at the next slide* "Oh bloody hell those broke loose!" *facepalm* You've gotta admit you timed that screenshot perfectly haha. No LES on most craft I fly. If it's crewed it MUST have a parachute per my career guidelines, but often the abort sequence is "decouple and pray nothing hits you"

You're right of course, but I play a lot of career, and especially with the earlier pad limitations sometimes I can *just* barely get my payload to a low orbit for one of my tugs to swing down and pick it up. I also only just recently started playing with mods, so now I know my crafts DV (KER) but before I'd guess and I often guessed too low. *shrugs*

I've actually had debris hit one of my ships. I think this is because of my bad habit to circularize in low orbit then ditch my orbital insertion stage and move my payload up to a higher orbit. 70-100 km is a crowded place in my saves. It happend so fast too that I didn't realize what had happened at first until I checked the tracking station and saw a piece of debris with a different name than my station component. Had to do another launch, I didn't change my behavior though because this has only happened once. Flyby's within physics range is actually relatively common though.

I was under the impression that the right side menu change was for the PS4 only. Did I miss something? I don't really care either way as long as it works well. I've always thought it would be nice to a modular interface anyway. I could get rid of the pilot portraits (or limit it to just one) and put the navbal in the right hand corner so I can see more of my ship.

@KerrMü Amazing spaceplanes, it's not a talent I have (mine barely make orbit carrying just the pilot) and meanwhile yours look realistic enough to be models for something humans might actually build as well as being able to carry cargo. Are these completely stock? I'd love to try out a craft file if you don't mind sharing. @GDJ What mod are you using to receive anomaly contracts?

I really, really like this idea. I've heard it expressed in other ways before by others on here but I hope it's something that makes it into stock eventually. Maybe have building requirements like lvl 3 tracking station, R & D, and Astronaut complex to ensure the player earns the benefits of that optimization. This is why I don't begrudge people who play with MechJeb. I don't personally, but after launching my seventh station refueling rocket in one play session I really start to wonder... At OP... I'd like the game you are describing a lot, but I don't think I'd like it as much as what KSP is now. If Squad ever does a sequel or expansion pack to the original game I think that is where this game mode belongs.

@FungusForge Yeah, I agree they'd have their uses. I think small scale battlesuits like human power armor or even just humanoid robots will play a role in war and industry twenty years from now. And the eventual uses of Boston Dynamic's dog robot thing would be pretty awesome. I know right now one of the big problems with the thing is it's loud as hell, as in chainsaw running next to your ear loud. I feel like mechs would be more commonly used for industry in real world applications if they become a reality on the scale battletech describes. I just struggle to imagine a battlezone where their cost could be justified by the advantages they provide. Actually, provided humans ever get off world they would probably be fantastic on airless bodies. Flight would be pretty ineffient as you'd have to use VTOL of some sort so the battlemech's biggest threat would be gone or regulated to short hops from a central hub. Terrain is likely to be unimproved and treacherous and a bipedal design is better than just about anything at traversing that. And since they're powered by a nuclear reactor they could be out about as long as the life support systems on board can care for the pilot.

I'm a huge fan of the Battletech video games (read: Mechwarrior) but I always found it amusing that the pinnacle of human warfare tech in this canon were hugely impractical, slow, expensive machines with offensive capabilities barely beyond that of a real world heavy battle tank. A couple of modern day ground attack aircraft would absolutely decimate a lance of mechs. A fun universe for reading and playing in though. And the myomer (spelling? it's been a while) muscle technology was interesting and not entirely implausible.