N_Molson

Career mode of course, progress tracking screen, statistics about the Kerbonauts (time spent in space, in EVA and on which body, background stuff like a small biography, etc...), maybe a beginning of the budget management... Apart from that, re-entry thermodynamics. I want to know when my entry angle was good enough and when it wasn't.

I'd say that the SOI lag thing is directly related to the procedural craters. Not sure if it can be completely fixed. - Other than that, when you assign a Kerbal to a vehicle in the VAB/SPH, it is not "saved", and if your next action is anything else that clicking "Launch", Jebediah (if alive) will ninja the designated Kerbal and sneak in the first available pod. - I notice "white spots" on the terrain and in the distance, especially on Kerbin, like if there were little holes between terrain meshes. - Else the batteries of spacecraft that are not under focus never charge or discharge. They stay in the same state you left them. - Any part that is not under focus can go through atmospheres without being slowed down. - When you put an engine over a docking port in the VAB/SPH, the engine fairing will not jettison when you decouple the docking port from the engine (for "transposition and docking" Apollo-like manoeuvers). Sometimes it can hinder the manoeuver and be quite annoying. However, saving/reloading the game make the fairing diseappear. - Still some "terrain shaking", which has been reported before, when landed on the Mun, and probably on other places too. - In an "eclipse" scenario (very common in the Kerbin-Mun system), the planet that hides Kerbol cast no shadows and doesn't block lighting. However, the solar panels stop working as they should. And some very minor stuff I don't remember about right now...

In real spaceflight, you can't retract solar panels, so I never do. Never had problem, it just takes to approach the station at a reasonable speed and let a kilometer of separation when planning the rendez-vous. Not a matter of stupidity, just how things are.

I'm not sure I'm completely getting it, but one of the best way to kill horizontal velocity is to keep your ship pointed to the retrograde marker (the circle with a cross on the ADI ball). On Minmus you need to apply a very tiny amount of thrust, else you'll also kill all your vertical velocity. Else just fly the lander like an helicopter. Pitch down : accelerate ; pitch up : decelerate ; pitch left/right : lateral translation. And adjust the throttle constantly.

You can also accept that the number of parts is one of KSP limitations. Which brings up to another subject : some parts could probably be "grouped" (like a "all-in-one" board with the 4 science instruments), multi-chamber engines (like 2x or 4x LTV-45, etc...), or bigger structural parts (4x4 or 8x8 plates). Would be a way to reduce by a lot the part count, which is the problem, because the physic engine has to compute the relations between the parts. IMHO, it is a more elegant solution that recoding everything in 64 bits to allow using raw CPU strength.

I just don't like SSTOs. ^^

This is theorically possible if you match exactly the orbit of your target. It means an Rinc of 0° and the exact same orbital elements (Apa, PeA, Period...). In the real world it is impossible, because the Earth is not a perfect sphere and has not a perfect mass distribution. Even worse, the Moon has a noticeable tidal effect. In KSP, timewarp and precision limits will probably make it very difficult.

Remember that we don't have clouds yet. A Venus-type planet like Eve should look much better with a nice thick global cover of clouds, with if possible infernal storms and acid rains into it . And yes, the temperature should be enough to burn a standard parachute in a few seconds. But the worst is about cooling : radiators are inefficient and even draw more heat in such a hot environnment. It's quite a though problem that makes should make a Kermanned landing very unlikely. Maybe robotic rovers with very expensive components able to operate and exploit some resources in such hot environnements could be an option. It would also be interesting to have extremely valuable resources there (like exotic minerals vomitted by fiery volcanoes), to reward the effort of getting there.

I find they are very useful to save RCS fuel. It allows to set exactly the RCS the way you want it.

For me, slowdowns begins above 150 parts, and excessing 250 parts make the game quite unplayable. My computer is rather "old" by todays standards : AMD Athlon 64, Win7, Geforce GT240, 4MB RAM DDR3... Nothing very fancy. I must say I'm already happy to see how well my config handles 3D terrain with parts physics and collision detection. And humble rocket designs can get you anywhere with those number of parts. Sometimes orbital assembly is required, that's all.

That's really a nasty failure, a blocked hatch is not fun. As said above, the biggest problem is that your crew cabin is a pretty frail one, else I would roll it until the parachute blows. I like the idea of burning the parachute part, that could work. My only fear is that the gravity is low on the Mun, so the operation might prove difficult (how to keep the vehicles aligned ?). Which leads to the "grapple" solution, in my opinion your best chance of success. Good luck, and always check if there is an atmosphere or not, and how thick/thin it is ! @ MBobrik : I love your test stand, that's real Kerbal science !

Testing the MEV (Minmus Exploration Vehicle) in KLO, to the great delight of the Kerbonauts.

Hehe TARDIS ?

Prices are falling, sell all stocks ^^

Add parts that resist to 80 m/s impact and use them as armor to protect frail parts. You can put landing legs on the top (but they have to be protected too) so that you can deploy them to put back the vehicle on its wheels after a rollover. Center of gravity is very important, I found that adding useless dead mass like RCS tanks under the chassis adds stability. Wheeled vehicles need a significant gravity to work and keep grip, on bodies smaller than Mun you can consider using RCS-powered platforms or similar stuff. Oh and about braking, see in the Action Groups menu, click on the rear wheels, and assign a key to brakes. That way you can brake only with the rear wheels, which prevents nearly all risk of tipping. KSP don't really take skidding into account, so that technique works. In real life doing so makes the vehicle uncontrollable.

I wouldn't be surprised if the specs were tuned down in the future, to be honest jetpacks are too powerful, especially given you can refuel-at-will in any ship.

As said above. Imagine you make a minishuttle with a cockpit at the fore and a docking port at the aft. You're going to have a pain to achieve docking, because you'll have to make it reverse ! But if you control things from the aft docking port, all nav tools will be configured in the right direction. Very handy. Basically, it changes the "point of view".

Yep, head full North or South, and remember that you will need a little more power than for a "classical" Eastward launch (because you don't take any advantage of the planet rotation speed). If you want to pass right over the poles, wait to be over the equator and make an inclination correction manoeuver (the purple triangles in the manoeuver tool).

SRMs (Solid Rocket Motors) deliver a lot of thrust in a short amount of time, and have a mediocre specific impulse (Isp). They are also simple to ignite and to store (they make excellent ICBMs), and have a decent performance at sea level. Liquid engines, especially the ones that use "light" fuels like liquid hydrogen (oxydizer is often but not always LOX or liquid oxygen), deliver less thrust in the same amount of time, but have an higher specific impulse. They tend to be mechanically complex, and their ignition requires a complex infrastructure and pre-launch sequence. By the way, specific impulse is the key of spaceflight, so those inconveniences are bearable. They tend to give their best in vacuum.

Thank you for that one, that's going to be put in good use !

Yes. To sum it up, it avoids engines under ASAS control to fight themselves. Which, on large stacks, can have the catastrophic consequences we know. I also used that feature as a "trim" (I wish there was a real one !) to control airplanes : you can lock the gimbals in any position. Just hold the controls as you wish and click "lock".

To begin with, you can pile up two orange tanks, the Mainsails are powerful enough for that. Then you lack a second stage. Once empty, all those first stage tanks and engines are a lot of dead mass.

If you look at things more globally, the 11% of structure mass is quite realistic. "Tanks" IRL are only the metallic sheet that holds the propellant, you have to take into account all the structure around (the "skin" of the rocket and the structural stringers). In KSP, all is included in the part. In the Delta IV Heavy case (figures from Encyclopedia Astronautica) Boosters : Gross Mass: 226,400 kg. Empty Mass: 26,760 kg (x2 each). Stage 1 : Gross Mass: 226,400 kg. Empty Mass: 26,760 kg (boosters & first stage are identical, hence the "Common Booster Core" concept). Stage 2 : Gross Mass: 30,710 kg. Empty Mass: 3,490 kg. Payload : up to 25,800 kg. If we add everything up : Gross Mass = 226,400 kg * 3 + 30,710 kg + 25,800 kg Gross Mass = 735,710 kg Empty Mass (with payload) = 26,760 kg * 3 + 3,490 kg + 25,800 kg Empty Mass = 109,570 kg Empty Mass (without payload) = 26,760 kg * 3 + 3,490 kg Empty Mass (without payload) = 83,770 kg So, for the real-life Delta IV Heavy : Empty Mass / Gross Mass ratio (%) With payload : 14.89 % Without payload : 11.39 %

Not sure of what you mean, but if you want to change your plane relatively to a fixed point on the ground at a precise moment : - from the point (IE a crater), continue to orbit roughly 90° (a 1/4 of munar orbit) - when there, point your vessel to Zenith (+90° "blue or up" on the ADI ball) or Nadir (-90° "brown or down"). - engage your thrusters and adjust your inclination as you wish. - the Mun rotates slowly (like the Moon), so after some amount of time, your orbital path will slip away from the target (the effect is much more dramatic on Kerbin/Earth). Hope it helps

Or AfriKa, simply. A first step would be to define what is a continent IMHO. On Earth, we have divided landmasses that are physically linked. Like "North America", "South America". The boundary between "Europe" and "Asia" is quite arbitrary (the Ural mountains). Arabia makes the "joint" between those two previous and Africa. The most obviouses are Australia and Antartica, as they are clearly island-continents. We need to know more about Kerbin's plates tectonics I think. On Earth we had a Pangea when all the plates where shrinked together at the same spot.