Reavermyst

The best way is to make sure your launch stage is not to lengthy. The whole idea of the launch stage is to give enough thrust to push out of the atmosphere, so building out instead of up will help you out a bit. This ensures your center of gravity isn't too high from your center of thrust and decreases wobbling. Thought I'd drop a quick tip for you. hopefully this helps!

I just want to do fly bys and admire the new normal maps applied to the terrain =D

Sometimes games will use bounding boxes for collisions and other times it'll use the surface geometry. That is based on the developers design decisions. Now, I don't think the terrain mesh has ever been high detail. So with this update, the the mesh won't behave any different aside from aesthetics. But who knows, maybe this next update will have a fix for that and you won't get any of those cases. one can always dream right? Of course! If I made it sound like this was an optimization, that may have been inaccurate as this is more of an add-on that is more OPTIMAL than high poly models. I revised my post to correct that little tidbit of nonsense. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for catching that inconsistency!

Exactly! How else do games like Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 get away with such levels of detail without destroying your computer? Fun fact, most game models in high budget titles started off as high poly models, before undergoing a process call retopolgizing. This is a poly-by-poly remodeling process where you pretty much remodel the high poly character or asset in order to make a simplified clone of the original. From there, the normals are baked from the original to the retopologized model, making the game asset that doesn't make your console/PC kill itself.

So, it looks like Squad is taking advantage of normal maps for terrain in KSP. In celebration, since I'm a sucker for normal maps, I feel the need to educate some folks! So for those of you who don't know, normal maps are used as a pretty much a technique to fake lighting on models. in geometry a normal is pretty much described the surface of a face or the front of a polygon. Normal maps bake fake normals onto the faces of a model. This brings out an illusion of depth, like the mountains shown in the news weekly photo! To get into more detail, normal maps are calculated by taking the vector of the shaded point and the vector of the light source and dotting the surface with the unit vector normal. The result is a map that labels the intensity of light on the surface, a normal map! Here's a visual just to add interest. The mesh on the left is a high detail model consisting of 4 million faces or triangles. The middle is a wire visual of the model when it's simplified to 500 faces and the right is the same model with normal maps. That's a model with roughly the same detail while being 800,000% more efficient! So, instead of loading high poly models, you'll be loading a more optimal low poly model with a normal map on it. This means there's more detail without the performance dip, and we all love some optimal enhancements for quality results.... right? So who's all excited to see a graphical enhancement teased into the v.2 release? Kinda came out of nowhere for me!

Welp, since funding is not an issue, I send rescue craft to save stranded kerbals =D

Sadly that is considered model theft. If you see any animations with Kerbals in them, they've been modeled by hand. if you want to get better at modeling, Try doing it yourself, try replicating the Kerbal design and play around with it.

The lines of the parachute are done with a constraint, where all the lines meet at one point. As for the chutes, I believe it's a matter of making shape keys. Shape one would be the undeployed chute, shape two would be fully deployed. From there, all that would be needed is an animation to determine how fast the chute deploys when it hits the right altitude.

The Loop cut tool works perfectly for that. Simply hit Ctrl+R and a purple line should appear on the model. Click where you want the loop to go, position it as desired and left click. if you want it in the center right click when your positioning it. You can add more cuts by scrolling the mouse wheel up or hitting the + and - keys.

yup, just gotta simply solidify your model!

Can't wait for .2! My Kerbals will be conquering the Kerbol system at twice the speed!

Something like this seems like it can be fabricated. Anyone could go into the parts database and make the pod indestructible and no one would be any wiser. This also seems like a luck based challenge rather than skill. Reason I say this is because, and this is assuming you're running the challenge legitimately, crash landings are tough to duplicate with the same results. I've had parts cushion my landings when things go downhill. It works, but there are times where it results in failure. Either the pod pops off, hits the ground first, or even collides with the cushioning parts!

I'm saying SSTO basically because of reusable space program challenges. That's hard to accomplish without skill!

How else am I going to take over the universe? Gotta fund the trip to the Sol System somehow!

usually I'll release stacks before making my orbit. But for flights to the Mun or other places, I'll try to release the stack on a collision course or get a retriever to collect it using the KAS mod and throw the payload at the Mun, because... who's going to notice an extra crater?

- Number of bounces on Gilly before landing - Farthest distance fired from a cannon and survived - Number of Space Kraken Attacks Survived - Number of Space Kraken Attacks in total

Uhm, I would have to disagree. This is the near exact opposite of minecraft. Reason being, Minecraft became popular for it's all around simplicity, from graphics to gameplay. Anyone can pick that game up without a prior tutorial, especially now! As for KSP, it's not simple at all. In fact, you learn basic rocket science off of this game as you play, but most of us rely on others to learn the ins and outs by watching video tutorials or let's plays. But, does that mean this game won't be a success because you can't really compare it to Minecraft? No, that would be wrong to say. That would be like saying Call of Duty sucks because it's not Minecraft. It makes no sense! The real quest to ask is, will it be as popular? Well, sadly no it won't. Minecraft is stupid simple and the game changing mods just add to the list of things to do. Now before any of you bash me, I personally don't like Minecraft, it's boring to me and the mods only make the game seem more tedious. I'm only going by the obvious facts. But in the end, we're currently comparing an unfinished product with a complete masterpiece(oddly enough). So who knows? maybe it will pick up a cult following. maybe the future updates in store will catch the attention of many and bring this game to new heights. It won't be Minecraft, but at least it'll stand on it's own merits. A game that can teach players basic rocket science and be fun? That sounds like diamond hit to me! ....get it? Diamond? hehe... heh...... Ok I'll go back to my hole now . _. ((yay for old thread revival? XD))

well WHEN it comes out, I'll get my stopwatch ready to calculate how much faster the game loads

The next update is said to make the game run a lot better. hopefully once v.20 comes out, we'll see much better performance!

Today, I constructed a massive scaffolding launcher around the lower half of my Station in LKO. This part is all docking ports and fuel tank bays with a habitation module in it. The habitation module is merely for looks as far as I know, but it works! This technique worked on the upper half, hopefully the extra length(pokes through the top of the VAB) doesn't lead to disaster.

It's a rookie mistake, I put a suggestion to add a gap between end flight and space center to make this rookie mistake happen less, but I think it got buried in the void....

Don't assume everyone will play hardcore and willingly start over a project that took hours out of their busy schedule. The quicksave/load feature is flawed, naturally as it is early development, but to question it as a necessity is plain silly. When developing a game, you can't pick a niche within a niche(space enthusiasts that are also balls to the wall hardcore gamers). That's a surefire way to make a game and never see a return in profits. I appreciate this feature as I don't have a ton of time to sink into this game on a daily basis and I surely do not want to start over the building of a station from scratch all because a lag spike made me collide my new module or ship into the station. Excluding such a feature would more than likely turn people off as you would have a game that only caters to a specific crowd rather than a general crowd. Keep in mind that this is a video game, emphasis because I know many people look at games as experiences and refuse to believe that some people just want to have mindless fun out of their purchase. Options are nice, if you don't like it, don't use it simple as that. Don't assume all of us are hardcore masochistic gamers, that's a good way to make people not like you very much.

honestly there is no right way to argue using Mech-jeb or assistance mods. If you're for it, you're using it for information or to make the game less tedious. If you're against it, you see it as cheating. The fact of the matter is, both sides are right simply because it's a sandbox game. Sandbox games thrive on freedom of choice. If using mods makes your experience better, go for it! Same if you don't care for mods. Play the game however you desire. Touch down on every planet, or just the Mun. build rockets that are meant to kill kerbals more than go to space. Fire mock missiles at the Mun! How you play is ultimately up to you.

And then the kerbals realized that turning the rockets the other way and strapping themselves to the top gets them to space faster! maybe in the next update, if we get more parts, you'll be able to launch kerbals into space!

I actually launched half of my station into a 150km orbit earlier, I need to check and see how much that weighed. Eh it's not that significant