KrazyKrl

The reason for the conical shape of the capsules, is due to the aerodynamic forces stabilizing the capsule in a blunt-face-down "heatshield-first" position. Having even an unpowered capsule enter the atmosphere in any orientation(and spin rate) able to right itself passively from aerodynamic forces is quite beneficial. How are you going to pop the chutes in a sphere that is spinning anyhow? What if you have no power & pilots are medically unable to control the craft? You get one shot+redundancies for something that is solved by the innate aerodynamic nature of a conical capsule.

Think of it like this: Each module has a "no payload" maximum dV it can provide. As you add more modules, the efficiency of each one drops significantly. You're never really adding dV, you're making the fuel fraction so large; that your payload becomes a small part of the fuel you are using. It's the same reason any engine can never reach the engine's max TWR, because that would require a 0kg mass to be on the engine.

I think I found the pdf referred to: Lithium-Fluorine-Hydrogen Propellant Investigation PDF And notes on page 78(Page 86 of the PDF), that a VAC ISP of 510s - 520s was observed. Russia also tested a hybrid engine that burned a combination RP-1/LH + O2. In tripropellant RP1/H2/O2 mode... ASL: 3,300kN @ 330s (VAC: 4,000kN @ 415s) (H2/O2 mode: VAC 1,600kN @ 460s)

And lo it came to pass, in the most Kerbal of fashions... The endpoints of the vaunted fuel ducts shall be tinted opposing/contrasting colors that are colorblind-friendly. The fuel ducts shall have 3 modes: Normal, Inverse, Crossfeed. The fuel duct endpoint colors shall reflect the internal flow state of the fuel duct. So say we all.

Here's hoping that the custom groups UI gets some love with the UI rework; which would easily solve your problems. It's rather hard to use effectively at the moment.

IMO this thread should be cleaned up a bit. Then this thread should either be restickied, or reposted under the "Squad" user account if possible. (Authoritative list.) This thread is old; and I think is due for a successor. An already suggested list is too important for this subforum, to not have in some form.

Well, it doesn't need to be that intensive; if you use LoD models. So the inside of the building gets less complex the further you are away, you don't even need to draw the interior outside a certain heading range and altitude. Other than modelling the inside, you need; what, a rectangular collision box with a few options if you're within it at 0 m/sec? It would be pretty neat though; to get a few options for your craft. Recover at 100%, go to Space Center (Destroy craft and flight.) Recover at 100% and save as new (temp?) craft, then go to SPH (i.e. to load new cargo into the cargobays, and be able to relaunch.) (Repack chutes, refuel, refit, etc.)

Why not "T-1 Toroidal Aerospike "Javelin" Liquid Fuel Engine". Aerospike seems to fit just fine at the moment though; it's enough of an odd aerospace engine to warrant the mundane name.

They're asking for a search function in the VAB/SPH; so they can search parts by name/description. Because they have a lot of part mods; and their part library is huge. I believe some mods can do it; but it would be nifty in stock to some extent. The custom groupings UI is currently a mess though.

Too bad the part copy gets confused; and rarely preserves the exact orientation of the part you are copying. All it needs to do is save the orientation to the parent part; then convert it to the absolute VAB orientation.

I can accept the abstraction of unlimited RTG lifespans for gameplay purposes. That 30+ year lifespans of RTGs can be ignored for the sake of gameplay. (Time is nearly a nonissue in KSP, as you might spend a year doing literally nothing but waiting for a planetary alignment. If/when KSP gets Kerbal Alarm Clock, then maybe RTG decay can be a trackable thing.) As for the RTG thermals; I agree that they should become less efficient the hotter they are. As the RTGs directly tie into the heat system already in KSP.

I voted for... CoL accounting for body lift also (seems like just an oversight when the new aero was installed.) CoL accounting for flaps (also seems like a simple oversight) We need more large parts (like a large 2.5m or 3m turbofan, high thrust, high efficiency, low speed). (A large 2.5m NERVA; which would probably mass about 1/2 an orange tank, and be about the size of 1/2 an orange tank.) And Interstages (I've made several posts about them, but i believe the auto-fairings from engines should use the new fairings instead.) One thing that would be nice though. The SSME has 15 degrees of gimbal; more gimballing on engines would be nice. Along with a feature that tells the engine "Set gimbal to thrust through CoM." This feature would, of course, decrease gimbal authority in some directions, but would keep the thrust force vector through the CoM; except for steering.

Here's hoping that unconnected rigidbody chains are at least multithreadable for physics calculations (And any craft packed for non-physical time warp.) You might even be able to multithread docked craft together if you take docking ports as a special case; control authority then becomes an issue.

Z and X for throttle full and off? Then you can hold shift at 100% throttle to give you afterburner temporarily? Yes please. And maybe jet engine thrust reversers too. Even if it's not really realistic; being able to afterburner into a thrust reverser on landing would be pretty amazing.

Yes, and use the same planetary UI for contracts too.

I posted about this a long time ago too. It's sad that a major thing on planetary bodies has been overlooked so long. Exploring another planet's oceans would be amazing for science. Along with the possibility of a superheavy SSTO ISRU seaplane.

Maybe if the contract also gave you a grab-bag of optional, selectable; tertiary objectives to meet when you sign the contract. I have no idea how KSP could be programmed to figure out how you're going to use your rocket to give you other objectives. What happens if the wheels are just designed to drive up and dock a spacebase on the Mun; and not for actual roving? What if that extra dV is going to be used for suicide burn retro rockets? The game can't know everything you're possibly going to do.

I would suggest something like a high-electricity draw system that would add something like real-world hydraulics; but be simplified to work with the electrical system already in place. Something like an "APU" tweakable in-VAB/SPH for the jet engines; which would disable their thrust, but turn it into massive power generation (and the thrust limiter could still be used to reduce the power generation and fuel drain.) The turbopumps in the SSME produced something like 71,140hp (53,049 KW) for fuel compression, and APUs are used on major jet aircraft.

If this was a game with less planning for missions, I would agree. But anything hidden until the mission is in progress seems like bad design. If your contracts start giving you hidden optional objectives, you'll start feeling like the game is screwing you out of resources; just because you built your rocket to meet the standard contract.

I honestly think that The aces should be something like the starter 4 kerbals like I stated. Then something like the planetary bodies for K,Q,J (16 planets/moons without the sun.) Then something like Pods and Probe cores as 2-10 of Capsules. Kerbals of note (Gene Kerman, Werner-Von Kerman, etc.) as 2-10 Kerbal suit. Science experiments and notable science locations for the 2-10 Muns suit. And finally notable engines for the mainsail 2-10 suit.

While having the expanding contracts would work for a game where you can send units out in a few seconds... It takes days in KSP-time to send out a rover to the Mun; let along further planets like Duna. But I do agree that there needs to be some sort of thread that ties together the contracts system. Maybe even some sort of science archives UI for the contracts screen. The contracts need to have the parameters spelled out when accepted; because KSP (and spaceflight) is all about design and planning your mission. It's no fun to get an early career lander to the Mun, that has barely enough dV to go home; only to unlock "go check out that crater 20km away for another 50,000 funds!".

Well, I wanted to be gender neutral on the matter. And KSP is more than the Kerbals, there is the rocketry to think of too. And I think having the starters as the four aces fits perfectly.

Lots of the underlying calculations in KSP are deterministic. These items cannot reliably be calculated at once when you want to jump; you need to simulate them at some point anyhow. And since the universe has lots of interactive parts to it, especially with ships up there you can dock to, and interact with. You still need to take physics slices of your trajectory; and perform collision detection on it. SOI changes, atmospheric entries, and things like gravity assists; all must be accounted for, and all affect your trajectory after them. At which timer resolution do you say is a reasonable factor? What happens if you brush Jool's dense atmosphere for a few seconds, but it may be enough to miss your gravity slingshot to Eeloo or something. The game must then simulate every encounter either when warping, or when changing your trajectory. There is no way around these calculations... Also, you need to perform all these calculations every tick for all craft in your universe.

Hmm... Starting 4 as the Aces. Kings, Queens, Jacks of every suit as planetary bodies. Mun/Minmus as the 2 Jokers. Suits could be Red Capsule, Red Kerbal, Black Mainsail, Black Mun. Ace of Capsules Jeb, Ace of Kerbals Val, Ace of Mainsails Bill, Ace of Muns Bob. Fits PERFECTLY. This could be a thing that I would buy.

The whiplash is currently a turbojet/ramjet hybrid engine. And is already in the mid-range for engines; the "ramjet" effect really starts to happen when the engine gets into the "runaway thrust" area of speed. But I do agree that we need a 2.5m class of LiquidFuel parts. (2.5m NERVA, 2.5m LF tanks, 2.5m Intakes, and 2.5m atmospheric engines.) (A 2.5m NERVA would be pretty insane though, it'll be the size of an X32 tank (the 1/2 2.5m orange tank, and about as massive with an 80% load of fuel.)) 2.5m for me is a comfortable size for some of the largest crafts; anything bigger, and Unity has a problem with large and massive parts (playing around the Orion mod showed me that.) We are missing a lot of the other side of the part catalog, LF-Only 2.5m parts and engines.