bitbucket

Sitting on 1.5 million after about 25-30 contracts, and my only foray out of Kerbin orbit was a trip to Minmus that brought back 2000+ science and got me over halfway through the tech tree. Another more exhaustive trip with more experiments should give similar results, and then I can move on to do the same on Mun to finish the tech tree. Then I can start having some real fun. One thing that's been changed by contracts is that I'm not using "standard" designs; I end up custom-building a ship on almost every launch so that I can fulfill at least one or two contracts on every flight.

Fusion is going to be the only thing scaleable enough to get us off fossil fuels, and by the time we finally get it to work, it'll be too late to matter.

This is why I use other means to plan out my interplanetary maneuvers, then once I've set up the node myself I'll use MechJeb to carry it out. I primarily use MJ for precisionâ€â€I know where I need to point and how long to burn, but my unfortunate case of stupidhands means I don't have the dexterity to get it done right.

Slowly taking my network interplanetary, with a manned flotilla on the way to Duna to set up more comm equipment. If not for the deep space relays on the way to L4/L5 I'd be out of contact with Eve at this point.

For my interplanetary communications network, I took an approach similar to the real-world Deep Space Network with ground stations. They have a dish pointing at every planet, and a couple to spare to point at missions in transit between planets. I have three large ground stations on Kerbin; one at KSC, and two others 120° in longitude apart at 46° E and 166° E. Getting something that large out there on a suborbital hop was daunting; took 20 parachutes to get them down in one piece. The KSC dish array was just rolled out on wheels over next to the tracking station. (Jeb protested this flagrant display of practicality, but the engineers had the last word on this one.) Kerbosynchronous satellites relay the ground stations back to Mission Control. There's a beacon on the Mun at the future site of a base, which points at whatever ground station(s) have line-of-sight. I also have six equidistant satellites in a 90-minute orbit equipped with omnidirectional antennas to handle all low orbit communications. I'm also currently deploying similar satellite dish arrays out to Kerbin's L4 and L5 points (yes, I know the game doesn't simulate Lagrange points) in advance of my first interplanetary missions. Since the beam width of interplanetary-class dishes isn't wide enough to subtend Kerbin's diameter until you're nearly a million kilometers out, I found it prudent to provide more distant relays for vessels to keep in communication when just outside Kerbin's SOI. Better a delayed signal than an intermittent one, or none at all.

The people who think gravitational slingshots are a good idea are usually the ones who've been unintentionally thrown into interplanetary space by Mun encounters.

Utility plugins get installed immediately, part mods get added when I want to do something I can't do with stock parts.

If you manage to reach solar escape velocity on a hyperbolic orbit, your orbit will show a time of 2^31 seconds before leaving its SOI, which will never decrease no matter how far you go or how long you wait.

My first KSP session featured no Mun, no persistence, no rotating Kerbin, and landing on the night side of the planet meant your capsule exploded for no good reason. Despite its shortcomings then, I still managed to get to orbit in a few tries, and I've stuck with it.

OK, I'm having an odd issue with even using MJ at all in career mode (works fine in sandbox)â€â€after I've researched and unlocked it, it won't stay unlocked. Pictures to explain: Unlocked Flight Control, went into the VAB... Nope. Went back into the R&D... Now there's two. And it still wasn't unlocked? I click on it, unlocked it again, went back into the VAB... Cannot has? Back to R&D and... Now there's THREE of them and I can't use any of them. So... And in the VA again... DENIED. Every time I go into the VAB/SPH the AR202 case is un-researched and locked out again with yet another duplicate entry in R&D. What gives? Config file error, or is my install b0rken?

250 million km is well beyond Eeloo's orbit, but not so far that you can't get there in about 15-20 minutes at max warp. The idea here is that something has left the solar system and isn't coming back. It's certainly possible to reach solar escape velocity, but you'll never actually escape: when you mouse over the hyperbolic orbit's "escape" endpoint it will tell you that it's 68 years, 18 days, 15 hours, 58 minutes (2^31 seconds) away, and this time won't ever decrease.

Some suggestions for the landing achievement names: Hot Foot: Land on the surface of Moho Good Luck Getting Back: Land on the surface of Eve Lightfoot: Land on the surface of Gilly Safe And Sound: Land on the surface of Kerbin One Small Step: Land on the surface of Mun Little Green Moon: Land on the surface of Minmus One Giant Leap: Land on the surface of Duna We Like Ike: Land on the surface of Ike Asteroid Miner: Land on the surface of Dres Nowhere To Stand: Reach 0 altitude on Jool Almost Feels Like Home: Land on the surface of Laythe Cold Stop: Land on the surface of Vall Who Needs Aerobraking?: Land on the surface of Tylo Kraken Hunter: Land on the surface of Bop Allergy Season: Land on the surface of Pol Far Out: Land on the surface of Eeloo And a few ideas for new ones: Sunburn: Get within 1000km of the Sun One Way Trip: Reach solar escape trajectory Kessler Syndrome: 100 debris objects in orbit of Kerbin Emissary To The Stars: Reach 250 million km out on solar escape

In that case, you might as well just allow infinite fuel with the development console (AKA cheat panel), in which case it becomes trivial to take a tiny ship and land on everything with it.

Parachutes won't deploy until you have enough atmospheric pressure. They deploy at an altitude of about 20,000 meters above sea level on Kerbin, but only get enough air pressure to work at around 3000 meters up on Duna. If you're trying to land above 3000 meters elevation on Duna, the parachutes won't work at all. If parachutes play an important role in braking your ship, land in the equatorial lowlands. edit: visual aid! Trying to land in yellow or red areas on this false-color altitude map of Duna will result in lithobraking before parachute deployment.

It's not possible to put satellites in (adjective)stationary orbits around some objects, as the synchronous orbital distance is outside their sphere of influence. In such cases, you'll have to settle with a constellation of at least three satellites with line of sight to each other.

It is my opinion that we will not make any significant progress towards creating any sort of self-sustaining off-world settlement before human civilization exhausts Earth's non-renewable energy potential. Fossil fuels provide 86% of our energy. Oil will be gone in 50 years, natural gas will be gone in 60, and coal will be gone in 150 years at current consumption rates, which will only increase as oil and gas grow scarce. Current alternatives to fossil fuels can't be adequately developed to make up the difference. Unless we make some major breakthroughs with fusion in the next 10-20 years, forget space colonization, we won't even be able to maintain an industrialized civilization.

I dunno, all those cracks, ridges, and fissures in the ocean floor on Laythe makes it seem like there's quite a bit of tectonic activity.

Gradually step up/step down the warp multiplier, instead of jumping directly from minimum to maximum or vice versa.

Apparently Mechjeb can't figure out how to do transfers to smaller orbits in the current version.

Seems that it works a bit better if you start your munar escape burn 40-60° clockwise from the direct line between Kerbin and the Mun. Doesn't matter which way you're going, the end result shound be similar.

In my experience, MechJeb can't handle transfer calculations to smaller orbits worth a damn, but it does transfers to larger orbits almost spot-on.

Word of the developers is that in the official promotion videos, the Kerbals are speaking backwards Spanish.

Try landing on the outer walls of the volcanos/craters/whatever. They're the highest elevations on the planet, and the heat gets worse the lower you get. You may also want to try an RCS-heavy landing approach, as they don't generate nearly as much heat.

I have already mapped ALL the things, so you don't have to. Moho: Eve: Gilly: Kerbin: Mun: Minmus: Duna: Ike: Laythe: Tylo: Vall: Bop: Kerbin: 0.1°S, 74.62°W 0.1°N, 74.57°W 0.64°S, 80.77°W 35.57°N, 74.98°W 28.81°S, 13.44°W 20.67°N, 146.5°W Mun: 0.7°N, 22.75°E 2.47°N, 81.51°E 9.83°S, 25.92°E 12.44°N, 39.18°E 12.44°S, 140.82°W 57.66°N, 9.14°E 82.21°S, 102.93°E Minmus: 23.78, 60.05°E (2km up) Duna: 66.05°S, 160.88°W 30.34°S, 28.81°W 17.06°N, 85.46°W Tylo: 8.56°S, 93.63°E 8.99°S, 17.65°E Vall: 60.09°S, 83.78°E Bop: 68.43°N, 116.99°E

First, just get your ship into an orbit that's high enough to not hit the terrain. Thrust when you're 90° away from the line between Kerbin and the Mun, so that your periapsis extends in the opposite direction of the Mun's orbital motion, and get to escape velocity. When you escape the Mun's sphere of influence you'll be on a very elongated orbit around Kerbin, and it should only take a small amount of retro thrusting (if any) to get home. Get your periapsis below 40km; you'll hit the atmosphere at 3500+ m/s coming in, but should still land on the first pass.