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To be fair chris, its more about tweaking the engines to have sane amounts of dV, and tweaking the fuel tanks to carry reasonable amounts of fuel compared to their dry mass. The parts don't need to be any bigger, they just need to be more realistically configured. The biggest challenge imo is better drag modelling... With planets being so much bigger, and aerobraking having so much more atmosphere available to it, the flaws in the drag model will become much more apparent. I do hope that someday somebody does this so that we can get an idea of what the scale of spaceflight is really like.

To the OP: I don't think you should wait for Intel to introduce a new line of processors if your only interest is KSP. According to all rumors, Intel is having a hell of a time with 14nm Broadwell chips and will likely be releasing a Haswell Refresh to run on the 9 series chipsets currently coming down the pipe. This likely won't happen till Q2 2014 (so 6 months or more away)... Older (current) Haswell chips won't run on the refreshed 9 chipset, so you will be locking yourself out of an upgrade path, however the %age performance increase from one series to the next is fairly insignificant anyways, and the chip you buy today will likely only be bested in the 5-10% range by the offerings out next year. I think the most powerful i5 is likely where you'll want to be going (4760k I think?), get a nice big air cooler that isn't too intrusive like the Noctua NH-U14S and at least 8gb of ram. Pair it with a decent graphics card like a radeon 5850 for now. With the new consoles dropping soon, I'm willing to bet we're going to see a monstrous improvement in GFX cards like we did with the 8800s after the 360 and ps3 launched. Doesn't make sense to buy a high roller offering now when whats coming down the pipe will be a class ahead. I speak from experience here, as I bought a 7900GTX and regretted it within 6 months. EDIT: WHY IS THE FORUM REMOVING ALL OF MY PARAGRAPHS AND FORMATTING?

It 100% can be done, I've done it many times. What it takes is a lot of patience in tweaking your nodes. What you want to do is burn out of Kerbin's SOI during a normal transfer window, following a node setup to give you an intercept. Tweak it to get the periapsis reasonably close, but as long as you have the intercept you're golden. Once you exit Kerbin's SOI, plan a maneouver node at the ascending or descending node (whichever is closest) and tweak that node until your periapsis is quite small, if it disappears alltogether, gratz, you're on a collision course. If you can't quite get it there/don't have the patience to get it there you can do a final correction burn when you're 10d or so from a Duna intercept, just make that periapsis disappear and you're Duna bound. That said, even with a near perfect initial interception burn, Duna is going to come screaming up behind you at over 1km/s and at that speed, the atmosphere won't slow you down much before you lithobrake. Your best bet for the cheapest Duna insertion is to aim for a Periapsis of 7-10km, this will keep you above most of the terrain and allow you to use the thicker parts of Duna's atmosphere to slow you down for longer. If you burn just long enough to close your orbit, repeated passes through the atmosphere will bleed off enough speed for you to reach a desired apoapsis. EDIT: seems that the forum is dropping all of my formatting... I apologize for the wall of text.

I find the hardest part of learning to intercept/dock is sifting through the reams of misinformation out there, from 'experts' that have docked once. Some folks in this thread have it right, others not so much. Heres an easy recipe for an intercept. 1. Launch target vehicle to 150km orbit, make it as circular as possible. 2. Launch docking vehicle to 75km orbit, again, circularizing makes it easy. 3. Make target vehicle your target, plot a maneouver at an ascending or descending node, burn anti-normal or normal (purple indicators) until ascending and descending nodes are 0.0 4. Plot transfers up to 150km, note the distance between vessels at closest approach. Your ship in the lower orbit will 'catch up' with the ship in higher orbit over time. so use time acceleration until that burn up to 150km has a < 500m approach. When the time comes, burn on up to 150km. 5. Switch your velocity indicator to 'target mode' and burn retrograde when you're at closest approach until relative velocity is 0. 6. You should now have a nearly identical orbit to your target, although you may need to fine tune a little bit, you should be set to dock. Every intercept, no matter the orbit, is a two step process imo. 1. Match target orbital plane 2. Match target orbital altitude and velocity As a few others have said, once you're within a few km of your target, through the map views and the shape of your orbit out the window. If you simply ensure that you're heading towards your target, when you get there and null your relative veolcity your orbits will nearly match. To the OP, in your images, it looks like you have a craft that has a periapsis lower and an apoapsis higher than your target's orbit. That makes plotting an intercept a lot more difficult because your vehicles velocity changes as you orbit. Circularizing helps because it ensures constant velocity and a more predictable intercept timing.

My first Munar landing was actually intended to be an Apollo 8 style orbit, but using free return trajectory. With no RCS on board, and barely enough fuel to get there and back on a free return, I set out. Unfortunately at burn's end, I had a Munar periapsis jiggling wildly in the 200-500m territory, and my encounter was to result in a gravity assist instead of free return. I didn't know enough about the game to get out and push. The rocket skipped like a stone off the surface of the Mun, killing all aboard yet launching some debris back into space. In retrospect it was pretty epic.

Playing the devil's advocate, is that not perhaps the fault of the game developer as well? In your snipped quote, your source states intelligent ways for beginners to go about joining beginner classes, beginner leagues and instruction tailored for beginners. In the gaming world, a game often has a 'quick match' and a 'server browser', wherein the 'quick match' fires you into a random server anyhow. There is no consideration made for skill levels of the players involved. Players of all skill levels are thrown into the mix together. Imagine if you took the worlds entire population of a sport and more or less randomly selected two teams from that entire population and asked them to compete. That wouldn't be fun for everyone on those teams. The beginners would get manhandled, the intermediates would get frustrated with the beginners and at the same time frustrate the experts. I can see by the end of a few games, how the intermediates and experts would dread getting the beginner players on their team, and might come up with derogatory terms for them. If as much effort was put into effective matchmaking as was put into say, weapon skins or hats, a lot of this prejudice would go away.

I'd say in a lot of your examples you're discussing the content of a functioning product. And that's why in my example, Dragon Age, I just ate the cost without saying a word. The game functioned, it delivered the experience it promised, it just wasn't what I wanted. It sounded bad to me, in your words. With Simcity though it was different, the game flat out didn't work for a week, like, I can't even play it. (I.E I can't even open the book because the binding agent used on the spine glued the pages together) Then when I DO get in, I find that the entertainment I'm supposed to derive from it is so broken from its actual intent that it's unusable (i.e. exposing the pages to air caused the book to fade to the point I couldn't read many of the words) I think in cases like that, you DO deserve a refund. Its not like I didn't like the songs on the CD, its like I bought a Music CD, that was advertised as a music CD, it didn't play for 2 weeks and when it did I find out I've recieved a children's book on tape. That's sort of off topic in any event. My point was really about how the people in charge of that release completely ignored the very legitimate and glaringly obvious problems with their product. As a consumer, I felt as if they were thumbing their noses at me saying 'haha we got your money, so now we're just gonna give you the run around until you go away'. In the end, if behaviour like that is tolerated amongst developers and publishers, then we can't be overly shocked if some of our more Cro-magnon gamer brethern express their displeasure in ways that seem natural to them. Also, with your well thought out post, I feel that you've somewhat proven my main point, which is that KSP players are likely a different breed when it comes to this... You think this type of intelligent discussion is going on in the CoD forums?

I somehow doubt that KSP attracts the kind of community that exhibits this type of behaviour. I feel like this community is a little more mature and patient than some of the communities that were the topic of that article. I actually was affected by some of the topics in that story (pre-ordered Dragon Age 2: Cut and paste edition and Simcity). However my solution wasn't to hurl obscenities at the developers, it was to in the case of Dragon Age, suck it up and play through what I purchased, and in the case of Simcity, issue a chargeback to my CC. I think the one part of this story that didn't get discussed that needs to be discussed is that game developers can't treat their clients like spoonges to be squeezed dry and then discarded. When the entire Simcity debacle was going on, and I was pursuing my refund, some of the communications that came from Lucy Bradshaw and the rest at EA were so insulting to my intelligence that my blood definitely boiled. Now I didn't act on it, but I will admit I was mad at being treated like a moron. They knew that game was incomplete, fundamentally broken, shipped it as such and then continuted shilling it like some triple A title with just a few launch issues. They completely ignored (at least publically) the multitude of complaints, then tried to buy off peoples silence with an offer of a free game from a pretty thin catalog of last years titles. If she had just come out and said 'we **** the bed, we're sorry, we will make this right' it would have been ok. That apology was far too long in coming. Whoa, sorta went on a rant there. Anyways, I think my point was that gamers can't treat devs like whipping boys, and devs shouldn't treat gamers like morons.

Use ALT + . (faster) and ALT + , (slower) to adjust physics timewarp.

Unity is not load balanced particulairily well, so a simple CPU reading does not suffice. Physics can't be offloaded to other cores, its a single thread. That said, assuming a linear increase in cpu usage with physics timewarp your system would hit 80% utilization on 4x physics warp, which is available now, and 100% on 5x physics warp. So even if the optimal case was the realistic case you're looking at a 25% speedup over what is available? In reality I bet if you enable 4x physics warp on that 150 part craft, you redline your physics thread and the game scales back to 3x to 3.5x warp anyways. The devs have, in all likelyhood, provided you with all your system (and most systems) can handle.

Given that the Unity engine is generally horrible at physics on the scales which KSP requires, increasing the amount of physics calculations would just cause time dilation. As far as I can see 4x timewarp is about the practical limit in KSP.... I don't know of a computer that can handle that without redlining the CPU on anything but the simplest crafts.

When I realized that keeping your KAS mounted docking port in connector mode: 'undocked' results in your lifter arm actually staying intact after undocking your cargo from the mothership. This made so many dreams a reality.

Some of you guys are real sick bastards, you know that? Poor Bill.

White is undeployed Cyan is predeployed - it will semi-deploy once the minimum atmospheric pressure requirements are met Yellow is semi-deployed - applies semi-deployed drag Green is fully deployed - applies fully-deployed drag Red is broken/spent. You can repack red chutes by EVAing a kerbal and right clicking on the chute when you're near it. Edit: as far as I know, chutes cannot fail when they fully deploy. If the opening shock is too great, the craft will undergo rapid unplanned disassembly, but the chutes will remain intact.

Drogue chutes are specifically designed to solve this problem. If you're really hard pressed, I took it upon myself to duplicate Squad's radial mount parachute, and copy into the duplicate cfg the stats of the drogue chutes. Rename and save in its own directory, and Voila, a radially mounted drogue chute. Really helps with the rapid unplanned disassembly issues if you have a few of these puppies fully deployed 2000m before your mains deploy. I also don't feel it's cheaty because their exclusion feels like an oversight, and the inability in stock to place a drogue anywhere but the top of a part stack seems like artificial difficulty. If you must go stock, lessen your re-entry angle. The more atmosphere you cut through before your chutes open, the slower you'll be going.

You do realize that buying from Squad means you are much more likely to repeat the same experience again right? I mean, I don't want to hate on Squad, they've made an absolutely amazing game that I love. But if I had to choose which of two companies stand the best chance of surviving long term, I'm taking Valve/Steam over Squad any day of the week. I 100% guarantee that one day, the only place you will be able to get this game legally is through Steam's servers.

It doesn't help you if your career aspirations are pumping gas or 'doin the drywall at the new McDonalds'. Do not undervalue inspiration. If you can inspire two to three kids from a class of 25 into a career in engineering or the sciences with a video game, then you are replicating what is arguably the biggest single benefit from the manned spaceflight program of the 60s and 70s. The technological dominance which the United States enjoyed for the last few decades (and which is now slipping) was due in no small part to the inspirational effects of the spaceflight programs. Kids grew up watching men ride science to the moon, put robots on mars and send probes to the outer planets which were until then just points of light.... and they wanted to be a part of it. Now we have fewer science and engineering grads per capita, and the average shuttle launch (before it was outright cancelled) drew less attention then an amateur wrestling event. Low and behold, America's dominance on the world stage is slipping dramatically. Honestly I have sneaking suspicion that the first person to set foot on Mars is enjoying KSP as we speak.

TR-2c Stack Separator seperates from both surfaces when it decouples. If you're really anal about it, it becomes debris that you can then terminate from the tracking station.

I refer you here sir to the KSP wiki. Specifically: So in the case of 10^-1 (i.e. 10% of craft by mass is parachutes) of a 10 (or 20, or 200, or 2 million) ton vessel: (0.9x * 0.2) + (0.1x * 500) / x = Cd (0.9(10) * 0.2) + (0.1(10) * 500) / x(10) = Cd 50.18 = Cd

^^This Launching 200 tons in two 100 ton packages and assembling in orbit is far easier, and actually can end up taking less time on slower computers since part count increases exponentially as you add payload mass. Not to mention the time saved by not engineering a 200 ton lifter. I personally refuse to launch anything heavier than about 125 tonnes in a single launch.

How to dock in a few easy steps (assuming a circular, equatorial orbit, advice is still relevant to non-equatorial, but normal vectors are harder to find): 1. Switch to target vessel (thing you will be docking with), right click the port you will be docking with, select 'control from here' 2. Orient the vessel so that the docking port is pointing straight north (0 degrees), directly at the horizon. 3. Switch to docking vessel. Switch to 'CHASE' camera setting by pressing V a few times. 4. Right click the target vessels docking port. 'Set as target' 5. Right click the docking vessels docking port. 'Control from here' 6. Orient the docking vessels port to 180 degrees, directly at the horizon. 7. Use RCS translation controls (buttons: ijklhn use CAPSLOCK to switch to fine input mode) to place the prograde marker on the target marker on the navball, ensure that relative speed is low (0.1-0.3 m/s) 8. Maintain marker position as you approach, you may need to slow up slightly and kill lateral velocity if your lateral velocity to the target is high (i.e. you're not coming straight at it) 9. Dock The reason you orient to 0, 180 degrees is because, in an equatorial (90, 270) orbit, those are the only to points on the navball that don't move (your north and south poles, essentially) It is the axis of rotation of your ship, and therefore easy to align and maintain alignment with. Once you master this, you can try docking in more exotic, non-aligned manners. Personally I find that the trick to docking has nothing to do with docking being hard, and everything to do with your RCS not being designed/balanced properly which causes the use of translation control to result in unwanted pitch, roll or yaw. Hopefully squad eventually implements a system wherein you don't need to balance your RCS thruster placement, and instead the computer automatically adjusts the thrust applied from each thruster so that the translation movement is the only movement.

This^ In 0.20 I went purist, and I reached the far corners of Kerbol and returned safely to Kerbin. I only used convenience mods: alarm clock and protractor. I did the asparagus Mainsail pancake design to get my interplanetary stages into orbit, I struted the crap out of my large payloads which hung way over the sides of my 2.5m diameter rocket. In 0.21 I played differently, I replaced my 170 part heavy lifter with a 33 part one using Novapunch's larger diameter tanks and engines. It takes the same amount of payload to orbit, burns a similar amount of fuel and is slightly easier to fly, mostly due to lower lag. I took my old interplanetary designs, replaced my 5 LV-N cluster with Nova's larger, same ISP and thrust rated 2.5M LVN, and repeated some of my old missions. Nothing felt easier, except my part counts were lower, performance was higher, and my rockets looked like rockets. Then, I installed FAR and DR, and now some things I'd taken for granted in vanilla provide challenge again, and my rocket designs need to be more 'rockety' than ever to stand a chance at flying. Thankfully I can condense my payloads due to the 'other' DR (or IR, or whatever) allowing me to design an arm that I can then use to unpack and assemble my payloads in orbit, without putting RCS and command chairs on everything. I also wrap everything up in procedural fairings to make it nice and streamlined. I installed Kethane, not because I need the ability to make fuel to get home, but because I want an overall objective other than straight exploration, which I've done. And the nice part is, even though I'm stowing a kethane rig in my lander now, my part counts are still lower. I even copied the stock radial parachute file, and editted it to make a new part of my own, the radial drogue chute, because I felt like it was an omission that I could address and to me, the part seems fair. All in all, I feel that in 0.20 I validated myself, I CAN do everything in the game on stock (I even handled my own time acceleration and phase angles at first) At the end of 0.20 I felt hemmed in by vanilla. Lifting something bigger wasn't a challenge, it was an exercise in tedium as I pancaked my lifter out even further and flew it under time dilation. Getting to far flung locales (Jool) wasn't an issue, it was just a matter of heavy lifting up a few orange tanks with interplanetary stages and docking ports of their own and firing them all off during the same transfer window. Now I'm having fun doing my own Constellation inspired missions to Duna and eventually Laythe. Some of the stuff I'm doing can't be done in stock for no other reason then the fact that stock doesn't have >2.5M diameter parts.

I have/had 2 rovers in orbit around Dres. (0.20) Jeb and Bill misjudged their vertical velocity when landing a skycrane on Dres, on touchdown they accidentally initiated a rapid unplanned disassembly of the entire skycrane, which in turn detached the crew compartment from the ascent engine. With the crane destroyed, and the lander pod separated from the ascent stage by over 500m, they appeared stranded. Thankfully for them, the ascent stage engine had 2 radially mounted rovers (which Jeb/Bill never did quite figure out how to detach successfully without at least one landing upside down) and neither the ascent engine nor the rovers sustained any serious damage in the 'landing'. Bill hopped in one rover, and Jeb hopped in the other (they didn't know if their mass would upset the CG of the stage). Using the onboard RCS systems and torque they were able to face the assembly up a hill and then were able to limp into orbit on the remains of that ascent engine and rendevous with Bob in the Kerbin return craft. After Bill had eva'd into the return craft, Jeb thought it would be funny to turn the rover's lights on and seperate them from the ascent engine. Leaving them there for future generations to wonder how not one, but two rovers ended up in low dres orbit.

One could also argue that the vision required to take multiple mods and combine them into something so clever actually increases the impressiveness of the achievement. And since we are all on equal footing, in that we all have equal access to these mods, I think that what you're pointing out makes it more impressive instead of less. The only exception I take is the quantum struts he's using to maintain the integrity of his second vessel, since those are in no way grounded in reality and sort of cheapen the achievement of the spacecraft. I accept though that it was likely a neccesary evil in order to accomplish what he was aiming to accomplish. Also MechJeb is cheese for reasons that most people state. Yes NASA uses it, but thats because they don't want to waste America's tax dollars trying to cowboy up. Although its use doesn't take away from the technical impressiveness of the video, I would find it personally less fufilling to know that I used the AI to complete the majority of the most difficult tasks. (Although regardless of how it was done, that descent stage landing INTO the original landing vehicle is pretty damned impressive) All in all though, this video has inspired me to grab KAS Kethane and DR for my own version of the game... It gives a mission like that a point. Cheers, thanks for sharing.

I have a hard time believing that is anywhere close to optimal in terms of approach path. He spends a good 3-4 minutes at 45 degrees pitch in order to maintain his altitude while he decelerates. Thats literally 'wasting' half of his fuel. I would think you'd be better served killing that horizontal velocity off much quicker, so you can get down quicker, therefore reducing the effects of gravity on your velocity. Start a bit higher then that guy, and accept some negative vertical velocity due to gravity as you brake. Once you have brought your horizontal velocity under control, pitch over and control your descent the way he suggests. Thats the way Apollo did it.