Amazonys

Putting a kethane scanning probe into polar orbit with a static solar panel (because it looked cooler). Then I realized that after some time warp that it had shifted so that the panel was facing *away* from the sun and I was without the sufficient power to turn it back towards the sun. Oh and then there was that one time that I though I could sled on my fairings in order to land on the saltflats of Minmus. Safe to say that wasn't the smartest idea ever.

Jool and its moons. Just because gas giants are so cool.

I'm going to use those famous last words "I know what I'm doing." I do a lot of modding myself, and know the importance of backups. So I have two installations of KSP one with mods and one without. I don't forsee wanting to unistall this mod, and cycle through mods so quickly, its just easier to move it do a central directory, everything still intact. I'm not advocating that anyone do this, and was trying to help if someone mistakenly changed the directories. I know that if I somehow mess up the modded install, then all well, it was because I was mixing mods and stock, time to start anew. Basically I'm trying to pay you a compliment and say that your work is really good. So good as I plan on keeping it "stock" until 0.22 when my modded install will (presumably) become outdated and I'll start all over again.

The only reason I put them in another directory is to consolidate some parts to the Squad folder that I consider to be so good as to be stock anyways. I was just trying to say that if you do put in a different directory, then there'll be some loading problems resulting in only the stock clamp-o-tron being loaded (as that directory stays the same) and the new part not being loaded (as that directory no longer matches the new one). Also can't remember if I said this earlier, but I love this mod, the parts are top notch and have already been incorporated into many of my spacecraft! Keep up the awesome work!

I had the same problems as you. The Clamp-o-tron and the parachute are "welded" together, so if you place the partfile anywhere besides the original directory (Gamedata/SDHI/Parts/SDHI_ParaDock_1_ClampOTron) then the chute will be unable to be found and won't be loaded. The second problem I solved by using action groups (I use 9), but I'm working on editing the partfile so that I can just use *space*. Hope this helps.

Here is the 3rd squadcast archive on KSP's twitch.tv Mu talks briefly during QA about how he modeled the Uranus analogue towards the end. But mostly he talks about how he optimised the game and got 30% more FPS on his machine. It is rather unclear if the planet he modeled was just for test purposes, or if SQUAD is actually considering a "super-earth-rocky-uranus" as the actual analogue. Crossing my fingers it was just a test mechanism and the gas giants will actually be analogues, not super-earth craziness. Please reserve that for other solar systems and keep the Kerbol system realistic!

There's always the possibility that SQUAD just chose names that they thought sounded cool for celestial bodies with out names. But I'll add my own guesses at the names. I'd guess that Kerbin because its similar to Kerbal, Mün is a pun, Minmus is probably derived from the latin word minimus meaning the smallest member of a group. Moho is in reference to Moholes as well as an "M" name like its analogue. Eve is vaguely similar to Venus. Gilly could be someone's name. Duna is in reference to Dune, or spanish for dunes whichever you prefer. Ike is in reference to Eisenhower. Dres - parents or just a cool name. Jool is probably just a "J" name with a ring to it. (Joolian moons) Pol because it looks like pollen. The rest I presume are just names that SQUAD found cool. Also although I thought Vall is supposed to be the Europa analogue, Eeloo looks alot more like Europa. Assuming that Eeloo is a Europa analogue then once again we'd have the shared "E" name between analogues.

Hence why some we are arguing against the proposed "rocky-Uranus" in favor of an actual analogue. I responded to this guy in one of my posts as well. Thank you for clarifying better/further Basically it still supports the idea that the Uranus analogue should actually be an analogue not some "rocky super-earth." I think I said it rather well earlier.

Today I finished my ultra-low part count station. The total parts come in at 98, with two docked Command modules to bring it to 138. I constructed the initial base of my Münar Intermediary Station in orbit.I I did a flyby of Eve and Minmus as well. KES Layout KES MIS Eve Flyby Eve Minmus Flyby Hopefully more awesome stations and bases coming soon!

Here ya go, Google Search really IS handy There are no rings because SQUAD is still trying to get them to work. So nothing is final but this is what has been seen so far:

I agree a super earth would be cool but I'd argue against it being in the original Kerbol system due to its analogue theme. Also Uranus is not a super earth, it is an "ice giant" a type of gas giant. From Wikipedia: Composition breakdown for anyone interested. Uranus' Composition

Personally I'd much prefer the Uranus analogue to be without the rocky-core. Seeing that gas giants are widely known to have metallic cores due to pressure, it seems non-consistent with the fact that Jool doesn't have a "rocky" core to explore. Furthermore these "rocky" cores are preceded my thousands of kilometers of pressurised liquids. So yes, Jool can be landed on through glitches, and you could lessen the gravity of the planet to make it more easily escapable; but those feel more like aversions to a problem rather than realistic gameplay decisions. My counterproposal would be, to reiterate some ideas above: the Uranus analogue would be on nearly a 90 degree axial tilt, but remain a gas giant akin to Jool which is already in the game. Also the moons of this analogue would revolve nearly perpendicular to the solar plane. Also if rings are ever feasible then some of those would be necessary per the real life Uranus. Furthermore seeing as SQUAD has stated that Jool will have the largest moons in the game, and there is a distinct lacking of an object with a radius of 400km, I'd say have large one moon orbiting at that size (in addition to other interesting, smaller moons). This moon as a Titan/Oberon analogue would have a thick atmosphere with high mountains and perhaps small lakes. (Not a beach like Laythe, but cold, dreary and devoid of life) This atmosphere would thick but escapable, its gravity "just-a-bit-more-than-Duna's." It could be in perpetual storms and haze reducing visibility range. So the high incline orbit, thick atmosphere, rings, and distance from the sun and inability to see where you are landing would make this moon extremely difficult to land on. Seeing as this would be the last of the promised 3 gas giants, it would represent the endgame of exploration and should be difficult in every aspect, but keep in line with what currently exists in game. TL;DR no rocky-core, just convert those existing ideas to a moon of said giant for the sake of consistency and gameplay Just my 2 cents

I know that this is still "alpha" and I totally agree/support the realism that makes this game great; and I'm just providing a suggestion with regards to stationary objects/bases on planets that are still calculating physics but aren't moving actually moving. Plus this would only take effect one all of the criteria are met ingame. (ie:not moving, on landing legs, etc) This could be a potential drain on performance that I think it may be worth looking into. (So bases may end up being larger than stations) I have little experience in physics-specific programming, but I do know that swapping to any other physics engine (and none really exist as unity plugins for SQUAD's purposes) other than what currently exists would be a HUGE task; hence my third point in which I was trying to point out that there are potentially other options to increase performance, and that those should take precedence at least in consideration over any massive undertakings if the existing engine can be optimized. Who knows what the future holds, I'm having fun with smaller ships and stations now and have no complaints, so I'm sure I'll enjoy whatever KSP eventually evolves into. Just trying to brainstorm ideas

I think that there could be ways around the "lag" that could be relatively easy to implement. (compared to an entirely new physics engine.) 1. don't calculate the physics of stationary objects on the ground. This could be implemented by saying X base is sitting on its lander legs and going 0.0m/s, so turn off physics of all objects in the flight. Additionally you could just turn off physics of everything except fragile, breakable objects (eg:solar panels). This means that you could have much bigger bases limited by your gpu's ability to render them rather than cpu's ability to calculate the physics of stationary objects. (Also I read somewhere that the biggest lander legs are already physics neutral or something) 2. calculate space station physics in chunks, like module A + module B + etc. this would mimic the realism of the station maneuvering but once again lighten up on the load on your CPU. 3. eventually get around to a potential 64-bit/easily convertable unity-physics-plugin or other such options. But 1 and 2 should be the way to go.

I think the observatory may actually be here pretty soon. Theres an observatory building in the top right of the R&D concept. http://i.imgur.com/MXoZHyo.png And OP I totally agree, but I don't think its high on SQUADs todo list with career mode, resources, and the like.