RedPine

Knights of Sidonia is the sort of anime where when the characters say "All 256 pilots are deployed" there are actually 256 mecha on screen and 256 pilot pictures in the command center. Rifles have recoil and limited ammo, halfway to your destination you turn around to decelerate, and spacesuits have catheters. Sadly, like most fiction, this attention to detail does not extend to basic physics. "Clasp Hand Formation" - In the show, it is shown that if you want to make a mecha fly fast in space, give it a big jetpack. So far so good. Next, if you want to make a mecha fly even faster in space, have it hold hands with another mecha with a jetpack. Keep in mind that both mecha fire their jetpacks and run out of fuel at the same time. Then if you want go REALLY REALLY fast, have 256 Mecha with jetpacks hold hands... and fire their engines at the same time, thus running out of fuel at the same time. (Keep in mind that the jetpacks are heavy and can be ejected.) Railgun Mecha Launcher - At the same time as the "try not to run out of fuel" speech, the Mecha's are being launched out of the FRONT of the ship when the enemy they are fighting is BEHIND the ship. Spacecraft Turn in Wide Circles - No comment. Clearly spacecraft have the maneuverability of oil tankers. Accelerating at 5g's - To escape, the Sidonia fires the right engine while keeping the left engine off, in order to accelerate and turn rapidly. So far so good. If you do this while the engines are firing at 5g's, you get 5g's worth of structural damage inside the spacecraft due to "perceived" gravity coming from a 90 degree angle from where it normally does. Wait a sec - if you have a craft approx 30km long and 5km wide, the center of mass is near the center, and you accelerate from a single engine at the rear of your craft... here's a diagram: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XOOOOX????????????????????XMMMMEngine Firing This Way ----> XOOOOX????????????????????XMMMMX XOOOOX????????????????????XMMMMEngine Turned Off XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X=Hull O=Ocean (heavy) ?=Open air and hollow structures (light) M=Engine Stuff(heavy) Obviously, firing only one engine will cause gravity to come from a up to a 90 degree angle relative to the rest of the craft from the perspective of the people in the area labelled "??????". Clearly, firing only a single engine at 5g's imparts imparts 5g's worth of apparent gravity at a 90 to 45 degree angle... Note that the craft only turns about 45 degrees, so centrifugal force is not an issue. Anyway, the resulting trajectory is at a 45 degree angle compared to the original vector. The original vector was the result of periodically firing the engines over a thousand years, and the new trajectory was obtained after just a few minutes.

Select career mode. Alt-F12 for 5 seconds. Cheat in 300,000 funds every 30 Kerbal days. Ignore contracts. Use "Note+" mod (or spreadsheets, paper, etc...) to keep track of goals, cheapest craft that accomplished a given task, etc. My current setup is to build three different craft by three different "companies", designed to accomplish the same mission, launch them all at once, and then see what works best/cheapest. Even without throwing in stock missiles or BDArmory, competing with yourself helps make things more interesting. Trying to do the same thing three different ways also helps me find surprisingly efficient methods I normally wouldn't try. PS Yes, I do attach stock missiles to competing designs on occasion...

The nuclear waste guys will get a kick out of the carbon dating scandals, if they don't know about it already. http://newgeology.us/presentation48.html I am very well aware of the gaps in my weather education. I do know, however, that when a 200 year old science we barely understand, is presented to the public who doesn't understand weather at all, a little... "simplification" and "generalization" takes place. Depending on how you simplify the raw data, we can prove or disprove global warming on a whim. If you have taken a class on statistics, I think you can understand how you can "honestly" lie with "real" data. That's why I choose to look at global warming from a political/economic point of view. It makes things so much easier to understand. Type of Meteorologist---+-Believes in Global Warming?--+-Paid to Believe in Global Warming?--+----Actually Studies Global Warming ------------------------+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------+---------------------------------- Aviation Meteorologist---+---------------No------------+--------------------No------------+---------------No----------------- TV Forecaster-----------+-------Half Yes, Half No------+-----------------I Don't Know------+------------I Don't Know---------- Researcher/Student------+--------------Yes-----------+--------------------Yes------------+--------------Yes---------------- "If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.... Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E = mc²." Well, I think we can all at least agree that meteorology is not a "solid" science. (except hail, snow, volcanic ash, etc.) In any case, since both aviation meteorologists and climatology researches supposedly have 100% consensus, both groups should be ignored. Get your opinion from the daily TV weather guy instead. Bringing the discussion back to Venus, studying Venusian weather - although fascinating - will have the same if not worse problems than with studying earth weather. Last I checked, weather models go off of weather balloons, not satellite images - so attempting to model Venus would require sending thousands of balloons throughout the Venusian atmosphere that would have to survive at least a year of extraterrestrial turbulence, chemicals, and radiation. Studying Venus would be fascinating, but by the time we figure out how to study Venus we will already have tools needed to understand our own planet without the need for extraplanetary exploration. Tools like, satellite soundings, satellite calibrated models, and quantum/photon/organic computer models, are all already in the prototype stage. Wait 20 years and we will have an unprecedented understanding of our atmosphere. The benefit to be gained from studying Venus is a complete unknown. There is no tried and proven way to profit from going into the void. We can't go into an adventure like a Venus mission thinking that we already know what we will find when we get there.

I'd like to clear up a misconception about my field, meteorology (the real kind that airplanes use, not the weather channel or scientists). /EDIT The KSP community is great, and even those I sometimes disagree with on some issues are reasonably well informed and use the soundest arguments and evidence they have available, which are often thought provoking and fascinating. The remainder of this post is a rant. Feel free to agree, disagree, or ignore. Please PM me instead of necroing a post that would be a necro if it weren't linked to a list of best threads of 2015. /END EDIT I have yet to meet a single coworker who believes in global warming. The only global warming advocates that I have met, that are also meteorologists, have been university students (who must pass a pro global warming class) and university professors (who literally receive millions of dollars from the federal government to research global warming.) This is my personal experience and might not be representative of my field but... look, my job revolves around pattern recognition using images, graphs, and text. If it were easy to prove global warming did or didn't exist using scientific evidence, the debate would have ended long ago. Also, meteorologists don't understand clouds. I'm not joking, we really don't. It's easier to get to the bottom of the ocean and come back alive than it is to fly into the center of a supercell updraft or tornado and come back alive. It's easier to live underneath the ocean for six months than it is to stay airborne six months. It's easier to measure temperature 10 feet below the water than it is to measure temperatures 10 feet above the ground. It's easier to understand the currents in a liquid than it is to understand the wind in a gas. We found bacteria in water long before we even suspected bacteria could be in clouds. When mass media, politicians, and forum readers like you guys claim that we meteorologists "know" that global warming is happening, I feel a little offended. Nobody asked me about my opinion, instead they pay university researchers millions of dollars to study global warming, ask those researchers for their opinion on global warming, and then stop funding those researchers if they deny global warming. You guys claiming to know that meteorologists like me believe in global warming is like you guys claiming to know what NASA scientists believe in sending people to other planets. The world of space travel is far more complicated than layman like us understand, especially since the experts don't fully understand the complicated issues either. PS I would only colonize another planet if it meant I could do interplanetary weather forecasting. Assuming they'd let 80 year old astronauts in (once I get that old), I'd even be willing to go on a one way suicide mission to study extraterrestial weather.

After a good 15 minutes of searching I'm haven't found these suggestions so here you are... I am well aware that I know nothing about programming, and that my ideas are as likely to be an interesting as they are to be impossible or useless. 1. Inline Hangar Inline Hatch. Similar to the Fairing Hangar, except reusable (as opposed to ejectable fairings). Makes it easier to store simple vessels that have a thruster but no RCS (try docking a long rocket without RCS sideways into inline hangars with side doors... possible but tricky). Could also be used to store and launch vessels in an upright position while landed on a high gravity planet. 2. Launchpad Hangar. Similar to the square rover hangars, but the door opens at the top instead of the sides. Uses include storing RCS powered vehicles on low gravity planets (without scraping against the ground to get into a garage door), and loading rockets in an upright position while landed on a high gravity planet. 3. Autodocking vessels on load. Instead of being loaded in a floating position inside the hangar, allow vessels to load in a docked position inside the hangar. This could be accomplished by automatically docking to the root part of the loaded vessel if that root part is a docking port. This would be especially helpful when launching tiny RemoteTech probes that are stored with retracted antennae to save space. If suggestions 3. and 1. were combined, it would be possible to quickly swap engines by using the "store" and "load" features of an inline hangar with inline hatch. This is already possible in the existing version, but only if the engines being swapped have RCS and a probe core.

Sorry about the KE mistake, I should have googled it. Whoops. I've edited the OP. That aside, you don't seem to have understood my post - crash tolerance is NOT what we think it is. Both projectiles had crash tolerances of 80m/s and traveled faster than 50m/s towards targets with crash tolerances of 12m/s or less, and yet it most cases the projectiles were destroyed, not the targets. Clearly mass or some other unknown factor is at work in determining whether the target or the projectile is destroyed.

Early in my attempts to make good Stock weapons, I've come across some bizarre irregularities regarding what weapons can destroy which objects. First I'll introduce the craft I used, all of which have projectiles with a crash tolerance of 80m/s. This is the Yelll Mk I Broadside. Each projectile travels at 59m/s and spins rapidly. This is the Red Mk II Sniper, aimed manually with a KerbPro camera from HullcamVDS. Each projectile travels at 89m/s and spins slowly. First off, you would think high crash tolerance and mass make a part sturdier, right? WRONG! Target specs: Nuclear Engine CT12,m2.25t Destroyable by Broadside and Sniper (High crash tolerance and weight, but is easy to destroy?!) Dry Fuel Tank CT06,m1.00t Destroyable by Broadside Only (Low crash tolerance and weight, but is hard to destroy?!) You would think the Sniper would have a more powerful projectile than the Broadside due to higher speed, but the reverse is true! The Broadside can destroy fuel tanks and engines, but the Sniper can only destroy engines but not empty fuel tanks! The projectile specs: Broadside RV59m/s,m0.57t,DV59m/s (Low DV, Low Speed, High Mass, powerful weapon?!) Sniper RV89m/s,m0.13t,DV94m/s (High DV, High Speed, Low Mass, weak weapon?!) This doesn't make sense. Bullets are light and fast, and they work in real life! But KSP is a physics simulator, so maybe Kinetic Energy is more important than just Velocity. KE=1/2*M*V^2. I don't know if it matters if a projectile is spinning or not, but relative velocity and DV were close enough that it doesn't matter for the projectiles I used. Projectile specs (Kinetic Energy = 1/2*Mass*Velocity): Broadside 0.5*Mass*Relative Velocity^2=992 (If KE is high, strong weapon) Sniper 0.5*Mass*Relative Velocity^2=514 (If KE is low, weak weapon) Hmm, the more effective weapon had a high KE. I'll need more testing to prove my theory, but I think KE is more important to KSP collisions than Crash Tolerance, or Speed and Mass alone! Future tests will confirm whether a fast spinning projectile (High M*DV, Low M*V) is better than a non spinning projectile (Low M*DV, High M*V). Let me know if you have any suggestions or information for me! Key: RV = Relative Velocity in m/s. CT = Crash Tolerance in m/s. M = Mass in Tons. DV = Delta Velocity in m/s.

This is the folder path on my desktop. I have a saved game with 42 mods... I'm not gonna leave her behind just because of a new, shiny, stable "stock" update. Desktop KSP Saves KSP 0.90 . Modded Default . Modded Migrant Battle Fleet \\This is my main save. It has 42 mods. It crashes every 2 hours, but restarts quickly because of Active Texture Management. . Modlist . Vanilla fresh install KSP 25.0 . 25.0 Basic Mods and Hangar . 25.0 Mods . 25.0 Vanilla KSP 24.0 etc... KSP 22.0 . KSP22-Downloads . KSP22-ModMechJeb . KSP22-Pre23 . KSP22-Vanilla

I hear 0.90 broke quite a few mods, has anyone tested GlowStrips in 0.90 yet?

Groundhog Post: Rewriting the same post multiple times because a "feature" on the keyboard sends one to a different webpage. Now that I have the bug report out of the way, here is some feedback for Albert VDS: 1. The KerbPro is the _ONLY_ camera that zooms in far enough to be used as a sniper scope at 800m. Please extend this feature to at least one more camera. 2. The KerbPro has no "inline" node, so it is nearly impossible to place it on the exact center of a ship so that is lines up with long range weaponry. 3. The KerbPro has no "control from here" or "rotate view by 90 degrees" feature, so if I rotate the camera wrong relative to the nearest pod/probe/docking node, my control scheme gets messed up. 4. None of the cameras have an aiming reticule. I can sort of make ironsights out of structural parts but it doesn't work very well. 5. None of the cameras have a "set zoom to 1/2" or "cycle between fixed zoom levels" feature, so I can't have two cameras zoomed in by the exact same amount. I realize I don't use your mod the way you intended it, but I believe at least some of my suggestions could benefit all styles of play. And, just because someone's gonna tell me to use the Cupola, I'll end by pointing out that the Y axis of the IVA camera is off center.

There is a bug where the menu you get from clicking escape no longer works and the screen and altimeter goes black from when I tried to revert to launch while looking through a camera, bug I've been unable to reproduce the bug. Strangely, ever since that bug occured, when I restart KSP the "-" and =" keys no longer switch me from the stock camera to the VDS camera, though I can still use "-" to switch out of VDS camera. Tested on the Kerbpro. "=" couldn't switch me from stock to VDS camera even before the bug, though it could still switch from VDS camera to stock. IMO that "=" doesn't switch out of stock camera needs to be a feature, not a bug, since sometimes it's hard to get out of VDS camera's and into stock cameras when switching between a ton of different cameras.

Is the endgame purpose of resources to allow constructing vessels, repairing vessels, or merely to fuel vessels? Will the collection of offplanet resources be required to build specialized parts in the VAB? Can resources be shipped to Kerbin to make money without doing any contracts? How are you going to construct a resource system that is simple enough to be used by newbie stock players, but complex enough to interest players familiar with resource mods? Will rovers FINALLY be useful? When using existing mods I find short hopes on L+O engines to be safer and more efficient than wheels.

If you're a new player, it's probably a bit soon to be messing around with mods. But, if you want something relatively simple, you can download the Hangar Mod [Moderator removed defunct website link] It allows small saved craft to be saved inside of larger saved craft. While saved inside a Hangar (NOT a cargo bay!) using the Hanger mod, a ship has mass, but no physics, no air drag, and won't be affected by staging or action groups. In my opinion the mod isn't very well balanced and is hard to figure out, but it can be fun to use. Just don't be like me and spend more time installing mods than actually playing the game!

Same problem here, but I fixed it. The bug has something to do with the save files of certain craft. In my case, the bug triggered while using AGX, but many users report the same bug without mods. It has something to do with doing lots of reverting and saving, or possibly saving a craft in the VAB after using the widgets to place parts in a buggy position. In any case, the VAB craft file is corrupted. Delete the VAB craft file and everything returns to normal. In my case I opened windows explorer and went to the following file: KSP\saves\SavedDameName\Ships I then deleted the last 3 craft I had worked on when the bug occurred. I restarted KSP, and could then load craft into the VAB as normal. This means you lose any progress you made on a few craft, but at least means you don't have to delete the entire save.

I have this problem for all asteroid sizes. Pulling instead of pushing, and loads of RCS/Torque are the only fixes I've heard of. Hopefully the asteroid COM indicator and claw physics will be improved to make pushing more practical... or at least possible.