Z-Man

Progression in games is, IMHO, allowed to be slightly illogical if the result is that not very interesting in-between steps are avoided. I see the current system as an abstraction for: - by doing science experiments, you prove to the public/government that you are doing useful work - they want you to do more useful work - they grant you a bigger rocket tech research budget so you can do more science in new locations. IMHO, the suggestions of the OP would not reduce the apparent grind one bit, they'd just put some flowers on top of it to make it appear more meaningful. Gamers are trained to see right through such schemes by now. And really, randomly breaking prototypes? So in order to do a mission with new parts, I have to do it with prototypes with a random chance I have to do it all over again with no fault of my own? There is a good reason this is on the do-not-suggest list. Before we complain the career progression is too grindy, we should wait for some of the other parts to fall into place and give the devs a chance to ballance things a bit. The only problem I see right now is that you feel compelled to milk the existing Kerbin/Mun/Minmus biomes dry before you go interplanetary, like you feel compelled to kill every monster in the starting dungeon before you go exploring the vast overworld. And you really don't have to do that.

Oh, VACUUM ISP? That is going to be much, much higher. You can assume the stored carbon dioxide releases all of its thermal energy into kinetic energy for the ejected liquid, with maybe 50-75% losses (thermodynamics and other inefficiencies). Casual research says that for 1 volume unit of coke, there must be about 4 volume units of CO2 at standard pressure. Dimensional analysis time! Standard pressure p is measured in Pa = N/m2 or kg/(m s2). Density of water rho is in kg/m3. Those are the only dimensional parameters here, the dimensionless alpha = 1/4 factor obviously needs to be multiplied with the density prior to calculations (well, in the limit that the mass of the gas is much lower than the mass of the liquid) as half the amount of liquid of double the density should yield the same result; it is the mass that matters. Only way to combine those to a velocity is ISP = sqrt(p / alpha * rho) Plugging in values of p = 105 Pa, rho = 103 kg/m3 yields ISP = 20 m/s... Damn. Not much higher after all, and that is before the unknown loss and dimensional-analysis-is-so-wrong factor. Still, this is assuming all liquid gets ejected, whereas the earthbound experiments probably only spill a part.

In the picture on the wiki, the fountain of the diet coke bottle seems to be rising to about 3 m, round that up to 5 m, assume it is purely on a ballistic trajectory and you get a very optimistic ejection velocity of 10 m/s. And really low thrust because it's foam that is getting ejected.

Having trouble getting your perfectly flight-capable rockets onto the launchpad because the game essentially throws them there and the resulting shock breaks stuff? And you don't want to use KJR for some reason? Try these alternative launch clamp constructions: Below your engines, place a decoupler, a girder and a launch clamp attached to that girder bottom. The decoupler goes to the stage that also fires the engine, the launch clamp can stay engaged. In flight, your engine has to support the weight of the rocket (and more), so why not pre-launch? Well, apart from the bit where a real engine would not find it very nice if you blocked it like that at full power, but we're working around a malicious physics bug here, so I'm personally fine with exploiting a missing realism feature. http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/687097840244570456/8A8BDF7848C500B568646D56705B4B5B3E1EFE22/ The girder adds a little flex to cushion the shock. You can stack multiple girders if you need a softer cushion. Of course, this will not stabilize your rocket sideways very well. Useful instead of side-attached plain launch clamps: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/687097840244601044/3D96004AE75CF1AACB93713C1FDBB3143FE7CEFB/ Radial decoupler, large I-Beam and launch clamp mounted to the beam from below. Both decoupler and clamp go to the same stage. Can support the weight of about one orange tank, and unlike the plain clamp, the connection is very flexible and cushions your rocket nicely. The decoupler and beam get ejected to the side far enough to be safe. Added bonus: the distance between the clamp tower and your rocket increases. Downsides: Decoupler marks on your rocket, you should not clip clamp towers into one another any more. And increased part count on the pad. Here is how both look in action for a ridiculously stupid rocket: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/687097840244620536/83491E25DC20FB283D1F72E3C3ADF883386FA06F/ Another downside: your flightlog will be spammed with irrelevant crash and damage reports.

When you almost fall asleep on the couch and it feels like deorbiting.

A bit. It's usually still safe to assume that in some frame of reference, the center of mass of a solar system is at rest at the origin and that the planets and star(s) revolve around that. How the whole system moves through some other reference frame is not relevant even at relativistic speeds. Unless the spacetime curvature is high enough that the concepts of center of mass and frame of reference break down. But even then, you can treat the system as mostly stationary and the external disturbance as something that moves relative to it.If you want to treat star and planet in a coordinate system where they both move quickly, that can be done, too; and yes, Earth would then respond to the gravity field of the Sun from 8 minutes or so (time dilation etc.), but that is compensated by the gravity fields of the moving sun looking different; Newton's Law of Gravity no longer applies.

Common and easy misconception. Inside of the event horizon, time and space (specifically, the radial component) swap places. If you are a bit outside, you have a finite distance to the event horizon and if you fall in, you reach it in a finite proper time. Once inside, the event horizon is suddenly a moment a finite time in your past. That is why you can't get back out. It would be equivalent to traveling back in time. And the singularity... well, sorry. It's in your future. All of your possible futures. The distance of the event horizon to the singularity is not a distance, it is a very finite time, and the event horizon comes before the singularity. Gravitons, should they exist, do not escape from inside the event horizon either. They don't have to: Ralathon puts it best: No no problem. The black hole freezes itself on creation. If such things happen (jury is still out), it would be like the pairs of electrons and positrons that constantly materialize and vanish again in the vacuum of QCD: their electric field is never felt directly, however it influences other electric fields and interactions in quantifiable ways.

Can't help you there, then. That's where most of my fun came from so far: Doing all the various optimization calculations myself. What is the optimal ascend speed? What is the best engine for which job? What TWR is best for optimal orbit insertion? What launch TWR is best if I want to only use one stage? How do you dimension traditional stages optimally? (To the overeager helpful souls: No, I don't need the answers.) Apart from that, my fun in this game comes from doing meaningful and challenging new things. I'll run out of those in a week or three. Maybe I'll find new things to do, maybe I'll try new mods. But maybe the fun just ends then for this version, that would be OK too. If every game on my backlog had such a hours_of_fun/price ratio, I'd be doomed.

Hah! That is a very good question. My best attempt at an answer (studied this stuff way back at university, it really is weird): For the outside observer of a hypothetical stationary black hole, there is no mass that causes the gravity of the black hole itself. Spacetime around the black hole, if you exclude the event horizon and an arbitrarily small bit of its neighborhood, just looks exactly like it would look as if there was a suitably formed mass in the area you excluded, but outside the horizon. In a way, it is like your mirror image: when you look at it, it just seems like there is another person in there behind the glass, but really, it's just photons reflected back forming that image. The black hole is just gravity that looks like there is mass there. Now, of course, if you would smash the mirror or move away from it, the image would go away, so why does the black hole stay there with all its gravity even if the mass that caused it is gone? Mathematically, it simply is so that the curved space outside the event horizon that you can observe is a stable solution, just like flat space is. It can simply exist on its own. Perhaps easier to understand: Nothing escapes from the event horizon. Not even information. Not even the information that the whole mass that formed the black hole is gone. You are in the "FSM removed the sun" scenario, only that it removed the collapsing star (bit by bit) as it passed the event horizon. But we outside the black hole will never know, it takes infinite time for that information to get out to us. The same goes for the rotation. A rotating black hole is just spacetime curved in the way the rotating collapsing mass was last shaping it. And yes, you can calculate what happens inside the event horizon up to the final singularity. That does not help much here: whatever happens inside does not have any influence on the outside. If you are also interested in what happens when you fall into the black hole and why you still are spaghettified even though the mass is gone, replace "event horizon" with "singularity" in the above.

This morning. "Yep, getting a gas mixture containing some oxygen into my lungs is a pretty sweet idea". I said "essentially". Not everyone will be happy with the result. That is the nature of democracy. What is important is that pretty much everyone agrees with the process that got you there and accepts the result. Random interjection: "But not everyone likes or lives in a Democracy! What if there are non-democratic autonomous regions?" Well, offer their dictator to vote on behalf of the whole population, of course. Or let them opt out and build their own. As has been correctly pointed out, multiple smaller vessels are a good idea anyway.

If it always, consistently falls to the same direction no matter what, it is probably slightly asymmetric. Start with a simple rocket to get a feel for the changes you need to make. Like nosecone, control unit, two orange tanks, fins and mainsail. Or something smaller if you prefer. Pretty much any sensible payload-less single stage rocket with an initial TWR between 1 and 2 can get into orbit with FAR. Screenshots of your rocket on the pad and just as it starts spinning out (and before) would help. As for a speed limit: That should be not on your list of things to worry about. If you go so fast that drag losses are a problem and the reason is not that you are going horizontal too soon, your rocket would also have had too much TWR to be optimal in a vacuum. Or your rocket is a pancake.

I have no worries about fascism on one hand and terrorism on the other in such a scenario. If there is enough time to build a Space Ark, there is also enough time to determine the crew/survivors selection process in a global democratic election. It doesn't even have to be a single selection process; multiple systems could be used, each picking X crew members according to the results of a proportional voting run. The result could be: - 1000 spots auctioned off, profits used to help fund the project - 9000 spots auctioned off, profits distributed to those left behind (though how the economy on doomed earth is going to work is anyone's guess) - 90000 spots for people who have useful skills for the challenges ahead, selected by committee - 50000 spots for the same, plus genetic screening - 99990 spots distributed by lottery - 10 spots for celebrities determined by a popularity contest (what can I say, I expect that even in the future, there will be idiots) - 0 spots for the suggestion "Me and however many hot chicks I want to take along" (Darn. I made such a compelling case!) Since then, the whole process is essentially agreed on by the whole world, the military would have a strong mandate to protect the project from the few that disagree or are miffed they did not get a spot (for that reason, the final selection should happen as late as possible. You probably work harder while you think you still have a chance in the lottery, or because you want to impress the selection committee). And if those are more than a few, maybe it is best to go extinct. I'd also expect such a thing to either happen in one of two ways: - Suddenly and without much prior warning. Black hole sneaking up on us. Unexpected gamma ray burst. Not much one can do then. - Detected centuries in advance. We are talking astronomy here with the appropriate timescales. That would mean the Ark can be (and probably has to be) launched more than a lifetime before the disaster finally hits. Nobody would have to die from it. Those left on earth could just voluntarily decide to no longer procreate. Keywords "could" and "voluntarily".

If the prograde and retrograde markers are gone and the speed display is 0, that that's as stationary as the valilla game will allow. Even if you knew the exact speeds: Getting them to 0 with RCS, even in fine tuning mode, may be impossible. Depends on the craft weight, obviously. Even if you do get them to 0, there are still orbital mechanics ruining your day. It's OK for small prograde/retrograde/radial (wrt to the orbit) displacements, but displacements perpendicular to those will oscillate. I do get the feeling you should tell the whole story, why you want to do what you are trying to do. It strikes me as unusual. Maybe someone has a better idea somewhere earlier in the train of thought.

The game does not give you that. And even if, if the total speed it gives you is 0.0, the individual components would also all be 0.0. The best info you get are the directional markers on the navball. What are you trying to do? Set up two crafts next to each other, orbiting together?

TWR=2 is the simple answer that is not wrong enough to argue about.

And hold on real tight, because it is rotating *faster* than orbital speed. Or you could simply land at a pole. No problem there. And yes, no way such a thing could form in reality or even exist made out of known materials. No, it would not fly apart (provided the rotation speed is well below escape velocity), but burst and rearrange itself into a flat ellipsoidish thing. Objects that get close do exist, though. Look up Millisecond Pulsars. Still, nothing you would want to land on Edit: Though I guess we all do not quite understand your question. What, exactly, is your definition of "theoretically"? You seem to already be aware of the practical issues, so which limits of reality do you want to ignore? If you want to ignore limits on real materials' strength, then yes, it could exist, no problem, but never form naturally. If you want it to be made (literally, i.e. built to order for an weird 10^18-ionare) of the strongest material possible, then also yes, it could exist, but only if it rotates just a tiny bit faster than orbital speed, and it would need to be pretty disk-shaped.

Something above 3000 for the usual multi-landing Minmus spiel (Some data was transmitted, pretty sure I had close to zero science when the mission started): It's sort of boring. Only interesting bit was when I undocked the lander, noticed I had forgotten to refuel, looked at the DV left, thought "screw it, that's enough"... it wasn't really. Made it back to orbit fine, but the entire rendezvous had to be done on RCS.

That. Connections from LV-Ns to the tank above are exceptionally weak; they do not need to be strong in operation, after all.

When your 2 1/2 year old grabs random objects, moves them about, makes rocket engine noises with her mouth and declares them rocket-things. And demands you build rockets in Lego. She hasn't demanded moar boosters on her buggy yet, so still in the green.

Isn't it aready the case that a single return trip with a single experiment does not exhaust the full science pool for that experiment and target? So it always should make sense to send a cheap, light one way probe first and a manned return mission later. (Or bring two of each experiment right away) Plus, faraway targets net much more points which should offset the transmission loss somewhat when you pick between another return trip to an unvisited mun biome or a one way probe to Jool. It only SOUNDS useles. "Yeah, you can transmit data, but only up to this tiny bit, and your big experiments break anyway." And too many players think/thought at first that transmission losses are permanent, where really they are just losses for that experiment and do not "waste" any science points. Communication to the player needs to be improved. Sometimes, the best way to do that is a system change, like strictly dividing the science pools between transmisions and recoveries and data processed in the lab module. But, dunno. Maybe just the right tutorials and missions/contracts do the job just as well. Edit: and yep, experiments that you have to leave on the surface for a couple of months (while you can do something else) definitely would be a good idea. The seismometer would be a prime candidate, also the thermometer. Not much use to do a single measurement with those if you think about it.

"Oh, I am supposed to enter orbit the OTHER way?" On ascent from Ike, trying to dock with return craft. Tried to turn around. Misjudged gravity.

The small antenna looks sweet when put on top of it. It is first to unlock in career mode? Other than that, it is not very useful. Yes, you can recover it if you can land it safely. And you can do all the science you can do with manned pods except crew/eva reports and surface samples.

It seems like the MPL does not store experiments. It processes them right where they are stored; after you refine a Goo, the refined Goo data still is stored in the canister. Well, Kerbals on EVA, technically. I'd say it's useless, but I have been lurking long enough to know that tree posts down will be a screenshot of a lone Kerbal aearobreaking on his way home from Duna. And yes, capsule storage is unlimited. I am currently using the lab on a repeat landing mission to Minmus. Yeah, it probably is not weight optimal, but the ship was easier to build than one with enough spare experiments and it just feels better.