LordFjord

I've pondered a bit about making rovers and buggies useful in career mode - except their own awesomeness. Simply adding a drill wouldn't stop people to just attach those to normal probes, what is fine in its own way but is not directly related to making a rover useful. So, what can a rover do what a lander can't? Drive. Drive fast. So, some experiment with a science revenue that is related to the reached top ground speed would be fun. It is quite a challenge to drive on low-gravity environments, so it could be fun. Or better, something that measures top speed and sets it into a relation of the total mass or the weight of the vehicle - that way Kerbals can gain very valuable data about crashing driving vehicles on different places - with a simple part that all sizes of rovers can use. Having Kerbals on board would of course enhance the experiment's science value. Enhancing top ground speed with rockets is of course valid. The formula can be fine-tuned but you get the general idea.

Found out by accident on an EVA that I can repair broken landing legs and even repack parachutes! No more double chute packs for Duna missions, hurray!

Note to self: 3x symmetry for landers - with stretched "arms" to the side to make them flip-safe - with slightly unbalanced center of mass and some weird fuel flow that somehow made the fuel drainage even more asymmetrical is mostly uncontrollable.

Thanks for that list, I will take a look at some of those. Interesting stuff.

There are few games that gave such a great feel of accomplishment as KSP. The first orbits, the first Mun landing (and getting back! ) and especially the 1st docking, which I attempted with 2 100tons+ vessels (moooar tanks/boosters). It took aaages but it was absolutely rewarding. Also, building some rockets/planes for 2 or more hours, then seeing those totally overengineered craft fly or fall apart...

Here you go It is waaaaay overengineered. The reason is that I'm lazy and I saved that 1600something tons monstrosity of lower stages as a subassembly. So if I need to launch something heavy, I mostly just stick the same insane thing under it that also launched my space stations... I think I ditched 100 tons of fuel and engines just before landing on Mun. He buggys were docked with the small docking modules on each side, with some struts to stop them wobbling. The 2 metal struts below the buggies made them slide down gracefulls instead of just crashing down when released. It took me ages to build that buggy. Lotsa testruns on the runways, lotsa jumps from the launch pads, but this was the most durable I could come up with.

This was my most insane aircraft that actually could take off - when it didn't hit one of the two lights at the end of the runway, what usually happened. It could fly, just never could leave Kerbin into orbit as I intended... 180 tons on the runway, with a huge storage room that could fit an orange tank. I had to use so many structs to stop it falling apart on the runway, in the end it had >600 parts. Oh, and it never ever managed to land...

Finally built a good buggy, with all the science tech I have, rollover safe, with small engines to flip itself back when it turns over.

After several flights to Mun, Minmus, a successful mission to Duna (and a rescue mission and a rescue-rescue-mission), I decided to build bigger. 1500 tons on the launchpad. Curse you mainsails, I say: It all went fine until i reached the upper athmosphere, then the monstosity started to rotate slowly without me being able to stop it. So what, it still went up as it should, just steering was harder. Then at some point, the mainsale stage decided to push itself through the upper stages, resulting in a big mess. I don't know how, but Jeb magically survived this and splashed down with a single parachute into the ocean. After a few more tries, replacing/moving weaker parts and a LOT of space ducttape, I finally got it into orbit. The weak spots were control parts and docking ports. Those cant handle too much mainsail powah. The monster is still in Kerbin orbit as I forgot to man the science module I'm just preparing a supply mission for it, with additional modules, so it can head to Jool and testland/crash those 6 probes...

Hmmm, the img tags somehow didnt work on my dropbox link, so here's the direct link. https://www.dropbox.com/s/yzulrwnkvm3at8h/screenshot54.jpg

Merry christmas!

Hey all, about time to finally register here after a month of lurking. I stumbled over the Demo some time ago, after a few days of crazy rocket-science it was clear that I can't get away from KSP anymore, so I got the game. Career mode is awesome, great fun and good to learn the game as one unlocks tech after tech. I almost completely unlocked the tech-tree in 0.22, built a small space station, visited most of the planets out there but now I am giving it a completely new go with 0.23. I am still trying to figure out how to build SSTOs and how to design manned return missions to places further than Mun, but hey, thats the fun and challenge in KSP. So, here I am... Greets, Fjord