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What mods should I use to make KSP as beautiful and realistic looking as possible.

Does anyone here play any of the Combat Mission games? I just got into them, so I'd like to hear your experiences about them.

Hey guys, so I was looking at a beautifull sight on earth in KSP, and just say the clouds miles away, curving round our planet. And that made me wondering, in KSP it looks like you can like infinity far in atmosphere. Not the vessels, unless you install distant object enhancements, but clouds and terrain. In the stock game it doesn't really matter that much because you're on your tiny planet, but in RSS I think it would be a really good improvement if there is a fog in the atmosphere. Just like in real life. That everything eventually 'blends' into the atmosphere. Not the sharp lines of a planet that you get in ksp, even with scatterer, like this: But if it could be more like this: If the mod is possible to make, I think it the most logic way to make the fog disapear in the same ratio is the dense of athmosphere does. Let me know what you guys think

This is a small plugin with a singular purpose: as the air around your ship gets less and less dense, your audio is muffled, until it's nothing more than a deep bass rumble. There's a config file included with the plugin - currently used to toggle its functionality on and off, and to activate debug mode (which spits out a bunch of info to the console as it does its thing). Known issues: ALL audio is muffled, not a thing I can do about that. Unity's audio system is currently unfortunately quite limited. Also, if your audio system has poor bass response, you won't be able to hear much of anything when it's muffled. Note, Jan 31 '16: With Unity 5 and its new audio system on the way it might become possible to be more selective about what muffler mutes, but this all depends on how Squad has laid the audio out internally. But I don't think I'll be the one to do this. If 1.1 turns out to be the update that finally kills Muffler, I think I'll pass the torch to anyone else who wants it. Download from SpaceDock Download Source Licensed under CC-BY http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Please let me know of any problems you find, and I'll do what I can.

Hi KSP! I wanted to say that the aerodynamics are quite advanced, very beautifully and awesomely made! but I can't support it none the less. for two reasons: 1. "Monoplanes produce more lift than for example triplanes, having less wing bodies. that is because triplanes have wings that are so close together that their aerodynamics mix (don't have enough space)" (That is what they thought me on school) So the problem here is: In Kerbal Space Program you can cheat by putting wing(s) in each other and producing more lift, for example. You see that often in large or unrealistic crafts. If this isn't the case anymore (in 1.2) I will be very happy! And I wonder if I ask something very complicated. But for me it ruined my motivation to make aircrafts in KSP. 2. There are no proceduraly generated wings, if not using mods. This limits imagination and options drastically. PS. I really love KSP! I want to thank everyone very much for making such an awesome game!! PPS. You could check the "Gabe Flags" I made ...

Hello world! We all love kerbal space program (why would I be writing on the forums?) and with the new KerbNet and satellite network feature, I was thinking that maybe the whole tech tree should be refurbished in a little bit more of a realistic way. Probes for example should be unlock able FIRST, along with cheap solar panels and antennae. Then, after collecting science, and unlock new parts, manned space flight comes after that. Another thing would be that certain parts unlock when you do certain science experiments. Say you do a butt load of experiments around Kerbol, since Kerbol is very radioactive, you learn how to make the 'Nerva' engine. Get the point? Also maybe (this is more of an extra suggestion that doesn't matter if it isn't in the game) craftable parts. It could work so along with regular parts you unlock components, and with these components you can build custom parts with custom names. Just a suggestion, I love kerbal space program, and although I am not personally working on it, I want it to do well. sincerely, stelum

LCS adds water spray to the launchpad, to keep it cool when your engines are blasting heat down on it. There are going to be 20 different types of nozzles, added incrementally over several updates. For all your cooling needs, use LCS water nozzles! Check out the Falcon 9 nozzles! V0.1 No release yet... sorry about that.

Hello there kerbonaughts! This post is particularly aimed at those of you with a talent for modding or a keen desire for a more real and progressive way to explore the kerbol system. I was watching some videos of various landers and rovers that have touched down on Mars (curiosity and Viking) , Titan (Huygens) and many other celestial bodies in our solar system when it occurred to me just how much information these un-maned devices have allowed us to explore the far eat reaches of our solar system. That started me thinking , I wonder if there is a KSP mod that can emulate this, one that removes the ability to look at other planets through the radar dish array at the KSC but instead requires the player to build space telescopes in order to see images of the target planet and then require te deployment of unmanned orbiters/landers/rovers to said planet in order to actually see it in detail and send maned missions following that. I did some digging and found 1 or two mods that implemented space telescopes but nothing quite like what I am envisioning. If there are any misdeed out there who may be interested in taking on this project , this is my idea thus far.... Firstly remove the ability for te player to see all other planets except kerbin from the radar array at the KSC, and then implement space telescopes .. If the player I thinking of traveling to a planet , the telescope with allow them to gain basic images of the target and identify its orbital path. next would come a rejig of the tech tree , putting these new telescope parts early on , followed by the unmanned technology that woul first be required to visit these bodies. once the player has discovered te planet/moon they wish to visit then they may send an unmanned mission (lander,orbiter or rover) to the target in order to gather information about the surface of the body (consequently 'unlocking' it in the radar array back on Kerbin so the player may look at it in more detail and decide weather or not to send a manned mission for science) Personally, I feel this mod would fit in nicely with the other realism overhaul mods that are currently out there as it is a more realistic progression of discovery, to identification to visiting new planets and moons, and therefore I think it would make a great addition to the kerbal mod selection. I say again this is just an idea that I think would be a lot of fun to play through , but I lack te modding skill to make a reality myself , so I turn to you, the fantastic community!!! Feel free to play with my idea as much as you like, but te premise of nothing else , I believe could serve as the building block for a potentially fantastic realism exploration mod. Thank you for taking the time to read through this and I look forward to seeing any ideas anyone has All the best Lord Lofty

Greetings fellow space nerds! Since early alpha I've been an enthusiastic player of KSP. The game has thought me alot about the mechanics of spaceflight and motivated me to study the history of spaceflight. When career mode was added, at first I was quite exited about the prospect of playing the game like a real space program manager. However, I find myself exclusively playing sandbox mode these days again because I keep getting frustrated with the way career mode functions in KSP. Being the stickler for historical accuracy and realism that I am, I always found it rather odd that the KSP career begins with a manned mission. unmanned probes only come into the game after some research. While in reality of course, every destination in space has always first been visited by unmanned robotic probes, paving the way for manned exploration. Also, the fact that one needs to gather "science" by measuring the properties of the different regions of space and celestial bodies in order to develop rocket parts seems a bit absurt. One does not learn about the mechanics of liquid rocket engine turbo pumps by studying the craters of the moon. In the real world, knowledge about rocketry is gained by spending money on testing parts on the ground, and by flying (and occasionally blowing up) equipment. So, I've been finding myself RP-ing a career in sandbox mode. Would it not however be swell if we could imagine a more realistic career progression and mechanic then is currently implemented in the game? Mods like Better then starting manned partially tackle the issue, but technological progression is still based on "science" gained form studying space in stead of spending money on R&D. And yes, I know this is a game about little green men riding insane rockets into space, and less about an accurate representation of historical spaceflight. But hey, speculating about the mechanics of a game never hurts. What are everyone's thoughts?

Solar Cycle Simulator (SCS) Hello everyone! Whitecat here, creator of the Historic Missions contract pack, Orbital Decay plugin and the Boat Navigation Plugin. Here I present to you a small project which I required as an addon to my Orbital Decay mod. This plugin simply generates and tracks the constantly changing solar cycles of the sun, this can be used in conjunction with RSS or a Stock game. This however is more of a tool for modders than an actual plugin, installed on its own it will simply track and display information on the solar cycle in the Tracking Station, but together with some programming skills a mod maker could create accurate (realistic) solar flare, coronal mass ejection, solar storm or other interesting solar activity based plugins. For Players: Simply download the pack and install the GameData folder into your GameData directory; remember this does not add much appart from a small tracking station UI! (It is also a dependency of Orbital Decay). Download: Dropbox For Mod Makers: Download the pack from the link above and install into your GameData directory, remember that this pack will be a dependency of any mods you create using it, so ensure you provide a link to this page for the latest release. You can include the latest version of this plugin as a reference in your C# development project, from this you will be able to access the following functions: (limited at the moment I know, but bear with me and I will add some more!) The following can be retrievied by using for example: SCSManager.FetchCurrentF107() or SCSManager.FetchCurrentAp() Here are the available functions: Of course there are more Static functions in the code but these will require a little digging into the source but it should be relatively easy for anyone to find anything you are looking for! As I said this is a little bare-bones at the moment, I will include more functions as time progresses and if anyone takes an interest in this small tool! License: This code is licensed under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) creative commons license.

Hey guys! After abandoning my A.R.S.E. series due to too many bugs and complications and crashes with 1.05 and effectively leaving KSP for 6 months, I'm back and a few weeks pottering around with the ability to run a stable mod heavy setup, I'm looking to do a video series once more. Hopefully this one will last longer than a few episodes! I'm still unsure on the formatting and whether I should voice it or not. I'm not a big talker but I've given it a go regardless. As stated in the video, the ultimate end game for this is to establish a self sustaining colony for each planet, or get as close as is technically possible. Whether that is on a planets surface, or on a space station in orbit depends on the planet. A little snag of course is Kerbals need that pesky life support! Damn them. I would love to use some of the mods such as planetary bases, resource extraction and processing etc, but atm, Realism Overhaul hasn't given many mods like that it's green stamp of approval. Real ISRU is a WIP and I'm keeping my eye on the development of that. In the meantime, I have plenty of setting up and missions to plan, design, build and run and a long term goal is to reduce the self sustaining parameter of my end game to maybe 20 years. So, "Sustain multiple Kerbals on every planet without interaction for 20 years" is a viable goal in itself. If I get that far and run out of things to do before I've found the mods required to create self sustaining colonies, I'll grab whatever is required whether it's RO kosher or not. Latest Episode - June 3 2016 Vanguard: Episode 1 Establish global communications network via 3 geostationary relay satellites. Modlist Episode List

Factorizing values... Calculating trajectories... Treating kessler syndrome... Results: A lot of numbers. What I found out with a (hacked) K.E.R. was that engines in the stock game are about 200 to 300% less efficient than they should be. Thus meaning, your mün rocket should have enough delta-V to get you at least to Eeloo. So I made a fix. Release in 2 weeks. LOADING...

Hello, I'm not an expert, but I think that the reaction wheels power are very (too) powerfull... This is a lil bit of cheating isn't it? For example, take the Mk1-2 Command Pod, jettison it on space, and apply full pitch or/and roll... The pod will just rotate close to the light speed and the Kerbals inside will just have a brain attack. This issue have to effect to make useless the RCS for the little ships... Thanks and regards. EDIT: to complete my statement: The RCS is just totally useless in attitude adjustement for a regular sized ship... I think this is a lack in the gameplay, because the reaction wheels are very light (more light than a RCS tank :)). It is more intressting to add a SAS module than an RCS with monoproplent tanks... Please, read the statements in this thread before voting...

Okay, so larger planets are great in many respects but they take up SOOO MUCH RAM!!! Here's a solution to make the planets act like they're huge without compromising performance or accuracy. What if instead of inflating the planets, we deflate the parts! They'd have the same abilities as normal parts and fuel and all other properties but be a tenth of the size. It's a little hard to explain and I don't have much time because I'm REALLY TIRED and want to go to sleep. Basically the planets would LOOK huge but facilities, kerbals, flags, rocks, asteroids, and parts would all be tiny

Deadly Space Environment Realism Tired of things being Semi-Realistic, or Life Support isn't enough or to easy? Well I have a heck of an idea! Space is deadly, beyond the protection of our spherical home we face a variety of dangers. Not just the complete lack of oxygen, heat, food, water, and not being able to scream to your fellow kerbalnaut when that space plane you launched last week went out of control in mid orbit and is unexpectedly flying towards him and knocks him out of the sky without warning! No, we face an even greater threat in reality. What if that never to return home suicide mission to Duna with 3 or more kerbals destined to colonize the deserted planet you were planning, had to consider ionizing radiation threats once leaving the comfort of home's magnetic field?! Having to plan for Solar Radiation (Solar Wind), Cosmic Radiation (Gamma Rays and X-Rays), Electromagnetic Radiation (Ultraviolet Light, UV Rays) could change the way you leave the comfort of home forever. I know I wouldn't want to be cooked with enough Radiation Equivalent to having a Full Body CT Scan ever 5 or 6 days and have a raging sunburn just for looking out the window for 30 seconds to a few minutes, or going on a EVA to fix a couple parts Jeb broke before leaving. Bringing this into play could push KSP even further towards near realism. Say your sending a station to orbit the Sun ( Kerbol ), but you had to out fit your ship with 5 or 6 Solar radiation panels so you don't become BBQ'ed and served to Bob cause he's starving. Or, maybe your just headed to Laythe, Slapping on some Solar, Cosmic, and EM panels to shield your precious Kerbals from kicking the bucket before you even reach your destination would be the right way to go. This is an idea I came up with after watching over the Orion project for quite some time now. If someone thinks it's worth a shot I encourage you to go for it, heck maybe even add something in that I haven't even thought of

Hi, So I installed Realism overhaul and all the prerequisites using CKan. Everything installed fine, no crashes or problems. Once I had started, I noticed the first set of solid boosters, couldn't lift the command pod despite having enough thrust. They always "stuck" to the launch pad, including the 2nd upgraded launch pad and would only take off after using 1/3 of the "fuel". Also, the contracts to "haul thing" in to space, doesn't work, I completed "haul the 30X" solid booster to 40km and got nothing despite all green ticks ... :EDIT: Twealscale doesn't seem to work either, I cannot adjust any "tweakscale" parts, only the procedural parts. I was looking forward to playing at a real-scale with decent "missions" but this just doesn't seem possible... there is no progression, no "science" missions, and nowhere near as fun as "stock" despite the amount of part available.

Watched Elysium yesterday, it's not that bad of a movie, i expected something worse. So, while i watched it i was asking myself if the space flight in that movie was possible. You know they just take off from Earth and then reach the orbiting Elysium in a straight line. So i guess Elysium is synchronized with the Earth so it keeps relative to the same spot to the ground, in that case i'm assuming -but i don't really know- it would be possible for a ship to behave as in the movie: just point at the big thing in the sky and go full throttle. But then again, for Elysium to be synchronized like that with the Earth it should be pretty far away from it, according wikipedia it is like 35.000 km high but they seem to get there very fast and don't even sit down while exiting the atmosphere! At that speed shouldn't they have a hard time not breaking their bones against the walls? I find it hard to mantain balance in the bus! Another thing is that Elysium has it's own atmosphere with an open sky in that station. Something like that is even plausible, has ever been studied to do it in the future? It just looked weird from my point of view, but then again, my only "knowledge" of physics come mostly from KSP so i don't know, maybe it is accurate.

Recently I've been bit by the RSS bug. Maybe its the allure of a new challenge or the fact that my major is aerospace mechanics and I need to study. Regardless, I've been looking into ways to make cheap, efficient, and "reusable" launch vehicles. My first initial thought was to asparagus stage everything, however in RSS this leads to large amounts of drag. I did some reading and came up with an engine dropping lifter. I dub it the "Delta I". Unfortunately, due to issues with mechjeb not recognizing the dropped engines as stages, I had to do some fun hand calculations. It has about 10k deltaV with a 5 ton payload attached; this means I can reach a 200-200km orbit if I time everything correctly. Anyway, I'm more interested in what other people have built to accommodate reusability in RSS and RPO. I've wanted to create a thread for awhile that showcases the most unique and efficient vehicles the community can design. So please share!

My game continuously crashes after updated the game(and the mods of course) to 1.0.5. I had no problem in 1.0.4 but after I updated the RO mod (before 1.0.5) some parts of game disappeared like Aerobee Engine.I can send modlist. Crash Reports

When you all go to create manned exploration you take a command pod attach docking port,rcs,decoupler and so on...But when you make a service module you use a poodle engine.But in real Gemini missions They did not use rocket engines they instead used RCS thrusters for maneuvering in orbit to rendezvous also in A Cake odyssey video only RCS thusters where used.Like that in one spacecraft try using no engines. I recommend Making the RCS design like the cake odyssey video but under that putting the shortest 2.5 meter LFO tank and putting as much vernor engines. Pictures:https://imgur.com/a/efum0

For those who are too young to remember the game Buzz, it was a great simulation of the space race between USA and the former Soviet Union to be the first to land on the Moon. That game introduces you the concept of risk management. Which I think will greatly improve the game and provides more realism. Risk management is something that the space program have to deal everyday. Basically, a prototype component has great chances of failure and increases its reliability as it is tested and used. As the rocket becomes more complex and there are more steps in the space mission, the risk of failure increases exponentially. In the real Apollo mission, they had to test every aspect of the mission to improve the reliability, the launch pad, lunar landing module, the docking sequence, a flight pass to the Moon, ... before Armstrong and Buzz step on the Moon. In essence, you cannot play with big rockets, if you have not played with the smaller ones. Also, the reliability of the systems and subsystem can be compromised by thermal, aerodynamic stresses, hits etc... Maybe it will be a great idea for a game expansion. What do you think?