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The KSP forum moderator's team presents the A Forum User's Guide to the Thread of the Month A brief introduction: As many of you know, since June 2013, the moderation team has been able to bestow the Thread of the Month to deserving threads created by community members. Only recently, within the last few years, have I become involved in creating the thread announcing the monthly Thread of the Month and the annual Thread of the Year. Since my involvement, I will be the first to admit I've gradually made a few changes to both the Thread of the Month and the process used to select them. It is my hope that this guide will answer a few questions about how the moderation team goes about using the nominations we receive from the community for the Thread of the Month, and the expanded categories nominations are filtered into. There are also some other things that I'd like to share with the forum community that goes into the decisions made when the Thread of the Month is prepared. Each major part of the decision making process is explained in this guide. For those of you who strive to create a thread worthy of the Thread of the Month recognition, I hope it helps answer many of the questions I've been asked over the past couple of years. I'll start the guide by explaining the categories and then I'll address the other major points used in turn. The categories explained: One of the changes I wanted to do to the TOTM was to highlight more of what the community was offering each month - and the best way to do that was by creating categories. Currently, here are the categories we use for each Thread of the Month and a brief explanation of what each category is (most of this is copied off the Threads of the Month): Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a thread that, while not directly Kerbal Space Program related, is a creative work, fan-fiction, or other presentation related to the game. If you write fan fiction, do KSP-themed doodles, paint, CGI, or Lego dioramas or craft, or anything else that is creative arts-based and associated with Kerbal Space Program, this is the category where your thread might be featured if it is nominated. Forum Member-Created Challenges and Missions: This category contains missions and challenges created by you, the members of our gaming community. Many excellent missions and challenges threads are created that expand our fun with the game and press our skills, creativity, and sometimes, luck beyond what we get accustomed to. Let’s face it, we all have our go-to design basics and vehicles we like to use. So sometimes, a good challenge can cause us to think of another way to achieve our goals. Ideally, these challenges and missions should be original or older challenges from the forum. Still, they cannot be modifications of official challenges from @SQUAD or @Intercept Games as released on official KSP social media platforms. This category will probably be divided into KSP and KSP2 subcategories. Game Support/Game Mod of the Month: This category features either help with the game (stock or modded) or mods that add quality-of-life gameplay improvements to Kerbal Space Program. This category will probably be divided into KSP and KSP2 subcategories. General community thread of the month: This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn’t fit the game support/game mod categories. This can be anything. In previous months, we have featured threads involving actual science, suggestions for KSP2, real space missions, and anything else you can think of. Video-based Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a video or other form of cinematography of a Kerbal mission report using in-game video recorded gameplay. In January 2023, I changed this one without warning the moderation team. Most of the more recent cinematic posts have been posted in one thread rather than their creators creating a new thread. And there’s nothing wrong with it; it just meant those creators did not receive the recognition they deserved. A change was made, and for this category only, the TOTM became a Post of the Month (POTM) - with a unique graphic. Honorable Mentions: Just as it says on the TOTM, sometimes it’s a challenge to choose which threads will receive the honor of being selected as the Thread of the Month for our five categories. We get so many good nominations each month to choose from, but we limit it to one for each type. Threads nominated but not selected as a thread of the month become honorable mentions. Honorable mentions will automatically be reconsidered for future TOTMs. After a thread is nominated, it is categorized according to its kind. Any thread that does not fit one of the easy-to-identify ones is put in the General Community Thread of the Month. When we first began the categories, there were times when we would list more than one as a "thread of the month" for that category. Over the past couple of years, we no longer do this. There is now only one thread of the month per category. All other threads nominated for the same type will be listed in the "Honorable Mention" category. What makes a thread a Thread of the Month: In the header of this post, there’s an image containing five points. These five points are important guidelines to determine the difference between an honorable mention and a thread of the month. I want to explain those a bit to give you insight into what we look for in the nominations. The value of the thread to the forum community: Of the five guidelines used, this one is the most important. We consider the value the thread brings to the forum community. Since we have various categories in the TOTM, this becomes easy. The categories allow us to consider nominations of the same kind rather than having to choose just one thread of the month over a variety of threads – even if they were totally different. If a forum game is nominated, it will always be listed as an Honorable Mention. Participation in forum games does not add to a member’s post count. Although forum games are fun and add to our sense of community, they are… fun. Moderator action on a thread does not disqualify it from consideration for TOTM, if nominated. Older threads that have never received recognition as TOTM are eligible to be considered for TOTM if nominated, as they still have value to the forum community. The Original Post (OP) organization/OP design: This is where presentation becomes extremely important. The organization and design of the OP is the second most crucial part of any post we consider for TOTM. A poorly designed OP can distract from the value of the information you're trying to relay to the forum community. Often, this makes a difference in a Thread of the Month and an Honorable Mention (there are other factors, too). If you are trying to design a thread with the hopes of it becoming a TOTM, here are some things about the design and organization to keep in mind. These guidelines are not hard rules or are meant to be strict rules to be enforced or curb your creativity. Basic Original Post (OP) helps: A clean-appearing OP can keep the forum community engaged in your thread. Try to avoid including "clutter" in your OP. These are things that look nice or cute but may not have any real connection to what your thread is about. Use visual organization to help you organize your OP. (Hint - this guide has one, the image at the top of the page. I enjoy making images to help tie things together). Use highlights, such as bold, larger text size, and colored text, to set off headers. Making visual dividers helps to allow the reader to see the divisions in your OP. Be careful with using any font other than the basic fonts (Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman, Lucida Sans Unicode). Those are standard stock fonts. Others, such as Comic Sans MS and Trebuchet Sans MS, may or may not be available to all forum users and may be substituted on some web browsers. Be careful with tables. Apple devices do not like tables and often cut them off if you use preset dimensions. Basic image helps: Use a site that allows you to copy and paste your images with their extensions in place (*.bmp, *.png, *.gif). Otherwise, you'll end up with a URL and no picture. Some sites offer free image hosting, such as Imgur, the most commonly used site on this forum. You are free to set your image dimensions to whatever size you wish. If you use the default size, the device's web browser will auto-size the appropriate images. However, setting hard sizes for your images will create problems for those viewing your thread on mobile devices. Use images that are relevant to your OP. Resist the urge to use images that are off-topic or distract from the information you are trying to relay to the community. Presentation of ideas: This guideline covers how well you explain the purpose of your thread and what it is you hope to do. Some of the best examples on the forum can be found in the mod, challenge, and forum game threads. We are looking at how well you explain the purpose of your thread. Explaining your idea is equally important as your post organization. If your post has a clear purpose and you present your ideas well, your post is probably organized well, too. Here are some suggestions you can use: Use a graphic, image, video, or introduction to explain what the thread is about. Make it easily understandable by the forum audience. Within the introduction, keep it short. You can go into greater detail later on in the OP. Keep the OP structured where the reader can easily follow your progression. The more "cluttered" the presentation, the less likely you will get your idea across. In this thread, I am using a combination of headers, bullet points, and sub-points to relay important information. This is a method I have developed over twenty years of writing academic research and study aids for undergraduate and graduate students. Look around the forum or develop your own style; find what works best for you and use it. Forum community engagement: This one has many different factors and may surprise a lot of you. There have been threads with few responses and many nominations in the past. There have also been threads with many replies and one nomination. But we consider each nomination equally based on community engagement. What kind of engagement did the thread generate from those who participated in it? Did the topic create an opportunity for debate or an exchange of ideas? Did those who nominated it feel it was a good example of what makes a really great forum thread? Nomination: This is probably the least important of all the criteria when we are deciding on which thread becomes a featured TOTM. But because many of you have asked, here's the answer to the questions most commonly asked about thread nomination: Can I nominate a thread again if it was an honorable mention already? Yes, and I encourage you to do so. Since the most recent changes to how we do TOTM, there can only be one per category and we receive a lot of really good nominations. There are some months where we have only a handful of nominations. So, please, yes, renominate honorable mentions you feel are worthy of a second (or more) look - unless they are a forum game. Can I nominate a thread again if it has already received TOTM? No. In the past there have been some mistakes made and threads have earned more than one TOTM. I am working on a side project to track TOTMs so this does not happen again. If you feel a thread is worthy to be considered of additional recognition, you may always nominate it for Thread of the Year (TOTY). I've made this really nice thread. Can I self-nominate it? Sure, you can. However, a self-nomination is given a lower weight than a thread nominated by another forum member. We also ask that forum threads be nominated without "favors" (if you'll nominate mine, I will give you a bunch of likes) as this takes away from the value of the TOTM. Threads of the Month should be meaningful and the nomination should come because someone notices your thread and thinks it has value and NOT because you asked them to nominate it. I've already nominated one thread this month. Can I nominate another one... or three? Yes, you may nominate as many threads as you feel are deserving of the monthly TOTM. Just remember that each thread you nominate should be what you feel represents the best efforts of the forum community. This thread belongs to a user who just joined the forum. Can I nominate them? Yes. There's no better way to encourage a new any forum member than to nominate their thread as a thread of the month contender. Even if they are listed as an honorable mention, it is a great way to bring focus to their efforts! Other related comments about the thread of the month: Future projects for this guide: a guide to the threads of the month listed by year (2016 to the present) Sort-able Google Docs spreadsheet link which will include honorable mentions TO NOMINATE A THREAD FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a thread you feel should be considered as a thread of the month, then use the “report comment” feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the comment. Please put in the text field of the report post “Nomination for thread of the month,” and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too. TO NOMINATE A CINEMATOGRAPHIC POST FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a cinematographic post you feel should be considered as the cinematographic post of the month, then use the “report comment” feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the comment. Please put in the text field of the report post “Nomination for post of the month,” and we will do the rest! IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS ABOUT THIS GUIDE, PLEASE MAKE THEM ON THIS THREAD:

The KSP forum moderator's team presents the Threads of the Month February 2021 edition Greetings, fellow forum members, As you can see, I've decided to do this month's thread of the month. Normally, I run from such things because I am more of a background kind of guy. But for some reason, I felt like volunteering to do this. Maybe it is caused by the never-ending and no end in sight lock downs, the ever growing stack of junk to grade already this semester. Maybe it's a combination of the two. Who knows, but as I told the moderation team a while back ago, hell would have to freeze before I'd volunteer to do the thread of the month. I guess hell froze! One of the neat things of being a part of the moderation team is the ability to give back to the Kerbal Space Program community - and one of the ways we do that is to listen to your voices in selecting the threads of the month. This month, we'll look at two categories of mods. These were the top mods selected by those who participated in nominating threads for February: General Community Thread of the Month: This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn't fit in the game support/game mod categories. This mod was nominated by members because... who hasn't, at some time, had the problem of not knowing what to name your latest creation? This thread by @Timey has a list of possible names you can use. Have an idea of ship names you'd want to add to this thread? Please do! Game Support/Game Mod of the Month: This category features a mod which adds to the quality of life gameplay of Kerbal Space Program. For February, we have two mods that tied for the top honor in this category: This mod was nominated by several of you and is something that a lot of others have asked for from even the earliest version of the Kerbal Space Program. This mod adds WEATHER to Kerbin! I am sure this mod by @cmet24 will be something many will enjoy! This mod was also nominated by the same number of forum members. It's a planet pack and it features something from the Star Wars universe - the First Order's Planetkiller base! @RJVB09 has done a great job of merging the two together. Honorable mentions: Each month we get so many good nominations to choose from. Sometimes it's a challenge to choose which threads are going to receive the honor of being the Thread of the Month. But because not every thread nominated each month can be selected, there are always those that become honorable mentions. The honorable mentions for February 2021 are: KSP Resolutions for 2021 Don't Click This [1.8.0-1.11.0] Atmosphere Autopilot 1.5.16 Honorable mentions for February may not have made the Thread of The Month this month, but if you think they might be worthy of another opportunity, please renominate it! Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month for February! We'd like to thank @The Doodling Astronaut, @AlamoVampire, @VoidCosmos, @Spaceman.Spiff, @woeller, and @Superfluous J for the nominations! If you find a thread you feel should be considered for next month's thread of the month, then use the "report comment" feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the comment. Please put in the text field of the report post "Nomination for thread of the month" and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too. In case you missed January's thread of the month, you can click here.

The KSP Moderation Team is proud to present Threads of the Month Awards, for July 2019! We have an embarrassment of riches this month as the new updates and expansions are bringing out the excitement and creativity of our forum members. There's so much good stuff that we're holding some of the nominations over for next month so that all the selections get a turn in the spotlight. The first winner this month is @Brikoleur with his very informative and well written helicopter tutorial. @ManEatingApe and the contributors to this thread are flinging kerbals for fun and science. Next up is @HippieGold with a Kraken rousing examination of the KSP physics involved in building a space elevator. If you've ever wondered how high a robotic frog can jump on Gilly, @Klapaucius has got you covered. @benjee10 is working on an impressive Shuttle parts pack that surely will become a mandatory mod for STS enthusiasts. Finally we would like to give a special thanks to @VITAS who has built and maintained the SpaceDock mod hosting website for many years. Your work in service of the community is much appreciated. Congratulations to all for your wonderful contributions and please remember to report a thread (add the comment 'totm') or PM a moderator if you feel it is worthy of thread of the month. Special thanks go to @woeller, @4x4cheesecake @Nigel J. Cardozo and @fourfa for your nominations. All winners are free to add the Thread of the Month badge (created by our very own @adsii1970) to their posts, signatures or have it painted on their lounge room wall, provided they own the residence outright and use non volatile organic compound paints.

I actually have no clue where this goes, so please move it if it's in the wrong spot. What a wonderful day it is, on the really old outdated and frankly nostalgic at this point launchpad, where a mission is about to take a place. A mission that will Make History and... Actually I'm pretty sure noone's going to jump at this. You can see the moon-Alright you know what, that's enough of that. If you wanna skip everything and just download the file, click here. This post is an absolute mess and I do not blame you for just wanting to skip most of it. If you want to read my ramblings, please continue on. I plan to clean up this post eventually, but it's 5 in the morning and I'm tired. Making Scenariory is (maybe? Probably? Unlikely?) the first user created scenario(not that it means much...) and it's what it says on the tin. A critique on the Stayputnik, and the absolute utter annoyance it is to not have SAS on it when literally EVERY OTHER UNMANNED COMMAND CORE THAT HAS EXISTED DOES. Ignoring my flash of anger there, critics will say that this scenario was designed to be the worst possible scenario in history, and then rudely ask you how the heck you got into their house and why your pants were down, but BAH, what do they know about art? They're not the artists, I'm the artist! I've gone through the effort to make the mission as challenging and as painful as possible. This means you cannot timewarp the mission, there is no quick loading, no map, and ESPECIALLY, for some reason, NO GOING BACK TO THE MAIN MENU. Yeah, I'm just as surprised as you are that I'm even allowed to do that. The craft you see below is the craft you will be using to land on the Mün, which appears to have wasted fuel and oxidizer, so you basically only have 1/2 of it left, and 8 units of monopropellant. Sitting in a low orbit around the Mün, deorbiting is the easy part. It's the landing and not spiraling out of control that is the hard part. It's possible, but it's really hard. To install, download the scenario and put it in your scenarios folder that is located in the KSP saves folder. By default, for windows, this is located here(C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program\saves\scenarios\). After that is done, you're good to go. You don't even need to reboot KSP!

UPDATE - 05/07/2019 Let's add more digits! We now we have two, two-digit inputs with a three-digit output. We've about tripled the number of gates. We're at about 700 parts now instead of the 250 earlier. I used a wonderful, free program called Logisim to help me get my logic correct before I began the upgrade. You'll see in a few places there are two NOT gates attached, which shouldn't make sense. But being mechanical this NOT/NOT arrangement gave me leeway and space to move and reposition those logic segments so everything lined up. I'm probably gonna stop here though. Since gravity is the ground state each lower gate has to weight whatever is above it +1, so it adds (lol) up quickly. As this thing gets bigger it gets way harder to build and troubleshoot too. Thanks everybody. ------------------------------------ Why do we build stuff? Because we can. Like some of my other useless craft this is more just to say, 'Welp, it's possible.' I'm not proud of all the floating parts, but having it stretched out made troubleshooting easier and I didn't want gates hitting each other. I spend lots of time with google and wikipedia learning about logic gates, truth tables, half and full adders, and how to make gates out of other gates. So this thing takes takes two single-digit binary numbers, adds them together, and gives a sum in base 2. The logic gate NOR is universal and can be used to replicate all other gates. All gates can probably be made in KSP, but I've only used 2 of the easiest for simplicity. I have NOT gates and OR gates, which combined make NOR, so we can perform all functions with combinations of these 2. See mom, video games and the internet are good for me. The are only 2 actuators, buttons 1 and 2, for the 2 airbrakes you see. They manipulate the input to the first NOT and OR gates and change the bottom display. The top display is calculated through the gates. Not sure if these pictures are gonna show enough but here we go The gates have 2 states, 0 or 1. 0 (inactive) is horizontal and 1 (active) is up 30 some degrees. Craft is set to default to 0 and 0 for inputs by gravity. Because it's mechanial you can't just run a wire to anywhere, so I had to find a configuration to get the last OR to work. Maybe in the future I can try to make different gates, or add more digits at the same time. Eat your heart out, Minecraft. KerbalX

Yes, you heared right, I have made a fully stock - that means no DLC - version of the famous Lockeed L1049 Super Constellation complete with stock Props and build in 1:1 scale. All this with a farly moderate partcount of 628, well, moderate for that scale of plane. Dowload link: https://kerbalx.com/HB_Stratos/Lockheed-L-1049-Super-Constellation I liked the plane so much I´ve made a whole cinematic dedicated to this plane. If you skipped over it, please watch the Video above, It was a lot of work but truly worth it.

THE LIGHT FANTASTIC CHALLENGE Aerospace as art... I've been having fun playing with lights on my craft, and I wanted to see what others would come up with. So, the challenge is simple: Build a plane, sub, SSTO, lander, space station, orbiter etc and make it look amazing with LIGHTS. There are no restrictions at all on this challenge. GO NUTS!. Post photos, or even better yet, video of your craft. This is an example I built a while ago, but I plan to enter a new one in the challenge. (more examples under the hidden items).

This is a repost version, because the last one had some swear-words.

I know there are already quite a few tutorials about this topic but I want to write my own anyway Let's not waste any time and start directly In general, there are two methods to install mods: manually and via CKAN. Both methods got their advantages and disadvantages. Manual installation CKAN installation Advantages: Every mod can be installed manually Full control over the installation process Disadvantages: Updating mods one by one can be quite annoying You have to take care of dependencies as well Advantages: Quick and easy installation process Dependencies are handeld by CKAN automatically Version control and easy update method Disadvantages: Not every mod supports CKAN Less control over the installation process A few more things in general and about this tutorial If you got KSP on Steam, it is recommend to move the game directory out of the Steam directory to prevent auto-updates! It is not possible to deactivate updates on Steam but a new game version may break a mod and/or your (modded) savegame, so you definitly don't want to update the game before you know if all your mods will still work fine or got updated. Keep in mind that many mods which are compatible with KSP 1.4.x, are still compatible with 1.5.x and 1.6.x. If you play on 1.5.x or 1.6.x and the mod you want to install isn't available for your specific game version, you can still try an older mod version with good chances of success For most parts of this tutorial, I'm going to use "SCANsat" as an example, for various reasons How to install a mod manually Before you install a mod, you should know your game version so you can get the corresponding mod version. If you are not sure which game version you got, launch the game and take a look at the lower right corner in the main menu: In this example, the game version is 1.6.1. Where to download mods There are three "main sources" for mods: Spacedock (provides a short preview/description and you can search for mods, many mods available) CurseForge (also a short preview/description and a search function) This forum /github (searching the forum can be difficult but the mod threads contain the most informations about the mod. Most release threads contain a download link to Spacedock, CurseForge and/or GitHub) Download the correct mod version On Spacedock, you can download the latest mod version via the "Download" button and the compatible game version is listed in the information panel. If you need a different mod version, open the "Changelog" and Spacedock will present every previous released mod version to you, together with the game version it was build for: The design on CurseForge is similar: One button to "Download Latest File" and a "File" section which contains a list of previous versions: Many GitHub links already direct you to the "Release" section of a repository but if you find yourself in the "Code" section, you have to browser there on your own The "Release" section looks a bit differently but the latest version will always be the first entry. Old mod versions are available as well but there is not always the corresponding KSP version number listed. Sometimes it can be found in the mod name or the changelog of a release. To download the mod, just click on the link for the .zip archive: In fact, @Gargamel already posted a detailed explanation about this topic, so if you are still in doubt how it works, you may want to read it as well Dependencies Quite a few mods require one or more other mod(s) to run properly or at all, these "other mods" are called dependencies. A distinction is made between hard- and soft dependencies: Hard dependency: Required with no exception. If you don't install a hard dependency, you'll experience crashes, errors and misbehaviour of the mod. Soft dependency: Required for additional features but not necessary to run the mod. Dependencies are usually listed in the very first post (OP) of the mod release thread, in the "Information" tab of SpaceDock or the "Overview" tab on CurseForge. Sometimes, the dependencies are highlighted like this: Sometimes, they are just mentioned somewhere in the text, in this case in the install instructions: Take your time to read the informations provided by the mod author, so you don't miss anything crucial Installation Let's start with the step, all of you are waiting for First of all, you need to find and open your KSP install directory. The install location depends on your system and where you bought the game so if you don't know where to look at, search your system for the "KSP_x64.exe". Keep a window with your KSP directory open. Mods are usually distributed within .zip archives. You can un-zip the archive in a separate folder or unpack the files directly where they are supposed to be, that's up to you. I prefer the latter method Open the folder/zip file of the mod in a separate window and place it somwhere next to the window which shows your game directory. Now, there are two cases which can happen: Case 1: The mod folder comes with a "GameData" folder As pointed out by @MaltYebisu, this method doesn't work on MacOS. Mac users, please scroll down a bit and read about case 2 If the mod folder contains it's own "GameData" folder, you can drag and drop it directly into your game directory, which also contains a "GameData" folder. This will merge both folders together (should work on each operating system): Be sure, to drop the folder into an empty space and not into any other folder! Case 2: You get the plain mod folder If the mod is not distributed with it's own "GameData" folder, you drop the mod folder directly into the "GameData" folder of your game: Again, be sure, to drop the folder into an empty space and not into any other folder! On a sidenote: Some mod authors who wrote/maintain multiple mods, uses an additional sub folder for all of their mods (for example: Kerbal Alarm Clock and Transfer Window Planner). Don't worry about this, just treat them like the mod in the case 1 scenario and merge the folders together (Case 3: ModuleManager) "ModuleManager" (MM) is powerful mod on it's own and a common dependency for many other mods but so far, the install instructions don't fit for MM. It is a little bit special in two ways: First of all, you will not find a release version within the github repository, on SpaceDock or CurseForge. In order to download ModuleManager manually, you have to visit the MM thread here in the forum: The very first post of this thread contains multiple download links for MM to fit for different versions of KSP. You have to scroll down a bit to find them: If you cannot find your KSP version in this list, follow the instructions in the MM thread. Also, MM is distributed as a plain .dll file and to install it, you have to place the "ModuleManager.dll" directly within the "GameData" folder of your game....no sub folder or anything else, just like this: (Picture was added quite some time after I wrote this tutorial, please don't get confused by the different mods which are installed here, compared to previous screenshots) That's already everything you have to do, MM is now installed properly How to install a mod via CKAN CKAN is a powerful and very well supported tool to manage your mods. You can install, update and remove mods with just a few clicks and even dependencies are handled automatically. It is available for Windows, Linux and MacOS and can be downloaded here: Launch CKAN After starting CKAN, you are asked to choose a KSP installation (you can manage multiple installations and versions): CKAN automatically searches in some default installation paths for KSP, but if you followed my recommendation from the beginning and moved it somewhere else, you need to add it manually. Click on "Add new", navigate to your KSP install and select the "buildID64.txt". On the first run for a new KSP install, CKAN will also ask you if you want to update the modlist and repository on each launch. I would suggest to allow both options so you are always up-to-date but it's up to you: Basics about the UI The UI of CKAN is pretty intuitive: By default, all mods which are compatible with your KSP version will be listed. Since the list will be pretty long, there are some search options available like "mod name", "author" and "description". You can also decide which mods are listed in general by setting up the filter: Manage your mods As soon as you found the mod you want to install, click into the little box on the left to select the mod: Now, the "Apply changes" button becomes available. Click on it, to display the changeset (you can also click on the "Changeset" tab). In this example, you will notice that ModuleManager will be installed as well even though we didn't select it manually. ModuleManager is set as an dependency for SCANsat so CKAN will install it automatically: Hit "Apply" in the lower right corner to proceed. The next two steps are optional, it depends on the mod you want to install: Some other mods may be recommend or suggested to use along with the mod(s) you want to install. The main difference between those options is the pre-selection: Recommend mods are "opt-out" and suggested mods are "opt-in". In both cases, you will find a button in the lower left corner to select or de-select all mods from these lists. If any of these lists appears, pick your choices and click on "Continue" to proceed. CKAN will now download and install all selected mods and their dependencies If you want to uninstall a mod, just unselect the mod in your list and repeat the installation steps. Dependencies are not removed automatically but if you remove a dependency, every mod which depends on it will be removed as well! Advanced stuff CKAN provides some very useful tools and informations and I want to show you a few of them. Compatible KSP Versions by default, CKAN will only lists mods which are compatible with your game version. Since many mods which are compatible with 1.4.x still work fine in 1.5.x and 1.6.x, you can allow CKAN to show and install these mods as well: Just select the versions you want to allow and apply the changes. Metadata/Relationships/Contents/Versions On the right side of the CKAN UI, you will find four tabs to display Metadata, Relationships, Contents and Versions: Metadata shows some general informations about the mod like version, author and links to the homepage (usually forum post) and the source code. Relationships shows informations about dependencies, recommendations, suggestions and mod conflicts: Dependencies are marked with a "star", recommendations got a "thumb up", suggestions are marked with a "i" and conflicts are marked with a "!". If a mod name is highlighted red, it is not compatible with your game version (if it's a dependency, you cannot install the mod!). You can double click on these mods to find the corresponding CKAN entry. Contents will show you a simple list of the mod contents but it requires to download the mod. There is also a button there to download it (without installation). Versions provides a list of all available mod versions. Compatible versions are highlighted and if you want to install an older mod version, just double click on the list entry. If a newer version is already install, you need to remove it first. I guess that's all for now, fedback and corrections are welcome Happy modding

I asked this on reddit and had some good feedback but I have one more day so I wanted to get any additional info. its been a year since I played at a buddies, my computer was a brick. My wife blessed me with a new computer I get tomorrow and I will be downloading ksp. The thing is I had a stroke last Father’s Day and I still haven’t regained movement in my right arm or hand. How hard would it be to play? Any suggestions? I’m getting a mouse with 6 buttons and I can use in my left hand. Any thoughts would be appreciated, thank you.

KSP 1.12.3 Restock [1.4.3] Last Updated Feb 252, 2022 Release Album It's no secret that some of KSP's artwork is not great. Placeholder art made by a number of amateur artists throughout the game's development has resulted in a scattered mess of styles and qualities which is most evident in the part artwork. Recently Squad seems to be attempting to do something to attempt to address it, but they're taking the art in a direction we stylistically disagree with and does not solve the inconsistency issues that plague the game. Because of this number of community members have come together to try to create a project that revamps KSP's art. This project has the following goals: Create a unity of design and style for all parts: In order to minimize work we'll be targeting the revised aircraft parts, which are the largest consistent block of parts. Preserve the general aesthetic of KSP: We will do our best to keep the stylings of the more iconic parts while updating quality and fidelity. Create consistency in detail level: no more 4k textures for tiny parts! Minimize performance impact: use atlasing and efficient texturing to limit the need for any kind of better hardware than base KSP. Do not affect gameplay or part balance Features About 250 revamped parts (so far!) focusing on the ones that are used most in construction New part variants where they made sense Boattail, compact and regular variants for engines Orange insulated 3.75m tanks! Gold foil-wrapped probe cores New engine effects for all engines Check out the part replacement list for it is LARGE. Asset Blacklisting Restock uses a novel method to stop KSP from loading stock assets - a blacklist file. This reduces the memory footprint of installing this mod by unloading models and textures that are not required. However, this method may break mods that depend on the stock assets. There is an easy way around this as we provide a method to whitelist files. Check the entry on the Restock Wiki for more information about this. Known Issues Please check the issues list for more information on known issues. Some mods are currently not compatible, here's the ones we know about and some fixes. RemoteTech: Some parts will need to be whitelisted, no ETA Frequently Asked Questions Q: Will this break my existing stock craft if I add/remove it? A: It will not. Q: Did you change aerodynamics/colliders/drag cubes? A: We minimized the impact as much as possible. Let us know if you have a concern. Q: I don't like what you did with XXXX. How do I get rid of it? A: We wrote a whole page about it. Q: Something broke! My mod that uses the stock assets isn't loading! A: Look at the Asset Blacklisting section above Q: Will you redo the IVAs? A: Nope. Q: Will you redo more parts? A: Yes. Q: I found a bug, what do I do? A: Stay calm. Ask here if anyone else sees it. If not, post on our Issues board with screenshots/logs/reproduction steps. Q: I see you added some more variants? Can you add more? Every part in purple? A: Nope. Dependencies (Required and Bundled) Module Manager Licensing All configs are distributed under the MIT License All art assets (textures, models, animations) are distributed under an All Rights Reserved License. All plugin code is distributed under the LGPL All bundled mods are distributed under their own licenses. DOWNLOAD MIRRORS Primary (SpaceDock) Tertiary (Github) Issue Tracking and Source KSP 1.12.3 Restock+ [1.4.3] Last Updated Feb 25, 2022 We believe that there are a number of places where KSP is missing key parts - for example, the 3.75m, 1.875m and 0.625m size classes are a little sparse. Restock+ aims to create parts that fill these niche, and is a carefully curated, fully optional project (that requires Restock to be installed of course). Release Album Here's the list of new parts. Some of these parts overlap in purpose if the Making History expansion is installed and will not show up if this is the case. Frequently Asked Questions Q: How did you choose what parts to add? A: Typically these parts are missing from size classes. 3.75m and 1.875m parts for example lack basic conveniences such as orbital engines, drone cores and batteries. Q: Will you add xxxx? A: Probably not. Q: What's going on with the Making History-like parts A: If you own Making History, the Restock+ parts that overlap with the MH parts (fuel tanks, etc), will not be added. Instead, those parts will have their art replaced. Q: I found a bug, what do I do? A: Stay calm. Ask here if anyone else sees it. If not, post on our Issues board with screenshots/logs/reproduction steps. Dependencies (Required) Module Manager Restock Licensing All configs are distributed under the MIT License All art assets (textures, models, animations) are distributed under an All Rights Reserved License. All plugin code is distributed under the LGPL All bundled mods are distributed under their own licenses. DOWNLOAD MIRRORS Primary (SpaceDock) Tertiary (Github) Issue Tracking and Source Awesome People Contributors Artists Plugin Code Lead Testers @Nertea @cineboxandrew @Beale @Well @riocrokite @passinglurker @blowfish @DMagic @Tyko @Poodmund Support Us If appreciate the blood, sweat and tears that has been put into this project, please support us with a donation! It will be used to buy coffee/beer/assuage significant others and we really appreciate it.

Sandwiches are mainly Meat, Lettuce, Tomato, Onion and Mayo. Tacos are mainly Meat, Lettuce, Tomato, Onion and Salsa. Are tacos a sandwich and are sandwiches a taco? Also, this post has gotten on the TOTM awards!

This craft is a 1:1 scale full stock replica of the H-4 Hercules, more popularly known as the Spruce Goose. This craft, while relatively simple in its design, ended up being one of my more involved replicas, with a large amount of work and experimentation put into replicating the design. The craft is powered entirely by 8 of my R-4360 turboprops, which combined produce 3200 kN of thrust. The wings of this replica represent my first attempt at fully constructing a custom aerofoil. The technique used is effective, but I have since improved upon it,and you can expect more advanced versions of it in my future replicas. One interesting quirk of these wings, is that the enormous amount of drag and lift they produce means that this craft flies very smoothly at its top speed of 26 m/s, yup. Performance wise, this craft did not meet up to my expectations. I had intended for this craft to be capable of water takeoff and landing. With this in mind I kept the craft as light as possible, being about half the weight of my other replicas of similar size and complexity. Unfortunately, this craft was not able to land, nor take off from the water, meaning that this replica is basically completely aesthetic. While I am somewhat disappointed by this craft, I learned a great deal whilst making it, and it was ultimately a valuable experience. Download: https://kerbalx.com/Kronus_Aerospace/Kronus-H-4-Hercules-Spruce-Goose Craft Mass: 310.95 tonnes Part Count: 2141 parts I would love any suggestions about what *big* plane I should build next!

So I thought I had posted a comment last night wherein I asked for advice re buying my son a suitable PC on which he can play KSP. He already plays it on his PS4 and maybe on his iPad as well or his netbook. The thing is, I don’t know if I successfully submitted my request for advice since I’ve yet to make my bold foray into the 20th century, let alone the 21st century. In other words, I don’t have a firm grasp on tech in general, and even less so when it comes to KSP. My son absolutely loves KSP and has been wanting to play it on PC for ages. He is 13 years old and of late has been experiencing occasional mild depression. I really want to buy him a PC and am excited at the prospect of being able to do so. But - and here’s where I call upon the KSP community - I have no idea what I should be purchasing. The only criterion is that KSP can be played on it. Please, please someone, anyone, any piece of advice or guidance would be so appreciated. I don’t know if it makes any difference but we live in Australia (Melbourne). And while I’ll be happy just to have enough knowledge to buy the right PC, you won’t see my name listed on the Forbes Top 50 Rich List, so it would be best to err on the side of cheaper, if that’s possible. Thank you sincerely (in anticipation) to whomever, if anyone, can help me sort this out. Ann (loving mother of a KSP devotee)

I'm literally never going back again, this is probably the hardest challenge in any game i've ever played. No real point here just venting, went through about 20 ship designs, last one made it to 14k then ran out of fuel. Didn't even get past the first layer of the atmosphere

Due to various reasons we are currently unable to do any further battles. For that reason, this thread is currently on hold until that situation changes. This thread is a continuation of the Air Superiority Fighter Competiton Unlimited by @Box of Stardust (who's still co-owner of this thread) Blablabla there used to be something about war. Let's be honest though, we don't need a reason to build fighters, we do it for the fun of it! This is probably the most rigorous BDA dogfighting competition out there, with the loosest rule set promoting maximizing combat aircraft potential. We only care about one thing: to build the most superior dogfighter. Every battle (Which can be run by me, but I'm encouraging everyone to run their own battles to speed queues and such up) is closely examined to be able to identify and rate a fighter's performance with intricate breakdowns. If you're willing, you'll become very familiar with how BDA works and how the AI functions, as well as its various quirks, and how to apply such knowledge to dominate most other BDA competitions. So this is like Top Gun, for BDA. In @Box of Stardust's opinion, only 25% of the actual construction makes a good BDA fighter. 30% is the weapons carried and how they are used, and 45% is the AI pilot settings. Are you prepared to master all 3 of them? AIR SUPERIORITY FIGHTER COMPETITION UNLIMITED VIEW THE LEADERBOARD, AIRCRAFT RATINGS, & SUBMISSION QUEUE (Offsite leaderboard to allow easy editing by everyone at all times) we've also got a discord server This is a King of the Hill style challenge, but with changes, making it more of a "Hill or Valley" style. Two tiers of aircraft will be maintained, the 'hill' and the 'valley'. General participant entries will always start fighting against the #6, should they fail to beat this one, they will fight the #10 instead. Fail again and you will simply not make the leaderboard. On the other hand, if you manage to defeat the #6, you will continue testing upwards against the tier 1 board. Beat the #10 and you will continue testing upwards against the tier 2 board. Veteran participants will have their entries start their test run against the Tier 1 #5, following the same rules. The competition has rolling admission with no deadline for submissions. Fights will be conducted on KSP 1.6.x with BDAc 1.2.x. Privately testing your aircraft against other competitors in AI only dogfights is not only allowed but highly encouraged. Aircraft built in earlier version of KSP and BDAc will not compete since they probably won't perform at their best thanks to AI and weaponry updates. (if you've got older aircraft, basically just run them in the current environment and tweak them if necessary, then submit) RULES OF AIRCRAFT CONSTRUCTION 1. Construction All dogfights are run by BDAC AI. This means all actions must be automated, excluding initial start-up staging (however, this can be automated as well by binding engine start to SAS) and any drop tank unlocking (due to the programming of BD Modular Missile Manager); drop tanks must be programmed with Modular Missile Manager There is a maximum 100 part count and that's it. Armor settings (per part) must be at default (0). Armor plating (the BDA part) is not allowed since it gives a massive advantage with no serious disadvantages to hold it back. Once you have submitted an aircraft, you may modify the file in KerbalX until the first battle is run. No further modifications can be made after that time. You are welcome to remove aircraft before testing. Once an aircraft has made roster, it cannot be removed from the roster by administrative action and will continue to test, for fairness to other competitors. Aircraft designers are solely responsible for the modification of their aircraft. Do not ask judges to modify your aircraft for you. (However, exceptions are made for minor issues related to BDA quirks, requiring modifications that change nothing on how the aircraft performs, but just fixes any problems that might be caused by BDA quirks.) You are welcome to submit a design as many times as you like, if you modify it. Please note variants (fighter 2, fighter 2a, fighter mkII, fighter mark 2, fighter "somewordshere", fighter AUSF B, etc.). They will be subjected to the Replacement Rule if applicable (see Rules of the Leaderboard). 2. Mods BDA 1.2 for KSP 1.7.2 is the current competition environment. In the interest in allowing newer designers to be competitive, all aircraft must be modified solely within KSP. Any text editing is strictly prohibited. EditorExtensionsRedux is highly recommended for greater control over aircraft construction. Also to be able to toggle 'All Rigid' and 'All Autostruts' to reduce need for struts and general wobbliness. The mod list for this competition is generally open-ended, however, it is preferred to keep mod count to a minimum. We highly recommend Airplane Plus, though it is not a required mod. TweakScale is also permitted. Ask first if you are using a mod outside of our common list, especially parts that include new weapons, shields or armor. Mods that contain parts that introduce tactical advantages, such as radar invisibility, may be permitted if part of a larger package, but said parts are not. Judges may ask for part removal based around mods that do not serve a combat purpose, or are not usable by BDAc. This includes Infernal Robotics, Attachment systems, and ejection seat modifications. If you wish to be a judge WorldStablizer is required. 3. Weapons At no point can more aircraft be present on the tracker in BD Armory than what was originally placed on the runway; i.e., no parasite aircraft. The following weapons are permitted: -Any fixed BD Armory weapons -Any fixed Aviator Arsenal weapons -The 105mm howitzer and Abrams turret from BD Armory (for kicks) The following weapons are banned: -Turrets in BD Armory not mentioned above (USAF laser, .50 cal turret, Millenium turret, Goalkeeper CIWS, etc) and Aviator Arsenal (b-17 turret) - HEKV missile. -any mods not mentioned here that pertain to weapons (ask first) (Tenuous) There is no weapon limit. RULES OF ENGAGEMENT Fighters will begin in a standard formation arrangement on starting runways at combat locations. (Frontmost left center line, Middile right edge line, Rear left edge line). Battles are currently conducted by having start points at the KSC runway and the island runway. Fighters will sortie out against each other in missions of 3v3 maximum. There is a maximum of 1-plane-count difference; 1v3 sorties are not valid, rendering defeat for the team with only 1 aircraft left availble. Battles (defined as the full series of sorties between two aircraft types) are fought until sufficient depletion of one team's aircraft reserves, with victory awarded to the team with more remaining reserve aircraft. A unit will begin its combat debut with 7 aircraft in reserve. This reserve number will be affected by defeats or margins of victory after every sortie. Reinforcements are granted after every sortie based on amount of enemy aircraft killed, on a 1-to-2 basis; 1 additional reserve aircraft is granted for every 2 killed opposing aircraft. Reinforcements can only be granted to replace lost aircraft, with the maximum reserve amount remaining at 7. Surviving aircraft are not subtracted from the reserve. Surviving aircraft are defined as flyable by the BD AI in a stable manner, and retain some wing surfaces and an engine. Fuel is not necessary. If aircraft battle for 5 sorties with no apparent victor, a sixth, final 5v5 sortie will decide the results. Filming is conducted as follows: Sortie #1 filmed from neutral ground observer (location beacon); this reduces the effect of the game physics by staying in a neutral frame of reference (explanation here) essentially creating an unbiased battle. Sortie #2 filmed from offense team; this is for observing the combat performance of the up-and-coming craft, against an opponent that has already been observed and analyzed. Sortie #3 filmed from defense team; switching sides for fairness, as well as observing combat performance of this craft versus a new opponent. Sortie #4 switches back to offense team, and etc. RULES OF THE LEADERBOARD Veteran competitors are those who have achieved Tier 1 Rank 3 at least twice, or achieved Rank 2 or Rank 1. The Tier 1 Leaderboard is open to anyone. It is called the Veteran Leaderboard due to the high-competitiveness of the aircraft in this leaderboard. The Tier 2 Leaderboard is also open to anyone, but imposes restrictions on Veterans. A Veteran may not place in this board if at least 2 spots are held in Tier 1. A Veteran aircraft that has placed in Tier 1 cannot drop down into Tier 2 if pushed downwards after a defeat; it will be removed from the active leaderboards. Replacement Rule: This rule concerns an aircraft variant of an aircraft already placed on the leaderboard. Should these aircraft battle each other, the winning variant remains on the leaderboard. If the winning variant is the newer aircraft, it will continue testing against If the winning variant is the older aircraft, the newer aircraft will not place and its battle testing ends. Re-Advancement Rule: This rule permits a settled aircraft on the leaderboard to restart its advancement upwards upon defending its position by the number of times it is placed (e.g., #5 defended 5 times). The competitor may choose to challenge the next-placed aircraft. The battles conducted will be based on a 12-plane reserve flying 5v5 sorties, minimum of 3 required to sortie, no reinforcements granted. If the challenging plane is victorious, it will continue its climb up the leaderboard according to standard Rules of Engagement.

Yes you read it right 8139 parts, I just survived a lag hell with most of my sanity still intact... I think. Without the use of tweakscale I believe this is the biggest station ever created! (please correct me if i'm wrong) For quite a while I wanted to go big, really big so last week I finally went for it and build this space station. The pictures in orbit are of a incomplete version so they look a tiny bit different than the one in the SPH During this build I discoverd the true reason why there are ION engines in this game, and no not to provide thrust. They turn out to be cool lights! The interior It took 1.5 hours to load this thing on the runway, but it actually did load! Three frames later (1hour) I crashed the game in order to escape lag central. I would like to break the KerbalX record in part count but the filesize is to big to upload, almost 12mb lol

The challenge is simple, but a bit hard to define. Sorry about that but here goes. THE SETUP Start a Science Mode game. No money. No contracts. You'll be busy enough trust me. Make it with (almost) any settings you want, but document them. Use any mods you want, but document them. Challenge yourself! The only setting you MUST have is that you MUST enable saves and reverts. Not many challenges require that one, eh? I would also suggest not making the science gathering all that difficult. I did this with normal science and it wasn't exactly easy. Though you could probably knock down gains to 75% and still complete the whole tech tree in this challenge. THE RULES General rules: You have 9 specific missions, each to land on a specified world or some specified worlds. You must land on the specified world(s) and may not land anywhere else during the mission, except of course Kerbin upon your return. These missions must consist of one single launch from the launch pad with everything you need to complete the mission, and end with the successful return of all Kerbals launched. This counts leftover things from previous missions. No refueling mission 5 with fuel tanks left in orbit from mission 4. Missions are self contained. Only one mission can be ongoing at a time. You may not launch another mission until the current mission has completed successfully. While you can only launch 9 times, you can send things to the runway and launch pad to just gather science around the KSC. If really want, drive wherever you want but you can NOT fly under rocket or jet (or helicopter if you know how to do that) power anywhere. Other than jumps, no leaving the ground. Also, no using other launch sites, either for science grind or legit launches. Everything should launch from KSC. If you really want that desert science, return to there from one of your missions. No generating science in the MPL labs. If you use a mod that helps you in science in any way, specify it. If it generates free science like the lab does, you should consider this rule banning that mod, though you can ask if it's ok if it's marginal. NOTE: You can bring a lab along if you want to reset science experiments without going EVA and level up Kerbals if you turn on that difficulty level. Just no doing science in them. And for the record I don't consider that kind of thing CHEATING per se, it's just way too much science for very little work and it quickly turns this challenge into a "put a lab in orbit of Minmus and win" game. While Breaking Ground (And Making History) is allowed, the science contained therein is not. There is already plenty of science to be gotten in the stock game, so much that I had to limit you to one biome per planet. I can't allow several new experiments to give you even more science. Make robotic landers, though. I want to see lots and lots of those Lander rules: Each landing must be Kerbed, and can not include any probe cores. You may only land ONCE and may not roam from the landing biome to another biome. You can only get science readings from ONE ground biome per world. You may though collect as much flying science during the mission as you can from anywhere you can, so long as you don't break the other rules. Orbiter rules: Once you have unlocked any docking port, you must also leave a craft in orbit of each world landed on, during the landing. This craft must also be Kerbed during the landing, and also may not have probe cores. The lander must re-dock to the orbiter to complete the land-and-return portion of the mission. If you do not need your lander (or orbiter) after that successful docking, the unneeded stuff may be undocked and left behind. Some more general rules: You may use one lander to land on multiple worlds in the longer missions, and the same orbiter to orbit multiple worlds. You can even use one world's lander as another world's orbiter and vice-versa. However you do not have to. Before EVERY launch, make a backup of your save. Alt-F5 named quicksaves are fine. If for any reason you cannot complete all mission parameters with the ship launched while complying with the above rules, you must revert to this save. There are no rescue missions here. You succeed or you retry, from scratch. And possibly with a modified ship or a different mission. NOTE: This does not mean you can't quicksave/quickload! Save early and often, and reload any time you want. If the ship you built isn't up to task, you must revert and fix the ship. But if you just screw up a landing or time warp through an atmosphere, reverting to a quicksave is perfectly alright. When unlocking tech tree nodes after a successful mission or science-gathering jaunt around the KSC, you can unlock nodes within a tier in any order but you must completely unlock a tier before unlocking any nodes in a higher tier. So yes, you do have to unlock nodes with plane parts and probe cores (and docking ports) if you want those parts in higher tiers. The "Only one biome per landing" rule counts upon return to Kerbin as well. For rockets, this means no landing on Kerbin's surface and then taking off to land again. For space planes, it means ... well it means the same thing. Note: If your return vehicle splits up into different pods that's okay, so long as they all land in the same biome. While you can't have a probe on your lander or orbiter, you CAN bring probes with you for other things. Most notably, scanning for ore. You could also bring some as relays. So long as they're not on the orbiter or lander during the landing, it's fine. And no, they can't land themselves or get extra science you don't get with the Kerbals. If you're concerned, ask me. Asteroids are fine to gather science from. If you want to devote some of your precious payload to grabbing one - or just want to put the extra work into rendezvousing with one at Dres - then by all means go for it. I think the extra work being rewarded with extra science is in this case worth it. PROOF Bare minimum proof. I need a picture of, for every mission (in sunlight if possible): Your tech tree before the mission started. i.e., what you had to work with. Your vessel on the launch pad. Your vessel (Lander + Orbiter if you have docking ports) orbiting the target world. Your lander on the surface. Your vessels back in orbit after landing, if you need to re-dock. They can be docked or on the verge of docking. Your return portion of your ship landed on Kerbin. Any special circumstances that need explained. But go for broke. Take pictures like you're on vacation and post them all I'll love them. Or do a video! THE MISSIONS You may do these launches in any order. In particular Dunpollo can be done earlier. I only listed it so far down the list because it's a multi-world mission. Other than that, though, this is a pretty decent suggested order. It's actually the order I did it when I tested the challenge. SINGLE-WORLD-MISSIONS Kerpollo Orbit Kerbin. Should be easy, and about all you can expect to do with the starting tech that you can get from early runway/launchpad science. Munpollo Land on Mun and return. Minpollo Do the same for Minmus. Remember, you can only land in a single biome. I don't care how easy it is to do more. Drespollo Dres DOES exist. Prove it by landing there and returning alive. Eelollo Eeloo's pretty cold this time of year. Which is fine because it will probably take several years to complete your land-and-return mission. Mohollo Mahalo for doing Mohollo, and returning from a successful Moho landing! MULTI-WORLD-MISSIONS Dunpollo Land on both Duna and Ike and return all Kerbals to Kerbin. Evepollo This may be the hardest mission of them all. Land on both Gilly and Eve and return all Kerbals to Kerbin. Joolollo This may ALSO be the hardest mission of them all. Do a Jool 5, but by now you've got docking ports for sure, so you need an orbiter around every world you land on. Remember, you can (but aren't required to) reuse landers and orbiters, so long as they're both present when you do your landing. THE BADGE Here's a quick badge I made for the challenge. It's 107 pixels tall which seems to be the max on signatures? IN CLOSING I fully expect I missed a rule, or messed up a rule. Feel free to comment with any questions or concerns. Don't comment though that it's impossible. I just completed enough of it my own self to prove to myself that it's doabe (I unlocked the entire tech tree) but will be doing it from scratch, and documentation.

-is it alive? -yeah -well, that's a pity, i hoped he died by now -- I have been playing this game for a long time. By now, i probably tried hundred of mods, flew a billion rockets and crashed a billion more. There are two questions arising from that statement: -what is the point? -did it get boring after a while? Those questions are, however can't be answered simply. Probably because it's just difficult to understand yourself sometimes. But let's try to see a pattern here, shall we?- I'll show you a dozen of pics where i launch a rocket and you try and see a reaccuring things,besides the obvious stuff like the rocket itself, or the enviroment around it. You might be asking yourselves right now: ''what are you getting at, cratercracker?''. Reaccuring stuff like the engine flumes and a recognizible shape of a rocket is easy enough to explain, but this is not what i am trying to tell you. All those images have sounds. And i don't mean that those sounds are coming from these pictures, i mean that those sounds are stuck in your head. Look at the pictures again. Hear that? You are probably thinking about the roaring engines, or the scream of all the air that's hitting the rocket, maybe the sound of explosions, or sepperators. But these sounds aren't new to you. (probably) They are not alerting, they don't grab immediate attention. For you, an experienced (or not so much) player, they are the same as the constant chatter during brakes at school, or the noise of cars on a highway. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------- - - But what did they sound like when you turned on the game for the first time? From here, i'll try to convey my experience of this game. My intoduction to the game was simple, i just clicked on one of those let's- plays videos and the next thing i remember is my whole recomendation section filled with KSP. I didn't protest it, however i didn't have the slightest of inclination to buy this game either, i just enjoyed seeing people failing miserably, or having great success within the game. But what pushed me to make the action that would shift my interests, literally into space, is a cinematic, by Nassault. I binge-watched all of his stuff in a single evening and then i just skyrocketed to buying this game. My first thing i built, lacked proper fuel. So, for a long time i tried to do something with the stock vehicles. With little to no success. Believe it or not, i used to believe that rockets just needed to fly up to get to space. Leaving all of my stupidity aside, i managed to understand basics of orbital mechanics, without any help from anyone. And then i discovered Scott Manley. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxzC4EngIsMrPmbm6Nxvb-A Allbeit, i was never into stuff like let's-plays, i enjoyed his series, probably because of his nice personality and him being an iconic person for KSP community. Scott Manley's game was a brand new beast all together. It was soo much different from mine. I started up google to discover a thing called ''mods'' and then proceeded to fill to the brim my GameData folder. Modding community in this game is a garden of wonders, free wonders, many wonders. Many mods can change this game entirely. Want everything to be automated? -MechJeb Your Computer Studies class is just not enough for you? -Infernal Robotics You want to spice things up a little bit? -RSS You just want some eyecandy? -scatterer And on and on and on.... But the charm of an over-modded game faded off quickly. There were a lot of conflicting mods, ones that i couldn't even understand for the first time, hundreds of different features and mechanics and all of it just didn't sit well with me. So, i removed all the non-graphical mods from the game. The game is quite simple on itself. It requires you to be creative, to understand the stock game mechanics and exploit them for yourself. Because I enjoyed trying to be ''creative'' without making it too complex, making it more complicated just didn't make sense to me. But when i returned to vanilla, the charm was gone too. It lacked something, maybe i just tried everything and been everywhere, maybe i just lost my creativity, but something very essential from my game was gone. That begs the question, what is KSP for me? Well for me, KSP is not knowing how to play KSP. KSP is the first derpy thing you build, that somehow flies It's that first station you assembled, that can summons krackens It's that beautiful view from a distant place It's that first sight of the Munar surface.. My fondest memories of the game are the ones when i knew nothing about what i was doing, or where i was. This amazing feeling of trying out things for the first time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am very grateful to @SQUAD, for such an amazing experience. I am grateful for all the nice people i've met in this community. Thank you. (sorry for my broken english, it is not my native and i am quite stupid myself)

Depending on where you live, today could be the 9th of Mehr, the 21st of Tishrei, August 23 or many other possibilities. My gregorian calendar, though, says it's the first of the month of October and time to highlight some of the best threads our community has to offer. Joining me in selecting October's Threads of the Month are @Noobton, @FleshJeb, @Servo and @Vanamonde. Who could fail to admire the patience @Triop shows as he drives from pole to pole with no quicksaves? Enjoy his record of endurance, bravery and Monty Python references: I think something most KSP players have in common is that thought that pops up in your mind that says "What if I built a monster of a craft and got it to fly?" True, most of us have thought about it, but few have pulled off a beautiful accomplishment like @Kronus_Aerospace and his 1:1 replica of the Boeing Pelican Ultra concept. His craft took him five months to complete and includes stock rotating and moving machanisms. Just have a look at this: This month, we will also feature a thread from new user @zyco187 who asked the community to help him escape the atmosphere. The responses to his question show what a knowledgeable, helpful and friendly community we have. Expericned KSP players might even learn something new: Well done everyone for helping to make the forum a great source of entertainment and information. Keep up the good work and please don't forget to report any threads that you would like to nominate for next month's Thread of the Month (don't forget to tell us why you reported it in the text box that comes up after you click the report button)!

Welcome to June, everybody! If you can't stand the heat, get away from the launchpad! First off, we have @GusTurbo's collection of partially-finished spacecraft. They're not just his, though- everyone is welcome to share their works-in-progress! You've heard of Vertical TakeOff and Landing, and you've heard of Short TakeOff and Landing, but have you ever tried Absolutely Insane TakeOff and Landing? @Klapaucius challenges you to land in a tiny lake- and take off if you dare! While we might never get another solar system, @TheProtagonists' mod is the next best thing. It adds 100 planets far away from Kerbin, so you can reach Alpha Centauri and beat Gandhi to the stars! I've always had a soft spot for F-104 Starfighter replicas, but @EvenFlow's just blew me away. It's miles beyond anything I've seen before, and earns a well-deserved spot as the final TOTM for June. As always, credit to @adsii1970 for making the TOTM images. That's all for now, fellow forumers! If you see something you think should be TOTM, be sure to PM a moderator about it! We are always looking for community suggestions!

Traveling long distances, visiting multiple biomes or anomalies on atmospheric worlds can be problematic. Covering large distances by rover takes excessively long time, and rocket powered vehicles are inconvenient for many reasons. Therefore I believe that atmospheric flight is the best option. I would like to see your crafts that are made for fling in atmospheric world other than Kerbin. I'm interested in any designs, be it stock or modded, new or old KSP version. They can be planes, helicopters, airships or any other crafts that are made to operate in non-kerbin atmospheres. Especially I would like to see designs that fly on Eve and the solutions for very thick atmosphere. This topic is for discussing solutions for varying atmosphere thicknesses, flying in non-oxygenated environments, dealing with terrain issues, how to deliver the crafts to other celestial bodies and other issues around the topic. So far I have flown only on Duna. I have made two planes for my career save. Both planes rely on electric propellers from Firespitter mod for propulsion that doesn't need free-range oxygen. This is Dunaplane. It's my first fully developed plane for non-Kerbin flight. It uses single electric propeller which is powered by two fuel-cell-arrays. The plane is designed for science gathering and carries full set of science equipment. The thin atmosphere of Duna is overcome with quite large wings, so flying it is reasonably similar than flying planes on Kerbin. Duna's atmosphere in general is not a huge issue for planes. Instead the biggest issue is landing. Most planes on Duna have quite high stall speed and low gravity makes wheelbraking very slow, so horizontal landings are difficult. I have made a few horizontal landings with this plane, but mostly I use parachutes and downward thrusters to land safely. This plane can fly at very high altitudes. For some reason the thin air seems to provide enough lift up to at least until 20km and propellers wont lose any efficiency (which I believe is unrealistic) instead flying higher makes the plane significantly faster. Flying low the plane flies 230m/s but after height of 13km the speed increases rapidly to 500m/s. The only limiting factor for height and therefore speed seems to be heat control. The engines create heat, which cant dissipate in super thin atmosphere so it starts to build up and makes the plane explode if flown too high for too long time. The Dunaplane has three small radiator panels to allow it to fly slightly higher than otherwise. The other one is The Red Eagle. It's significantly bigger and made for crew transfer around Duna and from surface to the low orbit. I can carry 18 kerbals but needs only two to operate. A pilot to fly the plane and an engineer to repack the chutes. This one is in theory easier to land horizontally but even so I have just strapped more parachutes and downwards thrusters to it for landings. It has four electric propellers which are powered by six fuel-cell-arrays. To get to the orbit it also has four aerospikes. The electric engines are used to get it to the highest possible altitude and speed before switching to the aerospikes. Unfortunately four electric engines generate awful amounts of heat so the plane has in total 16 small radiator panels to help with thermal control. These are my planes. Now I would like to see your crafts for alien skies. :-) Edit: This thread is a thread of the month for May

Latest Release Source Sample Craft (also found in WildBlueIndustries/FlyingSaucers/Ships/SPH) Gerra Kerman, test pilot. She liked the sound of that! Here she was, standing in front of her first assignment, parked on the tarmac at KSC. Gerra whistled, marveling at the design and then began walking around the strange aircraft. It had a disc-shaped body easily 6 meters in diameter and over a meter thick. Add the trailing wings, and the aircraft spanned 8 meters. Its leading edges had gray carbon panels, ready to resist the heat of atmospheric entry, with dark heat-resistant tiles trailing the edge. A set of windows followed the craft’s contours, but they only gave a view out the front. As she walked around to the back, Gerra saw a sculpted engine housing that sported a strange looking engine with a sloped ramp. Then she realized that the craft was a transatmospheric vehicle, a flying saucer! Read more... Have you ever wanted to pretend that your kerbals found a crashed flying saucer and then the little green men and women reverse-engineered it? With Kerbal Flying Saucers (KFS), now you can! KFS is a mod that lets you research and build your own custom flying saucers that work within established gameplay mechanics while providing exotic twists. It’s as easy as mixing and matching components to create a vehicle suited to your needs. And with its custom tech tree branch and research experiments, you can simulate your reverse-engineering efforts via the stock science system- and possibly unlock parts early! Kerbal Flying Saucers is inspired by real-world saucer-shaped craft like Avro Canada's VZ-9 Avrocar, North American Aviation's Lenticular Reentry Vehicle, USAF's Project 1794, and Northrop's NS-97. Required Mods: Tutorial Videos More Pics: Waterfall engine configs by @Horizons Aerospace

Biggest Plane with a Juno! The challenge is simple: design an airplane powered only by a single Juno. Fly it from KSC to the Island airfield. Largest aircraft (by mass) on landing wins. Rules: Only stock parts FAR will have its own leaderboard. No other mods that affect physics allowed. No cheats The only propulsion allowed is the single Juno. No sepatrons, other engines, infiniglide, kraken drives, etc. Staging is fine, but your score is determined by the mass of your craft as landed A safe landing is not required, but any lost parts won't be included in your score Your craft need not be Kerballed No landing via parachute, although you may use parachutes to slow down once you're on the ground. To enter this challenge, please post a screenshot of your craft landed at the island airfield, with some sort of indication of mass (KER or MechJeb are helpful). For your efforts, you will earn the right to stick this little badge in your signature: A big shoutout to @doggonemess for putting together the badge! Stock Aero Leaderboard: Box of Stardust - 50,917kg hoioh - 41,179 kg neistridlar - 34,120 kg ManEatingApe - 31,760 kg GoSlash27 - 25,850 kg ZLM-Master - 25,616 kg Magzimum - 24,040 kg Numerlor - 22,113 kg Rocket In My Pocket - 21,173 kg zolotiyeruki - 20,340 kg doggonemess - 15,177 kg Andiron - 14,040 kg n.b.z. - 12,210 kg TeslaPenguin1 - 10,421 kg Gordon Fecyk - 9,973 kg Kerbal Design Bureau's interns - 7,460kg FAR Leaderboard: Here's proof for my entry: