Vallius

This one actually happened to me. I was talking about my plans for my modular interplanetary manned mission with my wife. "I want to make sure I test everything on every component before I send it through interplanetary space. I'd much rather have it break here than send it on a two year trip to have it break there. It's just like real life, how NASA tests out everything on Kerbin , before launching." ....yeah, I may need to check my definition of reality.

I am so stoked, I think I need 10 Jebediah's to express my excitement about 0.24!

Now that we have to worry about money, and there is an incentive for recovering parts, I think the next logical update should try to fix the aerodynamics model. That being said, I'm sure it would be a challenging update. I do multi-physics simulation for work, and making all these algorithms work well together can be a beast. Are there any core mechanics that SQUAD is planning other than multiplayer?

I don't usually think of a 'best' orbit in terms of altitude for transfers (so long as you don't reenter the atmosphere), since your delta V needs depends a lot more on your orbital transfer methods. Your orbital direction (normal or retrograde) and inclination matter far more in terms of saving fuel. That being said, the higher your orbit is, the cheaper it will be to change eccentricity and inclination (most important for docking and/or precision landings). Personally, I like to use 100 km for a minimum 'safe' orbit, and between 200 and 300 km for space stations and other multi-launch constructions.

I have always been inspired by the dream of space travel. I became an engineer partially because I want to design interstellar spacecraft. But since the job market in manned spaceflight fluctuates with every election, I will content myself (for now) with KSP. In KSP, you may have over a thousand in-game hours of play, but you can still crash just as easily on the Mun as you did on day 1. You aren't artificially better just because you've grinded out science, or launched over 100 rockets. Your skills (and luck) are earned the hard way. Every mission, I find myself having to solve unexpected problems and having new adventures due to mistakes in ship design or piloting. (Ever try docking without RCS, or delivering a landing stage (designed to be manned) to a multi-part spacecraft without probe cores or kerbals on the key stage). No two flights are quite the same, and every new 'routine' mission has the potential to become another Apollo 13. What other game allows you to feel that kind of accomplishment, and lets you learn so much from failure? It seems like modern gaming companies don't always recognize that people like limits, not in the form of artificial walls or 'levels' to the game's world, but real consequences for player's decisions. Nothing stops me from making a nonsensical rocket in the editor, but then nothing forces the design to work either. That's my kind of game. I play other games from time to time, but I'm always drawn back to KSP--because I feel like I learn something every time I play, and there's always more to do.

Have you already been able to discount spacejunk? I've had a couple close calls with broken solar panels orbiting retrograde from early launches.

I killed Bill and Bob in Mun landings... twice. The second time for both happened when trying to rescue Jeb, who has the luckiest bad-luck of any of my astronauts. (Crashed but survived. From now on all my rescue missions will be unmanned.

I almost always include an abort system in my manned rockets (you can set it as an action group), so that I can get my Kerbals to safety in the event of an overly-exciting launch. Previous to the new ARM patch (which gives you an escape tower), you could do this by placing seperatrons on the capsule and assigning several actions to the abort action group (backspace). As an example, my abort system action group will shut down all liquid engines, fire up the seperatrons, jettison the capsule, and open up parachutes. It isn't strictly necessary, since you can just revert a flight, but I include it for safety and a matter of style. It beats mashing the space bar like mad in an emergency (a losing battle for asparagus-staged rockets).

1. Have fun! Don't panic if your spacecraft falls apart/crashes/explodes the 5th time--it's all part of the game. - Real space agencies had lots of these too. 1 (. Revert flight is your friend. 2. Always check staging, your abort system, and your power supply before moving a craft to the launchpad. 3. Simpler and smaller craft usually fly better than large complex ones. 4. Design from the top down, and test every stage of a spacecraft before going beyond Kerbin orbit. For example, if you have a Mun lander, first try launching just the lander to see if you can lift off in Kerbin's gravity and land safely. Make sure each rocket stage (designed for getting your craft to orbit) is capable of lifting the whole craft. 5. Consider saving your reliable lifting stages as sub-assemblies, it will save you a lot of trouble for later launches. 6. Planes are hard to land. 7. YouTube is a great source for design tips, mission planning, and KSP hilarity (I'm looking at you, Danny2642). 8. Use QuickSave/Load at your own risk--hitting the wrong key is even worse than when you hit the space bar too soon. Sometimes, things go even worse the second time. 9. Master the Navball and manuever nodes--master the Kerbol system. 10. Your altitude indicator gives you the distance to sea level--not the actual ground. For this reason, (and a few others) never try to land on the night-side of a body. For this reason I almost always do landings in staging view.

I always include nosecones. I like my rockets to look flyable--even if it adds a ton to my overpowered boosters.

Depending on how the claw works, I might add one to each of my landers for "tipping insurance". It's just so sad when you spend hours and hours testing, and designing a craft, only to have it fall over on a Mun (or worse, Duna) landing.