Cirocco

So I've tried my hand at spaceplanes again yesterday for the first time since 1.0.2, and being the person that I am I immediately jumped to the MkIII parts in an attempt to build a super-heavy, possibly long-range SSTO. And I kinda hit a wall: the sound barrier. My designs yesterday were completely unable to break mach 1 on airbreathing mode. I have some ideas now on how to streamline the designs, but I do wonder: Has anyone been able to go SSTO spaceplane or even super/hypersonic with MkIII parts? Almost all the SSTO spaceplane designs I've seen so far use MkII parts. And that makes sense: they're streamlined, flat and pointy and create a ton less drag. But I do wonder: can we still efficiently push stuff into orbit with MkIII parts and is it worth it? For the most part, staged rockets seem vastly superior, but I'm not giving up on my spaceplanes! I do so like it when my spaceships have wings

I'm more interested in the reverse: electroactive polymers that contract and extend when submitted to electric charge. This might just me having a bit of a pipedream, but if you could spin electroactive nanothreads, then weave them together.... Hellooooooo artificial muscle.

personal recommendations: chatterer (still have to download this one myself, but I've heard nothing but positive stuff about it) RCS build aid (if you're into VTOL planes. If you're not, you can probably do without) EVE (short for Environmental Visual Enhancements. Adds clouds to kerbin and various weather patterns to different atmospheres. Very cool) KER (Kerbal Engineer. Very handy for delta-V readouts) That's about all the ones I use. I don't like to go too much for game-altering mods, but anything that just gives more info or increases quality of play? Yes please!

Mostly I learned lots of stuff. I learned how to do ascent profiles decently. I learned that just hitting 100% throttle and going "yeeeeeee-haaaaaaaw!" all the way to space doesn't work anymore and causes the rocket to flip out and die. Throttle down when your SRB's start to run out kids! I learned that mach effects are a real thing and that max Q in my rockets happens around 300 m/s. This is also the time when you do NOT want to be touching the controls. I learned that rockets are wobble as all hell. I learned that I can do Mun surface missions without the use of manouver nodes or visible patched conics on the map screen (yay! so proud of myself!) I learned that powered landings are soooooooo much easier if you just let Jeb or Val keep the ship retrograde rather than attempting to do it yourself and constantly over-compensating and finally I learned that playing KSP 1.0 gives me magical time-warping abilities in real life where what should be 30 minutes of game is actually 2 hours in real life.

seems like you're getting your science at a rather slow rate. Since money isn't a problem, try upgrading your astronaut complex ASAP to be able to do EVA reports, this wil help science gathering considerable. Secondly, focus on unlocking more science equipment in the tech tree and milk all possible spots/biomes for as much science as possible (EVA reports, goo and mat bay in flight, upper atmosphere, space and space high over kerbin for example. That stuff alone is worth a ton of science). also don't forget that EVA reports near Kerbin vary depending on which biome you are over and give a respectable amount of science points. Get a ton of them in one mission by going out, taking a report, storing it in the pod, rinse, repeat. Using these techniques I got into orbit after about 1 hour, mun flyby after 2-3. I'm now on hour 4 and should have all the parts I need for a standard Mun landing and return.

Not entirely agreed. Yes, once you know how to get a rocket to the mun, your knowledge does not change. However, having to go to the mun without solar panels, a part limit, re-entry heat (and possibly no heatshields), no manouver nodes, no patched conics showing up on the map, etc. gives you additional challenges. It forces you to create different craft than you would build normally. One which may require some creative thinking and might not be as optimal as you would like it to be. secondly: career mode is indeed grindy for people who are long-time vets of KSP who find no satisfaction in building crafts which must adhere to what to them must feel like artificial constraints. However, as a mode for people who have never played KSP before, I think it's pretty darn good. It has a learning curve and introduces you to the ways of rocketry in a step-by-step way. Basically: any single player campaign in almost any game becomes a grindy bore once you're so good at it that you can do it with your eyes closed. Vets can build to their heart's content in sandbox, that's kinda why it exists.

Brilliant! I found flowerchild's post an hour or so ago, but it's a very good idea to give it a new thread and make it visible for the entire community. Many thanks comrade!

Well as far as required hotfixes go, with my limited time in KSP 1.0, I can only echo two things that have already been mentioned: - parachutes seem to behave... strangely... in the new aero. Deceleration is far too sudden. The actual terminal velocity they give seems to be okay (though again, very limited experience on my part) but going from over 1000 m/s to 50 in one second seems... a tad silly. Jeb and Val didn't seem to mind though... - heat shields physicsSignificance problem/pod flipping problem. Been said and demonstrated several times already Other then that though, I haven't yet encountered much in the way of undesirable features/bugs. And I'm loving the new update a LOT. Well done SQUAD! Also, since you seem to be following the thread with interest: Hi RoverDude!

This is very much what i found as well (including the glee of making orbit for the first time again ). Slight alteration on my part: I aim for just over 30° at 10k and 45-50 at 20k. Once I hit 25k I pitch over more agressively.

I also started 1.0 with career, though I went for a slightly harder normal mode (basically normal mode with permadeath). And yes, it took me about an hour or so to get to orbit as well. Mostly not due to aerodynamics or anything, but due to the revamped tech tree. I was really hurting for some larger fuel tanks, SAS probes and larger SRB's in the early game. I haven't landed on the mun yet, but thanks to experience with previous versions, I was able to get a Mun flyby (had plenty of fuel for an orbit, but didn't bother) at about 2-3 hours in. After about 4 hours clocked, I feel I have all the parts needed to comfortably and safely send Kerbals on return trips to anywhere in the Kerbin system. The only challenge I still have with that is trying to bring back more than just the command pod back down to Kerbin. Whever I put anything under the pod (materials bay or the new circular storage), the whole thing flips over - pod first - and burns up. The only answer I've seen to this is to deploy chutes while high up and with re-entry flames all around. And that just seems silly. Can't wait till I unlock airbrakes.

allow me to clafiry: it seems that the MkI pod has an extremely high temperature tolerance when coming in with the rear end facing forward. If it comes in nose-first, it burns up and dies. So while no, it doesn't have an ablative heatshield built in, it does seem to have a high tolerance on the bottom. This is mostly empirical evidence though: every time I tried to bring down a MkI with some science equipment or fuel tanks and engine below it, descent went fine until it flipped over, pod-first. After that, the pod (and the rest of the craft) had about 5 seconds to live. If I use only the pod + chute on exactly the same descent, everything is perfectly dandy and pod comes down without any overheat at all. I have yet to try sending in a pod alone, nose first, but it's late now and I have work in the morning. Will test tomorrow

you don't need a heat shield on the MkI pod, it has one built in. And a simple pod + chute works perfectly for me in early career. Hell, it's the ONLY thing that works in early career.

well it's been a while but... my biggest learning walls were the following: - Powered landing (first ones attempted on the Mun). Dear GOD that was hard, kept tipping over. Of course my lander design was a problem as well, I made my stuff way too thin and tall. These days my landers are by default a lot wider. - rendezvous and docking. first rendez-vous took some time, and I remember spending like 100 RCS fuel on a single docking with a couple simple craft the first couple times I tried. These days I do docking manouvres on light craft with like 3 to 5 units of RCS fuel. - interplanetary burns. Getting a decent interplanetary trajectory still gives me trouble. Especially if the target gravity well isn't too big. - Eve ascent vehicle. I literally spent 3 months dedicating almost all my KSP time developing an Eve ascent lander that could adhere to my personal goals and limitations. for reference, those limitations were: must be able to make orbit from sea level. Must be as light as possible. No external command seats allowed. Must be able to return science data from both the atmospheric descent and from the surface. Must use aerospikes as main engine power because engine Isp levels out at 1 atm pressure and really, it shouldn't. So use aerospikes where atmo pressure isn't much of an issue. Had to invent a whole new way of staging, but in the end I managed around a 170-ton lander that could do it. I deleted it a couple versions back though. With the new parts and experience I have now I could probably do better. I might re-design after 1.0. - Single stage spaceplanes beyond LKO. Strangely enough, single-seater SSTO spaceplanes didn't give me THAT much trouble. It took a bit of learning, but not that much more that regular rocketry. A couple of posts on aerodynamics and aircraft construction on the forums really helped a lot. Mass-transport or getting SSTO's to Mun and Minmus and back was quite the hurdle though. And while we're touching on long-range SSTO's... - SSTDuna without refuel. Didn't take me as long as the Eve ascent vehicle, but still a couple weeks. Personal restrictions on this one were: must do Runway-Duna surface- Runway without any refuel of any kind. Must carry at least 3 kerbals. Must use MkIII parts (the old ones at the time). End result wasn't perfect (she was really, REALLY hard to handle upon re-entry and when gliding. Sooooo heavy in the back) but she made it. And I won't soon forget the feeling I had when I set her down on the runway, drained of just about every possible resource but completely intact and having fulfilled all mission parameters.

To SQUAD! Words cannot express my thanks to you for re-kindling my boyhood passion for spaceflight. You have helped me find something that I had lost somewhere along the road growing up: Curiosity. Your game has prompted me and countless other people to research a huge amount of knowledge on aerodynamics, astrophysics, static and dynamic physics and so much more. To SQUAD! To chasing your dreams! To always staying curious! To Kerbals! To explosions! To always pressing ever forward! *raises glass enthousiastically, spilling half of it* Hear Hear!

I personally don't think the external command seat re-entry days are over because of two reasons: 1) people (and especially people with an engineering mindset) are stubborn. The KSP community will most definitely be experimenting with getting kerbals safely down to the ground in external command seats. Hell, I'll bet you there will be an "egg-drop" challenge in the challenge section of the forums within days of 1.0 release. Something along the lines of "get a kerbal in an external command seat safely to the ground with as little weight as possible. bonus points for no heatshields and kerbal has to have a view". 2) this is KSP! when did kerbals let the possibility of horrible fiery death ever deter them from teh advancement of SCIENCE?!

Ah yes, project Orion a.k.a. "hey guys, let's fly a nuclear reactor into space by nuking it repeatedly" funniest part being of course that barring the radiation, this actually could be a really efficient way to propel a spacecraft you have to laugh at the ideas humanity comes up with sometimes

well seeing as she's a pilot she'll do rotations with Jeb on my missions. Really, that's about it. I see no reason to treat her any differently than her male counterparts. as for hiring new kerbonauts: kerbals are hired based on skill level (pilots going down in landers are preferred to have a bit higher than average courage, scientists a little lower than average stupidity). I'll try to keep my ratio around the 50/50 mark, but again, skills matter, not gender.

well, my shoe just went all Heisenberg/minecraft on me. the object nearest to you that is also the nearest to a piece of paper starts crying loudly and uncontrollably.

hang on, hang on... Musk did say that the landing went just fine. So the touchdown was a soft one. It just toppled over after that. ... that sounds like process tweaking to me. This is proof that the technology itself works! Cause enough for celebration to me, break out the drinks!

aaaaaaargh..... The expletives I'm uttering right now... but it was a landing! that in and of itself is good news!

stage 1 entry burn started...

"stage separation confirmed. Good luck stage 1" ... THE TENSION!!!!

Go, go, you beautiful baby!!!

well at least there is another window tomorrow... Now just hope that everything will be in order in time for another launch attempt EDIT: ah, awesome, thanks leszek

no go. weather violation