problemecium

I started my first mining operation on Minmus! It's still missing the ISRU converter and, well, anything to refuel, but meh. I got a contract saying to build a base, so I did.

Part Fifteen: Final Preparation Phase 1 Once the first three engine pods were attached, Kidonia was finally able to adjust its own orbit. For performance reasons, it was moved from its initial altitude of 80km up to 325km, above the altitude at which Kerbin's PQS terrain system shuts off. This will also allow it to perform longer continuous burns on its way to escape (possibly only a single burn) without fear of dropping into Kerbin's atmosphere. Following the orbit adjustment, assembly continued with the addition of the fourth engine pod. Note that while every assembly mission is being documented, not all are being published here to avoid an excessively long and repetitive thread.

168: Kmaug the Light Green swoops in from the Badlands and lays waste to the Kwarf Kingdom of Kerebor. Most of the treasure is lost, but a small ring falls into a nearby river and is washed far away, where it is later found and kept secret by Bilbo Kerman. 169: Wen Hrer's son Vernor Kerman peers into the sky through a skylight in one of the underground vaults and notices a bluish smudge. He vigorously wipes the skylight, but to no avail. In a daring escapade, he ventures outside the vault to try and wipe the outside of the skylight, but upon going outside notices the bluish speck is in fact on the sky itself, becoming the first Kerbal to observe and document Minmus.

YES! Cube planet moon!

Wanna Mad Mako my Max? Er, um... you know what I mean. See my signature for the craft file.

^ I discovered a caveat to this a while back: When a strut "forms" after you place the second end point, it will check for the first thing it hits at that exact moment. The result is that if the fairing is "exploded" due to the cursor being near it, the strut will stick to wherever the fairing piece appears (ending up sticking out form the fairing after it closes back up) or missing it entirely and going nowhere or sticking to the scaffolding. Thus it's best to make sure that the scaffolding extends far enough away from the fairing that the mouse cursor is far enough to not "explode" it when placing the second end point.

By all means, use mods, but don't complain that KSP runs too slowly or that Career Mode is broken when you have that many.

Okay so for now I'm gong to treat this as the unofficial official feedback thread, so here's my feedback: things I approve, things I'm not so sure about, and things I hope they add. - New cockpit: It's good! The old one is also good! Keep both. If that means we have two models that are functionally identical and that's bad, feel free to change the drag / torque / mass / collision tolerance / other stats to balance them. - Panther and uh, the little jet: Both neat, albeit kinda superfluous. In my opinion the power gap between the Wheesley and Whiplash isn't a big deal compared to several other things in the game. 'Course that's just me. - Incorporating some of Asteroid Day: I already consider any SQUAD-made addon "stock", but I do concur that some parts, e.g. the large solar panel, ought to just be put in the actual game. If you already have plans to do that, great! I understand leaving out things like the gold probe core though. - Please add a Size 3 reaction wheel and/or probe core. My Size 3 lift rockets are currently hampered by the need to compromise the structure and aerodynamics either putting an undersized core in the stack or radially attaching a little one. - Please add a Size 0 drogue chute. There's already a Size 0 regular chute, but it breaks at high speed (as do the other normal chutes). I always did find it a bit odd that that big orange nose cap spat out that tiny little parachute. - Mk3 tail ramp: Awesome! I'd also really like a Mk1 / Size 1 cargo bay of some kind. Bugs aside, the Size 1 service bay is really small, and with a cap on both ends it can't be expanded via stacking like the cargo bays. - "Vector" SSME: IMO this does not match the aesthetic of the rest of stock. It's all knobbly and it has a big bell and tiny mount. If you want to redo all the engines to be like this, fine, but if things are going to stay as they are it will stick out like a sore thumb. - "Goliath" Size 2 jet: Yes! We do need a Size 2 jet. Same goes for a RAPIER-like engine as well, although that can wait. I'd like it to not have that big mounting fin built in though. - The new Mk1 intake fuselage is kind of ugly. I hope that the other parts with built-in intakes (precooler, radial nacelle) stay as they are (actually the precooler could use a radiator module, since it doesn't last I checked and thus doesn't really DO anything) so that the new intake isn't my only option. It'll probably be great for replicas, but not so great for making things "sleek". There. That's all my feedback, unless I forgot something xD Oh yeah, and I'm super hyped about 64-bit on Windows.

Don't lose hope yet. According to the picture they posted when they announced "four new antennae", the four new antennae consist of three stack-mounted dishes and the antenna from Asteroid Day. So at the very least that implies they're making the antenna stock, if not the whole thing. If they leave anything behind, it'll probably be that convenient but overpowered all-in-one probe body.

AFAIK it's okay to post a reaction gif as long as it's not your entire post or really really big. I confess that I'm a rare blasphemer who thinks it's cool but redundant. I take people's word when they say there's a power gap between the Whiplash and the Wheesley, because I've never run into any problems with it. I do concur that a Size 2 jet is nice, but I don't personally see a need for a third Size 1 or for a Size 0 for that matter (not that I won't be likely to find it useful).

"KSP is unplayable with any kind of large ship because you'll be stuck watching a 3 FPS slideshow and it'll crash to desktop and break your save every five minutes unless you install ATM, Part Welder, and Mechjeb." ^ Don't let anything like this discourage you. Obviously the game slows down with giant motherships, but they're so awesome you're likely to find it's totally worth it. Just try and build with part count in mind, i.e. don't put on 80 struts when 2 will do, use the largest fuel tanks applicable, etc.

I like both, although looking closely at the old one it does have one glaring flaw: a Kerbal head can't fit inside that windshield.

My advice: - KSP uses a proprietary "KSPParticleEmitter" component based on Unity's old particle system. It's very difficult to get a mushroom cloud out of that, so you're basically doomed to have to write a script that moves the particles as you desire, which means creating your own AddOn. - nuclear mushroom clouds are often pictured with the "cap" at a certain height and a "stem" connecting it to the ground, but the way they actually move is hard to tell from the pictures (and even a lot of videos). It only looks like that at one point during the discharge; what actually occurs is that a cloud of hot plasma is generated at the explosion site (i.e. basically on the ground), which begins to rise due to its lower density. Since the outside cools faster than the inside, the outer surface of the cloud slows down while the interior continues to rise. As it continues to cool, the outer part shrinks and becomes neutrally buoyant, meaning it stays still and starts to form a trail of smoke along the upward path of the main cloud. Of course, as the cloud rises, it gradually cools and loses mass, growing dim and eventually shrinking away to nothing. tl;dr: Get a large pot of hot, almost boiling water and drop a teaspoon of salt into the center. Watch how the salt "bounces" off the bottom and forms a little mushroom cloud of its own. Alternately, get a large glass of water and drop a drop of food coloring into it for an upside-down version. Either is a rough approximation of the sort of motion you want.

So the idea is that if you run out of, say, Scientists, you can retrain an Engineer as a Scientist without having to hire fresh Kerbals? Neat! I suggest that you have some sort of cost (financial or otherwise) and that respecced Kerbals lose their levels (except maybe in Sandbox mode).

I like this concept! Good luck making it work~!

Let's chill, everyone It is true that it is preferable to not swipe parts from other mods, even if the license on said mods says it's permissible. That said, it's fine if you want to borrow parts to get your alpha versions off the ground, which you can later replace with original part models. I just recommend, if you haven't already, that you check with the NovaPunch guys first to make sure they're okay with you redistributing their models in your own pack. It's a good start that you've given credit at least!

"RIP SSTO," people were saying just a few weeks ago xD Well done, sir.

Not bad ideas, but for now you can simply use the Administration building to adopt a 100% Science-to-Funds conversion strategy, as I did last time I cleared the tree. Then you don't have to worry about useless Science piling up any more, and rather than go to waste it just turns into more money.

A: What everyone else has said. Even if it's full of flaws now, large improvements are imminent. B: Challenge and reward. I like arriving at the Mun or another planet and being rewarded with a whole pile of Science, Funds, and Reputation, even if they're just meaningless video game points. It makes unremarkable accomplishments like Mun landings just a little less unremarkable. C: TBH this looks like a question about Career mode in the title and first sentence, but the OP quickly devolves into yet another "KSP is too buggy to be playable" complaint. You have our sympathies if KSP is unstable for you, but it's worse for some than others. There are things you can do to improve the situation (see the dozens of advice threads in the Help forum), and you should always remember that KSP is a game that needs your love and patience.

^ I second this query. Kerbin orbits at around 9 km/s, and Jool presumably orbits at a few km/s itself (though I don't remember how many), so if you come in parallel to Jool's path, then by subtracting a positive number from another positive number you should get a smaller number than 9 km/s. Uhh... right? *is bad at math*

I have a 3rd Gen. Core i7 and KSP runs pretty well as long as I don't go full Whackjob. So you don't have to go terribly modern I guess.

Something bigger than mine - I have been challenged!

Meh, I could do that, but what's the point? xD

Not to nitpick, but when I watched I heard "ships over multiple cores," which is ambiguous: one ship may be able to split across cores, or only groups of ships can be distributed among cores. I just want to avoid letting anyone jump to any conclusions until we get some conclusive evidence, as it were

Hmm. If that SQUADcast transcript is accurate / Max's claim is accurate (not that I mistrust anybody, it's just a grapevine effect), then I sure hope that it doesn't break saves, because Kidonia could REALLY use an FPS boost lately.