mstachowsky

Bravo. A read I started seven years ago and haven't forgotten about since. Well done, and thank you.

Weirdly enough I stopped getting notified of replies, and I'm almost never on KSP forums anymore except to read this, so I'm replying and selecting "notify me" just to make sure I get the new chapters!

Yes, that helped a lot. Thanks!

It has been so very long since this started that I'm starting to forget things. I think at one point someone made a map of all of the countries over a map of Kerbin. Does that exist? Can it be re-posted? It would also be *swell* if someone could explain a few things: 1. Who (whom?) is at war with who(m)? 2. Which country is the KSC in? 3. Who are the aggressors in each conflict? (That is, who started it?)

It has been many months since I last played KSP, and probably many years since I last signed in to the forums. I started reading this story probably somewhere in 2013 (I think, although I could be wrong if it is not that old, sorry!). I at least remember that I read it on a tablet I owned about four generations of broken tablets ago, so it was a while. I have been getting periodic email updates and have enjoyed thinking about the story between chapter releases. Please keep going. I know there are a lot of us here who aren't posting after each chapter, but I'm definitely waiting for each new one to come out.

This is still great! I'm just replying so that I can get notifications, since I don't know how to set that up yet :-P

Hm, I might be missing something, but I got an email saying there was a new post (with new pictures and everything) but it doesn't show up here. Is there anything new?

I really enjoyed these and just read them all in 2 days. More please!

This one is neat. Are you doing all the artwork?

This is awesome, keep it up!

I'm trying to design a lander/plane for an Eve surface return mission. My goal is to use the smallest possible plane to do this. Since I'll have to rely on rocket thrust to get the plane into the atmosphere, it would be grand if I could do the following: 1) Land without using any fuel 2) Take off using tiny engines, say two 30KN thrust ones, with as small a fuel tank as I can for each 3) Use the wings of the plane to get me *as high into the atmosphere as possible* using those two engines 4) Once the apogee (apoeve?) is reached in my suborbital atmospheric flight, drop the wings and ignite the second stage to do the large majority of the orbital insertion 5) If this is still impossible, I'll probably make the final stage an ion powered, very light booster that can get to orbit. I feel that this task should be possible with a very small spaceplane, rather than the "MOAR FUEL" rockets I've seen for most Eve return missions. I want to know how to compute the delta-v to orbit from a given height in Eve's atmosphere, so that I can figure out the best design to use. It's a big trade-off between the first stage, powered by rockets whose sole purpose is to get my high into the atmosphere, and the final stage, which needs to be orbital. Any thoughts? Does anyone think my idea is possible?

I've experimented using parachutes for landing before, it was pretty good for sure. I've gotten fairly decent at getting my landings working now, and mainly I land on large, flat areas. I think, though, that with my newfound understanding for the strength of the landing gear, I can hit some fairly steep slopes and still be OK. MIKE

There is when you overshoot your landing site by 5km with a big fuel tanker, especially on non-flat ground where you aren't sure if there will BE a landing site in 5km :-P

Huh, yeah I just tested all of this out. I landed a plane (on the runway...) at 75m/s on the speed indicator but 5m/s ishly on the vertical speed indicator and I was perfectly fine. I have been landing WAY too carefully the WHOLE TIME I've been playing KSP :-P This explains why I always overshoot my landings by a few km by trying to keep my speed indicator under 50. Huh, this will definitely change how I play...Thanks everyone!

Interesting. How do you mean "the rest of the aircraft may not"? Is it possible to land at, say, 49m/s vertical and the rest of the plane blows up? (that would be awkward...) Does the horizontal speed factor into anything?