Starstrider42

Orbit manipulator (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/70881-0-23-5-Orbit-Manipulator-Series-%28WIP%29-%28Updated-March-12-2014%29?highlight=orbit+manipulator) lets orbits that dip below 70 km slowly decay. I don't know of any mods that let orbits decay outside the KSP atmosphere limit, but extrapolating from some aerobraking I've done it looks like anything above 80 km would take years (i.e., long after you've finished the game) to de-orbit. So a "realism" mod along these lines would be a little too specific to really matter.

The first, yes. Open GameData/RemoteTech2/RemoteTech_Settings.cfg, and add more STATION{} blocks to represent extra tracking stations. The second I think is under development.

Edit your first post, then "Go advanced".

Go for Minmus. It's by far the easiest target, especially if you want to land.

Did you install FAR at some point? "Flips around" sounds suspiciously like an aerodynamics problem.

Correct. At high tech levels (or sandbox mode?), all probe cores have a built-in 3 km antenna. Good for support ships flying around a main vessel, not so good for standalone rockets. Look for the DP-10 antenna in the Science parts list.

I'm pretty sure this part isn't so. I've stored over a dozen experiments in a capsule.

Are you using the "Set as Target" function in map view? That should tell you how close your intercept orbit is and help you fine tune it.

Mostly correct. The "processing" is actually its least useful feature, because it only boosts transmission efficiency -- if you return the science to Kerbin, you get the same number of science points whether or not you processed it. The science lab is also the only crew space (AFAIK) that can store multiple copies of the same experiment from the same situation in the same biome. Useful if you want to spam multiple experiments to get that remaining 10% of the science limit.

Yay! The lack of any indicator was the main reason I avoided using trim in my aircraft.

...that you don't host them directly from the forums? This is the first I've heard of it. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/image.php?u=106949&type=sigpic&dateline=1395724437

Go back to the main window, open the "KSP Real Time System" menu, click "Upload Maneuver", and manually copy the departure burn properties into the window. I haven't gotten it to work right the one time I tried it (the maneuver node appeared, but it didn't lead to an intercept), but that might have been because I tried to schedule a maneuver several weeks in advance.

Stations are useful as refueling bases, or as places to store Kerbals from large ships (I'm currently doing a 5-kerbal mission with only one reentry-capable capsule, so I'll be stopping by a station on my way home). Some mods also add new space station capabilities, such as long-term research or orbital construction.

You don't need to use imgur. Just go to the signature page and click "upload signature image".

Are you talking about RT1? Because RT2 does not vary transmission efficiency. In fact, what you're describing would be pretty hard to do in a mod, because KSP makes the transmission fraction a property of the experiment, not the antenna. You realize "more data in the same period of time" and "transmits faster" are the exact same thing, right?

Yes, but think about it from a coding perspective -- if some objects float in water and others sink (and I agree with you that KSP does not do proper buoyancy calculations in either case), then that must mean the game has separate code for floating objects and sinking objects. At the least, it's an annoying inconsistency in the game engine. At the most, it's an interesting pathway for modding.

Wait... asteroids sink in water, even though all other rocket parts float???

The second part of my argument still applies: what do four variants of "80 Kerbal-day food canister" (for example), differing only in volume, actually get you in gameplay terms?

I've heard that some people have been able to chain gravity assists by doing carefully timed maneuvers at each flyby. Personally, I've never been able to pull it off. There is a standalone tool that lets you predict gravity assist windows (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/36476-WIN-KSP-Trajectory-Optimization-Tool-v0-11-2-Mission-Architect-Pre-release-1!), but it only works for a two-planet trajectory (three if you count Kerbin).

Good to know, I don't use the GUI anyway.

I can confirm that Certified Badass doesn't register whether or not you change the text (though the amended text DOES get logged to halloffame.ksp). Not sure if this bug requires specific circumstances or not. Happens with KSP 0.23. Partial workaround: award the kerbal with For all Kerbalkind (or some other ribbon you'll be able to recognize in the log), then after you've closed the game open halloffame.ksp and replace X4 (etc.) with X3. The Certified Badass ribbon will stay in the log, but it won't show up in-game.

Also, is there a way to disable life support monitoring for a particular vessel? I've got a Mun lander whose crew all died (for non-TAC related reasons). I'd like to keep the abandoned lander in the game as a debris object, but it's cluttering up the TAC display.

It would be nice if this bit were documented in the first post or somewhere equally prominent. For a while, I was panicking thinking I had to check in on my space station once a day because the mod seemed to assume it was running on battery power alone. Since I never got a confident answer to my post about it earlier in the thread, I can only assume other players were also confused about how electricity works with TAC.

Ah, ok. Well, to design a rocket you need to either do some math, or have it done for you. Kerbal Engineer Redux and MechJeb both do thrust and delta-V calculations for you; unfortunately, they both have compatibility issues with 0.23.5 at the moment. I think there's a hotfix out for MechJeb, so you might try that one if you're in a hurry. Otherwise, Kerbal Engineer is more "lightweight" if all you want are rocket specs. For each stage, from top to bottom, you need to answer two questions: Does the ship have enough delta-V for the maneuvers you want it to do? For example, if you want something that can land on the Mun and make a direct trip back to Kerbin (with no orbiter), you need: About 1000 m/s to go from Mun orbit to landing (personal experience) About 700 m/s to launch into Mun orbit (personal experience) About 310 m/s to escape the Mun (from the map I linked) About 200 m/s to lower your periapsis into Kerbin's atmosphere (combination of personal experience, and fudging from the map). for a minimum of 2200 m/s. You might want more if you want the same stage to take care of, for example, insertion into Mun orbit, but it's usually more efficient to make that a separate stage. To maximize delta-V, you want to pick an engine with a high I_sp rating (the LV-909 is probably your best choice at this point), and you want to maximize fuel while minimizing other mass. Hence my advice to drop the other four engines; they weigh 0.5 tons each. [*]Does the ship have enough thrust to fight against gravity for launches and landings? This is determined by the ratio of your engines' thrust to your rocket's weight, which goes up as you drain fuel. For launch the LV-T30 and LV-T45 are both good choices (the latter is less efficient, but may make your rocket easier to steer). The LV-909 is really too weak to use until you're already moving at, say, half of orbital speed, and no longer fighting gravity per se. The ideal thrust-to-weight ratio for a Kerbin launch stage is 1.2 when full -- any less, and you'll waste fuel almost-hovering; any more, and you'll have to throttle down your engine to keep it from wasting fuel against atmospheric drag. Again, use the minimum engine weight you can get away with -- lighter rockets fly farther for less fuel. For landing on the Mun, theoretically the same rules apply, except that you want the thrust to the (Mun weight) ratio, which is 6 times higher. In practice, I like to have my landers capable of at least 5 m/s of acceleration (Kerbin TWR of 0.5, Mun TWR of 3), because otherwise you risk not giving yourself enough time to slow down. For a single LV-909 engine (50 kN of thrust) on the Mun (gravity of 1.63 m/s^2), you should be fine as long as your lander weighs 10 tons or less when you begin your descent. As a general rule of thumb, I_sp and saving mass gets more and more important as you go to later and later stages -- any excess mass in a stage will hurt the performance of that stage and ALL earlier stages, but have no effect on later stages. So make your lander as light as you can, and work backward from there.

The SFS files are ordinary text files. You can open them in any text editor (Notepad, Notepad++, Editpad, ...)