BudgetHedgehog

If you follow the download link in the OP, it leads to the GitHub Releases page and you can download from there. EDIT: Something something ninja..

And what did these spacecraft look like? I'm going to bet pretty lightweight. People making SSTO spaceplanes without jet engines kinda proves my point - the ion drives don't have to push as much mass. If you have a lightweight enough craft - pit, xenon, jet fuel, adapter, jet and the ions - then I can kind of see it working. Maybe I'm just thinking of it wrong but when I think of SSTO planes, I think of ascending on jets until air runs out and then pushing through to higher altitudes and I can't see the ions providing enough thrust then, what with all the flames and approaching terminal V. I've no doubt that one can SSTO using ions, especially now they've been buffed, I'm just questioning their usefulness in a plane built around the Mk2 shape with only two ion drives.. I have a hard time imagining it but I'd love to be proven wrong. It could just be that I've been playing with FAR and NearFuture that I have trouble imagine their usefulness in atmosphere and as an SSTO engine.

But.. if you transmit to a science lab to boost transmission value.. you've already transmitted it.. Which means that to take advantage of the boosted science lab value without a science lab onboard, there'd have to be no loss during transmission to it, which this raises the question of 'why would you ever do anything else?'. Just put a lab into orbit around wherever you are and go down to the surface and transmit away with the bonus of being lighter and still getting the science lab boost. It removes the need to dock and everything (except for the goo and SciJr).. Part of the point of losing some value during non-lab transmission is that it's more beneficial to Science if you boost it with a lab - but to not make it OP and too easy, you have to either carry the lab round with you or rendezvous and dock with it to take advantage of it.

It better be Not Exactly Aerodynamic Research... (I think 5thHorseman came up with that)

All these people suggesting xenon to go with the tricoupler are forgetting one thing, I think - ion engines have very low thrust. They can almost give a light weight probe a useable TWR. You're putting two (how are you going to power both?) one the back of a plane. Yes, SSTO planes are going to be light but really, you're pushing either 3 engines (one central and two on the wings) or 1 (RAPIER? Or a nuke? Because there's no way ion thrusters can be used as your orbital insertion engines), all the wings, a command pod.. they'd only be useful for very small OMS, not for interplanetary travel, the thrust is too damned low. And you'd need to create about 18 E/s - that's one Gigantor or 9 of the smaller extendible ones. And they have to always be in direct sunlight. Ion thrusters don't make much sense to put on the back of a heavy cargo plane. On one that's made of cubic struts, massless batteries and solar panels, sure, but not an SSTO. I think this could be the best idea, as much as I'm hesitant to install yet another mod that's only there because of a dependency. EDIT: If Pork doesn't want to implement that, my vote stays resolutely at 'a battery'.

Ooh, I see you made some headway with RBI! They look nice, I'd love for more tracks and stuff EDIT: If you're going to be restarting KSP a lot to test these, have you heard of sirkut's DevHelper? Give you the "ability to not just load a saved game but also go straight to either the VAB or SPH!"

If you're going to add mod resources, there's no end to the possibilities. Kethane, Water, Life Support, ArgonGas, Uranium, WasteHeat.. not to mention all the Real Fuel options. No, I think it'd be best to stick with stock resources, which means either Oxidiser, Electric Charge, XenonGas, SolidFuel or EVA Propellant.

Electric charge? Would be handy to have a Mk2 shaped battery instead of carting some around in the cargo bay.

Yes, plenty of people. Just do a quick search in this thread for exception or overflow, you're not alone. It can be fixed by turning the camera FOVs off, which is nice. And I believe the official word on the matter is "not a SP+ problem", even though it definitely is. Am even willing to bet real money on that.

If I had more time, I probably would've made a 3D prototype. Turns out that actually, paper makes a pretty good model making material. As long you strengthen it, it's super useful.

For the repulsor wheels, I can only suggest one thing:

For a start, Squad is kinda busy getting the game scope-complete. Fixing bugs, making the actual game code so modders can access and use it etc.. Secondly, texture compression is of no real concern to them - in a stock install as released by the devs, there's no need for it - there just aren't enough textures to warrant compression. But, as I've said before, it would behove Squad to change that outlook in the future because A, the stock game is only going to get bigger and B, there are plenty of popular and large mods around and Squad isn't exactly hostile to modders.

I did say they were from a madman! Ok, so I wanted to try and come up with some smaller designs/foldable ones. That was the result of a couple of hours at work, along with the following paper prototypes (yes, the piston even works, it's not just a piece of paper underneath another and yes, those are staples for hinges They don't call me a perfectionist for nothing...): Both fold away to reduce width and both use said folding mechanism as suspension (I don't know if this was a good idea or not). Thoughts? I'll get to testing now

Behold, the scribblings of a madman! I'll get round to that PM later :-)

So I finally had a chance to play with these and first off, I love them. Finally, wheels that don't suck! I was whizzing around KSC at 20m/s on the wheels in the first video with no worries, it was pretty fascinating watching the anti-roll numbers and stuff.. Though one thing I did wonder was what use the repulsor mode had? Maybe I'm missing something (or the mod is) but it just flipped my wheels. However, I'd like to offer pointers to areas of possible improvement (apologies if you know about any of these): 1, unless they're perfectly balanced around the CoM, the heavier side/end of the vehicle will droop and sag. I guess this is due to the advanced suspension, but it'd be great if the effect was minimised by a fair amount. 2, they are, for the most part, really quite big. Almost unusabley big for me - I can't see anything using the big wheels fitting inside a fairing (which is needed because FAR). I'd love to use them but, like with the stock large wheels, they're just too darn big. Are there smaller versions/ideas in the works? 3, the repulsors are a brilliant idea. Lovely stuff but they suffer from the above problems and additionally, they're not powered. If they were real, they could move and change direction by pointing in different directions - I know they're basically an invisible wheel so that's not possible here but it also means that it wouldn't really be OP to enable them to be powered. I don't know if it'd be possible to make something that can be powered but has no traction with the ground but yeah.. So those are my ideas and feedback. I should note that I got these on the 27th, so if either of those things has been addressed/changed, I'll redownload. Also, when I get back tonight, I'll see about ideas for placement and cost (though, there's probably nothing wrong with using the stock wheels stats). EDIT: Also, I'd like to throw my name into the hat for serious testing. I can run a clean install (on both 32 and 64bit versions) and with any mods you care to test against. Plz?

Also: Science Revisited (I posted a mirror on the last page) and DMagic's Orbital Science. Albert - that url is blacklisted here and the site is generally frowned upon

Both can be found in their respective threads. The Vanguard mod is linked in the post above yours and KAS is available on Curse as well.

No no, it's cool, the part already exists, I was just looking for a different shaped thing so I couldn't see it. It's this bit I wanted: The offset axle doesn't matter, it's the functionality I was after. As sirkut will testify, sometimes I can be a bit scatter-brained

Something like this, maybe?

... That part will do nicely, thank you. why didn't I see that before...

You're a gent! Looking forward to whatever direction this takes - honestly, I'd like for the light level in the OP album to be available but in a perfect world, there'd be some sort of slider like "ambient VAB lighting: ----|-------------". No idea if it's possible or not, but I'd be happy with a simple toggle on/off if not

You released it! I can't believe I missed this first time round, I've been checking this forum relentlessly for days! Will download and report back when I can! Thank you! (Also, in the first picture you posted in that thread suggesting something like this, there was a picture of the VAB with the lights turned off and shadows on the floor, like they'd just turned the lights off. Could you repost that pic? I think it's such a cool shot (and I also kinda want to post it to reddit.. )

Interesting fact - vessels can indeed dock to themselves. Struggling to find the picture/video I saw, but it's certainly possible (albeit controlling the docking part with an engine and not robotics). And they should also be able to dock to the same craft twice. Hmm, I kinda want to try this out now, brb. (ignoring the fact that IR and docking don't mix well yet) EDIT: So in related news, I've come up with an idea for a new part - one that starts at a straight 180 degrees and can fold back on itself. I drew a picture: If something like this can be done, that'd be awesome. I know the geometry is pretty hard to grasp (it's why I did it on paper - you can't see the countless scribbles above it) but it could certainly be done. Even if it's two of the 90 degree bends basically welded together (though I don't know if IR would support two moving hinges in one part), I wouldn't mind.. just something like that? Maybe so, maybe no?

Uhh... 7zip's free.. O_o

Perfectly polar trajectories are, for the most part, not needed or even useful. Unless you plan on mining at the poles, of course, but equatorial orbits are much easier to both exit the SoI from and rendezvous with. So there's no real need to scan the poles.