cantab

No. I tried Realism Overhaul and didn't enjoy it. In my view it's overcomplicated. Having ten different configs for every engine, having different engines which use the same fuel and oxidizer but in a slightly different ratio, that kind of stuff adds little to gameplay, it's just jumping through more hoops. Abandoning standard part dimensions makes stock builds a mess and makes the base RO feel incomplete and wanting even more mods. There's room for more realism in KSP and some aspects of RO I like - variety of fuels, limited ignitions, need for ullage. But overall I feel Realism Overhaul is not the way to go about it. There's a difference between attempting to be a realistic game and attempting to simulate the real world, and KSP is better off being the former. As for paid DLC, I'd pay for high quality planets. Something that's a real leap above what we have now in stock and in mods, something that approaches the visual quality and detail of other games. I'm not so fussed whether it's Earth, Kerbin, or somewhere entirely new.

Yes. Dead useful, stupidly obscure, doesn't work in map view despite the widgets looking the same. Fortunately that bit of the UI is something that's getting a redesign for 1.1.

The star is already made for you though. What matters is whether it's more economical to build a big solar power satellite (complete with some method to send the power elsewhere) or a big nuclear fusion reactor (which might be close to where the power is needed).

7/10. Looks like a lego ship. That is not a bad thing.

Virtually all mods work the same on all operating systems. (The only exception I know is Advanced Fly-By-Wire, a mod for improved joystick support.)

My guess is simply that nobody's wanted to send a spacecraft with high power demands beyond Jupiter. In the inner solar system solar arrays are proven technology and plenty good enough, especially going by the figures Streetwind mentioned. And I'll take back my previous statement - while I still think some sort of "ion drive" will be used to get humans to Mars it may well be solar powered not nuclear powered. In the other solar system probes have got by with RTGs, or even solar arrays at Jupiter for Galileo IIRC.

How to get stable 64-bit KSP, with FAR and all the mods you can shake a stick at.

I've observed that too, and it seems strange because transfers should be symmetric. Maybe the inclination of your Kerbin orbit (or escape trajectory) factors into it.

I forgot about the fuel cells. IIRC fuel-cell-ion propulsion works out at 1600 s Isp or so, with the option of using other power sources to improve it, for example a battery bank for short correction burns.

Sent off another interplanetary mission, a little probe rover to Asclepius. And continued to milk the rewards of my Mun science station with another 500 science in about 60 days.

Pretty much. Although in special relativity ideas like "it's already through the bottle" become slippery. And yeah, it's a bit of a fudge really for the reasons mentioned - the strobe analogy is a good one. It's still an awesome piece of work with potential uses, but it's not a straight high-speed camera. On the topic of "seeing light", well you see anything when it either emits, reflects, or refracts light. Light itself can do none of those things, so indeed technically you're not seeing the light but the objects illuminated as the light pulse passes through. But this seems somehow pedantic. We seem quite happy to talk of seeing laser beams in real life, ignoring that actually you're seeing dust lit up by the laser.

All valid concerns but not insurmountable ones. Full-blown nuclear reactors have already flown and operated in space, though I believe most used solid-state methods to turn heat into electricity a la RTGs, rather than turbines or other moving parts. The Russian Topaz reactor massed 320 kilograms and produced 10 kW of power. I don't know what their shielding was like, but considering radiation is an issue for electronics and they needed to be fitted onto a rocket on the ground I'd be surprised if they were totally unshielded. Scaling up may be a challenge and mass will probably be the major limit on available reactor power, but ultimately we're talking about proven technology here.As for TWR, well ion drives already have low TWR. Interplanetary journeys are long anyway giving the drive enough time to do its work. NASA's Dawn probe was capable of around 10-5g acceleration and it spent around half its travels coasting, though it wasn't in a hurry, but a sensible duration Earth-Mars transfer still only needs a TWR around that magnitude. It's a bigger issue for Moon trips or if you want to make an "express" transfer to another planet.

The budget of government space agencies is a political topic itself, therefore according to Squad not a subject for discussion here. No conspiracy theories needed.

try uname -a at the command line to confirm your system architecture.

Yeah, thermal signature. Compared to a bare star a Dyson sphere would be too dim in the visible and too bright in the infrared, and the spectral lines would be all wrong. If a significant portion of the stars in a whole galaxy had been Dyson sphered, we'd see it. But keep in mind even a million stars barely qualifies as a "significant portion", and partial Dyson spheres would proportionately reduce the effect. And a reminder that a realistic Dyson sphere is just a load of big satellites all on their own orbits, enough that they soak up virtually all the star's light.

There's no technological reason a perfectly well shielded nuclear reactor couldn't be flown in space. Powering some sort of "ion drive" it would be more efficient and probably safer than a nuclear thermal rocket, and better for an interplanetary trip too because ion drive propellant doesn't boil off like liquid hydrogen. In my view it's probably the way to get people to Mars and back. The barriers are political, which means I'm not allowed to discuss them on Squad's forums.

Comparing apples and oranges. Hitting enter = clicking the primary button is a standard UI convention.

On a Kerballed ship power is not required for control. Staging, throttling engines, and steering will all work with no electricity whatsoever. Reaction wheels that rotate your craft won't work but steering by engine gimbal, RCS, control surfaces, or most wheels will all still operate.

There's a tutorial, but to answer your questions: 1) Store data in the lab as you would in a command pod. Then, with a Kerbal in the lab, right click the lab and choose "Review Data" and you'll have the option to process it provided that result hasn't been processed already. 2) Not sure. Try it and see. 3) The lab wants power. Half a dozen extending panels or a Gigantor or two should be enough. When you come to transmit the science it can be a long transmission so have 2000-3000 Ec to support that. The lab isn't a command module, so add a probe core or command pod to it. If you're going to have a Mun station consider putting a lab there too, it can process the same experiments as the base for even more science. (Personally I went with just an orbital station and no base, because I'm good at rendezvous and docking but bad at precision landing.) 4) Quite straightforward. I suggest a symmetric arrangement with the lab in the middle and fuel tanks on either end. Mount your choice of engines, and don't forget a docking port or probe core on the top that you can right-click and choose "control from here" on. Launch it in the vertical position. Remember that docking on a planetary surface is hard, so I suggest a simple one piece base.

Unless development abruptly stops then yes, I expect multiplayer. The timewarp problem has its challenges but they can be overcome. Hopefully Squad won't resort to FTL travel - warp drives and jump drives are fun but so are orbital mechanics and interplanetary transfers and that's KSP's unique selling point.

Regarding GP2, I'll say what I've said before: I want to see axial tilt in the game and then I want a second gas planet with a 90-ish degree tilt like Uranus. That will make it a new challenge and not just a second Jool.

I've got multiple copies of each KSP version since 0.23 when I bought it, as well as the 0.18.3 and 1.0 demos. All apart from the latest got put in a zip to save some space though. Point of order, if it's only on your external drive that's not backing it up, that's archiving it.

Try editing the settings.cfg to set half-res textures, that might help as a band-aid fix until 1.1 or a switch to Linux. The regular Ubuntu has an interface more akin to OSX. It might feel odd if you've been using Windows all your like. Consider variants like Xubuntu, or derivatives like Linux Mint. KSP is officially support on Ubuntu (which includes its variants), while SteamOS is based on Debian, so I'd say at least pick something in the Debian or Ubuntu families (Ubuntu itself being a Debian derivative). There should be no problems as long as 1) WIndows is installed first, then Linux, and 2) You aren't using Bitlocker or any other full disk encryption. Yes, virtually all mods work on all platforms. (An exception I know of is Advanced Fly-By-Wire, which works with joysticks and gamepads and so needs separate versions for each OS.)

The Kardashev Scale has its limitations anyway. Energy use is only one aspect of a civilization, and one relating more to scale than technological advancement. With it Kardashev didn't seem to anticipate the rapid progress of miniaturisation - semiconductor devices with features 50-100 atoms across are now commonly owned.

There's nothing obviously wrong there, but do note how your staging works - you'll drop the first stage with a tap on the spacebar, then have to wait a couple of seconds before pressing the spacebar *again* to light the 909 engine. By the time you ignite that 909 you should easily be high enough to get decent thrust out of it. I assume the first stage is a Swivel, but even if that's a 909 it will still be lifted up by the boosters.