cantab

Despite the very low delta-V to orbit, Gilly might not be the best placed overall. The problem is that Eve's mass and Gilly's awful orbit means it takes a surprising amount of delta-V, around 450 m/s, to depart Gilly and get a low Eve periapsis required for efficiently going interplanetary. Compared to Kerbin you're also then further away from places, except for Moho. And Eve itself, while not too hard to land on, is very demanding to return from. I'd propose Minmus as the best homeworld. Despite being a larger body than Gilly, it actually takes less delta-V to go from the surface of Minmus to a low Kerbin periapsis for your interplanetary departure burns. Overall I think everywhere except Moho and Eve is cheaper on dV starting at Minmus compared to Gilly. Many missions have shown a Minmus fuel stop to be very good for interplanetary flight. Closer to home, you have the Mun as an easy starting landing target though you'll need to deal with transfer windows. Kerbin itself will be quite challenging but not as bad as Eve as a parent planet. These advanced delta-V charts are good for working out this kind of stuff. And really any mission where you're flying between various places rather than just going from and back to Kerbin. https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalAcademy/comments/1qu5jv/deltav_charts/

It's not much, but it's a start on my plan for modular landers. I've an eye on mod planets as well as the stock system, and the propulsion module packs 1000 m/s with a nominal 5t payload courtesy of a pair of Nervs. A chemical lander would be lighter overall but use more fuel, and I plan on refuelling and reusing it. I've mostly just been using debug cheats to system check it, stuff like heat tolerance near the sun and solar power when far away (should be OK at Jool and Eeloo with the deployables out). Also, I swear it looked brighter in-game.

I now want a docking port hat :-D Nice demonstration of two very different approaches in one mission. Also looks like the big ISRU ship never staged anything, unless I missed it? Making it Jool-∞ capable. What's the story behind bailing out on the lightweight Laythe landing?

There's a setting in the difficulty options for whether "Resource transfer obeys crossfeed rules". On normal difficulty it's off by default, meaning that fuel transfer by right-clicking parts can go from anything to anything. But I think the claw doesn't block crossfeed anyway. Being able to use the claw to refuel spacecraft is quite possibly deliberate. In real life there have been proposals to refuel satellites that were not originally designed for it, though the fuelling process is more sophisticated than just stabbing the side of the satellite! Probably not deliberate, but worthy of note, if you have multiple things clawed to an asteroid they can all share fuel and electricity.

Nice. That's some big wing, guess that's what it takes to fly slow. Regarding the control, I wonder if the airframe isn't helping though, in my experience tailless deltas are tricky to make fly well compared to a design with a seperate tailplane.

Built a lander in symmetry. Found one engine was out of fuel before the other due to very NON-symmetric fuel drain. Ugh. Kspplz.

The Unity game engine supports the Nintendo Switch, though I'm not sure KSP uses a version that supports Switch; if not then an engine upgrade would be needed. As mentioned though, it's questionable the Switch's CPU could run KSP acceptably without altering the game. Although it has long occurred to me - if the game simply behind-the-scenes "welded" parts when launching a vessel that could cut down the CPU load a lot, without having a huge impact on gameplay.

Do you expect the deleting settings.cfg to be an ongoing thing? I feel that could be a major nuisance for some players, for example anyone using a gamepad or joystick.

Pure fission and boosted fission weapons are obsolete, virtually all modern nuclear weapons are Teller-Ulam design. A non-fissionable tamper (typically lead) leaves most of the energy yield from the fusion and significantly reduces fallout, which would be desirable if you want to reuse a system - or simply if fissionable materials (typically natural or depleted uranium) are in short supply. And as the Tsar Bomba test showed, a lead-tampered weapon can still be very powerful. As far as harnessing that power goes, I don't think OP's idea of using the pressure mechanically is on to much. It would require a lot of massive and complex machinery, and would greatly increase the chance of a radioactivity release. More promising is to use the heat, as was mentioned above and as studied by a 1970s project. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_PACER A drawback is the need for your fusion fuel to be in the form of precision-engineered nuclear bombs, which will be much more expensive than a bulk deuterium-tritium mix. Once the military surplus runs out (assuming you use it, which may be an issue as it's not low-radioactivity lead-tampered weapons), it's unlikely to be cost-effective.

It's a known issue relating to Kopernicus on KSP 1.7.1 and some planet packs. Completely disabling ground scatter may help, otherwise you'll just have to do orbital stuff while you wait for a bug fix.

The World Beyond states it's compatible with OPM. You'll need a version of KSP that's supported by Kopernicus, the mod that makes planet mods possible. The latest KSP release is not yet supported, so use an older KSP version (obtainable via Steam "Betas" or the KSP store).

I played maybe two or three of the stock missions. They're kind of fun, but I think the issue is they make KSP into a very different kind of game. KSP's player base has got used to a persistent sandbox game, and failing to integrate the missions into the main game modes was a big omission IMHO. It brings to mind the game Children of a Dead Earth. It has orbital mechanics, it has realistic spacecraft, it has craft design. At first glance it looks like "Kerbal with guns". But it's structured as a series of missions, and the result is that it plays more like a puzzle game rather than a creative sandbox. Making History Missions are doing that to KSP. And while CoaDE is a fun game, its structure has meant it never grabbed anywhere near as much of my time as KSP has. Plus the stock missions are iffy anyway. A lot of them are like, "Do X", and then at the last minute you're told "Oh can you do Y as well?". It makes sense for missions themed around coping with a disaster, but not so much those that are meant to just be a routine flight like the Sputnik one.

The RSS/RO team favour TAC LS and it handles the Earth days correctly, but I don't know the behind-the-scenes details. (And Earth time is natively supported by KSP, but things like 12-hour days aren't, that may make a difference.)

If I have to re-enter stuff like that, I've had good results from putting a few basic fins on the capsule, sort of like the tailfins on a bomb.

For a spaceplane reaching low Kerbin orbit the rocket delta-V requirement is quite modest, about 1000 m/s I think. When delta-V needs are low, specific impulse is relatively less important (within reason) and engine TWR more important. The mass saving from a lighter engine will more than offset needing a slightly higher fuel fraction. But if you're building a spaceplane for a larger planet from a mod, or one to go beyond LKO, then you need a lot more rocket delta-V. That's when the specific impulse counts for more, hence the popularity of Nerv spaceplanes.

On the SSTO topic, a pure rocket SSTO should still be possible in JNSQ, though I'm not sure if you could re-enter and recover it and your payload fraction will be lousy. But then that's true to life too, it's been noted that some first stages could theoretically SSTO a light payload, it's just that for an expendable launcher it's much more sensible to have two (or more) stages.

[The lobster emoji, which the forum blocks]

5183 Cupolas. Just, cupolas.

Considering the amount of rocket power needed to land on Tylo, and the noise those engines are going to make, you could call that world Thunderstruck. Pol has some of the steepest slopes in the solar system, so it'd be a natural place to find The Rolling Stones. The most distant world of the system, Eeloo, might be a good metaphor for a Stairway to Heaven. With Laythe claimed, you're left with a choice of Kerbin or Eve to sail your Yellow Submarine.

You could use the mod *KSCSwitcher*, which allows you to configure alternative launch sites to have KSC at. It's used by RSS; I don't know any ready-made configs for stock Kerbin so you'll probably have to work out your own.

Simple (well, simple looking) but very nice.

Why would it not work? True, mixing another planet pack with JNSQ will give you inconsistent planetary densities (and possibly art styles), but as long as the orbits are clear of each other is there any reason the install wouldn't load and run and be playable. Planetary SOIs shrinking leaving their moons outside maybe, I'm not sure what KSP makes of that.

5180: Also out of toilet paper. Have you got two fives for a ten?

Can I suggest you also scale the cost? I remember from my last career the Bobcat is already a good value first stage engine, lots of thrust per dollar and they nicely cluster under larger fuel tanks for medium-sized launchers. This will only become even more prominent with a thrust increase.

The kethane generator produces the electricity to power the ion engine to land on Minmus to mine the kethane to fuel the generator. Outcome: Zero kethane, zero electricity, very non-zero impact speed.