cantab

"Triproellant" can refer to several different things. "One is a rocket engine which mixes three separate streams of propellants", eg the lithium, hydrogen, fluorine combination. "Another kind of tripropellant rocket is one that uses one oxidizer but two fuels, switching between the two in mid-flight. In this way the motor can combine the high thrust of a dense fuel like kerosene early in flight with the high specific impulse of a lighter fuel like liquid hydrogen (LH2) later in flight." Neither of those are really called for in stock KSP, with its generic fuel and oxidizer. They'd be interesting in a RealFuels or similar setup though. Then there's what the OP is referring to, an engine that makes use of both external air and onboard oxidizer. There's all sorts of ideas on this front; we have the SABRE-alike in the game already, but there are air augmented rockets that would use air and oxidizer at the same time, nuclear thermal jets (which KSPI has I believe), and more. More choice of engines like this are always welcome. In particular there's still a hole in the stock game for an engine for Eve, Duna, and Jool planes.

I think I've only once has a mod update eat a ship (well, my space station). I was never really sure what happened. Anyway, I keep my saves backed up. If need be I can roll back the savefile and the mod install in one go.

Because FAR, NEAR, and for that matter Stock Drag Fix reduce drag, they reduce delta-V required to reach orbit. This increases payload fraction of launchers using the same parts, so the same payload goes up on a smaller rocket, which some players don't like. Reducing the engine specific impulse reduces payload fraction of launchers, counteracting the effect of lower drag. The simplest approach is to reduce the specific impulse in all conditions.

The 48-7S and the basic jet are your friends. Either is enough to do a one-kerbal lander in the 18/30 limit, which would scale to a four-kerbal lander that's easily under 140 tons. Nice design. I never thought of using multiple QBEs for a micro rover chassis, it looks really good.

Well, I have one after all. 'twas a day, like no other, 'twas a day, there'll be another, 'twas a day, the routine broke, 'twas a day, the woman spoke, 'twas a day, to end, it's fate, 'twas a day, to celebrate, 'twas a day, that much is plain, 'twas a riddle, to puzzle your brain.

Reduce part count on the space station. Lots of parts will lag the game, and some parts are especially bad offenders including some of the docking ports. You really need to be mindful of this from the beginning though if you want to make a large and functional but low-lag station. Lower the graphics settings. KSP isn't the flashiest of games but performance can still be impacted by the graphics quality. The "render quality setting" has the biggest impact. Lower the physics time delta setting. This will give a smoother but even slower-running game. It defaults pretty low already though. Get a faster CPU. The best thing for KSP is a modern fast-clocked Intel CPU. Core count isn't so important, a Pentium will do about as well as an i7 if they're at the same clock speed.

Engines anywhere can work really, but ensure their exhaust plumes are well clear of other parts or you'll get no thrust from them. That's not an issue for rear-mounted engines but ones mounted forwards or amidships will need putting on outriggers. Try and make the "chain" of docking ports as short as possible. For example, consider docking your various modules around the main drive section all directly to it, instead of one to another all in a line. On the other hand, be wary of docking heavy modules by a single port on their side. The forces will make them bend backwards and in extreme cases can destroy the ship. If you have an engine cluster, you can use thrust limiting to compensate for an off-centre Centre of Mass. This really increases your design freedom, there's no need for perfect symmetry.

Try removing the offending part I'd guess. I don't have that particular folder on my .25 install, rather I have GameData/Squad/Parts/FuelTank/mk2mk3Adapter , but then I'm running on Linux so maybe it's different.

I had this with my rover too. The wheel physics is a bit iffy, and they tend to go "light" when heading downhill, as though they're bumping off the surface. I just had to be mindful of it really, don't try and make a sharp turn when heading downhill at speed kind of thing. Also, remember that you can put reverse drive when going forwards. That will slow you down more gently than the brakes.

As stated, the heading on the navball is the heading of the controlling part. That can be a manned or unmanned command module, a docking port, or a claw. (An occupied external seat works, not sure about an unoccupied one). You can right-click any of these parts and choose "control from here". The engines are irrelevant. Stability Assist and the other SAS options also take the heading of the controlling part. If you're controlling from a part on the extremities of your ship it may move around as the ship flexes and SAS will respond to that, which can cause instability. Controlling from a part firmly connected to the main engines and/or fuel tanks can give more stable behaviour. In your example the front docking port of the interplanetary engine module or the probe core you have on it would probably be a good part to control from.

Depends on the save. In a testing stuff or "messing about" save where quickloads and reverts are the norm, I don't care if I blow them up. I'll either revert or I'll wait for them to turn up back at KSC. In my "serious" saves on the other hand, with permadeath on and reverts strongly discouraged, any mission failure* is a heavy blow, whether or not the Kerbals survive. I'll be stunned for a moment, unable to do anything but look on at the aftermath of the catastrophe. And yes, I will set an abort action group on Kerballed ships, except if I forget. Doesn't always use dedicated motors - on an all-liquid launcher shutting down the lower engines and flying clear on the upper stage works well enough. I'll also try and make obviously risky launches, such as sending up unwieldy payloads, unmanned.

On that scale, though, just about every other space game is Mario Kart.

I would not assume that for a game that by its own developers' admission is still well in development. The aerodynamics is not unrealistic because Squad think that's fun, it's unrealistic because Squad haven't got round to making it more realistic yet. They're finally working on it now and .91 is expected to bring new aero.I would also not assume that Squad's ideas for KSP are unchanging. They should, can, and will review and reconsider things right up to the 1.0 release. We've seen this with resources - they had an idea way back, decided it wasn't fun so abandoned it, now we know they have a new idea and are working on that for .91.

Oh yeah, the "cheap option" is a homemade "barn door" mount. Couple of pieces of wood hinged together, and a bolt that pushes them apart when it's turned. They work well for shorter focal length imaging, you should find plenty of details online.

No SAS, or no reaction wheels? No SAS won't stop you, it'll just make it tricky. With no reaction wheels, have you got a thrust vectoring engine? If so you can throttle up slightly and use it to turn around.

This is a new one so I don't know much about it. The main thing to consider is what you're putting on it. A relatively modest focal-length camera lens won't require anything like as robust and precise as a big heavy telescope.

It has a highly effective* itch scratcher. *Claim is of effective scratching. Itch relief not guaranteed.

Duna is evil. Duna will rip your dreams to shreds and scatter them in flames over it's surface. Go somewhere else.

Well, fix Ubuntu so it doesn't do that As for myself, .90 peeves: * Difficulty filtering or sorting parts by mod. The old listings sorted by GameData subfolder, which was effectively a sort by mod. The new listings lack that option anywhere. Manufacturer is unreliable - many used by mod parts don't show up at all, some mods use more than one manufacturer on their parts, and others use the stock manufacturers. * Problems placing thin parts. They can easily connect on the wrong node and clip into the part above, which as an added bonus causes FAR to produce too little drag. DRE's heatshields are some of the biggest problem parts for this. Long-standing peeves: * Problems placing manoeuvre nodes on escape trajectories. This shouldn't be hard to fix, seriously. * Orbit jitter. Ugh. Unfortunately I don't see this one going away any time soon. * The 48-7S being overpowered. TWR higher than anything else apart from the giant NASA engines is silly, and the lower Isp doesn't compensate for it. It's needed a good whack with the nerf bat for ages, but then career came along and it's left as also the cheapest engine there is after the fricking sepratron. Oh, and it's not like it's buried at the top of the tech tree either, you can get it without even upgrading the R&D complex. /rantrantrant * Lag.

Its satnav also has the TARDIS-like ability to direct you where you need to be.

What parts did you use? I've mucked around with decoupler rockets before but never got very high.As for me, rejigging my Tylo ship ready for orbit lowering. I'll be releasing the last pair of drop tanks and be left with only the lander's fuel and what the return ship needs.

BTW, I'm feeling uninspired, so I'll open the floor to whoever wants to post next.

This is a FAR issue, compounded by the new editor behaviour. If you connect two parts bottom node to bottom node, so that they're clipping into each other, rather than the normal bottom node to top node, then FAR will get the drag all wrong and you'll get high terminal velocities. With thin parts like heatshields, avoiding such a "wrong" connection can be difficult.

Use of that feature together with the auto-cut function is not advised.

Secured Tylo orbit, but discovered I'm short on fuel. I'm captured, but it's a further 800 m/s or so to drop down to low Tylo orbit, and I'm suspecting I overlooked that in my mission budgeting. I suspect Jeb will be doing some jetpacking.