cantab

Tried out KIDS (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52882), which motivated me to look into real-world engine stats. A multiplier of about .85 brings the KSP engines down into the range of real-world hypergolic-fuelled engines, which I think makes sense and is probably something I'll go with. Though I may end up changing Isp's with module manager configs to get more control, and use KIDS simply to make thrust change with Isp. Flew a Minmus free-return mission with KIDS(+FAR+DRE+TACLS), finding that such a flight is possible despite the low mass and speed of Minmus. However, the pod burnt up on a too-aggressive re-entry. It still had plenty of ablative shielding but just went boom. Guess I need to be more cautious with DRE - or add moar heatshields. Looks pretty similar to this rocket built for a Mun free-return in stock: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100685-getting-to-mun-at-low-level?p=1552082 which is encouraging, suggesting the .85x Isp scaling with FAR gives a payload fraction to LKO that's not too much less than in stock. (Ferram's preset is a .81x scaling, but it made the Isp figures a bit low for my liking.)

Incidentally this is what I came up with comparing KSP rockets to real ones using hypergolic propellants. The .81 of the FAR-Stock preset is done for game balance but it feels just a bit mean to me. Seconding this. At the very least I don't really want to nerf the ion engine, and I wouldn't mind keeping the SRBs as they are in stock too. Of course this could be featuritis for KIDS - if I want fine control over my engine Isps I could do a module manager file instead.

Docking port on the top of the rover, docking port on the bottom of the lander. To redock you have several options. You could arrange things so you can drive under and the magnetism pulls you in, pull in the lander legs thus dropping it onto the rover, give the rover legs to lift itself up, or give the rover rockets to lift itself up. Generally speaking "vertical" docking works well. "Horizontal" docking - with a port on the nose of the rover and one on the side of the lander - typically has issues with vertical alignment. They may line up fine on Kerbin but the different gravity elsewhere will throw them out.

Granted. But for every time you do, two appear under your own bed. And they're slightly carnivorous. I wish I had a One Direction frisbee CD.

You can only attach the subassembly from its root node. In stock, I think you'll have to mount the rover using a bunch of cubic octagonal struts. You might be able to arrange it so the docking connection is made upon putting the rocket on the pad, and can then blow away the cuboct struts with a couple of decouplers. It will need precise placement. With mods you could use SelectRoot to change the root node, though this can occasionally cause bugs. The next KSP release is expected to make this capability stock. Or you will have to simply remake the rover starting with the docking port.

Granted. It pecks your feet off. And I mean the fruit. I wish I had some pop.

Granted. But you're extraordinarily rendited by the CIA to a secret facility, tortured, and executed. I wish for a microwave oven to be in my house and not explode.

I still don't know exactly why my space station just vanished. I suspect it might be mod parts changing names though, since the game will silently delete flights with absent parts. I had some parts mysteriously appear near my asteroid tug. They all matched parts on the ship, but I couldn't find any parts missing from said ship. But most mysterious and unexplainable of all: How in Kerbin does the VAB decide that only one of a pair of parts in symmetry can be attached!

It's not your job to change his mind and you'd be wasting your time trying. Whether or not you count him as a friend is another matter and is only up to you. I have friends myself who I share few interests with and consider a bit stupid, and yet we're still pretty close.

Sadly, not any more. When I was at uni I acquired a fair few old computers, but I never actually did anything with them. In the end I think most got abandoned in the college storeroom and the rest of the stuff went to the tip. The highlight was definitely a little Sun workstation, in a form factor similar to the modern mini-ITX cubes. It had an external hard drive that sat on top of it. IIRC I did boot it but that was about it. I also had an external SCSI cd drive, not Sun, that took the CD in a caddy. There was also a DEC I think workstation, in the "pizza box" case, and an old pre-OSX Mac. And there was the Dell I used as my main PC for a while, and its near-twin that I gave my mum. When new they were top-end workstations - but that was about seven years before I got them. Dual Pentium III processors - not dual core, dual processor - and I think 512 MB of RAMBUS memory (I later put all the memory in one and stashed the other). In my hands they ran various Linux distros, and they served me well through my time at university and until I built my current PC in 2010. Took them between home and uni, along with the 17" CRT monitor, on the train in a suitcase (a big suitcase!). You don't need to be limited to laptops people! It was a bit of a sad day when I got rid of the pair, but they took up too much space in the house. I do still have my old Toshiba laptop from about 2002, but I don't really count that as retro - it's just old. I keep it around in case I break my wifi.

Granted. But it's "New Pepper" and is frankly a bit of a disaster. Unlike with the New Coke fiasco, the original Dr Pepper never comes back. I wish for more Gigahertz.

Pretty much. That 1000 m/s is what's lost to drag in the stock aerodynamics, and it's a huge amount. IIRC real rockets lose maybe 100 m/s to drag, if that.

Granted. Your mind turns to soup from the frustration of having so many wishes and so little time. I wish I hadn't got so backlogged with Doctor Who.

It doesn't take much to get to orbit the Mun or Minmus. As seen in some of the ships being posted chute, pod, FL-T400 tank, engine will do it. If you can put that in Kerbin orbit without using any of its fuel you're set. There's plenty of worthwhile science to be done in Mun and Minmus orbit, landing can come later.

^ Indeed. It depends on what sort of fresh install. Windows as provided by Microsoft isn't too bad, but the computer maker's "factory reset" will generally load on all the extras that were there originally because the computer maker thinks they're useful. So as I said, I advise actually checking the baseline RAM usage, see that it's within normal range. For that matter double-check the available RAM. For some context, on my Windows 7 system I'm around 750 MB used with no programs open. (Full disclosure, this is not a system I run KSP on.) The desktop effects can add a little, but if your system is hogging more than a GB you need to look at what's running. Next, if you've turned off the Windows paging file, turn it back on. This might have an impact, and on a 4 GB system you probably need it on nowadays. In the wild mass guessing category, try running the game directly, not through Steam. And on a final note, you can always tell Steam to download .24.2 for you. It's listed under "Betas" slightly confusingly.

Does that mean that in FAR a square wing will create the same lift whatever cardinal direction it flies in? (Which is not how a real wing with an airfoil would behave).

And this, I think, is part of the reason why despite the exponential increase in computing power, I still spend an awful lot of my life waiting for computers. Frankly, it pisses me off. And it won't change any time soon, because the status quo is in the interests of those with the money. /rant

I did some experimenting and, I'm not sure. Trying to build similar planes with different wing attachments, I get some differences in behaviour, but I can't tell if they're from the sideways wings or just slight differences in position. You might have to ask Ferram.

Granted. But actual edible macaroni is forever forgotten to the mists of time. I wish time was actually mist.

Yeah, boat is a device I've wanted. The resource device is one that only applies to mods, so there's precedent for that. (And stock airships are possible, sorta, thanks to infiniglide.)

What's your memory usage at before you run KSP? Considering this isn't a more widespread problem, I suspect the bloat isn't in KSP.

Regarding the rate of cache hits, I recall reading in the context of hybrid drives that an 8 GB cache is sufficient to get a high hit rate for typical desktop use. That's within the range of what might be gained by having loads of RAM. But that's a non-volatile cache. To do the same in RAM would require preloading lots of data just after boot, while ensuring the preload process doesn't make things worse for the user. Maybe some OSes do that, I don't know. Lots of individual programs have tried it, and generally just slow the whole boot process down. And "the PC makes a racket when I've just turned it on" counts as making things worse for some users. And the benefits will still only be significant if caching a mechanical hard drive. Caching an SSD they will be negligible as Laythe has discussed. That further limits the use of having a ton of RAM for disk caching in this way, since the money is probably better spent on an SSD, or if you have an SSD on something else. --- Regarding what Mazon Dei said about the average user using a PC until it becomes unusable then buying a new one, in my experience yes users do find their PCs slow down over time but that's nothing to do with software bloat or hardware wearing out - rather, it's because they get a crapload of malware on the system.

The twin paradox - the actual paradox where it seems that each twin should be younger than the other, not the non-paradox of one twin aging more - is perfectly well understood. The fact that one twin accelerates and the other doesn't is what makes the situation not symmetric and thus the accelerating twin younger.

If it's SAS oscillation, then yeah, my answer is "Don't use SAS". IMHO it's awful to fly planes with. When turning an aircraft you should bank and let the plane turn itself, and SAS prevents that. In level flight it's liable to cross-control the plane slightly - you'll be rolled left and yawing right to compensate. Even in stock that means you'll have a small cosine loss on the engine thrust and in FAR it'll increase drag too. I use pitch trim (Mod+W/S) to maintain a steady altitude, and build in roll stability or/and use FAR's wing leveller to keep the plane straight.

In the skyhook thread people have mentioned KAS cables are stretchy. Plenty of people have done stock asteroid pullers. The natural flex in the parts can soak up a little bit of imprecision. On the minus side, if you have engines forward of the centre of mass you need to disable their gimbals to avoid confusing SAS, so you lose a method of control.