cantab

One beyond the planets reversed. One in airs of Earth dispersed. One that stars just cannot form. One that's rarer than them all. Lots you shouldn't in water dissolve. Mix around, this riddle to solve.

Is there any way to get data from the persistence file into the trajectory optimiser, barring manually copying orbital elements? I run KSP on Linux and have KSPTOT running in a Windows VM, and can't run both simultaneously (because 4 GB RAM)

Found it's not as easy as I thought to get a Tylo assist out of the Joolian system. Now resorting to trying http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/36476-WIN-MAC-KSP-Trajectory-Optimization-Tool-v1-1-7-Mission-Animator!

A vampire?

I'd say the short answer is that you wouldn't. You'd take select species, chosen for usefulness to humans or for support of the ecosystem. To deliberately take pests, weeds, and diseases would be outright silly. The planned makeup would have been tested in a facility on Earth designed to simulate the extraterrestrial conditions. For plants and fungi seeds and spores are pretty compact, and bacterial and viral samples would likewise not take up too much space. Insects and similar wouldn't be too bulky, especially as only a tiny fraction of the zillion insect species will be useful. For larger animals with current technology genetic diversity can be provided by sperm and egg samples, though we would still need living animals to lay the eggs or bear the foetuses. Of course those animals would need looking after during the trip. And considering the timescales required for terraforming, the ship would need to maintain its own ecosystem for centuries at least while the planet is prepared. And then why bother with the terraforming? Live in space, in an environment compact enough to be tractable and controllable, and mine asteroids for resources. And save on all the rockets you'd need to go to and from a planetary surface.

Launch windows not seeming to match the game is usually a time system issue. Why is the game time window indicating Y18 and Precisenode indicating Y5? That seems very odd.

Gravity assists are your friend. The one I posted entering Ike orbit got to Duna via a Kerbin assist, and I've got another that I put on course for Eve with a powered Kerbin assist. Of course at an airless planet you'll still have to do a powered orbital insertion. But even that if you're patient can be made easier by a gravity assist pass that loops you round for another slower approach.

The Gravioli detector can give you a readout of current acceleration. Use it when landed on Gilly and there's your measurement.

Well, some quick thinking of the options: Rocket. Pro, easy to build and quick to fly. Con, hard to aim precisely. Though if you're a dab hand at landing at KSC you should be fine. Plane. Pro, easy to land precisely and fairly quick to fly. Con, hard to build. Boat. Pro, *maybe* easier to build than a plane. Con, only if you know the foibles of boatbuilding, and slow.

Parcheesi I will accept. Intended solution was Ludo. And Chrome on Android sucks, so fuller explanations to come. EDIT: So, fuller explanations. Yeah, I tried to submit my post on my phone when the internet had got down, and it was lost, going back didn't restore it. Bad browser design right there. Before anyone asks/complains, I know Sorry! and Frustration (known as Trouble in the US and other names elsewhere) were both guessed, but I regard them as different games. (And own Sorry!, a Frustration knock-off, and several Ludo sets). Sorry! uses cards not dice and has mechanics like directly sending another piece back to start. Frustration's popper is distinctive and the lack of barriers affects the gameplay somewhat. Parcheesi has some differences from Ludo too, but it looks closer. A woman's name, misspelled perhaps, - Lu, sounding like Lou An active verb, - do (not sounding like do though) a box with flaps, - it comes in a box. No real significance to "flaps", I just needed a rhyme. All seeking six - in Ludo you need to roll a six on the die to move a piece out from the start four lots of four, - four sets of four pieces each To send each other back for more, - you can send other players' pieces back to the start by landing your own on them Red green and blue and yellow to see, - the usual colours of the pieces It's fun for all the family, - It's a common family board game Now if you're kept awake with worry, Solving this, well I'm not sorry. - Ludo is a similar but different game to Sorry!

Nope 10char

It's not Rummy, or Rummikub (the proper name for the tile game IIRC.) And I'm not messing, but another thing I'm not is American. Yes, that's a clue.

Guess again

It is not.

If you want to draw a lower limit for a "proper" atmosphere, I'd say the requirement is that it should be dense enough to have a layer below the exosphere. In other words, a layer where any given gas particle is more likely to collide with another gas particle than to hit the ground or escape. Triton, by that standard, has a proper atmosphere, while Mercury does not.

There is still potential for orbits to be unstable just due to multiple gravity sources. But ultimately the main reason the game uses conic patches is that they're good enough. There are a few neato things you miss out on but nothing very important IMHO.

The irony is that Kerbal Space Program will run better on the 4790K.

Not familiar with that game, so nope, it's not the solution.

Not any time in the forseeable future, certainly.You might be able to get down and back up with a balloon, but it then takes 40 km/s to get into low Jupiter orbit.

Around 3000 tons is the usual limit for E-classes. There are rumours of bigger ones but they're super-rare.

This. An incoming asteroid is in the reverse situation to an escaping object. Indeed if Kerbin was a point mass the asteroid would fly past and escape again. Now if an object isn't doing more than escape velocity at periapsis it won't escape, and since orbits are reversible an object that has come in can't be doing less than escape velocity at periapsis, which for an impactor is at or below the surface.There's a little wrinkle in KSP in that an object can be in an elliptical orbit that enters and leaves the SOI, rather than a "true" escape trajectory, but the margin for that is only a few dozen m/s or so.

Connect Four was guessed already. It's not Mastermind either, though that would make a good subject for a riddle.

And a clue for the night: There have been some very close guesses already.

Three rendezvous in quick succession, all requiring an EVA kerbal to do most of the matching speeds and closing in. I'm pretty used to EVAing Kerbals over distances of a few km now, the trick is to make the target marker not appear to move, that means you're heading straight at (or away from) it. Now everyone's on board the orbiters ready to depart Laythe. One group will just head to Kerbin but the other have 9 km/s in their orbiter so they'll be taking a gallavant round the Joolian system.

Not that, no.