cantab

Fair point. 50 million years would be a reasonable figure, corresponding to the solar system's Lyapunov time - the time for which we can predict the positions of the planets.

I think my record was 14 LV-N's on a single ship, which with attendant fuel give about 4500 m/s of delta-V with an 85 ton payload, enough to reach Jool without needing to aerobrake was the plan. Not sure if that falls into the too many nukes category. There are the charts that show the lowest-mass engine for a given delta-V, TWR, and ship mass, and indeed engines other than the LV-N are widely competitive. As for compressed hydrogen, I believe it's among what were once called the "permanent gases", that can't be made liquid by compression at room temperature. For all materials, at sufficiently high temperature or pressure the distinction between gas and liquid disappears and you just get a "supercritical fluid" - for the permanent gases room temperature is "sufficiently high".

The Kerbals would win. They'd just give the Grox the runaround for a bit, wait until they run out delta-V and are helplessly drifting, then strike.

If you don't want to do an Eve orbit rendezvous it'll be tough. Doable, but the extra mass on the top will mean every stage needs to be much heavier and more powerful.

Eve's an underrated early-game/mid-game target, good to see someone going there. For a one-way landing it's one of the simplest destinations and you can get good science returns from transmission.

Use different orbits. So many players seem to stick to circular and equatorial, make life more interesting! Do some stunt flying or driving. Buzz the tower, orbit through a canyon, catch air in a rover, that sort of stuff. Pull off a gravity assist. It's always satisfying to fly past a planet just so to drop you into space near another planet hundreds of days later. Fly a stock craft. No worrying about design, just pick a ship and go somewhere. Hit the Sun. Escape the system. Both are possible but quite challenging and a change from the usual orbitings and landings. Mods: Build a ship with only mod parts, nothing (or as little as possible) stock. A whole new set of performance figures will give a fresh feel.

So, will the moon be nicknamed "Fluffy"?

A stack of parts such as cuboct struts can make a reasonably flexible tow rope. The challenge needs fleshing out but the idea of a towed glider is really neat. One thing would-be builders should check is that when the towing aircraft is released control should be with the glider. I think this requires building the glider first in the SPH, then the towplane afterwards.

Congrats. Duna can be tricky to land on.

The NERVA needs a light molecule for its propellant to get the high Isp. The temperature of the exhaust is actually lower than a chemical rocket. But the current situation is to save Squad the work of making a new resource and new tanks just for one engine. I wouldn't mind seeing a "Cryogenic fuel" that's used alone in the LV-N and with ox in some other high Isp chemical engines, and that slowly boils off. It would change the gameplay quite a bit though - LV-N's would be good for kerbin departure stages but no longer suitable for orbital insertion at the target.

Hmmm. I wonder if Squad will nerf it in .25. AIUI it was deliberately designed to be capable of Mun landing but not return, so it didn't give the player a great ship right away.

If you hover the cursor over the flag and/or set it as target you can get the distance reading from further out. It'll be the straight-line distance though, not the distance over the ground covered, so you'll have to do some conversion. Alternatively, a mod like VOID or KER will give you a readout of your longitude. For a typical due-east launch (and a due-west one) converting that to downrange distance would be simple.

You would presumably approach with caution and a conductor, seeking to get your potential to match the asteroid.

*Lightbulb appears* Maybe that's where my space station and some flags went! I always wondered how they'd vanished, ended up suspecting Kerbal Alarm Clock.

IIRC it's more a definition thing. For KSP's jets the specific impulse is set considering the fuel consumption, but then applied considering the fuel+air consumption. It effectively saves the fuel twice over.

That contract seems a bit silly. For a zero-inclination orbit the longitude of the ascending node is undefined.

NEAR/FAR make getting to orbit easier delta-V wise, though I believe they also make jets less lolOP. It should still be very feasible though, whether you choose a plane or a rocket.

Even though I understand it scientifically, cold boiling (by putting a container of water in a vacuum chamber and pumping the air out) is still just plain surreal. /tangent

Nothing. Well, except maybe everything running at half-speed being the norm. Too many parts and not enough CPU!

Likewise, though I don't always have it turned on. Unfortunately ads like this one have become normalised on the web nowadays. Indeed it's tame compared to the ones that outright hijack you away from the page you were trying to visit, or attempt to drive-by install an app on your phone.

My duvet. Now how am I going to sleep?

Well, travel time doesn't really matter in the game. You can send a Kerbal on a hundred-year trip in a 1-man pod if you want, and even if you'd rather not (or you run a life support mod) there are always unmanned missions.

All the mishaps, errors, and straight-up disasters just make it all the more satisfying when something goes flawlessly. Also recorded KSP for the first time on this, hence the 720p resolution.

Indeed, as I learnt from my low-tech Mun landings, the girders make bouncy legs. Much easier to touch down with real landing legs.

Eh, landing on Gilly conventionally isn't *that* time-consuming. No need to rush things, but a mod showing surface altitude helps as it does everywhere so you know when to brake.