cantab

Knocked up a loose copy of the early submarine Turtle. Unfortunately she won't dive.

DEPLOY the TURTLE! *squeak squeak squeak* *click* *squeak squeak squeak* *KABOOM!*

Indeed. Jumping on the bandwagon of "free to play" is the exact OPPOSITE of innovation.

You can stay in the rocket. (*Always* having Kerbals sneak on my unmanned tests.) On target to land at KSC. (I can't hit it for the life of me.)

It's not the kethane grid appearing is it? That's normal when you have kethane installed.

Although a dodge would be to get refuelled on a suborbital trajectory. It's not really in the spirit of the challenge though.

If you don't want to enter orbit, set Kerbin as the target then try playing with a manoeuvre node set fairly soon (an hour away, say) and see if you can get a Kerbin encounter or at least a fairly close approach lined up. Duna's not as massive as Kerbin or Eve but it's still capable of giving you a reasonable gravity assist.

Most users report drive speed *not* helping KSP much. The loading process seems to be slowed down by something else. KSP's performance depends mainly on your single-core speed, because the physics is single threaded. An overclocked i5 is about as fast as they come.

The other thing to bear in mind is time warp limits. Too low and you'll be hanging around waiting.

Turn it so the chain hangs down and attach a pair of launchers to the rigid metal frame.

In my current save, historical figures, often not very related to the role of the ship. Modules in my modular system are named separately which can lead to the assembled ship having a hyphenated name. My asteroids, on the other hand, get a number and the name of a notable Kerbal. For example my big Duna mission features the Macbeth asteroid tug, the Fermi nuclear-powered transfer stage, the Wells Duna lander, the Columbus Ike lander, the Hilton hab module, and the Alhazen science return capsule, all attached to asteroid 2 Bill.

Some notes on this. The icon by the altimeter works as a parking brake, click it to turn on, click again to turn off. The 'b' key works as a normal brake, hold it to brake, release to not brake. You can also slow down by using reverse power (or forward power if you were already reversing), which gives less stopping power and is less likely to make the rover do an endo.

For series, Final Fantasy. With other notable mentions being Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon, and Command and Conquer. And, though not written for the game, the GTA soundtrack especially Vice City was a huge part of my teenage years. For individual pieces, well you'll probably get different answers from me every day. Today, I'll say Dancing Mad.

I'll just give a few ideas for simple approaches. Even if you want to ultimately have something sophisticated, simpler prototypes could be useful. For a non-throttling "suicide burn" design, trigger the rockets with a static line. Runs from the drop point and when it snaps taut it yanks on the valve or switch. To release the egg, use a mechanical hook or catch of some sort that automatically lets go when the egg touches down. The release of the weight will then send your skycrane flying away, add some ballast to the egg if need be. For the more control-oriented approach, using valves or gimbals, make the rockets water jets fed by an umbilical hose. You'll have a constant ship mass, unlimited flying time, and an easy emergency shutoff.

I'm unsure why the Duna capture is reporting 3000 m/s. Per the delta-V maps it should be more like 500 to capture and make low orbit, even less if you're happy with an elliptical orbit. Your ship should be more than up to the job of entering Duna orbit then leaving for Kerbin.

I did briefly look into using SRBs as a "boost" to get you out of the worst of the atmosphere quicker. They're very light once emptied, which is a good thing when you're not dropping them afterwards, but it's hard to get much delta-V from them. With ion main engines I'm not sure it will ever be a better use of the weight than just adding more xenon and ion thrusters.

So, my longest spacewalk, not counting my longest spacewalk :-p Well, about 4 km I think - 2 each way - , when a ship was about to depart for interplanetary space and I realised I'd forgotten to take the Kerbin orbit science out. Just for fun I decided to do the return leg purely visual, hitting F2 to remove all instruments.

I believe it will always be the case that the denser atmosphere is no real help, because at some point you must ascend through the altitude where it's 1 atm pressure. At that altitude your lift, thrust, and drag all match Kerbin sea level performance, but your weight is much greater.

One way round this problem is landing your rover and ascent vehicle separately.

Single stage from the surface of Eve to low Eve orbit.

The composition isn't but the performance is.

Buran 10char

Not for antennae or solar panels I think. You can switch landing gear and ladders in the VAB though. (Watch out with ladders, if you launch with them extended then revert, you can't retract them again in the VAB and will have to place a new one).

The cubic octagonal strut basically serves as "glue" to let you stick parts together how you want them. The larger girders are mainly used for basic structure. For example one of my transfer stages has a four LV-N cluster with a long girder down the middle, so the launcher can mount below that girder. I've also used girderwork for mounting awkward payloads, such as those with the root node in an unhelpful place, to my launchers.

In stock you'll just have to eyeball it.