cantab

When you have picked up a part in the VAB/SPH, hitting Delete will get rid of it. No need to drop it on the parts menu. (This might not be in stock, I have Editor Extensions.)

It's not too bad actually. A bit under 600 parts overall. Kudos to the Whack for keeping the part count sane. And yes, it occurred to me that using the debug menu isn't against the rules. Hack Gravity being the most obviously helpful option. Also not against the rules is emptying the fuel, assembling the ship, and refilling it.

Anybody else had an issue with vertical vibration when using the seaplane floats? I made this prototype of a SWATH ship and it's constantly vibrating up and down, with a frequency of a few hertz. Firespitter SWATH prototype by cantab314, on Flickr

Seems like it'd be very trial-and-error to me.

The next release is expected to have 64-bit support. This will do very little for the stock game, but it means using multiple memory-intensive mods will be possible without having to reduce texture resolution. And to re-iterate, KSP's performance is in most cases limited by your single core CPU performance. So if your CPU load is at around 30% say, well that may mean KSP is maxing out a core. There's also some anecdotal reports of the game having issues with AMD chips that make them underperform. I likewise find Undo in the VAB hangs the game for several seconds. My system's not dissimilar to yours, though rather lower specced with a Phenom II X3 710 and 4GB of DDR2 memory.

It's also already stopped on level track. Lucky for me. The next poster had bet their life savings on the USA beating Belgium.

*Presses* AH MY EARS! Press the button for a trip on the next flight in KSP of a randomly-chosen forum member.

My reading of the rules immediately made me think of ways to take the bits up and assemble it in orbit, but obviously the actual teams should clear this with Rows. Even assembling it in orbit will be no mean feat mind, with the parts not having all-axis RCS control individually.

Flew from the pyramids to the inland space centre, guided by kerbalmaps. My landing was, as usual, sloppy. Got a couple of little surprises: one of the buildings wasn't just inert bricks and mortar, and there was an extra object there I didn't expect to see.

Yeah, there are a few people who report a drive upgrade speeds KSP's loading times, but most find little effect. Something else is limiting it. The biggest impact on loading times comes from the parts. Add lots of heavy parts mods and you'll be waiting around.

Yup, the "KE–J65 Zero Bypass Turbine". It can be pretty efficient, but the gotcha is it has an intake integrated into it and does not work with regular air intakes, so no air hogging.

I doubt anything capable of growing on the surface Venus will be edible by humans. Even the extremophiles on Earth deal with conditions that are nowhere near.

Yes, at least for most bodies. These are related. While kethane *can* be converted into xenon, it's not as efficient as converting it into LFO. Kethane>LFO is about a 1:1 mass ratio, but if you convert it to xenon it's about 1:0.4 for the small converter and 1:0.25 for the larger one (yes, the big one is much WORSE at making xenon). Therefore an ion-engined ship will end up not needing much less kethane than a nuclear-engined one. Combine that with the stock ion engines and xenon tanks being ill-suited to big ships, and I'd say go with the LV-Ns. KAS lets you place struts on EVA, while quantum struts gives you gadgets that can strut your craft in flight. In stock a common approach is to design big motherships with "puller" engines mounted radially at the front, rather than at the rear. It's pretty quick. Depends how many drills you take of course, but it's no problem to land a ship, start drilling, timewarp until the tanks are full, stop drilling, and launch. Scanning's the bit that consumes real-world time since you need to be flying the scanner and at a low timewarp or it'll miss bits; I suggest starting scanning then watching some TV or something while it does its stuff. (Or just scan until you find a deposit then go for it, rather than trying to survey the whole body.)One final gotcha: kethane supplies are finite! A really big miner can drain a whole field in one go, so if you decide to build huge be mindful of that.

I'll second wondering this. The challenges themselves were always going to be surprises but changing the rules halfway through the competition, and not saying why or even saying that you're going to say why, seems a bit dubious to me. It's the kind of thing I'd expect from a "reality" show, not a sports tournament.EDIT: I also notice that the most popular entries from the previous round get "25 extra points", but there's no scoring system published.

Unfortunately, if you place parts using symmetry, you can then only attach parts to them with either the same symmetry or no symmetry. So you have two options. Either a) Add your 8 inner boosters with 8-fold symmetry, then add your outer boosters one at a time. or Add your 8 inner boosters in two groups each with 4-fold symmetry, then add your outer boosters to one of those groups.

I did experience issues with debris landed on Kerbin getting cleaned up when the debris limit was set to a value that should have been higher, but was still finite. It made me think the only "safe" choice is unlimited debris.

I roll a critical failure on my sense of humour check, and am unharmed. The next poster rolls a critical failure on their heart beating check.

So ultimately what matters is that the vertical stabiliser, or tailfin, is aft of the CoM. The back of that fin is then an obvious place to put a rudder. A forward-mounted rudder would need a separate structure to hold it.

You may want to check your graphics drivers. Really bad framerate, even on the title screen, can be caused by not having the proper drivers for the graphics card. KSP isn't GPU-intensive, but it is still a game that needs 3D acceleration.

I've not flown planes much, but when I have my approach has been to do more or less as in the real world. First set up my control surfaces. Elevators/canards do pitch only, ailerons do roll only, rudders do yaw only. Of course some ships might have ruddervators, elevons, etc. And pod torque goes OFF. In level flight I tend to use SAS to hold my heading. I can use pitch trim instead, but SAS is easier. Then to make a large turn I turn SAS off, bank the plane, and use pitch to keep the nose up if need be. I tend to ignore the rudder. If I want to make a fine tweak I might instead do a rudder turn for that. Digital controls are indeed difficult to fly with. I've ended up having to rapidly tap them, and often have to settle on not making a perfect level flight but rather letting the plane slowly climb or descend. Edit: To quote Wikipedia, Coordinated flight is usually preferred over uncoordinated flight for the following reasons: it is more comfortable for the occupants it minimises the drag force on the aircraft it causes fuel to be drawn equally from tanks in both wings it minimises the risk of entering a spin The first, second I think , and third of those are irrelevant for stock KSP. So only if spinning is an issue do you need to coordinate your turns.

Probably because so many writers refer to galactic "collisions". Personally I do prefer the the terms galactic merger or galactic interaction, I think they're less likely to mislead people.

Kerbal Space Program is hard. If you're having trouble, try Orbiter instead. You don't have to build your own ships in Orbiter, so it's easier.

Well obviously it's for the OP to decide, but I interpret the key overall goal being to empty the booster's fuel (which is the lower stage) while keeping the core (which is the upper stage) fully fuelled. I tried the approach you mention, but found that when tank 1 drained, then 2, 3, and 4 were still fuelling the booster engines, while the core engines started draining tank 5.

When designing your rockets, as a new player you would do well to look at the work of the experts for inspiration. Good people to look at are Danny2642, Xacktar, and of course the aforeposting Whackjob.

The most efficient launch is to pitchover to near-horizontal just after liftoff, so you start gaining orbital speed as quickly as possible. If your rocket glows red that means you're going fast enough. Boosters cool down better the more airflow they have. So if they start overheating too much, you need to add more so they go faster and run cooler. If that still doesn't work, try adding air intakes to them, they bring in cooling air. Planes are really inefficient since the wings are heavy. But if you really want to make one, ensure the centre of lift is just forward of the centre of mass, and tilt the wings so their tips are down a bit. That will make your plane agile, so it's easy to fly.