cantab

There's concern now about the RX 480's power draw anyway.

More generally, I'd like to see any general improvements made in the console version to appear in all versions. I will be disappointed if the work by Flying Tiger turns out to be a one-way street, and we're left with all versions of KSP 'missing something'. Oh and Wii U version is due this winter.

Overlookable engine fact: If you consider the Twin Boar as a 6.5 ton engine bolted to a 36 ton orange tank, then it's essentially the highest TWR engine in the game, provided you don't need it to push less than an orange tank worth of tankage. And if you deduct the monetary value of the orange tank then the engine effectively costs 11250 funds which works out at 5.6 funds per kilonewton, and that makes it one of the cheapest liquid engines on a per-thrust basis (the Reliant and Poodle are a bit cheaper). It's too limited to be the "best" engine - good luck using one in an upper stage for starters - but it's definitely one worth considering.

*Hands Ezequiel a fiddle*

Forgive me Kraken for I have sinned. I used quickloads to complete this mission. Got my survey drone Tinky Winky to the Primary Base Site Candidate on the new Serran. KSP's wheel behaviour made it ... irritating. The Shuttle Novelty remains on orbit with a second survey drone, Dipsy, waiting for deployment to a secondary site which I'll do next time I play.

It's been discussed that there are plenty of ways to make recoverable or semi-recoverable launchers in KSP. Falcon 9 style landable boosters can be done. Shuttles are partly recoverable, as are spaceplanes that use drop tanks or boosters. SSTO spaceplanes and SSTO rockets are fully recoverable. Perhaps you could make a rocket with a big core that makes orbit and then lands, and cheap boosters to help it into orbit. As far as disposable rockets go, the drawback to asparagus designs is you're often using relatively expensive liquid engines and tanks as boosters, plus the cost of lots of decouplers and fuel lines. It might be cheaper to use solid boosters.

It depends what your operation is for. If I'm running a mining operation to maintain an orbital fuel depot for fuelling interplanetary ships, I would put the fuel depot in Munar orbit and mine the Mun. This is because Munar is a much more convenient departure point for an interplanetary trip. For Duna and Eve you can just burn directly from there and its efficient, while for further destinations you'll want to swing low over Kerbin and burn there, but either way the short period of the Mun's orbit means you won't have long to wait before going. Compared to what's required for the interplanetary trip, any extra effort involved in the Mun mining is unimportant. If on the other hand I'm running a mining operation to maintain a surface fuel depot for fuelling ships, then Minmus is clear better for its much lower requirements to land.

Emphasis mine. I think that would rule out an orbital launcher having amateur status under US law, because any orbital launcher if fired straight up would exceed that altitude greatly.

What's the point in wishing for something that is already true? I wish KSP 1.2.2 will be the last release.

Well there's no objectively best engine for all scenarios. But suppose I interpret the question difficulty: Imagine there was only one engine, what one would I choose? And it's the Aerospike. It is efficient in both atmosphere and vacuum, has good TWR, is a fairly small engine so it's useful on a range of craft, and has a pretty good form factor. Drawback is no gimbal. My second choice would be the Vector. Compact and massively powerful, with fair efficiency, it's the engine of choice for large lifters because seven go under a Kerbodyne tank. The crazy gimbal is the cherry on top. The drawback is it is four tons, you aren't making light ships with a vector. My third choice is the Swivel. It doesn't excel at anything but it's a passable all-rounder and a KSP classic.

Jeb got chloroform for Christmas instead of rocket fuel. Rockets: What are they good for? ______

I've done my share of Big Things. Let's start with something small that I called Jeb's Tylo Lander. And in case there are any doubts, proof that's Tylo: https://flic.kr/p/qsD8N2 *** OK, how about something closer to home, my Takoma Narrows Bridge. Might not be the tallest and it's certainly not the longest, but I'm guessing that's the widest rover anyone's done! It looks pretty cool from bridge level too: https://flic.kr/p/pAeYdV*** OK, but we need some lifters. So how about the Magellan 2, which sent a boat to Laythe. Quickly. And it's still my part count record. With its Near Future Technology, nuclear-electric powered, asparagus staged transfer vehicle, this was its interplanetary trajectory: https://flic.kr/p/oHBUBP *** Remember that Tylo lander earlier? Well to get it out to Jool it had four propulsion units each with 12 orange tanks, docked and KAS strutted. I don't have pictures of that. But once it was assembled on orbit, it needed the JTL Refueller which remains my all time mass record. Once in orbit, it had a Lot of Stuff. It didn't always launch correctly. When it failed, the results were ... spectacular: https://flic.kr/p/pnhbJX *** I've done mass, I've done part count, I've done width. I've saved what I think is the best until last: height. I give you the Burj Kherbalifa. 216 metres, or over 700 feet, tall, with accommodation for 3,500 Kerbals. And of course I didn't just build it to sit on the VAB. I strapped some boosters to it. I only got the Burj suborbital though, and had to cheat to make orbit. Even with cheats, the launch took two real life hours, the lag was that bad. 1.0.x was an awful release, and having put a couple of hundred Kerbals in probably didn't help either. But now that I have 1.1.x and it runs about twice as fast, and I'm wise to the possible impact of Kerbals on lag, maybe I should break out the Burj again and upgrade its boosters. *** Actually, there's one thing I've 'made' in KSP that's bigger: https://flic.kr/p/qpMRaK Look at the orbital speeds there. This is Earth at ten times its normal size. A hundred times the size of Kerbin. Just in case you thought RSS was easy.

Did you only barely escape Kerbin's SOI? If so, you can end up being recaptured unexpectedly.

For a totally different approach, build a quadcopter into the top of the booster, with the rotors disguised as the grid fins.

Year 4, using Earth time, in my current save. Which would be about 13 or 14 Kerbal years. I only did one pair of missions to outer planets, Jool and Titanus in my modded system. It's those kind of missions that tend to take time. Trips to inner planets are relatively quick. When it comes to the *really* far away stuff, I'll try and get there fairly directly. No Hohmanning about.

I've done multi hour burns before now. Time to put on back-to-back reruns of QI or Top Gear or Mythbusters and relax.

Urban dictionary: The past tense of Brexit is Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly. ______ is the best thing since sliced bread.

7/10. Nobody calls me chicken.

Fix your game!" screamed the entire population of Mexico at Squad. Alternative rocketry is now embracing the propulsive powers of ______

9/10. All your base are neutralise by us.

Did the second launch of my new Shuttle, Novelty, after having completed a successful test flight round Kerbin. For this first 'proper' launch though the shuttle required a custom cargo bay expansion to accommodate two light but bulky drones. I call the expansion 'Beluga'. Separation of the bay cover was somewhat jerky because of clipping, but it came off nonetheless. I'll really prefer something less clippy next time though, but it's hard to fashion since few parts have a concave face.

UKS with USI-LS is the 'heavyweight' choice, loads of complexity. Extend it with KIS, OSE Workshop, and Extraplanetary Launchpads. I consider TAC-LS a simpler life support mod now, even though it doesn't have an easy-mode non-lethal option like USI-LS does. TAC-LS can also be used with UKS. For something simpler, consider Kerbal Planetary Base Systems with TAC-LS. And for real large-scale stuff, look at Civilian Population, although I don't know if it's up-to-date.

CKAN is the best way to install mods on KSP.

To me it looks dramatically different in the KSP pics. I would also note that the KSP rocket is I believe somewhat smaller itself than the Minecraft arrow. And in general in KSP you're looking at a single object in either empty space or a somewhat bland environment. In Minecraft the environment is much richer in detail and any individual structures are often fairly large in all dimensions.

Granted I wish obviously sick people wouldn't keep coming intothe office!