cantab

Who probed the rings of Urlum. Instead of coal, Santa will give naughty Kerbals ______ this Christmas.

We do have a PC building megathread. I would say that none of your builds are good for KSP, or good in general. That said, on CAD$300 it's really tough. KSP remains limited by single-threaded CPU performance, so it wants a modern fast Intel CPU. Those CPUs also do well in most games - faster cores help everything, whereas more cores only helps programs that can use them. A GT 710 is completely pointless in a gaming PC, it is literally worse than good integrated graphics. I'd strongly prefer having an SSD, unless lots of disk space is a requirement. Playing around on PC Part Picker, I can't get a build I'm happy with that's quite in budget, but this is what I've come up with. PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Pentium G4500 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.99 @ NCIX) Motherboard: ASRock H110M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($46.50 @ Vuugo) Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($35.09 @ DirectCanada) Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($44.99 @ DirectCanada) Power Supply: EVGA 400W ATX Power Supply ($36.45 @ Vuugo) Total: $273.02 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-27 07:33 EDT-0400 CPU: Reasonable quick dual-core with good integrated graphics. The cheaper G4400 has weak graphics so I didn't choose that. Will run KSP nicely. Will run a lot of games actually, although often it'll be 720p low details to get usable framerates. Mobo: Just about the cheapest around. RAM: One stick, to leave future upgrade options. The H110 motherboard doesn't support speeds faster than 2133 MHz so there's no point getting quicker stuff. SSD: It's not top tier, but AData have a reasonable reputation and it's a lot faster than a mechanical drive. 120 GB is enough storage to start with, though large games would fill it up quickly. PSU: This is as cheap as I dare go. Despite the low price, it's stood up to demanding testing by jonnyguru and other expert PSU testers. Case: I've not listed one because it's your aesthetic choice. Getting one is likely to throw you over budget. The build does well for upgrade path - you can in future add a dedicated graphics card, go to a Core i3/5/7 CPU, or add more RAM. That's my take on a new build, but on your budget I'd strongly consider looking at second-hand parts too. That said it will still be a challenge to get a good graphics card in, which you'll want if you opt for a bargain on an older-generation CPU because they have great CPU performance but weak graphics.

Does spending their time kicking the can in the astronaut complex while the next Kerballed mission to Serran (mod planet) has delay after delay after delay count?

I agree with this.

Unfortunately Hubble and ISS are at different inclinations so the delta-V requirements are prohibitively great. The Hubble was launched into an orbit convenient for Space Shuttle servicing missions, but the ISS was put in a more inclined orbit so that Russian rockets launched from Baikonur can reasonably reach it. If they had been in the same inclination, then that would have provided a way to continue Hubble servicing missions after the Shuttle retirement - add suitable spacecraft parts to the Hubble, then have it rendezvous with the ISS and be grabbed by the Candarm 2. The ISS is capable of supporting the complex EVAs required. Then let Hubble go afterwards because the vibration on the space station would muck up its images. But alas, history went a different way.

@Greenfire32 "First off, let me preface this by stating I am in no way one of the heavy mod users and have zilch in knowledge about any of this. Secondly, am I correct in understanding that CKAN is basically a Mod Manager similar in function to that of, say, Minecraft's ATLauncher for various mod packs?" Not exactly, in that KSP doesn't really have "mod packs", something I credit mainly to KSP not having multiplayer. So most KSP users are taking mods directly from the upstream developers. As I understand it in the Minecraft world a lot of testing for bugs and compatibility is done by the pack makers, and that doesn't exist in KSP. The only people who test if mods A, D, and Q work together are the players who want to run mods A, D, and Q. "If that is the case, and CKAN is indeed "breaking" (for lack of a better term) installs for an overwhelming majority to the point where the community is basically discussing whether or not to burn it at the stake, why is the community acting like CKAN is the end-all be-all of Mod Managing? Why is this idea that mods can not be distributed without CKAN so prevalent? I mean, sure, I get the appeal of having an easy to use interface that tells me which mods are compatible with other mods, but if it doesn't work, then it doesn't work. Why is CKAN perceived as being the only option?" Because nothing else has gained any traction. I can only speculate why, but it might be because of CKAN's list-everything approach, might be because so many mod developers are outright disinterested in mod managers and so don't work on and promote something better, might simply be inertia and CKAN having a forum sticky while competitors rapidly drop off the first page. "Has the modding scene behaved not unlike a market of sorts where products that work succeed and products that don't...fail?" That's an idealism that doesn't always work out in the real world. "It shouldn't matter if CKAN ads list of mods to a "compatibility" checker with or without the modder's approval. The developer of any given mod is not responsible for anything CKAN does or does not. If CKAN wants to shoot itself in the foot, why do modders feel like they're being brought down with the ship? Why is threatening to remove a mod from CKAN even considered a back-to-the-wall option in the first place? I guess I just don't understand why there's this perceived connection of success or failure. Like somehow CKAN's actions is causing Chatterer's (random mod that I selected) success or failure." Because in the KSP world many mod developers are directly interacting with the end users for support. So unnecessary support requests wastes the developers' time. Which brings up an idea for the mod developers reading: if CKAN makes such a nuisance of itself, have you considered just not being involved in end-user support much, if at all? Let the userbase help each other and get on with enjoying your life. As I user, personally I'd far, far rather have that than have the upstream developers outright sabotaging the tools I might use, or a wave of restrictive licensing and then a wave of mods dying as their developers leave.

Today buffallo met buffallo while buffallo the Magic Boulder buffallo into the buffallo. (I believe in the actual Cards Against Humanity game, there are at most three blanks, and normally just one.) ______: Jeb tested, Kraken approved.

1) c4 e5 Would you like to call it a draw?

Thanks for the help all. I found tricycle gear works well after all, with a bit of care I can avoid tailstrikes on takeoff. Opted for rover wheels as mains because I *really* don't trust those fixed landing gear. I still can't land, but that's pilot incompetence, and I've decided to just take the lazy way and stick a chute on.

In short, CKAN is devoid of competent project management. Now we know. Thanks

My plane: https://flic.kr/p/JqdJUK So I made a little aeroplane. It fits in a Mk3 cargo bay for delivery to another planet and it flies great - stable, insanely agile, flies as slow as 50 m/s or as fast as Mach 0.75, won't break unless I crash it, works with or without a Kerbal. Only problem is, I can't sort the landing gear out. I tried conventional ('taildragger') landing gear with a single small steerable gear at the back and either the fixed 'stick' gear or the smallest rover wheels at front, but in both cases I get a shimmy on the takeoff roll and lose control. I've not tried a tricycle gear but I'd be worried about tailstrikes. I'd consider bicycle gear and use a reaction wheel to keep it balanced, but I can't use only the steerable gear because they have no brakes. I'm not sure if there are any parts I could use as skids that are durable enough but not really heavy, considering the whole plane only weighs about a ton. Any other ideas? I'd prefer to keep the plane using stock parts, but mods aren't out of the question.

Or, if desired, outright track the KSP versioning? For example KSP 1.2 releases, then you have Kopernicus 1.2a, 1.2b, then KSP 1.2.1 drops and you have Kopernicus 1.2.1a, 1.2.1b, 1.2.1c, and so on.

As I see it the CKAN/NetKAN team have currently a few options: Option A: Amend CKAN policies. In my view this does not require dropping the CKAN principles of respecting the law (dur!) and acting in the interests of users; after all, liquiding off the upstream developers is emphatically not in the interest of the end users. As for specific changes, I've already advocated for the concept of a responsible maintainer for each piece of metadata. I would also say that CKAN should adopt a presumption in favour of not listing a mod whose author doesn't want it listed. That presumption should be overturnable, chiefly in cases where the mod is a dependency and authors of dependent mods want a CKAN listing. Option B: Resign. Cease all development and involvement in the CKAN project, or at least quit from the leadership roles, and let someone else take over. Considering the level of antagonism between the CKAN team and the upstream developers, this might be the only way to regain confidence in the CKAN software and thereby improve the situation in a way that provides continuity for end users and delivers more definite change, compared to CKAN being forked or a new mod manager being promoted. Option C: Do nothing. Stick your head in the sand and hope it blows over. I'd rather this didn't happen, of course, but I can't stop it.

Playing around with the field of view option in KSP, which is Alt/RShift/Command and scroll wheel, I observe that KSP shows pure perspective distortion, and no barrel distortion. That means that straight lines, such as the edge of the VAB, remain straight but that right-angles no longer appear as right angles. Real camera lenses often exhibit barrel distortion, and all fish-eye lenses do, which would make the straight edges of the VAB appear to curve. It is impossible to give a distortion-free image unless the angular size of the image as viewed matches the angular size as it was taken. This is easiest explained in pictures: So a "wide angle" view in KSP has to be distorted. There's no way around that, it's the laws of physics. (Specifically, geometric optics.) Now the current approach, of KSP producing only perspective distortion, has the major advantage that it means that if you match the in-game field of view to your own view of the screen, the distortion will be nulled out. You could be sitting relatively close to a huge screen and the view would look correct. If KSP were, as an artistic choice, to introduce barrel distortion (a "fisheye" effect) to its view at wide angles, then you would never be able to get an undistorted view over such a wide angle whatever the size and position of your display. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distortion_(optics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_distortion_(photography)

Similar here. With the new forum software, if my post ends up a mess, well I don't give a [expletive], the forum software's just going to make it too much of a pain in the rear end to be worth bothering. Heck, I have to start a new line after pasting a link if I don't want that link to be automatically borked.

Well, realistically any mod manager, or any other software, will occasionally screw up. (I still remember the Ubuntu update that completely broke the GUI for the entire operating system.)But I feel that CKAN's policies in the past have failed to give you and other developers confidence that such screw-ups are unlikely. Personally, the reason I come to the forum thread first is because if I have a problem with FAR I typically don't know it's a 'bug' straight away, and my default assumption is that it's not. (Also, Github expects me to read three thousand words of legalese before signing up and I haven't got round to that yet.) Point to make here, the "non commercial" CC licenses are not Open Source or Free Software, by the definitions of the OSI and FSF respectively.

I think the mirror would still only be a small part of the cost, especially as making a 2.4m mirror now is probably a lot cheaper than it was in the 1980s.

If the Space Shuttle was still operational what would be cheaper is what was already done - "reuse the mirror" by way of replacing the camera chips and other equipment on Hubble. All five of the Hubble's original instruments have been replaced, as well as the COSTAR corrective optics that fixed the problem in the main mirror because the new individual instruments have that correction built-in. In fact another Hubble servicing mission could hypothetically be done by any vehicle capable of supporting a complex EVA, or by a sophisticated robot.

I didn't click, I tabbed to the link and pressed Enter

Relocate it to an anonymous hangar at the KSC itself. So it's not visible at a glance but can be found if you explore KSC.

Pick the one you think looks better.

Never mind that, I want to see what happens when you give EVA an EVA

KSP has a steep early leaning curve. In many ways it's not a difficult game, but there is a lot to learn, there's no getting away from that. You come from a flight sim background. Imagine you are a total novice to a flight sim and you know virtually nothing about how aeroplanes fly. You pull up and don't understand why your plane is actually dropping. You want to turn, so you use the rudder, and wonder why it's so rubbish. Your plane starts spinning all over the place and nothing you try stops it. Well that kind of lack of knowledge is how most total novices are at KSP! Of course you've got loads to learn.

I think yellow planets and moons are due to a bug in the load on demand system in Kopernicus. See if any config files are messing with it. As for the red, maybe you're quitting your game too quickly (It's probably another load-on-demand bug actually.)

For what it's worth, we have a recent counterexample to the "manual installation is easy" argument some people have made. This is how Ferram says to install FAR: "Copy the GameData and Ships folders into the KSP root directory and merge them with the existing GameData and Ships folders. Make sure that you copy over everything in the GameData folder. Serious issues will occur unless this is done." And this is how Thomas P says to install Kopernicus: "Copy the contents of the GameData/ folder to KSP's GameData/ folder" And lo and behold, users who follow those exact instructions then get bugs because those two mods are bundling two different versions of Modular Flight Integrator and so stomp over each other's files. That is the kind of situation that a good mod manager will prevent, and why I find it so disappointing that CKAN has become the centre of unnecessary drama.