cantab

At stock speeds, yes. But when you overclock there is no difference in clock speed reached.

The Shuttle had to roll because the launchpad needed it in a certain orientation and the ascent needed a different orientation. Rebuilding the pad would have been expensive. This is not an issue in KSP where we have one launch pad (and one runway) and can launch anything we like from them in any orientation because the support infrastructure is ignored.

I posted about this last month: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/124291-protect-against-progress-loss-by-loading-old-quicksave That it's been brought up again indicates it's an issue. As Not A Cylon mentioned the problem is that loading the quicksave which may be from a long time ago instantly and permanently overwrites the recent autosave. I know the kind of things that will be said: "You should have had backups" - yes, you should, but most people don't. "You should have read the manual" - what manual? Anyway many people don't. Even if there was a manual and someone did read it, the subtle distinction between quicksave and autosave and how quickload relates to that might not be understood. "You shouldn't have had that momentary mental lapse that let you quickload when you hadn't quicksave" - Whatever Mr. Perfect. "Other games do it the same way" - Well firstly *do* they? Do they let you quickload a two-month-old save and permanently lose all subsequent progress? Secondly this is a supportive argument but not an absolute one, and I'd note that KSP has been successful by not following the crowd. As I see it the bottom line is that KSP is giving players the rope to hang themselves and it doesn't need to. There are any number of ways to better handle this.

I don't really know what's actually on the cards, but I'm going to propose: Mars ISRU pilot. Get something on the surface of Mars that can run the chemical processes that a manned Mars mission will need to work to keep people alive and get them back. This could be combined with a Mars sample return mission, though that might be a risky way to run the sample return. Venus solar aircraft. It's been too long since anyone sent a spacecraft into Venus. With modern advances in autonomous aircraft, and how it's still a current area of research, the time is I think right for aviation on another world. A blimp should not be discounted, but I think a heavier-than-air craft would be preferable. Small body prospecting mission. OSIRIS-REx will have visited an asteroid, retrieved a sample, and be on its way back to Earth but it's already time to start thinking about something bigger. The focus of the mission will be to characterise the geology of the target body with a view to how it might be mined and for what. As for the target there are a few candidates. Phobos or Deimos would obviously support a Mars mission. A near-Earth asteroid might be readily accessible. Opting for a main belt asteroid might reduce constraints in terms of launch schedule since if a primary launch window is missed an alternative destination could be chosen. Two of these missions are going beyond the "pure science" of previous planetary exploration and into study with a view to functional and commercial exploitation. The Venus plane meanwhile has a high chance of developing technology with uses on Earth. The outer solar system may feel neglected I know, but we have already established that Jupiter and Uranus missions are secured, so I don't feel bad about focussing on the inner system.

Yeah, the Alienware Alpha is just a Windows PC really. Get out of Steam Big Picture or whatever it uses and get into the regular Windows desktop. Then download the mods, unzip them, and follow the mod's instructions for where to put the files. Virtually all KSP mods just need copying into the game's installation but it does matter that you get the mod folders in the right place.

+1 to this. Make life easier.

0 pen = well use a pencil sin x / n =

-63 (-)

Count me in the "It should be 100%" camp. I think the majority of new players, when they go to launch their first rocket, want to see it blast off. 100% gives them the best chance of doing that. Once a player looks up the rest of the controls, and then starts to learn the finer points of rocket design, they can think about throttling down sometimes. But I myself still do all my plane takeoffs and most of my rocket launches at full thrust.

Down to -61. *Swings lightsaber* Looks like we've rendered the positives 'armless.

Yup, simplest way is to attach the small jet fuel tank to your aircraft somewhere, then small intake on the front and juno on the back.

In my current save I'm using program names, and then numbers for the mission in that program. Sometimes the designs are the same, sometimes they change. For example, I might design the Manhattan 1 and send it to the Mun, then send an identical craft to Minmus. In flight the second craft will be renamed Manhattan 2 but I won't save it as that in the VAB. Then I might make some tweaks and save the new design in the VAB named Manhattan 3 and send that somewhere, Ike for example. The scheme is changing a bit with my cuirrent space shuttle development though, because a shuttle is in-universe meant to be the same craft going on mission after mission. But then I am still at the point where I'm crashing the airframes loads.

No idea. Probably the launchpad though, that's easy to blow up by accident or on purpose. The top tier VAB seems pretty tough sometimes, but then other times you tap it and it goes boom.

What do you get when you drop a piano on an ISRU base? A flat minor. What do you get when you drop a piano on Laythe? C augmented. What do you get when you drop a piano on the Sun? A fireball, what did you expect?

*draws red lightsaber* down to -59

What does your tug look like? I'm wondering if it would be possible to fly a lifting re-entry to reduce heating.

KSP has a variable "physics range", but in space it's usually 2.5 km or so, meaning you need to get at least that close to your target station before the game will render it and you can switch to it with the square bracket keys.

I'm not sure what things are like in the Czech republic. In Britain for that kind of money you're generally looking at a late 90s or early noughties hatchback. Japanese and Korean marques tend to be very reliable, Fords are good too, French and Italian brands are more likely to break down. 100,000 miles or thereabouts seems typical and these kind of cars will still have decent life in them at that age; I tested (but didn't buy) a Ford Fiesta with over 150,000 miles on it and while it felt worn out it obviously still drove OK. The usual concerns about checking vehicle history and condition all apply. For me in the end a family member gifted me their car with only 26,000 miles on it so that wasn't the problem. Insurance is what cost a bomb, with where you live being the number one factor in pricing above age and driving experience, so of course I'm in one of the worst places in the country

As mentioned, the technology exists and is in every toy store quadcopter drone. The development and miniaturisation of this kind of flight assistance software and processors is why these small drones have only become widespread recently, whereas model aircraft and helicopters with conventional controls have been around for decades.

My thoughts on a player's options to run KSP with a lot of mods, from most preferable to least preferable. 1: Use the official release of KSP on your usual operating system. (Windows 32-bit KSP for most people). 2: Use that release but in DirectX 11 or OpenGL mode. Significantly reduced memory usage, but DX11 may cause graphics glitches and OGL runs slow on Windows on some graphics cards. 3: Wait for KSP 1.1. It will probably be out in January. 4: Install Linux and use the Linux 64-bit release of KSP. It's a lot to install a whole operating system just for one game, and some graphics cards won't work very well, but it's a fully supported configuration. 5: Use the unofficial Windows 64-bit KSP hack and don't use the mods that block it. 6: Use the unofficial Windows 64-bit KSP hack, try and bypass mods blocking it, and annoy some of the best mod developers the KSP community has by doing so.

Bugs are bugs and should be fixed. I still want cargo bay dividers. Simple relatively thin panels in the various cargo bay shapes. So often I find myself needing to split up a cargo bay and there are no good parts to do that. Once such dividers are added, there's really no reason the service bays can't have open ends to permit more flexibility in designs.

Yes, I put about 20 hours in the old 0.18.3 demo, loved it from the start, and got the full game. I don't think the 1.0 demo is as good. The full game's tech tree was allowed to dictate the parts in the demo, and it's for the worse. Still you should be able to make stuff in it.

Nice. Sadly I doubt you'll maintain that framerate when you make more complex craft.

Kopernicus is a mod that makes planet modding possible. It does nothing by itself, but it's made planet mods easy and virtually all now use it. Thanks to Kopernicus there are dozens of planet mods now. Some add new worlds, some rearrange the existing ones, some just make the stock system bigger. If you want to do interstellar travel, the leading mod is Galactic Neighborhood. It moves the stock Sun, aka Kerbol, into a wide orbit round a central black hole and adds other stars nearby that also orbit that black hole. It's also designed with support for other planet packs, moving their planets to each orbit their own star. Don't worry about the 1.0.4 statement, I think it's fine in latest KSP. You will probably want some capable mod engines. Near Future offers efficient but low-TWR engines, Interstellar has more powerful stuff. There are also mods for nuclear pulse propulsion which is very efficient and very thrusty, and for warp drives. You might also want Better Timewarp.

Nothing major. I determined that I can get into orbit providing the final 900-1000 m/s of delta-V at just 0.25-0.3 TWR. That's the kind of thing I'll be looking at for my shuttle plans.