Technical Ben

Another WIP craft. A small ion glider with rover this time. I doubt it would have the lift for duna though. Might be a good idea for Eve. So will send it there.

A swinging arm rotating on a grooved pivot will swing one way easier than the other, due to friction acting stronger in one direction. The energy being turned into heat etc when against the "grain". So careful what you conclude from "strange" results. 100% of every experiment, observation and calculation so far has shown there is no such thing as free energy, and no such thing as a propellent less propulsion (if that's the correct technical term).

It can be done. It's a trick some model copter pilots use. They adjust the pitch of the blade, after it's built up speed from the descent. But this is somewhat tricky, and less safe than a powered landing. Also possibly less safe than a parachute. So it would be useful more so if mixed with powered and directed landings, as parachutes are more prone to the wind etc.

For obvious reasons it's considered to fall "down" as it's not a type of "anti-gravity". Though I suppose we could consider it travelling backwards in time, which could theoretically travel "up" when exposed to gravity. As gravity is very much a relativity related thing, I'd put a lot of money on antimatter being attracted positively to other matter (and it's self) via gravity. It's just one of those things that will be hard to observe. Like we cannot observe the core of the moon to rule out it being made of cheese, but so far all evidence shows it's rock.

But no one is talking about liquid Saturn V engines for Luna/Muna or Mars/Duna landings and take offs. So that's a strawman if an argument against them in game. In game, they are rather much like their real counterparts. Not as powerful as liquid engines, but more than enough for actual flight on small planets (up to 30:1 TWR) in real life and in game. If it could ever be done for an earth launch would depend on both size and how much you can "spam" them. Of cause we can do so in sandbox mode.

Would the new arm clarws work as landing gear? Giant landing gears. PS, with screen tearing you can see changes much higher than 30 or 60 fps. 30-60 for individual frames you may not see. For actual optical or visual blurring and shuddering or screen tearing though, the rates would be much higher.

NTRs are as powerful as normal rockets AFAIK with some (lots in some cases) additional weight. But the weight can scale, so they are worth it for launches. Oh, quickly looking at the wiki, it says some are lighter as your fuel systems are simpler and payloads can be larger. Wiki/google knows all: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacecraft_propulsion puts it's TTW just below liquid/solid with more ISP. So not "better" but it is a possible choice, as it is in KSP (liquid is better, but a single NTR in KSP is a simpler design, so the small loss of DV or thrust is no real concern to most).

Once you max science (the tech tree), career mode currently becomes "sandbox" too. Things might change later with coasts though.

Variable VTOL??? It might be possible.

Science is not the point of career mode. Progression is. "Points" in science is only applicable to the Career. But all other features of the science parts and systems can be used in sandbox. It's only points that are specific to career in function and use. So why not add everything else to sandbox? (I would assume it's to prevent "cheating" for biome locations. But these are both easily searched online/through a wiki or could be randomised in sandbox only and kept default for career so no overlap/cheating).

Direct-able thrust? Oh, now I just... this game is perfect! [edit] A quick test shows 1 claw only pivots about 45 degrees. For a nice working thrust vector for VTOL I'd need quite a bit more. Could do 2 engines though...

We are all already in space... [struts around with a celebratory dance and "space walk"]

It did not seem to be postulated as the xenon hitting the solar, but the xenon working as an engine in addition to the solar. Though I might have misread the post, it's rather hard to translate the meaning from the OP... A "fan blowing a sail" fails, but an "outboard motor with a sail boat" does work.

I do both. I put takes up for use later. If the ship already has a tank, it refuels. I never "swap" as such, but do ditch empties in planets/moons to save on return weight.

Doh. Yep, the tech nerd in me looked up your board to see that to be so. So a very strange result. Possibly Windows 8 related? Does the motherboard have EFI (or whatever) to check the mouse in, or as others said the linux Live CD? How did that go? If the mouse works in Linux, you will know it's Windows 8 at fault. PS, will be building a massive (for me, but probably small fry compared to some) AMD rig this week... though not mine :,( , but will let you know how it runs KSP with hundreds of parts!

"The craft would not gain anything from the engine if it is weaker than the force exerted by the solar wind." AFAIK it would. But that's assuming the sail is self holding/rigid. If the sail is not rigid, it may unfold and become useless as acceleration from the ion engine overcomes it. If it is rigid (or enough strength from the solar wind), it will get a little boost from the ion engine and the solar wind. Similar to this I would guess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorsailer This has to be the most confused thread ever on KSP forums though. How many questions/topics/votes does it cover?

Launching the Asteroid Wheel is always hard. As the ship rotates at an accelerating pace during the launch (hence the name), I can't really control the inclination of the initial orbit. http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/jltsiren/ksp/asteroid_wheel_5.jpegThis time my initial orbit was 90° off the target, but that's why the ship has so much delta-v. http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/jltsiren/ksp/asteroid_wheel_6.jpeg I intercepted the asteroid outside Kerbin's SoI, with about 2/3 of fuel left. It was a relatively small Class E asteroid, with only 1690 tonnes of mass. Now I have about 1040 m/s left to steer the asteroid wherever I want it to go. In my intitial docking position, three of the four arms actually stretched far enough that engine exhaust would not hit the asteroid in any case. In some other orientations, all four engine clusters have a clean line of fire. I've got one of those... well, the size down. I'm sending a massive fuel tug with a (hopefully) flexible fuel feed to refuel the tug for some pushing. Then get it on an equatorial orbit.

No, I would not object, If the engine was "warp drive" or similar and had an astronomical energy cost and research tree and needed unobtainable. I trust them so far not to go completely insane though.

I was able to uses "move freely" then "target COM" then line up the asteroid for near zero "wobble". Small RCS and 1 SAS was enough for a rock about 10 times the size of the craft. Possibly more RCS/SAS for much larger rocks.

What about 680mT? It's not a perfected launcher yet, as it self disassembles unless I skip one of the stages. So it will need a little... a lot of tweaking. PS, wow, those clouds in the mod make me wish Squad add such features to game real soon. Nice design and launch too.

Whackjob cannot fix his computer because it's caused a singularity from the giant rockets... in the future. Every time it's almost up and running, the feedback loop from the future back to the present breaks the machine again.

Thank you to you and the OP. I've just figured out. We can build "station building" arms for moon bases or orbital bases now.

You think that's bad, what about this (partly on topic, as those two craft are my biggest launches yet): Thanks. Noticed it after careful inspection.

Sorry, I meant put a mainsail and a little (or lot) of fuel on one edge of the rock, point it the right way, and fire it up like a "catherine wheel". Oh, and possibly a fulcrum and an immovable place to set it can work...

I'm almost tempted to put a free copy of KSP down on it being the USB 3.0 drivers/sockets... ... except a quick looks shows the board does not have usb 3.0? Is that correct?