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Let's see. I decided to give KSP a chance all the way back in 2011, and I'm still playing it today. It was already exceeding my initial expectations by 0.18. I think it's safe to say that this game is pretty high on my list of games that are made of awesome.

No screenshots of it at the moment, but my own Minmus fuel operations are pretty slick. The main mining unit has 4 drills, a converter, plenty of RTGs, and tons of solar panels. It lands at a mining hotspot and basically never moves again. Attached to it is a small automated rover with a 90/110 fuel tank, monoprop tank, and claw. The fuel ferry is basically all business: it's mostly fuel tank, with just a probe, power, engines, docking port, and landing gear out of necessity. The central stack of the ascent stage doubles as an orbital fuel station, and can get out to Minmus with surprisingly large quantities of fuel left. The operation is simple: mining unit extracts ore and converts, auto-rover carries the fuel over to the fuel ferry, fuel ferry takes that fuel up to the fuel station in orbit. Actually filling the station would take ages and ages, but it has the capacity for it since the base launch stage that comprises it has two of the largest fuel tanks in the game for capacity. Also, the lot of this is sent up in a single launch. Because I like efficiency. Also, it gets bonus points in my book for being a 100% Kerbal-free operation.

So would this result in more points if you sent multiple Kerbals out and thus earned more experience across the lot of them in the process? Or does only the most experienced Kerbal count?

From what I've seen with how others use it, MechJeb has a good chance of robbing you of any sort of desire to actually fly ships on your own. This may seem like a good thing, but given that it removes basically the single most interesting part of the actual game part of KSP from the equation, it will also devalue the experience considerably and leave you more likely to stop playing the game sooner than if you'd buckled down and handled those flights yourself. If all you're really looking for is the info that MJ provides (and that info IS very useful), there's another non-intrusive mod called Kerbal Engineer Redux that gives you the same sort of data read-outs without the autopilot temptations.

I shall answer in meme form. Yep.

It doesn't actually take that much to make an SSTO in 1.0.2, honestly. Even confined to rocket engines, the KISS principle applies. What does KISS mean? Keep It Simple, Stupid! And in that spirit, here is a 14-part ultralight SSTO rocket. I call it It's Not Rocket Science. The real trick to this thing is an efficient ascent profile. It can easily get into a stable orbit, and well beyond in fact. Overall it took around 5m30s to get to orbit, which is pretty standard with a decent profile. I could have been slightly more aggressive and still made it (there's still 400m/s or so of dV after circularization). And of course, a beauty shot to show that it did in fact arrive in orbit with nothing dropped.

Really what's needed to nip that one in the bud is an overall pressure tolerance threshold for parts (which combines G-forces with atmospheric effects). As noted, FAR does have this factored in the form of aerodynamic failure, and in fact does exactly that: it checks the combination of atmospheric density and G-force being applied to parts and breaks things when that threshold is exceeded. This is why a spaceplane taking off from Eve at sea level in FAR is generally a suicide mission. I think the main reason why high dynamic pressure simulation isn't in the game at this point is, well, it's generally not much fun to have your craft literally disintegrate around you without much warning or means of preventing it by extension.

Well according to the Hitchhiker's Guide to Kerbals, much of the species is obsessed with rocketry (and something resembling potato crisps). It would not surprise me if there were backyard rocketry enthusiasts on Kerbin who actually build space-worthy rockets.

An obligatory "low Kerbin orbit" shot for you.

If it's any condolence, Eve returns are much easier now. As long as you can get a ship with enough TWR to the surface, you can get back to orbit for far less dV. I just finished up testing an Eve ascent vehicle with ~8450dV, and it got to orbit with ~660dV to spare. It wasn't even the most efficient possible ascent profile, either. Quite an improvement over the old atmospheric model's ~10,000 to 12,000dV requirement!

Applied engineering. I figure out what it is I want to do, I design a craft for that within the limits of what I have available to me, then I pare it down 'til nothing more can be taken away without jeopardizing the mission goals. My Career mode files never seem to be lacking in funds. Or successful missions.

The most creative people shine brightest when limitations are placed upon them. While there is a point where that ceases to be true (confining possibilities so highly that literally only one solution ever registers as "correct" or "acceptable", for example), the fact remains that nearly anyone can think up particularly clever and interesting possibilities when given few to no limitations. I suggest that, instead of complaining that you have fewer ways to express yourself now, you instead focus on the ways that you can express yourself. Just my own take on the matter.

Service bays are fun! Especially when you do things like this: All sorts of fun things can come from this. This is a tamer example. Earlier this same vessel crashed the game for me, and another time the Kerbal inside the inner bay became uncontrollable after he was forcibly ejected from it. Good times.

I suspect the justification for the LV-N heating came from this bit from Wikipedia on nuclear thermal rockets in regards to the KIWI project (precursor to the NERVA): On the initial firings immense reactor heat and vibration cracked the fuel bundles. Likewise, while the graphite materials used in the reactor's construction were indeed resistant to high temperatures, they eroded under the heat and pressure of the enormous stream of superheated hydrogen. The fuel bundle problem was largely (but not completely) solved by the end of the program, and related materials work at Argonne National Laboratory looked promising. Fuel and engine coatings never wholly solved this problem before the program ended. The article for the NERVA also contains this tidbit: The most serious injury during testing was a hydrogen explosion in which two employees sustained foot and ear drum injuries. At one point in 1965, during a test at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the liquid hydrogen storage at Test Cell #2 was accidentally allowed to run dry ; the core overheated and ejected on to the floor of the Nevada desert. Test Site personnel waited 3 weeks and then walked out and collected the pieces without mishap. The nuclear waste from the damaged core was spread across the desert and was collected by an Army group as a decontamination exercise. Without further research, one might be tempted to think that nuclear propulsion and overheating were synonymous. However, that's far from true: by the end of the testing cycle, the NERVA engines were only in danger of dangerously high heat build-up if the fuel source was depleted entirely while the engine was still on.

Hopefully experiments like this will be rendered moot eventually with the introduction of a dedicated heat radiator part at some point. Until then, this is quite helpful; thank you!

I decided to see if I could make something semi-practical out of this concept. What I came up with is the Tinship: It has about 485m/s dV left after reaching a stable ~73KM orbit. Flying it was interesting, as the fins kept wanting to rotate it. Eventually I just let them and went to orbit at a 45-degree rotation from how I started.

My top tip would be to re-read what you've written before you post it, and ask yourself if it's really what you want to be posting. Quite a lot of the hateful diatribes that bring forth massive arguments are the result of a user posting in a state of anger or frustration, and having the whole thing snowball on them. Choice of words and how you frame the subject can make the difference between getting help and getting nothing but angry responses.

Here's a few examples of what I've pictured how it might ideally work. Scenario 1: Orbit of Kerbin Itinerary 1: Orbit Kerbin Destination 1: Suborbital flight over Kerbin (1 * 7500 = 7500) Destination 2: Orbiting in space just above Kerbin (1 * 7500 = 7500) Return flight reward: (7500 + 7500) * 2 = 30000 Scenario 3: Orbit the Mun Itinerary 1: Orbit the Mun Destination 1: Suborbital flight over Kerbin (1 * 7500 = 7500) Destination 2: Orbiting in space just above Kerbin (1 * 7500 = 7500) Destination 3: Orbiting in space high above Kerbin (1.5 * 7500 = 11250) Destination 4: On an escape trajectory out of the Mun (2 * 7500 = 15000) Destination 5: Orbiting in space high above the Mun (2 * 7500 = 15000) Return flight reward: (7500 + 7500 + 11250 + 15000 + 15000) * 2 = 85500 Scenario 3: Duna orbit, Ike flyby Itinerary 1: Orbit Duna Destination 1: Suborbital flight over Kerbin (1 * 7500 = 7500) Destination 2: Orbiting in space just above Kerbin (1 * 7500 = 7500) Destination 3: Orbiting in space high above Kerbin (1.5 * 7500 = 11250) Destination 4: Orbiting in space high above the sun (2 * 7500 = 15000) Destination 5: On an escape trajectory out of Duna (5 * 7500 = 37500) Destination 6: Orbiting in space high above Duna (5 * 7500 = 37500) Itinerary 2: Flyby of Ike (starting state: orbiting in space high above Duna) Destination 1: On an escape trajectory out of Ike (5 * 7500 = 37500) Completion: (7500 + 7500 + 11250 + 15000 + 37500 + 37500 + 37500) * 2 = 461250 Obviously it could use a bit of tweaking, but the basic idea is there. It would result in much more sensible fares as destinations get further afield of Kerbin.

You know, stories like that make me both appreciate quicksaving/quickloading all the more, and also wonder at what interesting scenarios I cheat myself out of by using it so often...

Tourists do need a bit of an overhaul, it's true. I'm sure SQUAD is already considering how to deal with it. My guess (I can't say for sure as I'm not part of the development team!) is that they're going to tie the science multiplier for celestial bodies to the cost of a given destination on the itinerary, and also add a basic trip-logic algorithm that actually looks at the destination(s) the tourist wants to reach and calculates the states they need to go through to get there when pricing out how much their trip will cost. The current system seems to be a roll of all possible destinations, picking 2 to 6 of them out of the hat depending on the contract complexity, meaning at the moment you can theoretically get completely unreasonable requests like a trip to Moho's, Eve's, and Eeloo's surfaces all in one trip. What we'll probably see once those contracts get revised is a system where there are 1 to 3 major destinations, with prices factored based on the destinations you have to visit in order to get to those final destinations. Likely it will be limited to one destination per celestial body, too. (Honestly, it would have to be for sanity check reasons.) Just my $0.02US on the matter.

It really is a learning experience with the new aerodynamics model. Even those of us who cut our teeth on FAR still find interesting new challenges with it. Be persistent, try new things, and you'll get the hang of things as time goes on.

Another thing to consider is slowing your ascent to orbit a bit. Once you hit 250m/s, throttle it back a bit and let your climb be more gradual until about 15km up. Then throttle it up to about 1.75 TWR (ie. around 7m/s acceleration). If you do it right, you'll probably be going around 350 to 450m/s at 15km, and won't actually cross the trans-sonic barrier very hard until you reach about 20km. At which point the atmosphere is so thin that it won't cause your ship to flip out. If your ship still flips out, seriously, lower the boosters a bit. Having the engine bells even like that may look nice, but practically speaking it means your center of mass gets all wonky on the way up.

Fins will actually be counterproductive on that rocket design! Since you have bilateral symmetry on those boosters, the airflow to the fins will be unbalanced, resulting in your craft veering hard towards a direction you may well not want it to. Just fair warning. If things start going haywire and it starts pushing hard no matter how you try to control it, lose the fins. Another easy thing to try: lower your attachment point for the boosters. It sounds weird, but it helps offset center-of-mass issues as the rocket drains fuel.

PSA: The KLAW causes all sorts of issues with spontaneous unplanned disassembly. Fortunately it usually does not destroy whatever it's attached to, but anything it's not attached to is fair game. This includes parts that used to be attached to the vessel it's a part of and even newly-launched ships.

In my experience, you don't need much dV once you reach the cutoff altitude. If you build up a solid 1000 to 1200m/s before the cutoff, you'll need around 1700m/s for your burn to over 70km AP and subsequent circularization (accounting for gravity losses, which are pretty minor if you do it right).