SkyRender

I sadly must concur. Few of the streamers seem to understand how to handle the new aerodynamics model. The ones who do generally are the ones who have past experience with NEAR and FAR. I look forward to Scott Manley's turn, though; he's one streamer I know to be reliably capable.

Anyone who's worked with FAR (or NEAR) will recognize the "wobbly rocket" aspect of the streams to be that the streamers are generally launching lawn darts with almost no steering capabilities and without anywhere near the correct profile for that to work out well. If they had stabilization off, they'd go even more off-course. Fins are your friend in the new atmosphere! So is not pointing a billion miles away from prograde while in an atmosphere thicker than 0.02atm.

- I'm intrigued as well, you're not alone! - Many of us would be happy to help you learn spaceplanes, having run that gauntlet ourselves; all you need do is ask. - I know many of us here are in the same boat on that one...

Hiding it in the Debug menu is a bit of a mistake. It would make more sense to put an Advanced Info tab on the same toolbar that has the Engineer's Report. I'm sure we'll see a change like that sooner or later.

There is a solution to that which you may not be to keen on: study tomorrow instead. Or if you're going to need two days, get studying now!

Here's a few ideas. - Get a head start on 1.0's new atmospheric systems by installing Deadly Re-Entry and NEAR (or FAR if you're feeling bold)! - Get a feel for ISRU mechanics with Karbonite! - Watch some Scott Manley videos and learn some new tricks! - Watch some Danny2462 videos and have some good laughs! - Tune into KSPTV's 48-hour KSP 1.0 marathon and bask in the coming glory of 1.0! - Go play Xenoblade Chronicles 3D; you'll probably get about 1/5th of the way through the game before Monday!

Would it be considered "cheating" if NASA were to use the Mun to mine helium-3 and aluminium? Or perhaps the plan to mine a captured asteroid once we get one around the Earth is also cheating? Is the proposed Mars Direct mission cheating as well for using the atmosphere of Mars to produce methane-based fuel? Just because no space program has yet done something does not mean it's cheating. If that were the case, you'd have to toss the RAPIER engine in the pile too.

I would have to have a severe lapse in sanity not to upgrade to 1.0. What have I been waiting for these last 3.5 years if not this?

The very first "eclipse" system in KSP generated shadows that looked like this: Hopefully we won't see a return to that.

That isn't Duna... If you look at the texturing, that Kerbal is pretty clearly on Kerbin (I'd know that grass anywhere). And the surface of that object is pretty obviously the Mun, orange coloration aside. It looks exactly what a lunar eclipse looks like (ie. when a moon is in the shadow of its parent body).

If a recent image posted by the devs is any indicator, it's probably proper occlusion effects from eclipses.

If they did insert a new planet, they'll save that for the last day, methinks. Tomorrow is more likely to be about the new parts or new IVAs. EDIT: Wow, I called that one, huh?

I'm in a bit of an interesting position in that my favorite new feature is actually the multitude of bugfixes. Most of the neat new features I've experienced in some capacity via mods, and I've played this game in its pre-final state since late 2011. As such, the long-standing bugs being fixed is easily the most exciting part of the update.

You should never underestimate this community. It won't even be a week before someone gets a Kerbal safely down to Kerbin's surface in a command seat, screaming through the upper atmosphere at 3000m/s.

At this point, nothing much is left to challenge me outside of absurd things the game was never meant to do (like landing an airplane on a flying aircraft carrier; I'm sure I could do it, mind, but I have no reason to do it). The very last hurdle I overcame with KSP was spaceplane design. Which apparently I thought was still too easy to overcome, as then I overcame it AGAIN with FAR installed.

As a long-time veteran of this game, I can definitively say that the single best feature of this game is persistence. Newer players really take that feature for granted. Before 0.14, you couldn't even save, let alone have multiple craft active at one time. A trip out to the Mun had to be done in one go, and if anything went wrong, well, there went about a half an hour of effort. Better luck next launch!

I had a feeling that KSP would arrive on GOG once it hit 1.0. That's great news for people who prefer that service!

Hey, I'm not denying that the ease of updates has its dark side these days. And it is quite a problem for anything that has a physical distribution. KSP does not have a physical distribution as of yet, however. So it can reap the benefits of ease of updating without falling into the pitfalls that come with it.

No product has ever released perfectly into 1.0. There's always shortcomings, bugs, glitches, oversights, and content that didn't make it into the final build. Be thankful that we live in an age where updates to software are not only possible, but also phenomenally easy to do and highly accessible as well. Back in the cartridge-and-casette days, if you wanted an updated version of software, you were usually out of luck entirely or had to buy a new copy altogether to get it. Even as recently as the CD era, getting an update for software was often tricky and required either a then-uncommon internet connection or a subscription to a service like Walnut Creek CD-ROM. My point is, 1.0 is not the end any longer; it's just the beginning.

SSTOs are never really necessary for anything. They can get you better fuel usage, it's true, but it also ups the challenge factor considerably. It only gets worse if you have NEAR or FAR installed (or I suppose with the new stock aerodynamics for 1.0), as suddenly you have to worry about the actual nature of lift instead of just having the right overall position of center of lift relative to center of mass. As a veteran of building SSTOs in both current-stock and FAR aerodynamics, I can give you some good tips, though. 1. Center of lift should be slightly behind center of mass, always. A little above or below isn't that big a deal, but behind is essential! As an aerospace engineer once put it, "an airplane with its center of lift behind its center of mass will fly poorly, an airplane with its center of lift in front of its center of mass will fly once". 2. Center of mass should not change meaningfully as fuel drains. This is the biggest engineering hurdle, hands down. Thanks to tweakables, you can see how fuel affects your center of mass as it drains by draining the tanks of fuel in the VAB or SPH, so this is less of a problem than it could be to engineer. It's still what kills most spaceplanes on the way up to orbit, though! 3. You need more wings than you think you need. A good rule of thumb is that your craft should have a wingspan at least as wide as it is long. It's very easy to tell if a craft does not have enough wing surface area, as it will have a very hard time even getting off the ground. 4. You need more engines than you think you need. The high-altitude turbojet and RAPIER engine both can lift about a 16- to 20-ton craft reliably. That's pretty lightweight, all things considered. And of course, you have to remember that their own weight also has to be lifted... 5. Control surfaces are your friends. Some long control surfaces on the rear wings, a vertical control surface on the tailfin, and two horizontal adjustable winglets on top of the tailfin will give you roughly the same control authority as a commercial jet plane has. Stick a pair of adjustable winglets as far forward as possible too for extra control. 4. Know your change-over point! Even a well-built SSTO can still get caught in a flat spin or aerodynamic failure state. Depending on how many intakes you have on your vessel (more is good, but too many is kinda cheat-y), you'll probably be in danger of a flame-out with the turbojets and/or RAPIER engines around 22000 to 24000m. Keep an eye on your IntakeAir, and switch over to rocket engines as soon as it gets down to 0.01 per engine. It's advisable you set up an action group for this, and also set that action group to toggle the air intakes (which are a liability in rocket mode). 5. Know your ascent profile too! Early on, you want to gain altitude and speed both, so keep around 45 degrees. As you reach 8000 to 10000m, you can start slowly making your way to pointing closer to the horizon, as the need for horizontal speed will increase and the need for vertical speed decrease. By 20,000m, you should be nearly in level flight, climbing at a very slow rate but gaining alarming levels of horizontal velocity. Once your speed is getting pretty high (depending on your build, anywhere between 1200 and 1750m/s, start aiming more upwards. As soon as you reach the switch-over point to rocket engines, you'll want to be aiming as up as you can. Aim for an apoapsis of around 100000m for best results, and keep an eye on it; if it dips back into the atmosphere before you reach your peak, push it back up. 6. Don't be afraid to re-engineer your craft! If you don't have enough fuel to circularize once you reach orbit, you need to design your craft around a larger fuel capacity. If you can't seem to stay stable, you need to make your craft more aerodynamic (especially in FAR and the coming 1.0 stock aero!). If you find your jet engines cut out and put you into a flat spin, you need to change over to rockets at a higher level of IntakeAir. Hopefully some of that will help you. Best of luck to you!

Nice. And here I thought nobody remembered Smashing Pumpkins any longer. Another song comes to mind: I Believe I Can Fly. Why not?

Final Countdown, definitely. I mean really, isn't that an obvious one?

I remember you, Damion. It was a big deal when you became the community manager back in the day. We old-timers had some fun times back then... 1.0 is looking and sounding like it's going to be fantastic. Definitely a release to come back for, whatever your reasons might have been for leaving.

Valentina will crew the first space station of my 1.0 save along with Bill and Bob. With the occasional joyride out to the Mun and/or Minmus, just 'cause.

For recent releases? 0.24 by a mile. It got up to 2,975 posts before it was closed.