SolarAdmiral

Shockingly, I've always heard good things about HP Omen, for desktops (not sure if this good reputation extends to their laptops or not). And I've heard no end of bad things about Dell / Alienware. Neither is from first hand experience though. Personally, I'd always go with Memory Express, but that's only an option if you happen to be Canadian. But maybe also look around to see if you have a local / regional PC and parts store with a good reputation, reviews, and doesn't look like it's on the edge of going bankrupt. Then, check prices, see what they cover and handle for support, compare to make sure you're getting a good deal.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who went for a Tuck and Roll Landing. I didn't use jets and went for spark engines. I was attempting to get under 2 tons, and it would have worked if it wasn't for that darn atmosphere and drag. So I wound up at 3.27 tons. More pics in the imgur https://imgur.com/a/jFTTD9q This is the best one, from the final RCS pack landing.

Agreed! Tiny is my Jam. I'll keep a lookout for any future challenges. Maybe another larger idea would be, "Complete the Explore mode / Main missions with the lowest total tonnage"

So, upon closer examination of the rules, I believe I have a smaller, cheekier, SSTO entry. The rules require, "Put this lightest ship you can into orbit without shedding parts." and "Orbit is PE above 70km. " So as such, here is my 0.13 ton SSTO Although, technically even lighter would be a kerbal with RCS pack. (Funny Enough, the other two possibilities I checked for this, -Stratus-V Minified with min fuel and 1 RCS thruster -Two Seppatrons with min fuel Both also came out to 0.13 tons) If the 'surface' and 'orbit' don't need to be around the same body, then there's this for 0.07 tons. From Minmus Surface to Kerbin Orbit. It's single stage to 'an' orbit, and the PE is over 75km.

Here's a Kerbalized Apollo-Soyuz, the first manmade eclipse. This was more difficult to arrange than I imagined it would be.

Ok interesting. Yeah I don't have much experience flying so close to the minimum. But yes don't think I can beat that, at best would match it. The only other thing I could think of to try to reduce weight is swapping some Oscar B tanks for a Baguette. As I think it has just a tiny bit better fuel to dead weight. But couldn't get any success with it, probably because of drag.

Ha yeah I can't beat that. You can make it to orbit with only 3,223m/s vacuum DV?

Well seeing your improvement, I had to see if I could get it sub 1 ton. I got 0.82 Tons. It starts falling over on the pad so you need to launch it immediately.

Alright, this is what I got for the Spark. I tried building something a little better looking and fancier using the NCS200 nose cone tank, but couldn't get it to work. More weight and drag vs the thin stack of Oscar B tanks I guess. 1.23 Tons. This one is even less useful, having no solar panels. But I got it to orbit with 200m/s extra DV. I think this is probably close to the lowest weight SSTO possible, as there are no lighter engines with better TWR or ISP. Are Ion powered aircraft still possible, in KSP2, or even in current KSP1 for that matter?

Alright, here's what I put together. 4.11 Tons. It doesn't do anything, no payload or Kerbals, just a probe and a Rapier. -edit- Looks like smaller is possible. I figure about a 1.25 ton SSTO is possible using the Spark Engine.

Oh boy do I know that fun. I had a project want metric materials but measurements in imperial. Nothing in my professional life has felt as dirty as making drawings with 30M bar at 12" OC spacing.

https://youtu.be/07vdtBMG4Kg?si=Mj9ai8Fmjvn_4vjX

I'm right there with you. I find even going short distances with a rover very tedious. I've only done a handful of missions involving rovers, often only to go over to one or two other biomes, and every time its boring enough to make me avoid them for years. Which is why I bring up Snowrunner. With everything put together, that game manages to make it fun. I think it's because Snowrunner poses challenges to the player, deep snow and mud, downed trees, running water. There's risk of getting suck. For KSP, the only risk is getting so bored you floor it, driving as fast and reckless as possible to get it over with. Obviously, KSP won't be able to be as in depth as Snowrunner, it isn't going to have a driving and terrain system like that, especially at the scale of KSP. I just hope the KSP team is able to figure out a way to make the rover driving a little more interesting, posing challenges and risks rather than merely testing patience. I don't know if it is possible, or if it fits the team's plan. But I'd almost like to see a system where players can have rovers drive themselves over long distances of easy terrain. Click on the planet map and send them to where you want them. As long as its flat open unchallenging terrain, the rover will drive itself and arrive. But it will stop when it hits difficult terrain, large rock obstacles, steep slopes, cliffs, narrow passages or narrow ledges, requiring the player to drive and find a way through only over the hard bits. That way, the long boring parts of driving could be skipped over, requiring the player only to drive the interesting challenging bits. I think most people who hate rovers, is due to how driving them is mostly long boring stretches without much challenge. Maybe if driving them was instead letting them automatically drive themselves over the wide open easy stretches, and letting you jump in to drive over a five or ten minute stretch of difficult and challenging terrain, fewer people would dislike them.

Oh the other hand, maybe more realistically and just as good, rovers might simply be encouraged out of efficiency. They don't need fuel just easily generated electric charge. A planet could have three different resources. They never generate in the exact same place, but maybe you can seek out a spot that has all three nearby within easy driving range. Build your base between them and drive them all to the central base. Maybe even more key in high gravity like eve and tylo. I just hope they can figure out a way to make the driving fun and challenging without being tedious and boring.

So of all of KSP2, resources are what I'm most looking forward to. Ultimately, the economy, manufacturing, and transportation of stuff is what I'm interested in most and just adding that kind of industrial and logistic side to the game would be more than enough for me to be interested alone. But, I've also been wondering how the ground nature of the resources could be used to improve the ground gameplay of KSP, which has always been a bit lacking and unnecessary. Just something to have fun with on the side but no real purpose. Do you think it's possible resources could be used to make the ground gameplay both necessary and fun? I don't expect it to match this, but what I'd look to as the absolute best example the game could strive for, is Snowrunner/Spintires. If they could figure out a way to add even a little bit of that to the driving game of KSP I think that would be fantastic. I don't even know if that's possible though. Could such difficulty be added in a low gravity environment, where in KSP vehicles can't really get stuck in the same way they do in the mud and snow of Snowrunner? Can it be done on the massive scale of KSP planets, without being one or two handcrafted sites on an otherwise massive boring world. Can KSP do that kind of gameplay without merely being frustrating. I think the first problem to solve is, why not simply use landers and rockets. Maybe to encourage the use of rovers, some resources could be placed in caves or overhangs. There could be steep cliffs and deep valleys. There could be tall rock spires or other obstacles around the resource, easier to drive around but hazardous to land in. So they could encourage landing nearby on nice flat land free from obstacles, and then find a route to drive over to where the resources are. Anyway, I was just interested in starting a discussion about what could possibly be added to make the experience deeper. Again, I don't really expect it to be too in depth, whatever is done has to be able to cover the massive area that are full sized kerbal planets. It can't be something that requires too much work.