Esme

The Mun, aka 'the grey sphere of Kerbally Doom". Still can;t reliably soft-land on it. I think half the problem is that there don;t appear to be any equivalents of the lunar maria, ie: reasonably flat bits you can try landing on to get used to teh gravity. Every darned where I try to land it always seems to be a twenty to thirty degree slope, which makes it very frustrating trying to learn how to land on it, as you;ve the double challenge of the slope as well as the gravity to contend with in vacuo, so no parachutes. Sigh...

At the weekend I indulged in a bit of nostalgia and fired up KSP 0.23.5 hoping to find the game where I built my best Minmus base (using KAS, Kethane and Scansat) to date. Then remembered that that game had been eaten by the Kraken, but I did find a later one where New Kurfurst was almost complete, and so I'm working on getting a science lab up there, as well as sending a few unmanned probes here and there to get enough science to make a manned mission to Duna possible. 'Twas fun!

Debris

I'd colonise Duna then terraform (Kerbiform?) it, then see if terraforming Laythe and/or Eve were practical and meanwhile build a sizable interstellar ark ship with the intent of colonising more solar systems with Kerbals.

That's silly, I loved it! Brilliant, well done!

Science mode for me!

<S> (salute) Overland. There will be a 10-second hold on my next launch in honour of your sadly lost crew.

I'm not sure quite how many memes/things I've mangled into this one, but.. So much upness Very explodings So sad.

Nick, if what you want is a traditional space simulator, get Orbiter. KSP is NOT supposed to be a full-on accurate-to-real-life space simulator. It is, first and foremost, a GAME. Personally, I have long wanted some sort of space simulation game that is reasonably realistic, but reasonably easy (or perhaps I should say non-frustrating) to play. When, some years ago I heard of Orbiter, I was at first delighted, then sorely disappointed - because it is so realistic that in order to make use of it, one had to understand all the controls in the ships, and as it happens, I don;t want to spend half an hour going through realistic pre-flight checks messing with various electrical systems and making sure valves and pumps ae operating OK. When I heard of KSP a little over a year ago, given it's cartoony appearance, I was hoping like heck that it wasn;t yet another game that is too UN-realistic to hold my attention. Luckily, and to my amazement, it hit the sweet spot for me - pretty good physics (good enough that you can actually learn things about real-world physics), but with fun game mechanics. And the Kerbals are , well, just so cute, too! So far so good - but add to that - no DRM, the developers are at pains to make the game as easily moddbale as possible, and they actually listen to the community and respect their wishes to a reasonable extent? I still pinch myself now and then that such a wonderful thing has come into my life to entertain me so well for such a reasonable price. I've not come across any other game giving even remotely so good value as KSP. And considering some of the ridiculous prices I see games advertised for these days, KSP in my opinion is excellent value. Orbiter - though actually free of charge - is not, to me, because it is not fun, to me. So if what you want is full-on realism, try Orbiter. But KSP not being Orbiter doesnt detract from its excellent value for money. IMHO.

To address the OP's question - if you bought KSP from the KSP store, then in my experience, the previous to current version has always been available if you go to re-download KSP. I cannot comment on the situation with regard to Steam users, as I don't play KSP via Steam, but I gather an earlier poster has done so. And to those ignoring the OP's question in a non-helpful way (as against those giving useful info and encouragement to stick with the current version) - shame on you! Doesn't it occur to you that some folk might actually find the previous version more fun (or the current version less fun), for whatever reason?

A kerbal, A rocket Explosion. Cherry bloom weeps At the loss.

Or celerophobia, maybe?

Very well done! I've approaching 400 hours of play now (about half of it pootling around Minmus) and I STILL can't reliably land on the Mun! I like your ship design, think I might borrow it, if I may...

Thanks Snark. Hmm. Thanks, I see what you're saying with 2, hadn't really thought about that. As for the why - I'm in it for the science points, generally. As I've only just got adept enough to be able to get probes to the Joolian system, I wanted to get as much science as possibel out of it so I could unlock more stuff (I'm playing v0.9, science game). I've set up bases using KAS before, and am using TAC LS on mannd missions, but haven;t yet got to grips with MKS. I'm looking forward to when I get a new machien so I can run 1.0 sensibly, and try the stock game in 1.0 before trying to emulate Mars Direct. :-)

Erm, you don;t actually need to change your orbital inclination to reach Minmus. If you plan your burn to raise your orbit's apoapsis to near that of Minmus' such that your apoapsis is roughly on the line made by the descending/ascending nodes with Minmus' orbit, you can then get an intercept 4 out of 5 times (in my experience) simply by messing with your apoapsis and the position of your manouvre node. That's what I often do - so long as Minus is anywhere from just past one node (say, the descending node for instance) to about 2/3 the way to the next node, I'll just aim my apoapsis at the (in this example) ascending node, then adjust apoapsis until I get an encounter. This generally means that my orbit loops some distance outside that of Minmus', whilst waiting for Minmus to catch up, but the extra fuel used to get that encounter is minimal. As an added bonus, chances are that you'll get an encounter with a significant inclination with regard to Minus, so when you buirn to get an orbit around Minus, you'll cover plenty of territory and so have lots of choice in your landing site, without having to do another inclination change. Not terribly professional, but it works fine with stock KSP. Not advisable if you're using any kind of life-support mod unless you make sure you've got plenty of snacks stashed away, as the flight time may be weks longer than you'd expect from a 'proper' approach.. And to return, just wait until the bit of surface your ship is landed on is more or less facing backwards along Minmu' orbit. Then take off, turn your ship so it is pointing veen close to directly backwards along Kerbins orbit until you get escape from Minmus. Then burn retrograde until you get a peripasis within Kerbins atmosphere (I cant give an altitude, as I'm still playing 0.9 due to graphics issues with my PC, but about 35km worked up to 0.9). This isn't very neat, and may not be the most efficient way to get to Minmus, but it is the simplest - IMHO - way to get you there and back.

Hello! During my second attempt at sending probes to the Joolian msystem, I encountered a problem I;ve not had before, and I'm wondering whether there's a clear answer as to what is the best thing to do under the circumstances, or whether it's very much one of those that depends on the precise circumstances. I had a probe equipped with Scansat, which will work up to 500km from the surface of a body, in an orbit about Laythe inclined at about 20 degrees, with a periapsis of 60km and an apoapsis of something like 2,500km. Fuel wsa in short supply, as it'd taken quite a bit of the remaining monoprop just to lift the trajectory from impacting Laythe at a low angle up to 60km. So I knew I had no hope of getting the probe into a near-polar orbit entirely within 500km. With the benefit of hindsight, I probably had just enough fuel to drop the apoapsis to 500km, leaving the incloination unchanged. What I actually did was to change the inclination to about 34 degrees (I was trying for 45, saw it wouldnt happen, so stopped and decided to use teh rest to drop the apopapsis), and then could only drop the apoapsis to about 600km. This seems to be giving me mapping coverage up to about 40 degrees N and S of the equator. Is it likely that I could have done better, gotten greater coverage of the surface, and if so, how? Is there some general principle to work this out, or is it a case of using best judgment from experience and crossing ones fingers?

My second Joolian mission did at least succeed in getting its lander down onto Laythe and an orbiter happily mapping it, although one of the three probes had to be sacrificed due to excessive fuel use getting the probes inserted into the Joolian system. The experience has been good though, I'll be much better prepared for future missions to Jool!

Sadly, all contact was lost with your Joolian probes with just 4 days to go to perilaythe. We have no idea what happened to them, it's as if they just vanished*. On a happier note, The Elcano Challenge vehicle testing program has been proceeding well. Our X-5 electric vehicle can easiy manage a circumnavigation by land, the only issue has been with water crossings. Trials have been done with an electric propellor, and the X-4 achieved a maximum speed in water of 17 knots, but didnt have sufficient solar cells to make recharging the batteries fast enough to be workable. Unfortunately, adding further soalr cells was just enough to affect the stability of the vehicle at sea, and cause a pronounced reluctance to turn left due to propellor torque (The X5 version had had the propellor mounted slightly higher and slightly further to the rear). Our design team is pondering whether to just go with the X4 and avoid water crossings entirely, or do a substantial redesign. *Kraken attack. Since adding another mod for parts to enable me to power my Elcano challenge rover across water, KSP has been a little crashy. Probably a combination of my PC being a tad underpowered, the fact that I'm running v0.9 and wasn't quite as careful as I might've been when I installed mods. The design for the Joolian probes is still known to the game, but the actual probes have vanished. Thankfully, my probes at Duna are still with us., as my next major project is learning how to use MKS and see if I can get setup on Minmus, maybe even Duna with MKS in this game, before starting a new game from scratch with the primary aim being to colonise Duna.

Sorry! that was me making a bad landing ...again. Main white dot is where the lander hit and the fuel tanks ruptured - the two smaller dots to the right are where the command capsule landed then bounced, and the rest of the white is due to debris sputtering off in all directions. Blew the coal-black dust covering most of the surface right off the ice underneath, see? Anyway, I hope you'll excuse me, must dash, I've got another lander to launch, CeresLander IX...

Apologies if I've missed the flippin' obvious somewhere, but I'm trying to find the version of Firespitter that's compatible with KSP v0.9; if some kind person could point me to a link to where I can download it from, 'twould be much appreciated! :-) UPDATED: Managed to find it by myself almost immediately after I posted the above. Sigh... :-}

Hmmn. OK, really sizable moon right next to a Jovian. Purple in colour. OK, so plenty of tidal heating. Jool itself could be imparting a certain amount of radiant heat too. If iodine is the reason for Laythe's purpleness, then it could be that the ocean is a brine witth an iodine salt instead of our familiar sodium chloride, maybe. (NB: I am not a chemist, and for all I know an iodine salt in H2O could be a solid) Niot sure what the implications of that would be for life, but there could be gigagtonnes of photosynthesising little gribblies in Laythe's oceans. Which could, of course, be liquid even that far out due to a combination of saltiness, tidal heating, core heating, and radiant heat from both Kerbol and Jool. Maybe, if there's enough of it. Given that Laythe has as much atmosphere as it has, it would undoubtedly have an ionisphere (layer of ionized gases) in the upper atmosphere. Whether that;'d be enough to prevent radiation nasties reaching laythes surface depends on how strong teh incoming radiation is and how much of an ionisphere exists. But even if the land surface of Lathe is deadly due to radiation, the oceans could be fine. As for jet propulsion in Laythe's atmosphere - a ject built for Earth/Kerbin requires an oxidiser to burn with the fuel, and on Earth?kerbin, that oxidiser is oxygen. Oxygen is not the only oxidiser - if I recall my smattering of chemical knowledge correctly, so are chlorine and fluorine. So no, it doesn't have to be oxygen in Laythes atmosphere for jet engines to work. For myself, I don;t mind much. It is what it is, and I'm happy to make up my own ideas about it, just like I name features on Minmus according to my own tastes. My game, my names for features, my explanations, my story; your game, your names, your explanations, your story. :-)

Murph, it's because my PC is a second-hand very old Dell PC which, unfortunately uses a non-standard sized graphics card. So I can't change the graphics card, and the card that's in there renders about a dozen parts in 1.0 as pure black and doesn;t show exterior views from inside the cockpit. Which is just enough to b a deal-breaker for me. When I go looking for my next second-hand PC, I'll be making darned sure it'll take standard-sized graphics cards! 8-} But it's OK - I was amazed that this old crate could run KSP in the first place, and was expecting a few problems as KSP got close to 1.0. That any problems at all only appeared with the 1.0 release on my PC is, IMO, amazing. And v0.9 is more fiun than any other game I've owned, so I'm certainly not complaining! And by the time I can get a new PC, I should have worked out how to use MKS and so be ready to start a new game with the objective of setting up a self-sustaining colony on Duna :-)

If there are explanations for everything in the KSP universe in the developers minds, I hope they don't share them all with us, but enable us to find out through playing in the KSP universe. :-}

If you look into variants on that design, there were others that retained the external tanks and used them for fine control of their descent through atmosphere. This was because the external tanks of those designs were hinged at the base, so moving the tops of the tanks in or away from the core of the ship a bit would change the aerodynamic forces on re-entry, and thus the trajectory of the craft. I'd love to be able to build a Pegasus/Ithacus/Rhombus type craft in KSP, but so far my efforts have failed. :-}

Many thanks for your replies all. I am in v0.9, as my PC can;t quite handle all the graphics for 1.0 (hoping to get a better PC later this year). I'll bear in mind the getting a Kerbal to push option, but I'm really after something a tad more convenional, if possible :-} No, I'm not averse to using mods. I've got TAC LS , MKS, Mechjeb and Scansat installed currently. Ion engine? Hmmn.. there's a thought! As is using a prop - wasn't sure if things like Firespitter props would actually work in water - ah, hang on - they don't have to do they, if I can fit a prop on top of my rover?! Excellent idea, so long as the props aren't too large. Thank you! I've come up with a neat little 2-man electric rover that works fine on land, and I've just trialled using RCS to propel it in water but as I can only fit on 4 spherical RCS tanks, I suspect that wouldnt get me more than a kilometre or two. If I lose the RCS that'd give me more room for batteries, enabling more night-driving. Right, tomorrow I try to create the v3 version of the rover! :-)