rennsport27

Well, if cheating was acceptable to you, you should be able to build up some speed, and ramp up time warp so the physics engine "steps" over Jool, effectively letting you fly through it. As long as you don't care that it's not really physically "possible" or care that you'll likely be sacrificing many poor Kerbals to the Kraken attempting to do so, more power to you!

I put "never" since I've yet to do it in a career save. Once I destroyed the launchpad in a sandbox one I goof around in, because I had thrown together a irresponsibly-large-and-shoddily-built lifter, and it instantly dropped those couple feet and destroyed the pad. Other than that, every building I've destroyed has been on purpose.

I used to use it for almost anything. But, since I started using NEAR, I just don't really have a need to. I generally make a 2-3 stage rocket, and maybe attach 1 stage of liquid or solid fuel boosters to the outside. When I start asparagus staging, then my lifter stages end up with more than enough delta V, and cost more than they need to. I'm sure I'll need to do it when I finally get around to doing an Eve landing/return.

I'll generally take small breaks/play a little less. If I'm not feeling it, I'm not going to burn myself out trying to "force" myself to play. I play because it's fun, and sometimes it's fun to do other things. But, I always run into something that sucks me back in. New mods, new releases, or other people's work has always kept me running right back before too long. If you're feeling a little burned out, I wouldn't worry to much about it.

For early career Mun/Minmus landings, I'll generally go with 4: One lander/return, two liquid stages and a stage of solids. Any manned interplanetary missions I'll use a reusable "Mothership" and dock a lander to the front. So, I'll use a beefy LKO lifter to drop it in orbit, and maybe bring the lander/crew up on a spaceplane. Once the mission is complete I'd park the ship in a LKO and drop the crew/science off with another spaceplane. Not sure how to count the stages for that.

I was having the same issue with US parts not showing up, just fixed it. It will work if you have the most recent versions and ModuleManager 2.5.1. The mistake I made was dropping the whole "US_Core_0.9.0.242" folder straight into GameData. The path in Dmagic's config file assumes you extracted the three folders inside US_Core_0.9.0.242 and dropped those into GameData individually. So, if the "UniversalStorage" is directly underneath GameData, it should find everything. Hope this helps!

I'm not so into aircraft design that I want to worry about mach effects, and that sort of stuff while designing, but did want a more realistic aero model. I was on the fence, and was just about to give into FAR when NEAR was released. I've been using it ever since, and loving it.

This one isn't so much a fail as it is a really close call, but I found it amusing enough that I think it's worth sharing: I finally finished my first career-mode manned Duna/Ike mission. I've made it there many times, but hadn't combined TAC Life Support, DR, NEAR, and funding yet. So, this was a big mission for me (I also wanted the IP ship to be reusable, so that was a new design as well). I assembled the mission in three launches, and the transfer, captures, docking maneuvers, etc. all went off without a hitch, despite the rather thin margins I gave everything (less than 10 units monoprop and 20 Kerbal days of supplies left at the end). By the end, I was sort of impatient, so I just launched a quick disposable rocket to pick up the crew from LKO and parachute back. Of course, at this point I almost lose the crew as the service module lands on a hill, and starts rolling down on its side. It reaches 35 m/s and destroys everything but the command pod before I saved it by turning SAS back on. After 2 years in space, almost done in by a hill...

Ran a good chunk of my first Eve mission in career mode. Packed several probes as well and a manned Gilly lander. Used it to put satellites in Eve and Gilly orbit, and drop two probes to Eve's surface. Haven't done that yet with Deadly reentry and NEAR, so that was rather interesting. Also, I went on EVA to gather science info, and the ship exploded spectacularly as I got out. This is why I'm a big quicksave fan.

I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but Pol is my favorite. It's the first one I ran a manned mission to, since I thought it was the easiest to land and return from. Plus, I just think it looks cool.

I can confirm that I was unable to start a new game (would crash upon creation) with this mod installed, and it was fixed when I uninstalled it.

I'll probably do a balance of both, depending on my mental state (tired and looking for something mindless means I'll probably do an easy one, for example). Plus, I'm very much a tinkerer, and love fiddling with designs. I'll probably use the easy contracts as tests for systems and components that would be used in far crazier missions.

Tested the first pieces of the mod set I'm making for 0.625m fuel tanks and engines. It's rather rough around the edges, but I've only been at the mod thing for 48 hours.

Thanks for the feedback! On a slightly separate note, were you planning on making the engines the same cost as the stock ones? I always found that the KW engines were unlocked later, and were slightly more effective than the stock engines. Making them slightly more expensive (i.e charging more for "advanced" engines) could add an interesting mechanic.

I've been looking at the costs of the parts in the KW pack, and some of them don't make a lot of sense. All of the 1.25m tanks cost 250, regardless of size. I'm sure this was done because it didn't matter at the time, and it's quick, and I completely get that. However, since it does matter now, was there any plans to correct this? Thanks! Edit: Well, it seems even Squad itself isn't above just copying and pasting prices. All the Kerbodyne tanks cost the same regardless of size as well. It'll be interesting to see how everything balances.

We shouldn't need any more boosters. Edit: Well, clicked on this thread, and it took me to the last page, leading me to think there was only three comments. Looks like mine is about the least creative one possible... So, my new entry is "What's the worst that could happen?" I didn't see it anywhere, so I'm sticking with it.

In the vein of the soon-to-be-released 0.24 release, perhaps a budget mission would be in order? Such as, the person to reach a stable orbit or land on and return from the moon with the cheapest vehicle wins? I'm sure other people have suggested it, I'd just like to add another vote for it.

Nereid, first off, I wanted to take the time to thank you for making this mod. It's quite awesome, and I'm really enjoying using it! You did a great job with it. Then, I just wanted to say that I've had the bug with the "4000 ton" craft ribbon being awarded. Not a big deal in my opinion, but if it helps chase said bug down, I was launching a 100 ton B9 spaceplane (via runway). And lastly, I was wondering if there was a way to make the various levels of operator, scientist, and engineer ribbons stack and supersede the lower ones. I was planning in poking around in the code, but figured it was worth asking about first.

I also used Inkscape for my flags, it's amazing what you can do with it with just a little practice! edit: I should post (at least one of) my flags, but I'd have to pull those out. I'll get to it later when I have access to my other computer.

The new shorter visor looks nice. Granted, all of the work you guys have done looks great, but I have a slight preference for that one.

Run any missions. I keep tinkering with random spacecraft designs, and don't end up actually doing anything with them. Oh well, when I decide to run one, I'll have an arsenal of options.

All I can say is keep at it. It's a big step at first, so it's natural you're going to struggle. There's a lot of good advice here already, so I'll try not to repeat what's already been said. It might help to do a sandbox run, and enable infinite fuel/RCS when necessary, just so you can run through the motions, and take note of how much you missed by. That helped me a bit when starting interplanetary missions. Edit: Congrats! This is what I get I guess when I type a response, forget to hit enter, and then come back several hours later.

It's really starting to look nice! A job well done by all, can't wait to see the finished work!

I am getting to the point where more and more of my parts/missions are modular and standardized. I used to build whole rockets by scratch, but now I have an increasingly large range of lifter stages for putting payloads into LKO, and then having the payload craft do its stuff from there. It allows me to save time designing craft, since I only have to design the outer-space bit. I also really enjoy building general use craft, which I try to make as easy to use and practical as possible. Anymore, I spend as much time building new and better utility parts for theoretical missions than I do running actual missions. It's making me feel OCD, but it also means I haven't a launch failure in a while, even with awkward payloads.

My Sundiver probe made it back to Kerbin yesterday. It came screaming through the atmosphere at something like 11,000 m/s, a record for me. I think I ended up dipping to 20,000m for aerocapture, and it left a nice big fireball. Sadly, I didn't think to take any pictures at the time.