Oafman

It seems to be getting very few mentions, but I am a huge fan of the hold-down-Alt-to-only-connect-to-nodes in the VAB/SPH. The obvious benefit is adding stuff to cargo bays, but actually you can use this for various situations where you're struggling to get 2 nodes to meet. A small thing but a really helpful one.

A successful launch from Eve is the hardest thing you can do in stock KSP. Combining sufficient thrust with sufficient deltav - through Eve's soupy atmosphere - is very tough. But it's achievable, with enough thought and planning, and enough help from people here, so I certainly would not want to discourage you. Also, there are things about Eve that work in your favour. It's easy to get to, because it's not far from Kerbin's orbit, and because it's a big target. And its thick atmosphere - such a problem when you try to launch through it - is very helpful for slowing down on arrival, and for getting your ship down to the surface without using much fuel. A couple of tips: 1) Aim for high ground. If you start a few km above sea level, you'll find the ascent is much much easier, because there's so much less atmosphere to fight your way through. Use the map on Eve's wiki page to find a mountainous area to land on. 2) as others have said, use a mod to help you build. Kerbal Engineer and Mechjeb both give you TWR and deltaV stats - specifically for Eve - in the VAB. So you can build a launcher without having to do trial and error testing. Good luck, and keep us informed

Well I did it with a very basic i5 and 6GB RAM, so I would say it is achievable for most people. The only time I had significant lag was when I was landing the fuel tanker, with hundreds of chutes etc. TBH I've had higher parts counts from ion gliders

If you already have a ship which could do it, maybe with a little tweaking of the design, then you should definitely have a go. You can hyperedit it to Eve, so all you have to do is land it, load up the tank, and bring it home...

I started a new career save recently, for the first time in ages. It was fun at first, to try to make do with so few parts, and to simultaneously try to maximise science, cash and rep. But a few hours in, while undocking from the Minmus mothership for the 4th or 5th time, in search of the remaining Minmus biomes, I realised I was bored. So I went back to building cool and silly things in Sandbox, and I've been happily doing that ever since. I think career was fun when I first started. It was exciting to go to Minmus, and try to cover as many biomes as possible. But back then, it was exciting just to get a suborbital flight. Once you've sent huge craft to explore the Jool system, and captured asteroids into LKO, and been on grand tours, I think there's limited fun in the early career grind. But it's good when you're starting out.

If you use the fuel tank which adapts from MKII to MKI placed in front of your cockpit (obviously I mean the cockpit with an attachment node on the front), you can just whack a standard SAS to the front of the plane

I'm glad the Cupola has become more practical. It was always hard to justify that weight and drag for one kerbal, even though the part always looked good

Sandbox. Scraping around for small cost savings is not the Kerbal way

Ah right, got it. I'll get one of those wrist bands So, what does this actually mean? Does it mean I get a different type of processor? Which part is it that determines type of 64bit? Sorry for the simplistic questions. I'm on a steep learning curve.

Just done some reading on overclocking. I guess that basically what this means for me, in practical terms, is getting a cooler which enables my processor to run faster than it otherwise would? Would I OC anything else? Does stuff need more power as well as more cooling? Ok, no idea what this means. Are you suggesting I don't use a Windows OS? So, I would need to do something while there is live current?

Hmmm. It sounds like I really need to man up and work out how to put together my own machine. I didn't realise how much of a difference it would make to the overall cost. I've never even looked inside a PC case, but I guess that with advice in this forum and youtube guides etc, I should be able to do it. Well, I currently use my work laptop for KSP, with i5-2450M @ 2.5GHz, NVIDIA 525M and 6GB RAM. So it runs the game fairly well, but I guess that processor and GPU are a bit light, and the RAM definitely is. I find myself using 5.5GB of it with all the mods that I already have, and there are a whole lot more which I would like to use. So I do want to improve this, but I also want to stop using the work laptop - would be nice to leave it in the office some days and not have to carry it around. I'm going to read a little about building, and watch a few videos, and see if I can build up some confidence to give it a go! Thank you all for your help.

Yeah, I'll second that. OP, do you mean no MJ in the VAB or to use just for the additional in-flight data, or did you just mean no maneuver planner or auto-landing etc? Also, if life support mods are allowed, should there be bonus points for their use?

Yeah it's just the first place I looked. I wanted to establish specs before shopping around.

Ah ok. I see what you mean. If i take the original link, switch to cheapest i5 (3.2GHz), switch to a 740, cheapest cooler, and also cheapest case (water cooler needed a better case) I get £518, which is OK Case STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA MICRO-ATX CASE + 2 FRONT USB Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4460 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache Motherboard ASUS® H81M-PLUS: Micro-ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB) Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 740 - DVI, HDMI, VGA - 3D Vision Ready 1st Hard Disk 500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB CACHE 1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT Power Supply CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY Processor Cooling INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD) Wireless/Wired Networking 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED) USB Options MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead) Operating System Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79) Office Software FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 Anti-Virus BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI) Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days Quantity 1 Price: £518.00 including VAT and delivery. Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-home-office-pc/stJSkk5tmd/ This seems acceptable. But I'm still unsure if it is worth spending so much more for Intel

OK. If I get the 740 and standard cooler I'm getting £592, which is too much. Where else can I save? Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4460 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB) Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 740 - DVI, HDMI, VGA - 3D Vision Ready Processor Cooling INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER Price: £592.00 including VAT and delivery. Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/UGw3NaBjqc/ For the AMD option, it goes up to £442 with the 740

So, I can make big savings with AMD. Does this sound viable: Processor (CPU) AMD A4-6300 Dual Core APU (3.7GHz) & Radeon™ HD 8370D Graphics Motherboard ASUS® A58M-E FM2+ (M-ATX, DDR3, USB 2.0, 3Gb/s) Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB) Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE 210 - DVI, HDMI, VGA Processor Cooling STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER Price: £405.00 including VAT and delivery. Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/amd-fm2-richland/BCqABGLSLP/ -------------------------------------------- If I go Intel, I could go for something like this, but it's quite a bit more money: Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4460 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache Motherboard ASUS® Z97M-PLUS: m-ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6.0, XFIRE Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB) Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE 210 - DVI, HDMI, VGA Processor Cooling INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER Price: £554.00 including VAT and delivery. Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/I6rVyEHIv4/ Do people think any difference in performance between these two justifies the extra £150? And I'm OK with the coolers I selected?

Ah, right. I just went for the cheapest. If I change that to a 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE 210 I'm up to £566. Starting to get towards the realm of unacceptable... Maybe I can make savings elsewhere? It looks like an AMD could save me money, as skeevy suggests. I'll play around to see how much With RAM, I guess I'll start with 8GB, but check that there are slots to double that in the future. The cooler adds quite a bit to the cost. Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£59). How important is this? I do live in England - the temperature tends to be quite modest!

OK here's an initial attempt, based on what we have discussed. Slightly more than I wanted to pay, but I might be able to stomach that I guess. Case COOLERMASTER ELITE 311 BLUE CASE Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4590 (3.3GHz) 6MB Cache Motherboard ASUS® H81M-PLUS: Micro-ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB) Graphics Card INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU) 1st Hard Disk 500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB CACHE 1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT Power Supply CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY Processor Cooling Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£59) Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD) Wireless/Wired Networking 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED) USB Options MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead) Operating System Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79) Office Software FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 Anti-Virus BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI) Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days Quantity 1 Price: £540.00 including VAT and delivery. Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-home-office-pc/ohS5eam0nY/

OK, so, 8GB RAM, and a cheap GPU. There seems to be a consensus towards i5, which is very good to know. But that still leaves me with a decision to make about dual or quad core. We established that cores aren't necessary for current KSP, but it was mentioned that they might come into the equation with Unity 5. I do want this PC to be good for a couple of years at least, so if Unity 5 is in the not-too-distant future, and will work better with a quad core, is that what I should look for? Quad cores do not appear to be that much more expensive. There are also a range of frequencies for different i5s. From 2.5Ghz to 3.5Ghz. Is this important? And so, probably avoid Radeon This is helping a lot; I know so little about this. Thank you all for your thoughts so far

I've been trying to get into this in recent weeks, and it is kind of hard, for a few reasons. Firstly, it takes ages. Your acceleration is very slow, so reaching orbital velocity takes much longer than with jets. And of course 4x time acceleration does funny things to planes. There is apparently a mod which enables you to 4x without the 4x fizzics, which I keep meaning to try. To compound this issue, you might get a slow FPS, because once you've spammed the plane with all the little solar panels it needs, you can slow things down due to parts count. One issue I had at the beginning was just getting the thing moving on the runway. Your TWR is so low that this is not simple. The key is to build small and reduce parts/drag. This might be better with FAR or NEAR, as I gather they deal with drag better than KSP aerodynamics (which is very silly when it comes to drag) I got a lot of help and ideas from the threads Slash linked to, and especially from the stuff he built and his explanations for the designs.

True, but I guess it could be shown mathematically that it would retain that orbit 'forever'

Congrats, first of many successful landings on many different planets and moons, I'm sure. RVing is kind of hard at first. Mainly because you usually have various options for how and where to make your RV, and it can be hard to know which is best. But tbh, as long as you have plenty of deltaV, it doesn't matter too much. You can learn how to do it efficiently later; the first thing is learning to do it at all. Manley's guide, and plenty of well written stuff on this forum, were really helpful for me when I started. Once you RV, it's time to dock. I still find docking hard when I do it solely with stock. There are some great mods (Navyfish & Lazor come to mind) which give you additional docking UIs, and which are very helpful Personally, I like the Lazor docking camera. It looks really cool, giving you a black and white camera view from the port you're controlling, but it also gives you data on distance and velocity which are useful. The other great mod for this is the RCS build aid. Docking becomes much easier when your ship responds well to your RCS controls.

8GB? So I'm wrong about the game being limited to 4GB? That thread is interesting, and somewhere I have never looked. But from a cursory glance it seems more about people constructing their own PCs. As in, buying separate components and putting them together themselves. Which I'm not about to try and do. So more processing power, but a higher number of cores is not important? That is useful, thanks And, errr... is GPU the same thing as graphics card? I'll read through that thread, looks like it could be very helpful Yeah, i7s seem to be quite pricey, so if I can get away with an i5 without significantly lower performance, that sounds like a better option

I need to get a new PC, at a reasonable price, and could use some advice from the knowledgeable KSP community. KSP is by far the most demanding thing I use a PC for. I play no other games which require anything serious, and will just use it for internet and downloads etc, so I can put together a PC specifically with KSP in mind. I love playing with many mods, as they add so much to the game, so I guess I need a lot of RAM as a starting point. But having said that, I am under the impression that the game is limited to using 4GB RAM anyway. At least in 32 bit. So is there any reason to have a lot more than this? I want this to be relatively future proofed, so with a less buggy 64 bit version an imminent possibility, will this enable the game to use more RAM? Should I be looking for 8GB RAM, or even 16GB? And though I don't really understand what it is, I gather from other threads that a new version of Unity will also change the way the game runs. Will this enable the game to use more RAM? If so, how much am I likely to need? Aside from RAM, what else should I look for? How good a processor should I look for? Any particular type? How important is the graphics card? I need the whole thing to be less than £500/$750, not including peripheral stuff like monitor which I already have. So I can't go for anything super expensive, but hopefully I don't really need to. Is there anything else I should be looking for? Any advice would be very welcome.

The image does not specify that the satellite's orbit has to be on the same plane as that of the moon. It's a view from 'above', which does not show much about inclination. So you could just put it into an inclined orbit where it does not enter the SoI of the Mun. Which is so easy it does not make a worthwhile challenge. You could specify an equatorial orbit, but as has been pointed out, eventually your satellite will run into the Mun's SoI, and change the orbit. So it is impossible to permanently maintain such an orbit.