Roskerbos

SAS was on the mining rig, to hold it steady while drilling. The rig was one of the parts which wasn't affected.

In this case, I suspect it's the pipe end-point, which seems capable of spontaneously exploding when left unattended. When combined with KSP's shonky "Physics" you get random Guy Fawks moments when you least expect them. It's bad enough that a Kerbal, turning abruptly, under a lander can send it flying skywards, but this is ridiculous. Hours and hours of work wrecked.

It's the left panel of the national flag of Mongolia.

Actually, more likely a non-polar organic solvent such as hexane, with gaseous iodine dissolved in it. Only iodine itself is purple, and in polar solvents, even it becomes yellow-orange in colour. An abundance of iodine on Eve would further explain the absence of oxygen in the atmosphere, however. Iodides are usually mild reducing agents, and react with oxygen, giving off iodine. Thus the oxygen has been locked in the planet's crust and a haze of iodine rich gas floats above. Iodine's compounds can be any colour, and, very often, are no colour at all. Some potassium iodide, yesterday.

That's kind of the point, though, isn't it? It isn't a tree, any more, and you wouldn't look at it all at once. You'd see that a given part existed, while assembling your ship, but as a greyed out item. Clicking on a greyed out item from the parts menu in the VAB or SPH could then bring up a dialogue telling you if you have what is needed to research that part or not, and giving you the option to do so, if you can. I'm not actually suggesting this as an approach. Just saying that I don't see why the approach that was adopted was used, when there were other options that might have offered user friendly ways of allowing people to research, based on immediate need, rather than having to leave your assembly building, go into another, hunt for the node that contains the part you desire, see if you can research that part, research it if you can, then go back to your assembly building to continue the assembly.

Just use a file exchange service like Dropbox, or the like.

I've never really understood why the tree is a tree, as such. After all, what special relationship does Decoupler X have to Flat Square Plate Y, that means that both items must be researched at once? No doubt someone has suggested this, but why not just make each part separately researchable, and give each part a "Tech Weight" (for want of a better word)? The Tech Weight could predetermine what level of item you can research, based on what you have already researched (i.e. you can only research a part of Tech Weight 10, say, if you have enough science and have previously researched ten parts of Tech Weight 1, or five items of Tech Weight 1, and one item of Tech weight 5). The sum of the technical value, of those parts that have already been researched, could automatically unlock new parts of higher value, while researching new parts, in turn, contributes to what level of parts the player is next able to research. True, this would mean that there will be some parts that a given player may never research, but how is this better than forcing those players to research them, simply in order to gain access to some other part of only distantly related functionality that happens to be in the same node? I fell sure with enough consideration to weighting, such a system would allow for much more flexible research and progression. It might also cause players to go back, and look at some lower level parts that they currently never give any thought to, simply because, under the current system, they are forced them to research parts, at a time when they are not relevant to the player.

For crew rovers, I use angled girder sections with stack decouplers on them. In this video I use a pair of TR-2Vs on a pair of utility rover/mobile-toolbox vehicles for use in assembling a pipeline of KAS parts at a Mun mining station (I imagine this will be "ore" in 1.0, but for now, its a polar Karbonite mine): (Note, how I am careful to apply the handbrake before staging the deployment of the rovers! Always an important point on inclined surfaces like this landing site!)

One I just had: that time you spend 1 hour 20 minutes, with 3 kerbals, carefully assembling a KAS pipeline between a Karbonite drilling rig and the habitation module 200 metres away. You use your rover, with a parts box on the back, to carefully assemble the ten ground pylons and 20 pipe ends to make the link, ferrying parts back and forth from the store up at the habitation module, using the rover. This pipe is a work of art, I tell you. A plug-ugly work of art, but a work of art, nonetheless. You do not save during this whole process. You are Iron Man! (Anyway, what could possibly go wrong?) You finally get to the habitation module. 180 metres of pipe completed. Just one more 20m pipe to build, and the things are linked! Your Kerbal dismounts the rover. However, because he is 'under' the top of the habitation module (vertically speaking) by the magic of "Kerbal Occasional Ballsed-Up Physics" your kerbal does not end up standing at the controls of the rover, as you imagined he would - as, indeed, he has, for the last 19 times you've had to do this. Instead, he is catapulted upwards, about 10 or 15 metres, into some mad free fall somersault - that he could never have achieved without, said, "KOBUP". In doing so, he not only renders himself into a sad, lifeless chunk of 'rover debris', but he takes out both the Gigantor solar arrays on the top of the habitation module in a giant sparkly mess of solar panel debris. All he wanted to do was get out of his chair... It seemed such a simple thing... Instead, he has killed himself in a physically impossible manner and doomed the entire colony to slowly freeze to death millions of kilometres from home... F9! Iron Man is an idiot! That's 1 hour 20 minutes of my life I won't get back!

Just thought of another one. I put a lander down with a rover strapped to its side, the other day, and got a kerbal out, ready to get in it when it was released. I press '[' to switch back to the lander and release it, and instead switch to a piece of debris, nearby, rolling and tumbling and sliding down a hillside veeerry slooowly. I pressed '[' again, to switch back, but get told "Cannot switch vessels while in motion". So I watch this thing for a bit, tumbling and rolling, and then get up to make a drink. I come back and the damn thing is still in motion - if anything, it's actually gathered pace! Please Squad, I may have some strange ambitions but watching realistic simulations of a broken bits of metal tumbling down a hillside isn't one of them. I will never want to be a piece of debris. Don't make debris selectable.

Here's my current Mun lander/hopper. https://www.dropbox.com/s/pldz11f65ljw6cb/Buzzard%20Lander.craft It has mostly stock parts, apart from the BTDT scanner from the Scansat mod on the rover. Let me know if you need those deleted before sharing. It is saved as a subassembly, rather than a ship, which shouldn't matter and wouldn't affect its use, since I assume your guys ascend, Apollo-style, in the Command Module and 2 of them transfer. This one has a 1 man rover, which can scale major Munar crater walls, albeit slowly (it still beats walking if you chose the right path). This includes an experimental 2 man/6 wheel version. Only tested it in the canyons. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/91791234/Buzzard%20Lnader%202%20Man%20Rover.craft Not sure of its merits. This is what it looks like: Take a look if it'll help! Be aware that the single 48/7 on this thing bears a much closer resemblance to the engine on the actual landers used in the mission, than most players use. It is capable of a little more than 1 meter, per second, delta V adjustment, so the general "1/100 my altitude, is a safe speed" rule applies in spades, here - unless it is horizontal speed, during suborbital hops between landing points, but even there, be aware that as little as 150m/s horizontal hover speed can mean a 2 minute full throttle burn, pointed right at the horizon -at both departure point and new landing point - to achieve safe landings.... so while those trips are very economical they can require a fair amount of attention, to achieve. I think you need to lock steering on the rear wheels, on the 1-man version. For some reason, they all steer in the same direction, and you get better traction (although slightly less steering authority) if the rear wheel have their differential locked - just like real life.

OS X version peeves: 'Recover vessel' is a pop-down menu item from the top of the screen... And yet KSP's own menu, on OS X, is a pop-down menu from the top of the screen. So, hover your mouse towards the top of the screen and guess which one responds first? On map view, the navigation ball is a pop-up menu from the bottom of the screen. And yet, on OS X, the dock is a pop-up menu from the bottom of the screen. Guess which responds first? General game-play peeve. Solar panels stop getting any energy at all the moment anything is slightly in front of the sun. I once landed a rover on the Mun only to have it roll uncontrollably away because there was a partial eclipse in effect. The entire landscape was lit up like a stadium, and yet my rover can't draw enough power to put the handbrake on.

If I may say so, it does look like a very heavy rover. Would something like this not be in the spirit of the original Apollo 17 version? When I land with this I barely notice it is there. These two stage landers are actually great for hopping between biomes and gathering multiple rock samples and Eva reports - with the rover as a 1-time augmentation, to that. I think my record is something like 23 stock science results in one Mun mission, including 6 or 7 rock samples (although that did include the East Crater, with its funky Crater walls).

Since career mode kicked in, I've been known to build "lolrockets" simply to complete the "landed at Kerbin" contracts, when I need another 30, or so, science points, that I need to research some new part I want for my next mission. "Test a Mainsail landed at kerbin? Sure!" Staputnik - click. Mainsail - click. Stick it on the pad. Stage it. Recover it. 100% recovery, no fuel used, and 45 lovely science points. Thankyouverymuch. Now, about that "clampotron jr", I wanted to research... I even have this weird 6-wheel thing I call the "loltrolley", for doing the "splashed down at Kerbin" tests. I periodically have to clear up the little puddle of staged decouplers and other assorted crap, that accumulates on the shores just north of the runway because of this.

Oolite's another I'd better not tell you about, then... Or its forums.

I use them to visit anomalies. Anomaly hunting uses a lot of fuel, hovering around looking for them, so my lander's lower stage is pretty much burned out by the time I get near one. The rover gets me the rest of the way, while also carrying the BTDT scanner from technogeeky's Scan Sat Mod. Fine Print certainly intrigues me, but I fear I may lack the RAM to cope with the addition of yet another mod.

Because I'm a total sucker for Mun landings, I continued my Scansat-induced tour to identify all the Mun's many anomalies. Here we are approaching today's target, while consulting the Scansat map. You'll see I have my upper Main-Stage still attached. Anomaly-hunting requires a certain amount of hover-gliding over the surface, so I'll use anything that still has fuel and an engine on it, to do so. Having ditched the main stage and zig-zaggged around a bit, we're getting closer. We appear to be looking for some sort of square structure... We're here! What on Kerbin is an "Armstrong" when it's at home (which this one clearly isn't)? Finally, we're down. Jebediah gets out to prepare for Rover deployment. "Remember to put the handbrake on before you release her, Bill... I'm not chasing after a runaway buggy in a space suit - even on the Mun!" With the Rover deployed, Jeb is all for hopping on and visiting the "Armstrong thing", but Bill reminds him that today's contracts include the planting of yet another flag. For the glory of Kerbolia! With that tedious distraction momentous occasion out of the way, it's time for the serious stuff! After driving round it several times, the boys reach the edifying conclusion that "This edifice ain't got no door". Bill decides that it is Handheld Anomalous Materials Monitor and Edifice Register time, and - pressing his helmet to the side of the thing, to hear any noises generated - gives it a few taps. Bill is heard utter the words "My God! It's full of bricks!" With nothing else to be gained, it's back to the lander and off to space, to rendezvous with Bob in the Command module again. Another day's successful de-anomalysing over!

We need to have female Kerbals! Valentina Kermin: 10th Kerbal to go to space. Ellen Kipley: alien hunter. I must admit, I once spawned a "Montgomery McKermin" using Ship Manifest.

Not really. My Mun lander/command module combo can look a bit like the Apollo combinations - especially the ones that include a rover - but that's just because it is an efficient approach, and makes good use of the available capsules. The rocket that gets them to Mun orbit is much more KSP-ish, though.

I've recently started integrating my use of technogeeky's "Scansat" mod, with ethernet's "Orbital Science" mod, so that my trips to the Mun now involve accepting a 'plant flag' contract, 'obtain science data from orbit' contract, and an 'obtain science data from the surface' contract, for the Mun; flying out to the Mun, plonking my lander down near an anomaly (identified for me, as such, by a sscansat), getting my crew into a rover and driving my guys out to identify just what the anomaly is (using the BTDT scanner from the Scansat mod), before driving back and flying home - dropping in at my space station on the way, to study the surface samples I obtained, during the trip, with the "Orbital Science" Spectrometron module, before detaching from the station and finally landing my crew back on Kerbin. It makes repeatedly going to the Mun much more interesting, and means my lander stage is steadily looking more and more like the Apollo 17 one (which is actually proving an incredibly fuel-efficient way of making a Mun lander).

I tend to lift the (admittedly not very good) orange doughnut wheels and put them earlier in the tech tree. This allows me to just build a buggy and visit the coast, the grasslands, the Highlands, etc cetera, and get early science. It has always struck me as mad that we can discover heavy rocketry before we discover the wheel. Alternative methods, such as rolling multiple mk1 pods around on their sides, seem hopelessly unrealistic. I also sometimes edit out, and delete altogether, many Squad parts that I never, ever use (either because there's a better looking part, that fills a similar role, in a mod that I use, or because I don't bother with space planes). This helps keep the part count down and gives me faster load times.

Love this mod. An excuse to build absurdly large space stations.