Brainlord Mesomorph

actually its this: One, I don't think that open shot is actually in the game engine, but even if it is, it's certainly not in your saved game. so, no, that ship won't be there.

No no no! Kerbals live underground, they evolved from mold. They have massive underground cities that look like 1960s suburban America. They have a government, and infrastructure, they pay taxes, they have colleges that teach physics, they have factories that produce everything from rocket engines to pencils and coffee cups and shirts and ties. And every morning a few of them get in a big elevator and go the only buildings ever built on the surface of Kerbin, the KSC. THIS is why there isn’t a single building anywhere on the surface (other than the KSC) THIS is why they wear space suits outside, to keep them moist and protect them from the sun. THIS is why you get contracts to explore the surface of Kerbin, because they really haven’t been outside that much. THIS is why they don’t need heat or light, and have an endless supply of snacks. There are mushrooms growing in those cabinets! I really think the game would be improved by a short animation at the beginning, showing that 1960s subterranean city and those guys getting into that elevator. And when you go to recover a vehicle at sea, a giant aircraft carrier/submarine should surfcae and begin recovery operations and then fade to black. Similarly, on the ground, big trucks to drive in from the side. There really should be hints of the rest of the infrastructure that a space-faring society would need.

I got that part. I'm saying its not part of the definition (or calculation of) TWR and it was confusing to me (and might be to others) TWR will *not* always be >1 but it always will be = Fr/(m*9.81)

WAIT: doesn't that mean the ">1" part doesn't belong there? A ratio equals a fraction. that makes sense. And your TWR must be greater than 1 *if* your going to move (off the ground in gravity G). But it isn't always true. (some things don't move off the pad, but fly in space) Why is that ">1" there?

Oh, right metric tons. (I'm thinking 2000 lbs) - and does that mean a ton is actually a megagram? (I've often wondered why ppl say thousands of kilometers, instead of single megameters) well, that's too simple. THANKS

When I gave up on the Joolian Exploratory Fleet A massive fleet, every available ship, every last Kerbal. It took MONTHS! I started in version 0.25 and by the time I got to Jool you guys where playing 1.05. I even had a poll asking if I should continue. The Poll said NO, but I kept going anyway. I just wanted to know if the designs would work. Until I realized that it just didn't matter anymore. None of it work in the new game. I still have the saved game in a separate folder. I think 10 of the 12 ships are in orbit. And I just gave up and started over in 1.05

I hate to show my ignorance esp. in things a lot of other people understand. As a veteran VB coder I can grok some very heavy math as long as its typed in text. But when it comes to something as simple as this: not so much. I've got thrust in kilo-newtons (right?) KSP gives me mass in decimal tons (?) and g I assume is Kerbin (Earth) gravity (in m/s squared?) -- THAT's where physics always came apart for me. I get the concepts, but the unit-conversion in the math just drives me batty! I'm trying to write a function to calc the TWR of an entire ship, Anyone want to show me what that should look like in VB? Many TIA Bra

You can try - I don't think it will help. I've been working on a tutorial for high-speed rover driving, currently unfinished at 6 pages. If you 'd like I'll send you the rough draft as a private message.

OK here goes: One: I like naming things. But I don’t like to waste cool names on a vehicle that will only be used once (or twice). Two: KSP puts things in alphabetical order. So career mode we do things in reverse alphabetical order so our newest stuff is always at the top. And I use ordinal designations for early designs, and the ships only *earn* names when they are perfected and reusable. Then I use classic NASA style, Greek and roman mythos names ( Rovers: Calisto and Hermes, my dual engine nuclear lander is the Icarus, its mothership nuclear tug; Daedalus. ) I have a website for that: http://www.mythweb.com/encyc/contents.html So Zed 1 is the first suborbital rocket. And payloads are named for their purpose. By Zed 4, I have a reliable orbital rocket, (once I have a reliable rocket I see that as a sub-assembly) and we name payloads for their purpose: so we end up with the “Zed04 Passenger Missile.” With the advent of 2.5 m parts we go into the “Y” (Yankee) series. The Yankee II is a reliable orbital lifter, and the Yankee 3 is a reliable Moon rocket. I have a running joke with myself that the Kerbals are unable to keep an ordinal system straight so it is usually Duna One, followed by Duna II, then Duna 3 etc. A failed attempt gets the name of its predecessor, so I have launched “Duna One II” which crashed, so I had to send “Duna One II Rescue” which got there, and secured the situation, but didn’t have enough fuel to come home, said it was followed by “Duna One II Rescue 2” And during the development of any given part there will be a suffix designating which version of the design this is, i.e Yankee II 03c, once perfected it simply becomes Yankee II. So by combining payload names and rocket names we end up with VAB files like “Y2 Skylab One” or “Y3 Munbase Alpha”. (oh, I also steal names from reality and from science fiction.) Once in orbit, we lose the rocket’s designation. In my current career game we have just cracked tech tier 6. The beginnings of 3.5 meter parts, and the nuclear engine. 3.5 m rockets will be the X- series, but I’m not quite there yet. So given that I’m just as the beginning of “X,” I’m calling it the X-Zed series. I’m currently working on a reusable single engine nuclear lander, and a scaled down version of the Daedalus, based on the technology I have. Two “X-Zed Alpha” Landers carried by the “X-Zed Explorer” tug are scheduled to do “grand tour” mission of the Mun and Minmus harvesting the science points as a warmup for the Daedalus doing grand tour of the solar system. Anyway, that’s how I name things.

I had an engineer who kept sneaking on to flights instead of a pilot. So I made him go stand outside next to the runway. He still there.

Technically you are correct. And that is the best kind of correct! But in my defense, a lot of ppl on this forum (including myself) use the word "spaceplane" as shorthand for (specifically) a horizontal-take-off, SSTO spaceplane. You know, winning the K-Prize. So by the technical definition, I've been using spaceplanes since tech level three also. In the OP your question was Why don't more ppl use them? My answer is drag on the rocket, and the wish to use the more advanced command pods in space.

you may be right, it was several versions ago that I got that far. contracts dried up in late game. good to know they fixed that, but I was looking forward to that sandbox-like stage later in the game (I had plans for it.)

I would like to point out that the "end-game" of Career Mode, IS Sandbox. Once you clear the tech tree, assuming you've even the slightest bit cost-effective, you should have millions of funds and all the parts. I wrapped up my last career game with a sandbox-style mission: sending 12 ships to Jool.

Wouldn't call that a spaceplane. sorry, Looks a lot like the capsule from my "Zed-04 Passenger Missile." ( i love that name) which was designed for orbital tourism. The Zed-02 was sub-orbital.

Career mode does a really good job of teaching you how to use all the parts you never tried in Sandbox. Or trying things I didn't think of before, like putting things in particular orbits. Budget limits add a bit of realism too.

Did you say a Tech Tier 3 spaceplane? (isn't that the simple jet?) I'm at Tech Tier 5 "super sonic" (they've invented delta wings and afterburners),Jet intakes conk out above Mach 2, but with t he help SRBs, I just baaarrrleey make orbit. I'd love to see what a tech Tier 3 spaceplane looks like.

Career game: Test at the KSP and fly it to the Mun. (not knowing if its going to work is part of the fun!) Sandbox game: (pure design challenge) Hyper edit.

An experimental, single engine, nuclear lander, based on mk2 parts. It was really sexy looking, looked like an airplane without wings, but only had enough fuel to land on the Mun, but not take off! Had to rescue the crew with a conventional rocket powered lander. Just left it there.

My first docking caused me jump up from my chair and walk around the room pumping my fists in the air going "Yes!, Yes!, Yes!" for several minutes. (thanks for reminding me why I love this game so much)

KAC is a MUST. (I tell ppl I play a stock game, because I don't count KAC.)

I try to go as quickly as possible from John Glen to interplanetary society. Right now i have: 8 guys on the Mun (Munbases Alpha and Beta) 2 guys orbiting the mun, (a rescue, and her rescuer) 3 guys on Minmus Base Alpha 4 guys orbiting Minmus (on Skylab 1 - incl the guy from Minmus Lander III who just docked there) 4 guys orbiting Kerbin (3 on Skylab II , one on the Orbital Sanitation Department station - it was unmanned, but rescued Kerbal is camping out there) My first Duna landers and orbiters (DunaBot One) is in LKO waiting for their departure window. I'm almost totally out of Kerbals, I had to hire a pilot, just for the Spaceplane project. (with all those guys up there, I really need a space shuttle!) /Day 206 (k-time) //never met a contract I didn't like! /// The game IS called Kerbal Space *Program*

ty!

*&*%&%$*!! Yesterday those links worked. TL/DR, was going to read them later Today :404 errors! Just like the LEM!

We have more advanced parachutes. Drogues can help you get subsonic. We have those big square parafoil things, you CAN steer them. There are model rockets with various forms of retractable wings that deploy at Ap. Scaled Composites has their "feather wing" Musk is spending money and creating new tech. I was wondering why he wasn't improving wing and chute tech. My SSTO rockets (granted KSP, not IRL) have a tailfin/wing assembly to help steer them on the way down, have wheels, and are studded with enough parachutes for a fetish party. 100% recoverable on water or land. I wasn't talking about weight, I was talking about size and drag. Granted I have not tested your design, but when I try to launch similar draggy, scoffoldy things, the rocket either flips over, or just breaks in half. So that's 7 tons of scaffold vs >1 ton of chutes? /still using chutes oh THAT's a reason.

OK, I think I get this. IRL, Earth is bigger, orbits take longer, spaceships don’t have nearly the dV that we do, and IRL doesn’t get to the “revert to launch” button, so they have these “safety procedures” and “abort procedures” that the average KSP player (me) is oblivious to. And speaking of safety procedures, I recently did have the orbital collision that, at the time, I blamed on poor piloting skills and poor vehicle design. But now I realize that this high-speed intercept of mine was probably equally to blame. Funny story: I get a contract to build my second Moon base. This was a little larger and heavier than Moonbase Alpha, but I put it on the same rocket. Doesn’t quite get to orbit, and they burned a significant amount of lunar transfer fuel just getting the thing to orbit. So I send a (hastily assembled) refuel ship after it. For some reason I put the docking port on the side, in the middle, there really wasn’t any place else. I launch, attain orbit, and am coming in to dock. Everything is going smoothly, we're coming straight, docking port aligned to docking port, when in the last 50 m, I suddenly realize that neither of these ships has enough RCS to slow down! So instead of docking, the Moonbase T-bones the fuel ship at about 10 m/s. Nothing explodes, no one is killed, but the fuel tanker just breaks up into a cloud of debris! I have since sent a second taker and towed the Moonbase to the Moon, and I have dispatched the Orbital Sanitation Department to clean up the debris. But clearly I need to learn more about this “approaching from the nadir” that someone mentioned. Here I thought this was a non KSP topic, and I learned something about KSP!