GoSlash27

Last I checked, I was down to $35 per tonne with my VTOL lifter and $43 per tonne with SSTO spaceplanes. I don't know why yours are costing so much. I assume that all the cost is in fuel? Best, -Slashy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mry2WUQLVE Just thought I'd throw this out there (yeah, I'm old) Best, -Slashy

End the green menace! -Slashy

True. The big cost is in bureaucracy, red tape, and regulation. Any organization will eventually conspire to make it's objective impossible once it gets big enough. Best, -Slashy

^ This. I don't leave debris in orbit. Not something I have to actively plan for, I just don't build my rockets to orbit and then stage. Multistagers are always 3 phase with the last phase being a single stage. SSTOs (of course) return intact, leaving nothing in orbit but payload. For contract satellites and such, I'm not above using the terminate cannon. Best, -Slashy

Building an Eve ascent vehicle isn't difficult. It's just a matter of low payload and enough DV. Building an Eve ascent vehicle that you can land safely on the surface, OTOH... *That's* hard. Especially if you're trying to keep the weight down. Best I managed without resorting to physics exploiting was 52 tonnes. Best, -Slashy

My heaviest ascent vehicle was 52 tonnes. Single occupant Eve surface to orbit. Best, -Slashy

The hell of it is, you just *might* run into the docking bug, which will make your docking port not work even when it is installed correctly. Nevertheless, I can assure you that Yes, Virginia, there is docking in KSP! Best, -Slashy

RIC, Aye, but the act of clustering requires more parts, which raises the cost. It also reduces the structural integrity of the vehicle, which requires more parts to add rigidity and stability. It should be a wash theoretically, but in practice (at least my practice) it doesn't actually work out that way. Best, -Slashy

I wouldn't go quite that far. I wouldn't be surprised if there were thousands of civilizations in our galaxy right now. All in the thinner regions between spiral arms (high stellar density is unhealthy) and roughly our distance from galactic center (corotation radius). The requirement for long term stability means there won't be many stars in the neighborhood of any civilized planet to poke at it's Oort cloud or go all supernova. And probability says that the odds are highly stacked against there being another "goldilocks" planet within radio range. Best, -Slashy - - - Updated - - - Bill Phil, No particular reason for picking G class stars if merely looking for "life". You could probably expand the search to Ts and still find it. But looking for intelligent life (as we know it) would assume a goldilocks region that's far enough from the parent star to not have the candidate planet tidally locked. Even setting aside that consideration and including red and orange dwarves, we have what... 2 potential Earth analogues within 50 LY? And both of them over 3 times Earth's mass? There's probably life there, but complex organisms would be doubtful. I just went with G class stars on the assumption that intelligent life is most likely to appear within a very narrow set of constraints, and since we have it here it probably requires circumstances almost identical to our own. There's still a whole heck of a lot of candidates, but none of them are close to us. Best, -Slashy

Aye. There's only so many G class stars within 50 LY of us (a little over 50) and most of them don't have planets. Of those that do, very few have planets in their "goldilocks zone" and of those that do, none of them are Earth sized. Probably life on several of them, but the odds of intelligent life in our neighborhood is about nil despite it being statistically certain on a larger scale. Best, -Slashy

I'd say it's cheaper to refuel in orbit. The larger engines required for larger launch vehicles are disproportionately expensive. Plus larger vehicles are less structurally rigid and thus require more struts and are more difficult to operate safely and recover intact. Best, -Slashy

This flies in the face of everything we know about life in general and human nature in particular. We haven't heard from any other civilizations because.... well, why *would* we? Radio signals diminish too rapidly to be detected over meaningful distances. And really... that's probably a good thing. Any intelligent life we're likely to encounter is liable to be as mistrustful and violent as we are. Best, -Slashy

Step #1: Post a confusing video to distract and befuddle the green scourge. Step #2: Deliver a devastating rep broadside while his attention is elsewhere.

Green Iron Crown clearly cannot be defeated with a frontal assault. We must therefore resort to asymmetric warfare! /it's the only way

I'm in no position to give dating advice, but I am in a position to give warnings Nerds tend to be highly introverted and logical, and they tend to attract "feeling extroverts". Worse, they tend to fall for them. These relationships mostly end up bogging down and becoming toxic due to poor communication and lack of mutual understanding. Unfortunately, they're also hard to get out of due to all the mutual infatuation. My advice is to get out of your comfort zone a bit and develop the ability to be extroverted. Stand- up comedy, playing in a band, etc. can help you feel comfortable with being the center of attention (aka "shameless"). Once you have that worked out, date people who are also a bit introverted and logical. They don't need to be just like you, but should be similar enough that you "get" each other. It's scary at first, but worth it in the long run. Best, -Slashy

Mind control. *evil grin* -Slashy

I agree with the above posts. 15% is totally reasonable for rockets. Turbojet spaceplanes can exceed 60% and turbojet VTOL lifters can exceed 100%. Best, -Slashy

Early in the career I use a very similar approach to the OP; I use a spreadsheet to "build" the vehicle in 3 stages to orbit from the top down. Once I've unlocked enough, Everything goes up in either jet powered SSTO mass lifters or spaceplanes. Best, -Slashy

Absolutely, the #1 cash machine in my career has been satellite missions in the Kerbin system. It takes very little cash to accomplish, can be done with a standardized launch vehicle, takes very little time, and pays out big. Best, -Slashy

I'll go along with all of this, and misrepresenting this as a call for 100% realism is not only a strawman, but also a false choice fallacy. "Realism" for it's own sake just plain isn't a priority for me, but it does matter when it affects balance and frustrates newcomers. We want players to have reasons to employ the entire selection of parts, not just rely on a small handful of parts that work out as optimal in nearly all cases. We want players to seek multiple solutions to engineering problems, not just one. We *don't* want players getting frustrated because solutions that *should* work don't due to idiosyncrasies in the game engine or model. This isn't requesting absolute realism at the expense of all else, it's just enough realism to maximize enjoyment. IMO everybody should be on board with that. Best, -Slashy

Liowen, You always want to perform inclination changes at low speed and as close as possible to the AN/DN. This will yield the most efficient conversion of DV into inclination change. In the Kerbol inertial frame, you are moving slowest when you escape Kerbin SoI, so it makes more sense to match the inclination there. Besides, your inclination WRT Kerbin isn't the same as your inclination WRT Kerbol. Best, -Slashy

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/104638-Reverse-gravity-turn-landing-technique-for-airless-bodies Here's how I do it. Best, -Slashy

The inclination would be the direction the satellite is headed when it crosses the equator from south to north. In the case of equatorial orbits (0 or 180*), it is simply the direction the satellite is headed (0 being due east and 180 being due west). Best, -Slashy

Satellites, definitely! Once you get those contracts, you're on a gravy train with biscuit wheels. Best, -Slashy