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Norcalplanner

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  1. Norcalplanner
    Interstellar is its own thing, which is very different from stock KSP. I wouldn't recommend it as a starter. For more station options, I'd recommend Station Science by ethernet and Stockalike Station Parts by Nertea. Both provide a lot more parts for stations, and some station science parts are properly massive (like a 20 ton Cyclotron) that makes it more of a challenge. Near Future Electrical, Near Future Solar, and Near Future Construction (also by Nertea) also are great mods with large trusses, solar arrays, and other station goodness.
  2. Norcalplanner
    Placing the station over 120 km altitude allows for 100x timewarp, while a station over 240 km altitude allows 1000x timewarp. As a result, my stations tend to go into 125km (for LKO, Mun and Minmus trips) or 250 km (interplanetary) orbits. 300km is also the "gate orbit" altitude for travelling to Jool. A ship fully fueled departing from that altitude will use less delta V to get to Jool than a ship starting at any other altitude.
  3. Norcalplanner
    PorkJet has made a mod which uses this for a few of the 1.25m rocket engines. You can find it here: If you install the mod, you'll have the option to upgrade certain engines over the course of your career game. For example, the LV-909 Terrier in my 1.2 prerelease career currently has 80 kN of thrust in vacuum, compared to the stock 60 kN.
  4. Norcalplanner
    Yep. It was really annoying with FAR installed, since MechJeb has a function with stock aero to tabulate gravity and aero losses on a launch. It's buried in the menus, but it enabled a lot better data with stock compared to FAR.
  5. Norcalplanner
    It was a puzzle to me too, which is why I mentioned it. This only cropped up in the FAR runs, which had additional fins at the bottom (which the stock aero did not). Since I don't usually play with FAR, I didn't pursue the matter further. I will say that I considered human error, and that's why I repeated these three tests several times. Only when I got the same results after repeating the tests did I think that it was something in FAR itself, since the stock aero numbers didn't have anything like this.
  6. Norcalplanner
    I'm running a very quiet custom build with an i5-6600k (with a mild overclock), 4gb gtx 960 ssc gpu (only playing at 1080p) 16 gigs of ddr4 ram, and Evo 850 ssd. Worked really well in 1.1.3 with 4x aa, and a bunch of pretty mods (SVE, stock texture replacer, scatterer, planetshine, distant object enhancement, color coded canisters, full res textures, etc). So far it seems to be working even better in 1.2 pre-release, but I'm running without mods atm.
  7. Norcalplanner
    I like the form factor and stats of the Poodle enough that I've put up with looking at it, but this will certainly improve things.
  8. Norcalplanner
    The Pork jet download with revamped engine parts gives you an idea how this is implemented in the 1.2 beta.
  9. Norcalplanner
    Really like these revised parts. Only a few are in the Porkjet download for the moment, but I like the art style and balance direction for the whole set. Looks like the Poodle will be two vacuum-optimized LVT-15s.
  10. Norcalplanner
    RSS plus SMURFF at full lever works pretty well. I played an RSS game like that for about a month, and got a full surface Moon base going along with an orbital Moon station. Unmanned craft made it to Mars, Venus, and Mercury, but no manned craft made it to another planet. I just started to get really tired of the axial tilt that was manifested as the whole solar system at an angle, so I'm thinking I'll go back to 6.4x or maybe even 10x Kerbol system after the 1.2 mods shake out.
  11. Norcalplanner
    Are you using the 1.25m converters? They're much less efficient and waste a lot of ore compared to the 2.5m versions.
  12. Norcalplanner
    I'm really looking forward to the quality of play improvements that impact development of infrastructure. So far we have: More stable orbits for stations Better landing legs for surface bases Better wheels for rovers Optimizations allowing even higher part counts Bring on the hype!
  13. Norcalplanner
    My designs are largely driven by function, cost, and ease of use. My aesthetic efforts are generally limited to using the texture swapping options in SpaceY, Fuel Tanks Plus and Color Coded Canisters for snappy color schemes.
  14. Norcalplanner
    Keep in mind that KSP is typically CPU-bound rather than GPU-bound. With larger ships and hundreds of parts interacting with each other every frame, the game will take as much processor as you can throw at it to calculate all the in-game physics. With 1.1 and 64 bit, the need for texture reductions really isn't there anymore. What are the specs on your system? I'd recommend at least 8 GB of RAM, a dedicated graphics card, and a processor with at least two cores running at a decent speed. In the meantime, cranking down the graphics settings will help a bit. In particular, lower the quality of the aero fx, turn off ground scatter, choose low detail terrain, and use the quarter size texture option.
  15. Norcalplanner
    This is old advice. With the current aero in the game, you want to do a real gravity turn - go straight up until you're going somewhere between 20 and 50 m/s, then nudge it a little bit to the east (about 5 to 8 degrees). Then lock your controls on prograde hold. If you're having trouble flipping then add more fins to the bottom and/or put the whole payload in a fairing. Don't worry about going too fast in atmosphere - ignore the flames, but pay attention to the temperature gauges when they pop up. Regarding the lifter, a single Mainsail plus four Kickbacks should be plenty. Here are pics of a cost-effective lifter I did which puts 41 tons into orbit.
  16. Norcalplanner
    Awesome and thank you.
  17. Norcalplanner
    @pap1723 Any thoughts regarding my earlier message about those SpaceY parts not showing up in the tech tree? I'm loving everything else about the mod.
  18. Norcalplanner
    Rockets these days, although I used to play around a bit with space planes when I still played stock scale. Nearly all my career play for the past year has been 3.2x, 6.4x, or RSS, where space planes are at a distinct disadvantage. To keep costs down, I'll use stage recovery and design the rocket so that only a little bit of the rocket is thrown away. For example, my standard "Bluebird" LKO 4-kerbal crew taxi only throws away a Poodle, Rockomax 32, and a decoupler. Everything else is recovered with SR or stays attached and intact to the reentry vehicle.
  19. Norcalplanner
    My hype train branch line is being pulled by the 20th Century Limited. For those who aren't aware, it used the most Kerbal method I'm aware of to add water to the tender - the track pan. While still at speed, an open ended pipe is lowered into shallow pans of water next to the tracks at select locations, and the train's forward motion forces the water up and into the tender while the train remains in motion.
  20. Norcalplanner
    I've been enjoying this mod a lot, but some parts seem to be missing from SpaceY. In particular, both flavors of aerodynamic radial decouplers (the ones with the built-in separatrons) are nowhere to be found, and the 5m fairing is gone. Is the mod properly mapping all SpaceY parts to the nodes in the tech tree?
  21. Norcalplanner
    My artist daughter drew a Kerbalized portrait a few months ago for Father's Day.
  22. Norcalplanner
    I've lost ablator on a vigorous ascent even when it was fully occluded by the rest of the rocket. I guess it's the convection mechanic doing its thing in a predictably unpredictable Kerbal way..
  23. Norcalplanner
    Ah - I didn't keep Gemini 7 up there long enough by itself before launching Gemini 6. I'll give it another whirl tonight.
  24. Norcalplanner
    I'm also having trouble with the Gemini 6 & 7 mission. Running a custom 3.2x scale setup with Sigma Dimensions. Is there any sort of order that things need to be done in or other hidden parameter? For example, does Gemini 7 need to be up there first by itself for the whole two weeks before you ever launch Gemini 6? Does the orbit need to be at a certain altitude?
  25. Norcalplanner
    Looks correct to me. After reading the other thread linked by RIC, it may be worthwhile to clarify that this assumes no aerobraking.
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