Norcalplanner

In my newish 6.4x career game, but I'm purposely sticking with 1.1 for the moment. Better the devil you know...

If it's mainly fuel you're looking for in orbit, you can also have an unmanned refueling ship/depot. Here's a simple one with an orange tank worth of fuel: All you would need to do is put some standard size docking ports on the sides (in addition to the one under the nose cone), put a hitchhiker in between the orange tank and the C7 adapter if you want some crew capacity, and beef up the launch stage a bit to account for the extra weight and drag. I'll note that this rocket is using Kerbal Joint Reinforcement, so a version of it recreated in stock will need some additional struts.

If you like Science mode but also like certain aspects of career (like Kerbal experience) simply start a career game with science set to something appropriate below 100%, then set funds at 300% or higher. Science will then be the only effective constraint, but you still get some of career mode goodness.

Makes sense, but I don't know if KSP is smart enough to know where the antenna is located on a craft. It wouldn't surprise me if it's drawing an imaginary line from one center of mass to the other.

@dboi88 I'm pretty sure that 500m is far enough away that the curvature of Minmus would block line of sight to the larger antenna. Tou may want to try putting a relay sat or two in minmus orbit. Myself, I'm thinking of putting a small constellation of satellites in between the Mun and minmus, which should cover everything but the very farthest side of Minmus.

Thanks everyone for your replies. Definitely some good things to think about. I still have a ways to go in this career save before it's base-building time, but I think I'll load up multiple mods and play with them around KSC in sandbox in the interim. And RoverDude, I'd be upset if you weren't biased.

I've played both BTSM and Kerbalism at different times. I prefer Kerbalism. The whole potato battery thing, with it taking a really long time to get the first solar panels, meant that BTSM was one of the grindiest careers I've ever played. I did appreciate other new lower tech parts, just not the batteries.

I used a Kethane-powered mining rig for my Jool-5 mission back in the day, but haven't done a modern mining rig, so my comments may be off. My initial impression is that your craft is very large and very heavy. How much fuel are you trying to net per run? Just making some minor changes like a lighter capsule and more efficient vacuum engines would probably help things a fair bit. Efficiency of rocket-SSTO designs depends a lot on keeping the weight down and the Isp up. Deciding whether or not to keep the ISRU converter on the craft is a big decision, and affects what you may find fun (or not). If you can figure out a way to not carry around that extra dead weight, it would help a lot. If you want to convert the ore to fuel in orbit, the most flexible setup would be to have one ISRU unit on the surface, and another unit in orbit - that way, you can top up fuel tanks at both ends, and make sure they're only sized large enough for a one-way trip. You may also want to do some number crunching and see whether it makes sense to either go the full LV-N route, or maybe do a hybrid ship with LV-N main drives, then some Poodles or Terriers. The LFO engines which kick in only when initially lifting off of Vall when you're fully laden.

Now that 1.1 has arrived with its more optimized code and 64-bit executable, I've decided it's time to really make a good Munar surface base or two. I've only done it a few times before, but it always ended up turning into a lag-fest. The furthest I ever got was creating a modular base using primarily SpaceY and Stockalike Space Station Expansion parts, as part of the Apollo Applications Program challenge - see photo album: So with that in mind, what are the pros and cons of the various base-building mods currently available for 1.1? I'm running a new 6.4x scale career game, but I'm confident in my ability to deliver large payloads to the Mun once I get a bit further along in the Tech Tree. Kerbalism is currently installed, and may or may not remain as it matures (I'm particularly concerned about the malfunctions over 6.4x interplanetary travel times). I'm looking at UKS/OKS, KPBS, Pathfinder, EPL, OSE workshop, and other similar mods. I'm thinking I don't necessarily want to dive too deep into the resource chain, so I'm leaning away from UKS/OKS, but am honestly still undecided about which mod or mods to use. I also don't want things to be too easy, where you end up delivering one small payload and then use ISRU to make things 50 times bigger. The plan is to have fun building infrastructure, so I'm looking for things that will play nicely with an orbital station or two, crew and cargo shuttles making runs, miners, tankers, etc. So - what do people like and dislike about these mods? Strengths, weaknesses, things you wish you had known before devoting dozens of hours using a mod you ended up uninstalling? The goal is to learn from others' experiences and make a well-informed decision. If things go well on the Mun, then we'll look at colonizing Duna and possibly Laythe. Thanks in advance for your replies. Edit - And just for the record, I now have a new i6600K-powered rig, which should also help a fair bit on the lag front. I'm looking to put the new system through its paces a bit.

SpaceY is great, but I'd add some of NecroBones' other mods too. Fuel Tanks Plus is great, as is the Quad-nuke from Modular Rocket Systems. And if you want some really big stuff, check out Real Scale Boosters.

I just wanted to say that I'm using this in a new career game and enjoying it a lot. It seems to be in the sweet spot between specificity and abstraction. I already ran into an in-game setbeck with my early Munar Scansat probe suffering a number of breakdowns, including damage to the single antenna before it could broadcast the science results of the radar scan. It was very satisfying to launch a new Munar lander probe with multiple antennas to enable the crippled satellite to broadcast its science while the slowly deteriorating solar panels still produced enough power to make it work. The Scansat probe is now on its last legs, and will probably be useless in another few weeks of game time. Fun!

Here's my entry - the Upgoer 3. Up to space with three kerbals in 1:15. Up and back in 3: 04. It's a bit unique in that it only uses Mainsails. I also credit the good time largely on luck when deploying the parachutes. Definitely lots of room for improvement, as some of the fuel tanks aren't full, and I went zooming up to over 100 km before heading back down again. Still, pretty good for three kerbals and a heavy Mk 1-2 capsule.

Interesting. Have to give this a try this weekend.

I must respectfully disagree. Gravity losses are much larger than aero losses beginning in 1.0.5, so don't worry about terminal velocity at all. Have an initial TWR of 1.5 to 1.7, do a real gravity turn starting around 20 to 50 m/s depending on the ship design, and ignore all the shockwaves and flames you see on the way up. As long as nothing explodes, you're good.

Just wanted to drop by and say thanks to everyone who provided advice on my first build over the last month or two. I put the thing together a week and a half ago, and everything is working great. Ended up with a really killer box for a lot less than it would have cost to buy pre-built. And this thing is quiet ... PSU and video card fans don't even spin up until temps get up to 60 C or so, which only happens during 3D gaming. The noisiest part is the old 2TB data drive I reused from my old box.

Thanks @Alphasus and @Camacha for your responses. Swapped out the MX-4 for the Arctic Silver and stepped up to a Corsair Carbide 330R low noise case. (This case also has a solid top, which I like from a dust-reduction perspective.) I'll keep the information on Noctua fans and coolers in my hip pocket for now - if the system turns out louder than anticipated, that's what I'll replace first. PSU is oversized in case I add additional peripherals or a second 960 down the road in SLI. Thanks again for all your help. [edit] And as one last change, I upgraded the power supply to a Corsair RM550X - too many reports about video card coil whine being traced to low end power supplies.

So I'm finally ready to pull the trigger on a new system, primarily for KSP and other games (Fallout 4, XCOM 2) as well as general computing tasks. I'll be reusing a 2 TB data drive and peripherals from my current system, so all I need is a new box. Looking to use only a single 1080 monitor for gaming (which is an upgrade from my current 1440 x 900 monitor), and I'm trying to keep this system somewhat quiet. This will be my first PC build, but I've watched enough videos that I feel like I know what to do. I also have some programmer friends I can call on in a pickle who are experienced with building PCs. Any glaring errors or omissions? Any suggestions? My Wish List Details New PC Qty. Image Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price 1 EVGA GeForce GTX 960 04G-P4-3967-KR 4GB SSC GAMING w/ACX 2.0+, Whisper Silent Cooling w/ Free Installed Backplate Graphics ... Model #:04G-P4-3967-KR Item #:N82E16814487155 Return Policy:Standard Return Policy In Stock $229.99 -$4.00 Instant $225.99 1 Corsair Carbide Series 200R Black Steel / Plastic compact ATX Mid Tower Case Model #:CC-9011023-WW Item #:N82E16811139018 Return Policy:Standard Return Policy In Stock $69.99 -$10.00 Instant $59.99 1 GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard Model #:GA-Z170X-Gaming 3 Item #:N82E16813128837 Return Policy:Standard Return Policy In Stock Mail in Rebate Card $149.99 -$30.00 Instant $119.99 1 CORSAIR CX series CX600M 600W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC CP-9020060-NA ... Model #:CP-9020060-NA Item #:N82E16817139048 Return Policy:Standard Return Policy In Stock Mail in Rebate Card $79.99 -$15.00 Instant $64.99 1 Intel Core i5-6600K 6M Skylake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I56600K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530 Model #:BX80662I56600K Item #:N82E16819117561 Return Policy:Replacement Only Return Policy In Stock $254.99 -$15.00 Instant $239.99 1 SAMSUNG 850 EVO M.2 500GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal SSD Single Unit Version MZ-N5E500BW Model #:MZ-N5E500BW Item #:N82E16820147399 Return Policy:Standard Return Policy In Stock $179.99 -$22.00 Instant $157.99 1 G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) Intel Z170 Platform / Intel X99 Platform ... Model #:F4-3000C15D-16GVRB Item #:N82E16820231937 Return Policy:Standard Return Policy In Stock $74.99 $74.99 1 ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM Model #:DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Item #:N82E16827135204 Return Policy:Standard Return Policy In Stock $19.99 $19.99 1 Microsoft Windows 10 Home - Full Version (32 & 64-bit) / USB Flash Drive Model #:KW9-00016 Item #:N82E16832588528 Return Policy:Consumable Product Return Policy In Stock $129.99 $129.99 1 Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound AS5-3.5G - OEM Model #:AS5-3.5G Item #:N82E16835100007 Return Policy:Consumable Product Return Policy In Stock $11.99 -$5.00 Instant $6.99 1 Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan Model #:RR-212E-20PK-R2 Item #:N82E16835103099 Return Policy:Standard Return Policy In Stock Mail in Rebate $34.99 -$5.50 Instant $29.49 1 Rosewill RTK-002 Anti-Static Wrist Strap Model #:RTK-002 Item #:N82E16899261005 Return Policy:Standard Return Policy In Stock $9.99 -$4.19 Instant $5.80 Subtotal: $1,136.19

SpaceY, my friend, SpaceY.

Fuel tanks plus by necrobones has conical fuel tanks and fueled nose cones in every diameter.

Regex, you might want to try Strategia. While not fully doing what you're describing, it definitely moves the needle in that direction. Right now in my 1.0.5 6.4x game I've selected "the mun program" which gives me a lot of funds for everything mun related, culminating in a manned mun mission.

The best analogy I can think of is that KSP is like skiing. Some prefer downhill, some prefer cross country. Some enjoy spending time alone on the mountain, some love swapping stories at the lodge. A slalom course might tempt some and repel others, as might a downhill speed course. Others have left this particular resort and are having fun elsewhere. Some prefer the tried and true, others love the new and shiny. And some people just want to do stunts on snowboards. But at the end of the day, we're all having fun gliding about on snow and having a good time. And for the record, in this analogy @regex is an old school telemark skier, off doing his own difficult thing and happy as a clam.

It's been a long time since I used the KerbalX, but I recall it has a pretty high TWR and can therefore benefit from carrying more fuel. Try adding a bit more fuel to each of the stacks and see what happens, making sure to add tanks symmetrically on the side stacks. Should be pretty to get a few hudred more m/s of delta v, which it sounds like is all you need.

Comic Sans is a force of evil and must be eradicated. Except when it was used in Freedom Force, where it was awesome. And except when it's used in XKCD, where it adds to the scientific joie de vivre. And except... Never mind.

With a docking port on the end, simply dock a small module with a battery and some solar panels.

The fact that Claw was hired by Squad gives me a fair bit of hope.