Norcalplanner

Thanks for the feedback. I think a 1TB data drive will probably be the first upgrade. On the RAM, I agree that may well be overkill - part of the thought is that I was finding 16GB kits for around 1.7x the price of an 8GB kit, so it's a slightly better bargain in the long run. Also, his existing laptop has 8GB of ram, so I wanted to move onward and upward if possible.

Howdy all - I'm looking for feedback on a system I'm putting together for a friend. He's not happy with his existing 3-year old laptop, being too slow and underpowered. The general idea is to get a tower system that's pretty capable now, but has a lot of upgrade potential in the future. This pushed me towards an 8th generation Intel build with a Z370 motherboard with four RAM slots (found one for $95 after rebate), even though the initial CPU is just an i3-8100. Taking into account the rebates, this system comes in right at $1,100, including Windows 10, monitor, mouse, and keyboard. I've pasted the questionnaire from the front page so I don't miss anything. I'd appreciate any feedback that folks have to offer! Thanks! What are you planning to do with this compuer? Please be as specfic as possible. Word processing, internet, watching streaming video and DVDs, art creation, some 3d modelling, some games (hopefully to include KSP) What is your budget? $1000-1100 USD Does this include a copy of Windows? yes Does this include peripherals (a keyboard, monitor, mouse, speakers, etc.)? yes, except for speakers [*]Are you from the United States or a different country? Are you ordering from your own country or from across borders? USA Wherever you may be from, does the store that you are planning to order from have a website? It's okay if it isn't in English, we can manage. Newegg If you are from the United States, do you live nearby a Microcenter? Do you have any specific requests with the build? He wants to hang on to it for a long time (5+ years), so some parts are overkill initially to give better upgrade potential. Do you plan on overclocking? If yes, do you have a specific goal in mind? Not initially Would you prefer the build to be particularly small? No Would you prefer the build to be particularly quiet? No In general, do you prefer this to be a computer that you can spend money on now and let it rest, or a box built for continuous upgrading? I'll be helping him upgrade occasionally Do you ever plan on utilizing NVIDIA's SLI or AMD's CrossfireX technologies? No CPU i3-8100 (use stock cooler) Motherboard Gigabyte Z370P D3 ATX RAM Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB DDR4 3000 Graphics Card EVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Power Supply EVGA 500 B1 80+ Bronze (comes bundled with GPU) Case Corsair Carbide Series 200R Black Hard Drive No data drive at this time Solid State Drive WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB PC SSD - SATA III Mouse Logitech Wireless Combo MK270 Keyboard bundled with Mouse Monitor ASUS VS248H-P Black 24" 2ms GTG HDMI 1920 x 1080 Speakers/Headset using existing ASUS DVD Burner

I don't fully understand all the figures, but I'm excited about what I think I understand. Can't wait to give this a whirl in GPP/GEP/TWB once everything is updated for KSP 1.5.1!

There used to be an error with earlier versions that created some weirdness after a long time (I want to say 190 years or so) but that bug was squashed years ago

@garwel For some background on Thalia from the GPP wiki: "Thalia is one of two H-class bodies (the most inhospitable kind for colonization) and one of the three most difficult bodies to prepare advanced surface operations for. The other two being Catullusand Leto. Three factors define the curse and unique fear factor of this planet: the face, a visible feature which makes grown kerbals cry; a distinct lack of general purpose (most) resources -- a real scare to landers in general and to users of life support mods; and an environmental hazard which spans far and wide on a scale not yet known to kerbalkind."

@JadeOfMaar I'm in the process of creating a new install atm, and would be happy to test this. Based on my experience with Kerbal Health in my GEP Primary career, I would suggest that surface radiation on Thalia should be at least 10x-20x of what it is for standard interplanetary space. Having to choose between heavily shielded landers which are less efficient, and lighter craft which risk the crew's immediate and long-term health should be a real choice for the player. And a Kerbal on EVA should be nervously looking at his watch and Geiger counter every minute that he's on the surface.

OH. MY. GOSH. Is there any way you can add radiation to Thalia in Galileo's Planet Pack? The in-mod lore is that the planet is supposed to be radioactive, which is currently simulated with a heat effect that can explode vessels of the unwary. Adding radiation that is a risk to the crew as well as the ship would be pure awesomeness. Pinging @Galileo and @JadeOfMaar

I came on board at 0.23.5 myself. Please accept my apologies if this was offensive - it just seemed to be as good a spot as any for the meme post. :-)

Some parts packs, such as BDB, place probe cores in the first node so you can start unmanned.

Kerbal Health is a great non-USI way to get habitation mechanics. It also includes radiation, sickness, quirks, and rest after a mission.

@Frostiken It's not the most realistic thing in the world, but some mods (such as MOLE) allow you to put radiation shielding in a customized container, right next to the snacks.

A little late to the party, but here's a picture my lovely spouse took on the beach at Oxnard during Sunday night's launch:

Saw this launch from the beach at Oxnard. Very cool. Hopefully I'll have some pics uploaded from the good camera tomorrow.

@rubikscubeworld Welcome to the forums. This is the thread for RSS, which has been updated now to KSP 1.4.5. Realism Overhaul is a different mod (which includes a bunch of other mods by reference) which is only updated for 1.3.1. Many KSP mods are very particular about which version of the game they will run correctly on. You may want to try over on that thread for more assistance: You'll also get better help if you follow the steps outlined in this post:

It's not entirely obvious in the documentation, but a second build rate is unlocked by upgrading the VAB. I would hope that a second VAB upgrade would unlock a third build rate, but I haven't gotten that far in my RP-1 career.

MKS includes it's own version of this mod. Do you have any of the USI mods installed?

Quick RP-1 question... Is there any space center improvement which reduces training times, even if it's just a little bit? Such as a higher level astronaut complex? Right now my initial proficiency training for Gemini is taking 520 days or thereabouts.

Over the last few weeks I've been having a lot of fun with RP-1. Here are a few screenshots, in no particular order. Enjoy. First successful Mercury orbital launch. Pretty sunrise ascent of an early satellite launcher. First unmanned lunar landing. A reminder to check where you're coming down when making your reentry burn - the Himalayas make a suboptimal landing zone. Thankfully we cleared the mountains and came down in Bangladesh.

Just wanted to say that I'm playing an RP-1 career on moderate difficulty and am finding it a good mix of challenging and enjoyable. I don't think I've ever launched this many sounding rockets in a career before. One question - is there any way to tell an astronaut to keep current on something in terms of training until further notice? I'm still just using the X-1 cockpit, and even though I only have the one type of craft I've still had a few instances where the intended crew lost their quals prior to actually going on a mission. If such a feature isn't available, I'd certainly encourage it, either locked behind a certain level of astronaut complex or increasing the maintenance cost of the astronauts affected. Thanks again for making such a wonderful addition to KSP!

I did a study on TWR, aerodynamic drag, gravity losses, and ascent profiles two years ago, which may shed some light:

An experienced player will be fine in either scale, particularly in a modded install. Delta V requirements for 2.5x scale are approx. 1.58x of stock, while 3.2x scale is around 1.79x the stock Delta V.

BDB has 0.625m custom fairings.

Chapter 9 - Getting More Comfortable Away From Home [Note: This chapter marks the beginning of the new KSP 1.4.5 install. While this install is better overall, several mods were still creating problems and had to leave us, including BARIS, Pathfinder, Science Alert, and Editor Extensions. We'll be adding mods back in as things get more stable in 1.4.5.] With the successful Boomerang probe returning from Sirona, many more science nodes are unlocked. It's decided to put some of these new parts to use making a better station to give our Nodensians more experience living and working in space. Nodens Gateway station is sent aloft, and includes both our first centrifuge and the 3.75m Bigby Skylab module. The station has significant fuel reserves, and completes orbital insertion itself. This shot shows all the nosecones being jettisoned - I'll frequently place these on exposed docking ports to improve aerodynamics during ascent of larger unwieldy craft that don't have a fairing, then jettison them all at once via an action group. The first crew is sent up shortly thereafter, including two engineers to handle deployment of the centrifuge. As they approach the station, it becomes clear that something isn't right. The lower tank, an SSTU part which includes most of the battery capacity for the station, appears to be askew. Let's dock, deploy the centrifuge, then try a quicksave and quickload to see if it goes away. F5 F9 - looks the same... F5 F9 - looks the same... F5 F9... Wow, that's a lot worse. The engines are now messed up, so we're not changing this orbit anytime soon. Subsequent investigation with the Nodens Gateway 2 and 3 craft traced the problem to auto-struts which couldn't be turned off, caused by the use of the full size wings as fins in the first stage and by the thrust plate in the second stage. CURSE YOU, STRUTTY THE AUTO-STRUT! The crew attempts to work on some MOLE experiments, but it quickly becomes apparent that power generation is a little low, and battery reserves are woefully inadequate for transiting the dark side of each orbit. All of the MOLE, Snacks, and Kerbal Health requirements translate to a need for moar powr. Power Module to the rescue! Heading in to dock. This 2.5m SSTU tank is over 60% battery, and has six more Gigantors. With full power available during the entire orbit thanks to over 130K of EC onboard, the crew completes the contracted experiments, then heads down in an undocumented fashion. NSP administration decides to turn back to probes for additional science to unlock better station parts. Some timely ScanSat contracts call for radar, biome, and resource scans of Airmed and Brovo. Father, forgive me, for I have asparagus-staged the lifter for a scanning probe in a stock scale install. In my defense, the probe is going to try to scan three different moons and land on two of them, all around a gas giant as difficult to get to as Eeloo. As before, a tanker is sent up to top off the probe's departure stage before it heads off for Sirona. A few months later, Sirona looms large as the probe approaches. I just love getting up close to celestial bodies with rings. The probe does a capture burn at Sirona Ap, comes in for a gravity assist off of Airmed, and heads into a polar orbit around Damona to start scanning. The photographer was unfortunately in the restroom when all of this occurred, so it's undocumented. Here's one of those tricks I learned a long time ago. For solar-powered probes heading to outer planets, make sure that all the panels can function when the probe is pointed either directly towards or away from the sun. Then target the innermost planet, and keep the probe pointed accordingly for maximum solar power generation. One of our contracts is for a rendezvous and spacewalk outside of Nodens' SOI. Two craft are launched about an hour apart - this small probe... ... and this new crewed craft called the Sparrow (which underwent a lot of testing). With the removal of BARIS, we lost the powerful 0.625m escape tower, and the other tower on hand is a 1.25m part. In combination with a desire to shift over to the larger docking ports, a new craft was needed. We're still using as many MOLE parts as possible, with the new craft consisting of an Appaloosa (back seat for the Mk1 capsule) and the Bigby Crew capsule. We lost one capacity for one crewmember, (going down from six to five) but it will have to do. Both craft are put into the exact same orbital plane, then ejected out of the SOI on near-identical trajectories. The docking and spacewalk were undocumented, but here's a shot of the Sparrow IV heading back to Nodens. Because of the discipline in launching both craft in such close proximity, total time to complete the rendezvous and then head back into Nodens' SOI was less than twelve hours. Enger and Jensel get the first shiny gold and white ribbons. This seems like a good place to bring this chapter to a close. Where will the intrepid Nodensians go next? Find out... in the next chapter.

Yep! I'm using Kerbal Health in my current career, and these parts help on multiple fronts. For example, the centrifuges reduce the microgravity penalty, while the Hostel habitat is so large that it reduces the penalty from being on a mission away from home.