Wanderfound

Alternately, particularly as you have a bunch of newbie players: stick 'em in career mode. This'll slow down the experienced players (because they won't be able to immediately slap together a gigantic asparagus booster) and reduce the decision paralysis on the newbies (because there are clear goals and won't be an overwhelming collection of parts to choose from). Victory conditions could be highest funds, highest science, highest rep or some combination of the three.

While you're in a small-parts-uber-alles mood, any chance of a lander can specifically designed to fit into a Mk2 spaceplane cargo bay? 0.625m rovers and probe landers are easy enough to fit, but getting a manned ship into one of those bays without it clipping through the doors is rather difficult, particularly if you don't want a Mk1 capsule on it.

Mechjeb gives customisable data windows that cover every piece of information that you could possibly want. Worth having even if you never use the autopilot functions. SteamGauges is also worth a look, as is VOID. As shown above, Kerbal Flight Data presents the most important flight and orbital information in a low-clutter manner, while RPM lets you access all of that information via IVA screens.

Have a poke at the piloting guide in post #2 of the Kerbodyne thread linked in my sig. It was written for FAR/NEAR, but the same basic flight profile applies in stock as well. 99% of my designs are built for FAR, but see https://www.dropbox.com/s/lbnz9s8k9h7gwgb/Kerbodyne%20Benchmark%20StockAir.craft?dl=0 for something that works in stock.

It takes delicate timing; I had a comparable situation where I needed to get half a dozen Kerbals out of a crippled spaceplane to descend on EVA parachutes. Arranging things so that I could get all six onto their 'chutes and to the ground without anyone leaving physics range was quite tricky, particularly as the plane only had two hatches and no ladders. From memory, I ended up throwing the plane into a vertical climb until it stopped dead, then frantically right-clicked all over the place.

I'd endorse this. A bunch of different jets would be lovely, but I'm not going to download half a dozen mods to get them. AJE would have much stronger appeal if it included a good engine variety within itself.

Got some heavy stuff to lift? Want it lifted fast? The Kerbodyne Atlas. Express elevator to the gods. Broadwinged design makes for absurdly easy takeoffs, even when carrying heavy loads. No shortage of power. Supersonic within sight of home. And no slouch at altitude either. Easily to orbit with juice to spare. Despite a chunky payload. Trigger spoilers and flaps to enable airbrakes. Superbly stable. Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/2p7uo4zteqki73d/Kerbodyne%20Atlas.craft?dl=0

I'd been thinking recently about introducing plot to KSP. I think the key to it may be to create the story more via background events rather than driving the player directly. For example, set up the initial conditions so that an asteroid appears on target for a Kerbal city (once such things exist) a set time after the start of a new game; have serial contracts that gradually lead the player towards scientific discoveries that trigger follow up contracts; etc. It's important, I think, to keep the storyline stuff entirely optional.

No, discussing stock. Yes, I know that the gear bays have uprated heat shielding so that they won't burn off when retracted; it was more of a rhetorical than literal example. But the basic point stands: there are assorted parts (RCS units etc) that the KSP build process requires you to leave hanging in the wind more than they would be in reality, and it is good when DRE takes account of that difference.

Science, liberal democracy, technological civilisation, and an average lifespan of about triple the historical norm. And if you're purely focussed on physical infrastructure, go have a look at some of the bridges and things being built in France these days. The builders of antiquity would be utterly gobsmacked. Pharoahs and Kings build monuments; democratic people build knowledge and utility. Less cathedrals, more public schools and National Health Services. There's a fine line between "engineering marvel" and "throwing vast quantities of resources down the drain for no good reason". This is edging into politics though, so I'll leave it there.

The defense required depends on the position being challenged. A lawyer demanding proof that water is wet will be rightfully laughed down.

Go have a poke at the Fine Print​ thread. There's a good collection there of suggestions of things for Arsonide's team to implement, and you can probably expect a fair bit of it to make it into stock by 0.90.

Interesting smoke trail...

As hinted at in my hardpoint comment, though, some allowance needs to be made for the KSP construction process. A real spaceplane can stash its landing gear away behind the heat shielding; a KSP spaceplane can't. Ditto for assorted other small radially attached bits.

Any reason why you're not just sticking an LF-only tank or two on your spaceplanes?

How to do airbrakes without B9: Set up pairs of overlapping control surfaces near the CoM. Use right-click tweakables to disable these surfaces in all axes. Set the upper one as a maxed-out spoiler, the lower one as a maxed-out flap. Use an action group to toggle them on and off.

...if you ignore the cost of creating and maintaining the lunar base. Even fifty years post Apollo, sending things to the Moon is not easy, reliable or cheap. Sending enough stuff to the Moon to maintain a long-term human presence would require an investment on a major planetary commitment level. There is some scientific justification for expending the resources to send unmanned rovers to the Moon (as the Chinese have recently done), but there is very little justification for sending people there.

Command seats, small wheels and a 0.625m core. And mount it so that any clipping on the edges of the bay is aimed at the doors rather than the floor. You can fit a Science Jr on one so long as you don't mount anything radially on it.

Nice frame; well built. If you're after elegant, though... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1504987&viewfull=1#post1504987

The most obvious and immediate conclusion of the study of any legal system anywhere in space and time, recognised as such by basically the entire legal fraternity and explicitly taught as such in law schools. No, that's not a formal citation. But...seriously? The implication of your argument is that there has never been any such thing as an unjust law, nor any such thing as a wrongful action that was not illegal. That is not a reasonably defensible position.

As has been mentioned upthread: 1) You don't need that much fuel in orbit unless you're planning on setting up an Eve tourism service. A few orange tanks that get refilled after every ~5 uses is plenty. 2) The cheapest way by far to deliver fuel to orbit is by spaceplane or other recoverable SSTO. For example: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90337-Economic-Fuel-to-Oribit?p=1361984&viewfull=1#post1361984 Wet cost: √149322 Recovered: √143321.7 LF delivered: 3727.9 O delivered: 4186.4 Cost: √6000.3 Splitting the bill evenly between the LF and O portions: Price per unit of LF: √0.8 Price per unit of O: √0.7

As has been mentioned upthread: 1) You don't need that much fuel in orbit unless you're planning on setting up an Eve tourism service. A few orange tanks that get refilled after every ~5 uses is plenty. 2) The cheapest way by far to deliver fuel to orbit is by spaceplane or other recoverable SSTO. For example: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90337-Economic-Fuel-to-Oribit?p=1361984&viewfull=1#post1361984 Wet cost: √149322 Recovered: √143321.7 LF delivered: 3727.9 O delivered: 4186.4 Cost: √6000.3 Splitting the bill evenly between the LF and O portions: Price per unit of LF: √0.8 Price per unit of O: √0.7

Only two weeks to go; time to get working on those designs. Remember that any category with less than three entrants is void. So, enter as many categories as you can, and get out there and start encouraging your forum friends to have a go as well. The more the merrier. We could particularly use some more FAR designs.

Have you considered having a chat to the Kronal Vessel Viewer folks? Having the website automatically generate a Kronal schematic when you upload a craft would be most nifty.

I agree that Senshi has gone about this about as well as possible, if it is to be done at all. However, I also agree with Ferram that the most annoying and clueless of the users are very unlikely to confine themselves to this thread. If they're ignoring all of the other "64 is intrinsically unstable, don't ask for support from modders" notices out there (which they demonstrably were), what makes you think that they'll pay attention to the "don't hassle the modders" warnings in this thread?