Wanderfound

That is a large part of it, yes. However, most of the alternate scoring schemes proposed do provide simple ways of excluding the tiny-payload strategy. Standardised payload, minimum payload, separate categories based on payload size, max payload for a given budget, etc. With the current scoring system, the limitation isn't "how efficiently can you lift a useful quantity of fuel to orbit?". It's "how high a part count can your PC tolerate?".

dV is delta-vee, which is something to do with how much push your rocket has. Isp is specific impulse, which is something to do with how fuel efficient your rocket is. G is, I guess, probably something to do with gravity. Ln is probably one of those logarithm things that I've never been able to understand. Haven't the foggiest about in, or what the 2 and 3 relate to. For all of this, whenever it's being discussed I have to pause a second to mentally translate each variable into English, which slows down my thinking enough that I can't follow the discussion. And my doctorate and academic publication record suggest that it's not because I'm a stupid person. Mathematics is awesome and important, and I'm very glad that other people can do it. But if I was dictator of the world, every university and technical business would have a stats/calculus department in the same way as they have an IT support department. "Here's the data from my experiment, crunch the numbers for me please". The greatest failing of mathematicians is that they fail to comprehend just how incomprehensible their language is for non-mathematicians. I've never seen teaching more incompetently done than what I experienced from the math faculty at university.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures?p=1310540&viewfull=1#post1310540 The one thing I didn't mention there: vertical velocity is much more important than horizontal velocity. Excessive horizontal velocity is only a problem if you run out of landing strip; it's entirely possible to touch down safely at 200m/s (although 100m/s is better). But if your vertical velocity is much over 5m/s or so, you're going to crash rather than land. Come in as shallow as you can.

Raster Prop Monitor. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57603 Gives you customisable live video displays on the screens in IVA.

You oughta see it combined with RPM...

It's a language that I'm constitutionally incapable of being fluent in, unfortunately. English and Latin I can do, everything else: nope. Quite happy that KSP allows reasonably effective design by eyeball without calculation.

Yup. He's moved it from entertainingly cute Tonka-truck rockets to "whoah, is that thing real?". Raised the bar.

It'll take about five seconds for them to be modded back in if they do.

Are those available for use now? If so, where?

The 100% recovery for spaceplanes is a bit broken. They should be more cost effective than staged rockets, but not by that much. Not going to stop me from taking advantage of it while it's there, though... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90337-Economic-Fuel-to-Oribit?p=1361984#post1361984

For a few quick lander building tips: * Build wide, not tall. * Economise. Don't make it too heavy. * You don't need a lot of thrust. A single LV-909 is plenty. * Use plenty of lander legs or you'll tip over. * Make sure that your legs are mounted low enough that your engine doesn't hit the ground on a hard landing. * The highest mountain on the Mun is about 8,000m. Bring your orbit at least this low before starting your descent. * RCS translation controls are very handy for killing horizontal velocity while remaining upright. Try to get your horizontal velocity close to zero as soon as possible. Use the main thruster pointing retrograde to start with, but finish off with translation RCS. You can come in at an angle once you get good at it, but I wouldn't recommend it when you're starting out. * Downwards pointing spotlights are good for giving visual cues as to altitude (it worked for the Dambusters in WWII...). So is watching for your shadow. Position your camera so you're looking away from Kerbol. * Give your RCS a few test puffs on the way down to make sure that you're facing the way you think you are. * Remember that the altitude readout at top of screen is height above sea level, not height above ground. * Try not to waste too much fuel stopping vertical velocity until you're within 1,000m of the surface; you'll end up having to do it twice due to gravity. * Make your touchdown speed as close to zero as possible, but be careful not to start going up again. Very fine throttle adjustments are important. Using the N button for downwards RCS can help with this. * Try to pick a relatively flat landing spot. * Lower your landing gear early so you don't forget. * Keep the RCS and SAS on until you're sure you won't tip over. * If you do tip over, don't give up. Retract the landing legs on one side and right yourself with RCS. * Don't forget the solar panels. * You don't need ladders, your EVA jetpack will do. * Don't try to land on the dark side until you're good at it. * Have fun. Every crash is an opportunity for an exciting rescue mission.

I am aware of that; as mentioned, it's not hard to get creative if you try. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread But you do see an awful lot of "hey, I made a spaceplane that looks like an SR-71!" on the SP+ thread. Made a few myself, to start with...

The SP+ stuff does fit together with itself so well that there is a tendency for people to start out by building a dozen close variations on an SR-71. But they'll get bored with that eventually, and it isn't hard to get more creative with a bit of thought.

By crashing into it repeatedly. At least, that's how most folks do it to start with. More seriously, there are plenty of tutorials out there. Get on Youtube and search for Scott Manley or Kurtjmac. But you'll probably enjoy it more if you try it yourself a few times first. Watching things fail in entertainingly catastrophic ways is half the fun of the game, and the view from the top of the mountain is always better if you walked there yourself.

As mentioned above, Sandbox and Science modes do not involve funds. There is also an option in the debug menu to edit your bank balance (alt-F12, then hold down alt for five seconds). However, if you do decide to stay in Career mode, some quick and easy ways to accumulate vast amounts of √: * Stick a satellite in orbit with a probe core, a battery, a couple of solar panels, a thermometer and a radio. Whenever a "transmit science from orbit" contract comes up, switch to the satellite and send in a temperature scan. * Stick a satellite in orbit that consists of a dozen or so cheap "escape pods": probe core, one man capsule, battery, parachute, RCS fuel and thrusters. Whenever a "rescue a Kerbal" contract comes up, detach a pod and send it to get him. You only need a tiny amount of ÃŽâ€V to rendezvous and deorbit. * Leave a Kerbal sitting in a permanent base on the Mun. Whenever a "plant flag" contract comes up, get him to walk outside and add to his forest of flags.

Firstly: I'm not particularly bothered. It's your challenge, score it however you like. But the scoring system currently in play does seem set to reward Whackjob-style bulk over efficiency. Sure, a more cost-efficient Whackjob will beat a less cost-efficient Whackjob, but if you restrict your design to something sensible then you're not even in the running. At the moment, it's less "economic fuel to orbit" and more "most economic way to lift completely absurd amounts of fuel to orbit". If it was me (and, again, not insisting that you change anything) I'd probably run the scoring on a √ per unit of fuel basis, with either a minimum payload or separate payload-size-based leaderboards in order to avoid the problem of highly efficient but uselessly small launches dominating. Multiple categories is probably best, IMO, otherwise it's still going to go to absurdly gigantic things taking advantage of the economies of scale. Vector and DundraL have my entry beat on both the current scoring system and a √ per unit basis, but whereas I use the Wedgetail regularly in my career game, I don't expect that either of their (very cool) designs will be seeing a lot of use in many career saves. At most, you'd use them once and then never need to fly them again. Either that or do it by budget: "how much fuel can you lift for less than √10,000?" sort of thing. That would also work well with multiple categories, and probably separate boards for planes vs rockets. Yeah, there's a value in avoiding multiple launches, but after a certain point it's more for giggles than for practical use. There's just no need for hundreds of thousands of fuel units in orbit, unless you're planning on landing a city-sized base on Eve and then lifting it up again.

Resize/reposition is the only reason I have Advanced Navball installed.

See post #6...

Nah, that was SP+.

I suspect so, on a √ per unit of fuel basis, but I haven't done the math for anyone else. Nowhere near the highest score, though. And you could probably shave the price further if you tried; the Wedgetail is carrying a fair bit of luxury kit (abort system, radio, lights and docking port, multiple solar panels, TAC-LS supplies, etc.). Edited to add: nope, nuked by Vector's giant vertical SSTO and DundraL's monster spaceplane. Economies of scale.

That's a good trick that I use heavily; even my specialist non-cargo planes always have a small bay for this exact reason. It's also a handy place to stick a spotlight aimed above the docking clamp, or to keep your solar panels stashed away, or to hide materials bays, goo pods, TAC-LS supplies, etc. Haven't tried using it as emergency crew transport yet... Another good SP+ hack, if you want Monoprop/SAS/Decouplers/Batteries that fit the SP+ aesthetic: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80796-0-24-Spaceplane-Plus-1-3?p=1357263&viewfull=1#post1357263

An RT-10 usually works pretty well. But if you're after something less permanent, a Hitchhiker pod makes a decent orbital prison cell...

Rationale for splashdown tests: to see if it can be reused. BTW: if you detach the part before you test it, it's not gonna work unless you've stuck a probe core on it. The other trick is that the test doesn't say that the rocket has to have any fuel. As well as avoiding complicating your flight with a sudden increase in thrust, it's also worth remembering that 90% of the mass of a solid booster is the fuel. If you use the tweakables to remove that, it's now an easy-to-transport lightweight pipe. OTOH, sometimes a sudden increase in thrust is quite fun: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87950-Testing-times As for reverts: if you want to, go to the debug menu (alt-F12), disable revert and quickload. A lot of the more experienced players are running "ironman mode" these days: no revert, no quickload, no respawning of dead Kerbals. There were a lot of memorial services for Jeb, Bill and Bob in the week after .24 was released.

Something special to celebrate Porkjet's triumph: Craft file at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90747-Kerbodyne-SSTO-Division-Omnibus-Thread?p=1360602&viewfull=1#post1360602

Actually, what I usually do is make an orbital laboratory / fuel depot with a lightweight attached lander and pop down to a new biome whenever I feel like I need some science points. Like a lot of folks, I messed around with rovers for a bit but then decided that they were more hassle than they were worth. Once you've got the knack of reliably setting down landers, it's always easier to fly. A small spaceplane can make a decent rover if you use B9's powered landing gear or stick an Ion thruster on the back, though. On a largely unrelated note: seen my entry for the fuel tanker challenge? http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/90337-Economic-Fuel-to-Oribit/page5?p=1361984#post1361984