Wanderfound

Tried giving it a wiggle just in case, though? I have had similar things occur myself, and fiddling with the zoom levels did fix it for me. 100% may not be the level required. If it doesn't work then it doesn't work; I'm not denying what you're reporting. And I post stuff because I like people to see it, so if the current format isn't suitable I'd need to work something else out. But, if possible, it would be nice to keep using the Photobucket story format; it's a lot less time and hassle to create one of those than it is to transfer it all over into a normal forum post.

The SAS-free ascent works in FAR if done right, but it isn't necessary. Keep the SAS on, turn a little immediately after liftoff, gradually pull the nose towards the horizon as you ascend, keeping it within 5° of prograde the whole way. As you've noticed, at high altitude the air thins enough to allow SAS torque to overpower aerodynamic forces. That's the key to a lot of stuff in FAR, whether it be rockets or spaceplanes: be very careful at low altitude, but go nuts if you want once you gain some height. The other trick is in building: you have to keep your CoL behind CoM at all times. Tailfins are useful.

The Kerbin ISP difficulty scaler is designed to counteract the FAR/NEAR drag reduction, but exactly how much to apply is a matter of personal preference. Within FAR/NEAR, NEAR is simpler but not easier. FAR has aerodynamic failures, yes, but in all other respects NEAR is actually more difficult to fly in than FAR. Balancing will also depend upon the nature of the challenge; FAR/NEAR reduces drag, but it also massively nerfs jet engines and requires competent airframe design. Small to medium aircraft design is much easier in stock than in FAR. With any challenge, requiring people to install mods will massively reduce the pool of participants. A lot of people fly in FAR; relatively few use KIDS. You're probably best off just running separate leaderboards for stock vs FAR.

How much vertical lift do you need? The easiest way to do it is just by sticking a Klaw on the end of some girders, and raising/lowering by sticking some landing legs or aircraft gear under the front of the crane.

(Wanderfound opens popcorn bag) This should be fun...

We get one of these threads every two weeks, but they're still worthwhile. For me: 1) Kerbal Flight Data. Absolute no-brainer; it displays all of the essential flight information in an easily accessible but unobtrusive manner. The requirement to flip to the map screen just to check your apoapsis is absurd, as is the need to go IVA to view radar altitude. 2) RPM. The IVA view is brilliant with it, utterly useless without it. 3) FAR/NEAR. Along with many other people, I absolutely refuse to fly in the soupmosphere. It's just painfully unpleasant to do so. 4) RCS Build Aid. The best of the editor enhancement mods by a long way. Essential for advanced aircraft design. 5) Scansat. Much lower priority than the above, but why on Earth not? It adds nothing but fun to the gameplay.

Incidentally, if you build it right a small cargo bay can fit both a full science payload and a probe with enough native ÃŽâ€V to hit escape velocity from LKO.

Very hard in stock, not easy in FAR. Unless you're going for a clifftop launch, you'll need to accelerate to above flight speed on the ground. You will then lose a lot of that speed as soon as you pull the nose up, so you'd need a fair bit of margin as well. Real world gliders either launch from altitude, exploit updrafts, or are towed into flight. Some sort of detachable rocket sled would probably allow you to attain sufficient speed; I doubt that rover wheels alone would manage it.

Haven't done it yet, but I'm planning on seeing if I can fly a spaceplane to Duna using only RAPIERs for engines.

Most of the rocket parts are fugly to me. If I were emperor of KSP, I'd chain Porkjet to a desk and make him redo the lot.

The best way to manage canyons is to try and scrape by within a few metres of the canyon lip while at full throttle. I have no idea if that will be most efficient, but it's reliably the most fun.

There's probably an audience for themed contract packs. I.e. "this pack gives a series of contracts to closely replicate the Apollo program", "this pack gives contracts to add some Thunderbirds-style flavour to the game", etc.

But it's also a very cool mod, bringing much-needed Thunderbirdyness to KSP. Good stuff is always difficult; if it was easy, someone else would've already done it. Thank you.

Any Moonbase has the same problem as other interplanetary exploration: for the cost of establishing and sustaining one human base, you could send up a thousand robotic rovers. Yes, there are many things where having humans on site is better, but it's generally not a thousand times better. And that margin is increasing, not decreasing: remotely controlled exploration vehicles get better every year, but the costs of supporting humans off-world are relatively fixed. Sure, a Moonbase would be really cool, but the net effect of creating one would be a severe impairment of scientific progress.

Yes, it's sarcastic, but it's not entirely unjustified. One thread to discuss this is fine; five is overkill. Keep the discussion going, sure, but there's no reason to not keep it all in one thread. Duplicating threads just results in endless re-hashing of the already settled points.

What I'd like is some bumps on the paddock next to the runway. At present, it's easier to land on the grass than the runway.

Nope. OTOH, though, now that you can dock you have the entire Kerbol system open to you. The ability to refuel in orbit makes interplanetary travel vastly easier.

1: Switch the navball to target mode. 2: Point the ship at target retrograde. 3: Wait until shortly before your closest approach to the target. 4: Burn until your relative velocity hits zero. You are now stationary relative to your target. Ideally, you want to achieve this when you're about 50m from the target. 4: Point your docking port at the target, and very gently thrust towards it. RCS is usually better than main engines for this. By "gentle" I mean less than 1m/s. You can crank it up faster if you're further out, but by the time you get within 100m you want to be slow enough that you can zero your velocity with just a couple of seconds' worth of thrust. 5: As you approach, use the RCS translation controls (IJKLHN) to keep your prograde marker aligned with the target indicator. 6: Slow even more just before contact; you want your impact speed to be less than 0.2m/s. See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/3186-Basic-rendezvous-and-docking-tutorial for a bit more detail.

I wonder if I should start a Minmus rover racing challenge... The recovery into the cargo bay working okay for you? I made it as user-friendly as I could, but it's still a little bit fiddly in high-G environments. Hopefully there'll be stock ramps or winches some day.

It's going to depend a bit on your definition of "cheap", but it's easy enough to get TWR > 4 into a sub-√60,000 SSTO spaceplane, with a fuel bill (AKA cost after recovery) of under √2,000: The Aerospikes aren't intended to be kept lit for the whole ascent, of course. Although they are on this slightly more expensive one:

I'm not entirely sure what's going on, then; I just don't get that problem unless I'm trying to climb to extreme altitude with insufficient speed. How fast are you usually moving when you hit 20,000m? I normally flatten off at ~15,000m and start cranking through the supersonic, with the aim of hitting hypersonic (>Mach 5) as I pass 30,000m. Maybe try a test flight? A basic Kerbodyne ship (Wedgetail XXV is probably the smoothest-handling option) combined with the same PID settings I use: That might let us narrow down whether the problem is piloting, design or something else.

Nothing too big, nothing that breaks suspension of disbelief too violently, but within those limits...sleek and modern-ish is good. Whether it be spaceplanes... ...or rockets...

Still having a few cargo bay issues... One chunky spaceplane: And one refuelling truck: A friendly looking fuel hose: Oh no! We can't reach high enough! Never mind... Hooked on: All done, back in the bay, reconnect to the docking port I started from, and... Rover wheels seem to really want to fall through that bay. Struts can sort it out during launch, but the whole point of the ramp is to allow rovers to be recovered. Even KAS struts would not have saved this one; the rover fell through immediately after reconnecting to the docking port; there was no time to strut.

While not a complete solution...what settings are you using on the PID tuner? Cutting kp to 1/3rd of default sorts the wobble, but I also chop clamp to 1/2 default; this seems to improve the "hold" ability. A bit of manual input is still required if you're trying to hold a large AoA (i.e. > 15°), but it'll happily hold a vertical climb if the plane has the TWR to maintain it.

Usually... 1: Toggle Turbojets 2: Toggle RAPIERs 3: Toggle LV-Ns 4: Switch RAPIER modes 5: Toggle intakes 6: Raise flaps 7: Lower flaps 8: Vacuum mode (deploy solar, open docking ports and cargo bays 9: Toggle monoprop RCS 0: Toggle Vernors ...and, if I have room for them, action groups to toggle payload thrusters, trigger all science payload, toggle airbrakes, toggle VTOL mode, toggle cockpit/passenger lights, etc. I don't particularly need to be able to change action groups mid-flight. And, while the 10-group limit is arbitrary, unnecessary and irritating, it's not a huge problem. But the inability to view action groups during flight is completely ridiculous and immensely annoying, particularly when it leads you to do things like deploying solar at Mach 3. Fix it, Squaddies.