Mister Spock

This requirement has still not been re-worded for 1.0, and it confused me too, even though I've been playing KSP for a while (off and on). It's not a big deal; I Googled and found this thread. Were I drafting the contract, I'd have written "A Science Jr. or equivalent Materials Bay" or such. Still, it's not a high-priority problem.

Pretty pictures of Duna! Is the sky modded, or does stock include those ... clouds? I haven't been to Duna for a while. So far, my most satisfying mission was a simple mission to EVA on a couple locations on Kerbin. I know it sounds underwhelming, but I had great fun designing a plane with the Basic Jet Engine, swept wings, a tricycle fixed-gear undercarriage, and a bunch of Science Jr's as a fuselage. I'm using Kerbal Construction Time, and I must have simulated takeoff and landing a dozen times each before I was satisfied. When the big day came, Jeb made a beautiful 3-point landing 150 meters from the first site, and then we taxi'd to the second site to finish that one off. I've struggled with aircraft in KSP in the past, so it was great to get this done on the first try. (Sort of.)

Ah, sorry I missed that in the original post. Actually, I'm glad you've broken them out into separate mods; that lets us choose what we want. I might try StageRecovery, or I might continue with my current game. There's something to be said for incentivizing me to find ways to minimize parts lost to staging. Anyway, thanks for your reply, and sorry I bothered you with a question I should have answered myself.

Well, now I do have a question. I've experimented with adding parachutes to jettisoned stages, but even when they land safely, I don't think they're being added to my Parts Inventory. (Or are they?) And instead of the full value of the item, I get only $200 for the items when I retrieve them as "debris." (I assume this is how stock handles parachuted stages that aren't with the capsule?) I don't have any stage-recovery mod or Debrefund or anything like that installed. Should I get one?

So when we're "budgeting" for that 3500 m/s or so in the VAB, should we use the "atmosphere" button or the "vacuum" button?

If I had my druthers, we'd get a piston-drive prop and a turbo-prop, so that we can make things that look vaguely like a Cessna 172 or Cessna Caravan or a Bonanza or whatnot. Then again, more parts do mean more RAM, but one can always delete extra parts.

Maybe define "part clipping" or "clipping"? I've never quite understood what this is and why it might be good or bad.

So there's an attachment node on both the bottom and top of the small bay, yes? I've put extra Mk16 parachutes on each, and they work -- but only if you open the doors before deploying them. In addition, we can attach stuff to the bottom or top surface of the bay if we choose symmetry? And just fuss with qwe etc to get things oriented the right way? This whole "surface attachment" thing is relatively new to me, as I've been on hiatus for a while.

Hey magico, just thought I'd pop in to say how much I'm enjoying the mod so far. Almost a year has passed, and I have not yet gone past orbiting Kerbin. I'm still researching 45-cost techs. Simulations are brilliant, and they make "the actual mission" a big deal. I love the sense of history this mod imparts! I had only one or two hiccups at the start. Once I created my first rocket, I didn't know where to find it. (Answer: storage section of the UI on KSC screen.) It also took me a couple minutes to figure out how to roll out the rocket, and then to find the rolled-out rocket once it was ready. (I didn't expect to see it under the VAB tab.) But now that I've done it a couple dozen times, it's working great for me. Anyway, I'm loving it, and I don't have any bugs to report. Just thought I'd say "thanks!"

I was wondering the same thing about the Wheesley. What's its effective ceiling? I can't seem to push a small craft higher than about 11,000m with it. Then again, that's a pretty decent service ceiling for an early jet.

Excellent news! One of my favorite mods. Thank you for all your work on it, NavyFish.

Red Iron Crown, thank you for those very helpful responses. Off to play with the HUD now! I'm really impressed with KER. As I said, it's the mod I install first.

Great. For now, then, I'm going to ignore the contract. Once I've got all the tech, or close to it, I'll accept it. Really looking forward to it.

Thank you for a wonderful mod, always the first one I install. I'm returning to the game after a hiatus, using the most recent version of KER, and I have a couple questions. 1. Sometimes the delta-V figures I see in Flight Engineer at the launchpad seem different from those I see in the VAB. I know I can adjust the figures in the VAB to reflect either atmosphere or vacuum conditions. Is the launchpad/Flight Engineer using a combination of both atmosphere and vacuum? Searching this thread, I found one post indicating that KER is smart enough to know that lower-stage delta-V should be calculated with "atmosphere" by default, and upper-stage should use "vacuum" by default. Maybe Flight Engineer does this (but the VAB KER doesn't)? 2. Related to the first question, people now say I need about 3500 m/s delta-V to reach LKO. But in practice I seem to need more, at least judging by the numbers I see in KER in the VAB. Is this "3500" actually "2200 lower stages in atmosphere plus 1300 upper stage in vacuum"? 3. I love the left HUD, but the right HUD overlaps with my (stock) toolbar, which extends to the left thanks to mods. Is there a way to move the HUDs around? (I know, we users are always asking for moar moar moar features, sorry!) Thanks again for a great mod!

So I'm using Kerbal Construction Time, and about a half-year into my program, I just completed my first orbit. (Love that mod!) That finished my "orbit Kerbin" contract, and Mission Control is now offering me my first "Launch the KSS" contract from your mod, which is good news. But my concern is that with KCT installed, I may not unlock all the tech prerequisites for a space station (to say nothing of building the various vessels) until after the contract expires. I have unlocked only some of the 45-cost techs, and nothing higher -- certainly nowhere near docking ports! It may well take me more than a year and a half to do all that. If I ignore the "Build Space Station" contract for now, will it reappear (i.e., "respawn") later?

Oooh, thanks; I've been mis-reading KER. I think I did know that once, lol; it's been a while since I've played. Off to look at it again. Edit: OK, I think I mostly get it. I just now made it into orbit, and back to Kerbin, with plenty of fuel to spare. I have more questions about KER, but I'll go ask those in the KER thread.

What is the relevant delta-V statistic when pondering Kerbal Engineer in the VAB -- the numbers before the slash or after? The lower numbers are in-atmosphere delta-V, and the higher numbers are in-vacuum delta-V, yes? But as a flight to orbit combines atmosphere and space flight, I'm not sure which number people mean when they say it takes 3500 m/s delta-V to get to orbit. Edit: Doh, I've been mis-reading KER. I used to know this once upon a time, but I'm out of practice! So pushing the 'atmosphere' button toggles between atmosphere/vacuum figures. But that still leaves me uncertain about what numbers should say what. 2500 for the atmospheric stage(s), 1000-plus for the vacuum stage?

Great guide, Upsilon. It helped a lot! OK, I did make it to orbit simply by re-orienting my three fins slightly, so that one points directly east and the other two NW and SW respectively. What a difference! Now the rocket "wanted" to tip east rather than west, which is what we want. Er, I imagine that's because two fins on the "west" side create more drag than the one fin on the "east" side? Also, what do the blue and red drag indicators on F12 mean exactly? I assume red means drag, blue lift? I did a quick Google search but I'm still not entirely sure. Finally, which is the important delta-V readout in KER? I see 2380/4437 m/s in the summary delta-V screen. I gather the first number is in-atmosphere delta-V, the second vacuum? I got to orbit with just 50 m/s delta-V to spare, so does that mean I needed 4387 m/s delta-V? If so, I seem to be a lot less efficient than people who are reaching orbit with 3500 m/s delta-V. - - - Updated - - - Oh! I did just the opposite of what you suggested, and yet I still had better ability to turn east, and I did make it to orbit. I put one fin facing east, not west. I'll try re-orienting now, with just one fin facing "west", to see if I do better.

Ooh, thanks for the suggestion. I assume "east" in the VAB is the portion of the rocket facing outdoors? It's a little hard to tell from your screenshot. Also, in the VAB editor, I have trouble fine-tuning the facing of stuff like this. Is there a hotkey that can give me finer control?

Do fins help? With a simple two-stage rocket, with gimbals on the lower stage, I seem to have more flight control without fins. Not great, but at least it goes up mostly straight. Most of my designs with fins seem to want to turn west, which is just the opposite of what I want them to do. Then again, I have only the basic fin and the next fin up, not the fancier AV-R8 or whatever they're called. And yeah, I need a bit moar delta-V than that. Is 4550 m/s still the ballpark figure, as the above chart suggests? I've heard people mentioning figures quite a bit lower.

Thanks, severedsolo; that confirms my suppositions. I've started a new "Moderate" career with your mod, Kerbal Construction Time, the Tourist contract mod, and a couple utilities (Kerbal Engineer, PreciseNode, Alarm Clock). I just made it into space, and now I'm working on an orbit contract; presumably I'll start seeing your contracts once I conquer the orbit. Looking forward to it! Thanks again for all your work on the mod.

This looks wonderful! Just downloaded; I'm looking forward to trying it. Thank you for all your hard work in creating it. One question. Can I use Nertea's Stockalike Space Station parts with this mod? My guess is there's nothing stopping me, so long as I use KSS's docking port and maybe the stock science lab? I'd like to use Station Science too, but I'm waiting for that to be updated to 1.0x. Nertea's mod is here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91814-1-02-Stockalike-Station-Parts-Expansion-%2803-05-2015%29?highlight=KSS

Man, I'm having trouble getting a 30-part ship to orbit, let alone the Mun. On my last try, I came very close, using 3 BACC solid boosters and a gimbaled liquid engine with a bunch of T200 tanks. I've upgraded only the launchpad so far. Should I be upgrading the VAB next, to get me more parts? Or should I keep on trying with 30 parts, perhaps by lightening my payload and adding moar boosters?

I haven't played enough to decide, either. 1.0 and 1.0.2 both seem within the realm of reason to me; both are far better than .90. I've been tooling around with jets today in 1.0.2, and I've had fun with it, though it may be a tad too draggy at low altitude -- which isn't the end of the world for a jet, as it makes things easy to land. I dunno, I have to play around more. I'm certainly surprised that so many people think 1.0.2 is a horrible soup-o-sphere. It may be a tad too draggy, but it's night and day compared to .90, as far as I'm concerned.

I haven't played enough to have a strong opinion, but my initial impression is that 1.0.2 is a far cry from the old soup-o-sphere. It seems to me more like FAR. Maybe a bit higher drag lower down, a bit less higher up? As for conventional jet performance, 1.0.2 seems okay to me. Tooling around with the stock jets at low altitude, they behave reasonably. Maybe a tad easier to land than they might be in real life, but nothing that bothers me. Certainly not the slow-motion descents I used to get in the old stock.