Johnny Wishbone

Vic20 with the datasette. I felt so cool when we finally upgraded to a 64C (the sleek white one, not the blocky beige original) and a 1541C floppy drive. We went from waiting 30 minutes to load Jumpman from a cassette (fingers crossed the whole time that there wouldn't be a read error) to 10 minutes of hearing the floppy drive go "grung grung grung kachunk!" over and over while loading The Bard's Tale (and hoping all that noise wasn't the damn thing eating your disks). Gamers today whine about a 10 second loading screen between game sections; could you imagine how they'd deal with having to wait 10 minutes just for a game to load? Lol. Kids today have it made. Now let me go adjust the onion on my belt...

Cool on you, bro. I still remember my first successful landing; I was so into it, I was actually sweating and my heart was racing. It was a pretty cool experience and I felt very proud like I had accomplished it in real life instead of inside a video game. You mentioned this was also your first docking experience. I found that to be far more difficult to understand and achieve than sticking a landing. Once I figured it out, it became ridiculously easy, but I struggled with rendezvous and docking for a long time before it just 'clicked' for me. How was your experience with that?

It has been my experience that the Vector engine seems to be very susceptible to inducing unintended roll, even with the gimbal severely reduced (down to as much as 5%). I've stopped using them because of it. It could be a part issue like that, or it could be how you have your fuel flowing from one another in the "asparagus" stages. The changes to the fuel flow rules in the last couple releases seem to have broken or handicapped a lot of the older design styles. Edit to add: pictures of your design usually help diagnose issues.

I was introduced to KSP by a co-worker several summers ago (somewhere around the 0.18 release). I tried out the demo, loved it, and purchased it through the KSP store. I played the heck out of it right up until the 1.0.5 release. I've said this before, but since the 1.0 release, I've found each subsequent release to be less and less enjoyable to play. By the time 1.0.5 came out, I just wasn't having much fun with it anymore, so I shelved it. Been playing Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 on my PS4 ever since. Every now and again, when I'm bored at work, I'll fire up KSP and try to get back into it and I just can't. So, I'm trying not to play it anymore and holding out hope that 1.1 will re-light the fires in me to play this game again. I remember the days of 0.21, when I would spend entire Saturdays playing KSP. I remember how awesome it felt to send a mission out to Jool and explore those moons. I remember how cool it was to find the Armstrong memorial on the Mun for the first time, or go monolith hunting (after learning that I needed to drop my terrain detail to "scum class" because anything higher puts the monoliths under the ground. sigh). I remember feeling so awesome that I sent a crew to Eeloo and got them back safely to Kerbin, and then felt crappy when I looked at the clock and see that 100+ years of game time had passed, and those poor Kerbals had probably lost everyone they knew and loved to the natural passage of time. I want to feel that again from this game...

I love it when people dig up old Youtube links that show all the cool stuff you used to be able to do in this game...

I got into the game somewhere around 0.18. Eeloo had just been added in and everyone was in a tizzy about it. Magic boulder was gone, but nobody wanted to believe it yet, and monolith hunting was still somewhat the rage.

Glad you got your copy; don't let download speeds discourage you. Regardless of the source, there's always the possiblity of problems.

Set it up as an annual ammount that increases based on your reputation, and it is "use it or lose it." If you don't use the full "budget" in that year, you lose the leftover and take a small penalty on your budget next year. You know, just like most places do in "real life". I had an idea for funding prior to career mode coming out. Basically it was a 3 prong approach: 1) Small budget from the "government" on an annual basis. Increases/decreases with reputation. Use the money or lose it. 2) Contracts to help supplement the annual budget. That way, you're not totally reliant on ridiculous contracts for funding. 3) Stump for funds! Basically, you select Kerbalnauts to go on fundraising drives. This makes them inaccessable for missions while fundraising, but allows them to generate funds based on their experience level. The longer the drive and the higher experience level, the more funds you get. This also adds the gameplay element of choice between sending your high level Kerbal off on a mission to Jool, or send him/her out to fundraise the money to support that mission. Obviously, some changes would have to be made to how you hire Kerbals or add them to your roster via "rescue" missions, but I think it could be easily done. This also mirrors the real life experiences of the Mercury astronauts who spent a lot of time traveling around to schools and civic meetings to drum up support for the space program. Given the massive number of very public failures early on in the American space program, it's doubtful that it would have continued if not for the efforts of those guys assuring the public that they could do it and were willing to risk their lives to do so.

Well, I imagine shortly that this thread will be full of replies telling you to install MechJeb and let the game play itself for you. If that's "fun" for you, then go nuts. Personally, I prefer to eyeball it and use quicksaves. Experience playing the game has given me a general idea of where to begin re-entry if I want to land at a certain area, but a lot of that also has to do with the craft. If you have a basic capsule and/or something that's designed for ballistic re-entry, then you pretty much have one chance to hit the mark. If you're long, revert to a quicksave and re-enter sooner. If you're short, revert and wait a little longer. If your craft has lifting bodies or wings or some manner of propulsion, you can control your re-entry a lot more and make up for any deviations. The fun for me is figuring all that out for myself via trial and error, not using a mod to do it for me.

I bought my copy through the Squad store. I've had no issues with it whatsoever. I'm not a Steam user (for various reasons), so I have no basis of comparison. However, I generally don't like going through middlemen if I can, which is exactly what Steam/Valve is. When given the option of buying directly from the manufacturer, I think that is always the best course of action.

As regex said, the "contract system is broken" discussion is a dead horse that's been beaten so many times, it has turned into glue. I really hope someone at Squad is paying serious attention to these forum threads and listening to the myriad of suggestions on how to fix it. I've heard several that I believe have merit and could go a long way towards making career mode the gameplay experience it has never lived up to. Incorporating things like procedural contracts and fine print have done nothing to address the fundamental flaws with the system and instead have been the proverbial "lipstick on a pig". Treat the problem, not the symptoms!

They are putting Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in KSP? I'm not a hipster, but I am old enough to remember when all it was good for was conditioning your hair. Wait...what were we talking about again?

I agree 100%. I've always felt that the main issue with contracts in KSP is that they are implemented "backwards". If NASA or the ESA want to launch a mission, they decide what they want to do, and then bid out contracts to make it happen. Companies come to them with contracts that meet the needs of the mission and NASA/ESA choose the best contracts that fit the mission. In KSP, Gene Kerman opens the front doors to Mission Control and proclaims "Bring me your contracts, we'll do them all!" And every Kerbal on the planet shows up waving around a ridiculous contract. But it gets better: if you tell them "Your contract to launch a Kickback booster up to 50km, then ignite it while pointed towards the surface is crazy dumb and we're not interested in that" then you hurt their feelings and now you take a reputation hit and are considered hard to work with. Its idiotic. Yes, I know the reputation hit is a setting you can turn off, but it makes no sense and should't be a gameplay mechanic. I think your idea has merit and suggest you forward it to Squad if you haven't already. Implementing a contract system like you described would go a long way to making career mode much more fun and interesting to play than the current, random ridiculousness.

This. When career mode came out, I dropped sandbox play and exclusively went career. Every iteration of career mode has, in my opinion, gotten progressively worse. Between contract issues, the nonsensical tech-tree layout, and the constant changes to the physics and aerodynamic models, my enjoyment of career mode has declined. I tried 3 times to play through the 1.0.5 version of career mode and found it extremely grindy and un-fun. For now, I've shelved KSP in favor of Fallout 4. I'll come back to KSP when 1.1 comes out, though I'm probably not going to be as entheusiastic about the game as I used to be. KSP used to be a game that easily could suck up 12-14 hours of my time on a Saturday. Last time I played it, I struggled to get through an hour of before I was bored, frustrated, or just irritated by it. That depresses me.

[quote name='spikeyhat09'][B][U]Preface[/U][/B] By no means is this thread meant to be interpreted as a complaint about the game's core mechanics. I have no expectation that Squad will change the game based on this thread or those relating to it, or even read this thread at all. The goal of this thread is to provide a means of discussion for people to help each other tailor their own KSP installs to meet their personal tastes. My goal is to help everyone have more fun with KSP, regardless of their opinion on current engine balance. I am not calling upon the community to mod their own versions of KSP unless they want to. [/QUOTE] Personally, I find it sad and pathetic that things in this forum have devolved to the point where this statement is even needed. The whole point of a discussion board is to have a discussion. Unfortunately, around here, it seems like only "positive" feedback is wanted. Any sort of criticism or suggestion that something could be done better is immediately labeled as "complaining". It didn't used to be like that; I miss the old days.

Yeah, I know. You can change a lot of the game by editing files. My point was more that it shouldn't be there to begin with. It doesn't make any sense and it really doesn't add anything except unnecessary difficulty (and grind by forcing the player to take contracts they otherwise wouldn't care to). From a gameplay perspective, you're punishing the player. From a realism perspective, it's just dumb; nobody would run a business that way. And from my personal perspective, it takes away fun.

Given the massive re-write to the staging system in 1.1, there is still hope that this particular thorn will get clipped off the stem and prick you no more.

Anyway, I thought someone already figured this out back when 1.0 came out. The new aero model actually allowed you to roll the capsule (just like Apollo) during re-entry and thereby create lift (and drag) and alter your reentry trajectory. As you discovered, and just like the real thing, you need to change the CoM of the capsule in order to do this, but yes, it is possible.

Things have been busy, so I just now got my hands on 1.0.5. Started a new career and discover to my chagrin that declining contracts now costs you rep. Personally, I think this is ridiculous and really breaks career mode for me. I have been one of the biggest supporters of career mode since it was introduced (despite the many flaws with it), but I now find my enthusiasm for playing it to be pretty much gone. I see no reason why I should take a reputation hit because I want to pick and choose the contracts I want. Who runs a business this way? "I'm sorry, but we don't like your company because you explicitly turn down contracts that you don't want to do instead of ignoring them for days/weeks/months and letting them expire." This is a really dumb gameplay feature and I'm not sure what Squad was trying to accomplish with this; you're punishing the user for wanting to play the game their way. Just like the tech tree, the contract system is a good idea with a very poor implementation. Adding in ridiculous constraints like this aren't making it better. For those of you who read this far and are ready to fire off a response about "complaining", please go pound sand. Offering criticism is not complaining. I like this game very much and want it to be better than this. The contract system doesn't need this gameplay element.

In the thread for the most recent dev notes (Nov 3) someone asked if 1.1 was going to be released in time for Christmas. Kasper responded "Thats the goal." This makes me wonder: why bother with the 1.0.5 update? Even if 1.0.5 is released next week (which i doubt it will be), that leaves only about 6 weeks until Christmas. Why bother with an update thats only going to be out for 5 to 6 weeks before being obsoleted by the 1.1 update? I understand the reason for the 1.0.5 update. I get it and agree with it; I too am waiting in eager anticipation for the new parts, gameplay elements, and physics changes. When 1.0.5 was announced, it was explained and framed as a "placeholder" update because 1.1 was still a ways off and Squad wanted to give the community something new to keep us happy. Thats cool; good on them. But if 1.1 is going to come out a mere 5-6 weeks after 1.0.5, why bother? I'd rather they roll it all back into 1.1 and spend the next 5-6 weeks working out all the inevitible bugs and issues. We've waited this long; a few more weeks wont kill anyone. And the present of a big, fat, 1.1 update with all the trimmings would make Christmas that much better.

I'm always amazed at the creativity of people's designs. Nice craft. I downloaded your file and started to disassemble it. I see a lot of part clipping. In absolutely no way am I saying that is bad, but it does raise a question: how much part clipping is acceptable? I have many designs that use a significant amount of part clipping, but I've always been hesitant to share them here because people seem to get all uppity when it comes to clipping. Since the introduction of the clipping tool, it's become more acceptable, but only to a certain degree. When you get to the point of clipping engines into fuel tanks, and then clipping that assembly through another engine, I feel like a lot of people would throw up their hands in disgust and say "that's not realistic! you've gone too far!" Personally, I found your design very cool and I definitely learned a few new building tricks and techniques from breaking it down. Thank you for sharing (and I've sent some rep your way).

It is my understanding that the 'Dres-teroids' were added as a way of giving people a reason to go to Dres. Prior to their introduction, Dres was rarely visited because of its inclination and lack of anything interesting being there. People just skipped past it on their way to Jool, which is a much more interesting planetary system to visit. Regarding the feasibility of using Dres-teroids as a mining/refueling outpost, there's been a number of threads already about this. The consensus seems that it's not really worth it since getting to Jool isn't much more difficult than getting to Dres, and there's plenty of resources in the Joolian system to mine and refuel from. Basically, there's still no real reason to visit Dres other than to plant your flag and say you did it. Hopefully future updates to the game will start to focus on the planetary bodies (and less on parts/physics) and give us some cool new stuff to check out on all the planets and moons. If you dig up threads on this forum from years ago when people were still hunting for landmarks and easter eggs, there was a lot more excitement about exploring and visiting planets and moons. When people found the Vallhenge, threads about it went on for weeks. Today, people get excited about making pontoons for seaplanes and launching boats on Kerbin. Whoopedy doo.

I guess it all depends on what you're trying to accomplish, how you want to do it, and what mods you're using. Since things like life support aren't in the stock game, most stock players don't bother with habitation modules, etc (unless they are role playing) and just leave their crews in the lander. In that case, I'd say the most popular setup for an interplanetary mission is to launch a "tug" into LKO followed by a lander. Dock them together and send them on their way to the destination. Use the "tug" to get you there and back, and the lander for landing at the destination and for reentry on Kerbin. When you get back to Kerbin, leave the "tug" in orbit for the next mission. That's pretty much what I do. If you're playing a career game, you may want to bring along science labs, instruments, etc, depending on what contracts you have to fulfill. Also, if you're using mods that add in life support requirements or make other changes to gameplay, you may need to add more stuff to your "tug", but otherwise, it's usually just a probe core, docking port, fuel tanks, and engines. A good rule of thumb is to leave behind everything you don't need and build to suit the mission, especially in career where funds can be an issue. In sandbox, you can do whatever you want because cost isn't an issue.

Yes, you can still see Minmus from Kerbin's surface in stock game (1.0.4).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin-Marietta_X-24