moogoob

I thought that was the reason for the Vernors - to reorient huge-size rockets.

I mainly run KSP on my desktop which was almost a great PC two years ago and it's silky smooth most of the time. I also sometimes run KSP on my laptop - a 2009-era Macbook pro 13" on my win7 partition. I have to turn many features down or off, but it still plays at a playable framerate.

Have to second Eve. Light on the delta-v compared to Duna and easier to parachute in. Just send unmanned lander robots and stuff so you don't have mount an extremely difficult rescue. If you're trying to do a return mission, I'd say Duna's your best bet.

Oops! I'll edit that when I get home. (Posted while tired. )

Details in slideshow!

I just recently took a contract to "Explore Gilly", (slideshow) and decided to try landing on it. I burned until my orbit intersected the surface and noticed that my velocity was tiny - only a few m/s while I was still over a dozen kilometers away. I'd be there all day! So I tried treating it more like a docking exercise and burned right for the little rock - maybe 100m/s or so. Well, it worked! Has anyone else got any stories of docking (err, landing ) with Gilly?

Been doing a lot of ion stuff and probes, and I have to second the general opinion of "light, light, light". Slap as many massless components onto that thing as you can. OX-STAT's out the wazoo. I often get 12km/s of delta-v out of mine. That's good for a trip to several planets, if you plan it right. Here's one design (my most recent, not my best but it works!)

Unmanned trip to Eve in career. Completed "Explore" contracts for both Eve and Gilly!

Nice! I like the two landing gear - like the real U-2.

It depends. I have one lander design I like using called the "Lander-Returner". Not a great name, but hey. It's a two-stage design with a descent stage and an ascent/reentry stage - sometimes I can get away with both using the same engine (jettisoning extraneous fuel tanks, legs, goo pods that have had the science removed etc.). Getting THAT 2-stage thing into space usually involves one mainsail or LFB-powered launch stage and one LVT-90 or poodle-powered circularization/cruise stage. So... four stages total for a typical return mission to the Mun. Minmus is easier - you can omit the ascent stage entirely as the delta-v for both landing and ascent (or escape for that matter) at Minmus is laughable.

It's called "driving too fast on the Mun and hitting a bump". Someone needed rescuing.

We at SpaceM like to refer to that as "fundraising".

Came here to post this very idea! Love it! Imagery in general, though - I'd love to see optical sensor packs for probes (see photos of Saturn & moons that Voyager or Cassini has sent) too. Even if the "in frame" stuff is too complicated to code (or play; or as a stopgap until it is), it could be done similarly to EVA reports - "Captured orbital photos of Kerbin's Shores" if you're close or "Captured orbital photos of Kerbin" if in space high above a planet. Thoughts?

When you dream about maneuver nodes.

Installed KW Rocketry. Decided it didn't fit with the stock parts and uninstalled it. Maybe one day I'll find a parts mod I like. It's too bad - the 5m tanks and engines are BEASTLY.

In my main 0.25 career save, Jeb is STILL on the Mun, years after landing in his awful first generation (few tech nodes unlocked at that point) lander. Surrounded by "contractually obligatory" flags planted primarily to get money. He's funding the whole space program by himself.

[napoleon dynamite]yessss[/napoleon dynamite] No really, this makes me tremendously happy. No more making rovers in the bloody spaceplane hangar, or being unable to put 4x symmetry RCS blocks on spaceplanes.

As an example of how it could be done, Delta V calculations in mechjeb also give burn time - IE it'd tell you that you have 60 seconds of max throttle in the stage. I second a display for electrical storage - I'd love a quick add-up to know if I've jammed enough batteries on my Ion lander. Doing that for solar panels can be hard though - the power they generate is sensitive to spacecraft orientation (I'm particularly looking at you, OX-STATs), distance to the sun and whether or not Kerbin is in the way. Energy use would have to be broken down - most non-probe craft use next to nothing sitting still, but if you're running five ion drives while simultaneously using reaction wheels, processing a lab specimen, leaving the lights on, broadcasting science and microwaving a burrito you're going to get massively different numbers.

I heard once that there was one recording of 1812, on vinyl, where the explosions were proper cannons. It was so loud, the record grooves' amplitude caused them to cross four or five other grooves to either side. I think that would be what we call "unplayable".

If my stages can't be ejected on a collision course with something, then I do that too (add probe core, that is). IE. cruise stages to take me to the mun. Once I'm in orbit, I'll either detach and use what's left of the fuel to deorbit it, or (if landing) use that stage to start the deorbit burn (saving some of the lander's fuel).

I like you learned much with mechjeb. Now, all I really need it for is rendezvous and planetary transfer. It's very useful for long burns - you can go make yourself a coffee or something while it's running. As to space stations, I make my own with stock parts. You can use Hitchhiker storage things to keep Kerbals in, fuel tanks to keep fuel in and docking ports to allow docked ships to refuel. Maybe a lab, but those are mostly useful for science you don't plan on bringing home to Kerbin. You can launch that in one piece if you use enough boosters. Anything else is up to you. Here's my Mun station (Sandbox mode) from 0.23.something:

I have to say I never used to play career until 0.25 came out. I'm really enjoying it so far, and can hardly wait for the expanded biomes in 0.90.0. The strategies are... not really balanced very well, and the contracts will truly benefit from Fine Print integration, but it's still fun. Right now as I type I'm letting Mechjeb handle an exceedingly long ion probe burn to get an Eve intercept. A thermometer and Negative Gravioli Detector are aching for scientific readings. So, in conclusion, it's got some to go but it's finally become fun.

0.25 finally got me playing career. I tried before, but until now it just seemed like unnecessary restrictions on top of Sandbox. Now it's finally starting to make sense. With 0.90.0 bringing in Fine Print (the stock contracts get old quickly - this adds some variety) and upgradeable buildings it's feeling a bit more like a strategy game that has you flying a sim for missions. Besides, 0.25 also upgraded the nav ball (those new markers are brilliant), lets you transfer Kerbals through docking ports and made the "Z" key useful (max thrust). Plus new stock spaceplane parts, if that's your bag (not mine - prefer rockets). Those features alone are worth the download time in my opinion.

Sending my first ion probe to Duna in my first playthrough of the career mode. It's so much more satisfying than in sandbox!

I love it when KSP mirrors real life through its engineering constraints, and this is one prime example. Did you know that the size of the STS (NASA Space Shuttle) cargo bay was determined by the need to be able to carry and launch a certain giant spy satellite? So no, you can't fit a whole space station in them, but rather have to engineer your payloads to fit what's available. At least they're wider than they are tall!