tater

It's not "suspicious" at all. It's not at all unlikely that the stated cause of the previous failure was in fact wrong, it could certainly be the COPV failing.

I have all those. Mods don;t count, this is the dev suggestions forum, and this thread is about stock. If the answer is "MOD" it doesn't belong in this conversation except to say that the mod should be made stock. I cannot possibly play the career I want in stock.

@sal_vager, I'm only for such a disconnect of some science and tech within the context of a total rework of the career system. As an individual change... it has little effect. That on the table, I cannot possibly tailor the KSP career to the way I would like to play it, for example. I want it to actually feel like running a little space program. I want to have time actually matter, and not reach the milestone of a Mun landing having only invented rockets literally Kerbin hours earlier.

Yeah, I think that if it is loads of extra work, it's not worth the trouble as long as people know to expect it to avoid annoying comments about it (like mine ).

No one is saying they need to test every single part they buy themselves, but they are none the less responsible for their design choices, and procedures (possibly including certifying parts themselves at some point). In this case a strut failure is incredibly unlikely under 1 g. The proposed fault mechanism in the last loss was said to be counterintuitive because the forces were actually up on the parts due to buoyancy in the tank. As I recall, they are not 100% on the cause of the previous loss, either, it's their best guess. A burst COPV would be more likely... and COPVs are harder to test for faults than metal---but they are much lower mass. There are numerous other possible problems. Sadly, this will take a while I think. Hopefully they have data that narrows it further.

Everything is their fault, it's their rocket. That's what testing is for. The "suspicious" comment is frankly absurd.

2d stage. Ouch. Another COPV issue? Clogged vent?

It's practically free anyway.

SpaceX already has a good handle on the cause, and will post something later. They have telemetry, and likely HD video (a plus of it being on the pad). A video alone would allow us here to narrow it down a great deal were one available (we'd know the time, and location, which would reduce the suspect causes massively.

I took a new look at some of the various "Eyes Turned Skyward" posts on the forum, and was messing with my own versions in 6.4x last night (I'm gonna turn RSS/RO back on with 1.2 I think). I made a Saturn 1C with that stubby Apollo CSM on top, using the petal adapter to house an inflatable, plus a tank of parts for fitting out (with a docking port, docked to it). Worked like a charm. Thanks for the mod!

Strongback looks like it was not retracted, so that puts the explosion before T-3:30. The vehicle goes to internal power at T-5... We are stuck waiting for some real information. Video will nail down a lot, as the location will be determined.

This. I ran out of likes, lol.

Decades for ULA, plus a long string of flawless launches.

Yeah, I edited in the tl,dr into the beginning so it didn't appear as harping on something I quickly figured out was beyond your control (I was typing as I tested, then figured it out). So a note in the part description I figured would be a way to immunize yourself from later bug reports in the thread... the rest of us can then all reply, "read the part description, and don't bug shadowmage with this.

Handling operations matter for turn around, etc, so while it would be a plus if it is not the F9 itself, they certainly need to reevaluate all pad procedures. Yeah, this sucks.

MacOS is fine, and fine for KSP. I use all three OSes at different times. I'm entirely OS agnostic, frankly. Mine is very stable, and runs well. My PC is old, so I use my (still old, but newer) Mac (i7) for KSP, decently modded, and I've only had mod-related crashes lately (which happens on the PC as well). I loaded KSP on a mac laptop to answer a question for someone here with it running on a laptop, and it runs on the laptop as well. I have no real issues with MacOS, frankly, heck, I have a terminal window open all of the time, and I use it (old unix habits die hard).

I get that, I was simply making an observation, since I happened to notice it. The fact that the inflatables all have a stated negative cost is what actually caught my eye. I then literally opened this thread, and started typing as I checked last night, and hence the sort of stream of consciousness to the post. Like said, I get that you cannot nail the cost down at all, with all the variables, just figured someone new to the mod would then have no place to post an issue if there is a disclaimer that "Because of the extreme customizability of parts, the quoted cost in the part description is not accurate, caveat emptor." (I'm thinking ahead to people submitting reports that don't matter, really, then the answer is "Read the part description." (of course that is like the FAQ in any mod, that no user ever seems to read when they seek support)

It's not flexibility, it's poor game design for career mode. For some other mode... whatever. To use the game I used to mod campaign mode for, Silent Hunter 4, it would be like a career where you set a few things, drive the boat for a cruise around Hawaii, come back to port and you'd unlock a late war boat with torpedoes that actually work. The problem is that any conversation about a particular about career mode (science vs tech in this case) invariably becomes about career in general---because they are so intertwined. Challenges are for sandbox, frankly. Contracts are all side quests in KSP, and are so random/stupid as to remove all suspension of disbelief that this is a "space program." Everyone plays differently, and that's fine, but what some of us want is a "space program" mode, where it feels like a real space program. The base/station contracts are some I actually take, and they are still random. We have sandbox. We have science mode, which is career minus any chance of failure. We have career mode, which is supposed to include failure---but doesn't. The idea that you could ever lose career mode is sort of baffling to me, it's only hard at the beginning, and that's only if you play it without trying to exploit the holes in the system (unlocking everything in 20 minutes by driving a rover around). I don't think it's much to ask for a career system that feels sorta like a real space program.

This shows the lack of thought/playtesting in the career mode. You showed that you unlocked the bulk of the tree in what, 24 minutes?

I'm messing around in sandbox. SSTU, with only KER and KJR. I did not expect the price to be constant for most parts, because of all the options, but I had assumed that the listed price was for the default part--- TL,DR; check the bottom of the post, my likely solution is just a note in the part description to beware of high costs when you start messing with parts, the stated cost is only a possible cost of many , I posted the other information just for completeness). Place Mk 1-2 command pod as the only part. Cost is listed in the part description as 3,800, and when I place that part, the total craft cost shown is 3,800. Clear craft. I'm gonna look at all the command parts for the sake of completeness (I know the LC stuff might not matter for now). Place LC 2. Price is listed as 1,800. Price shown for total craft is 610. LC3: price listed 6,400, total craft, 1,153 LC5: list 6,400, craft cost 1,320. ^ Those actual costs are all for LFO as the selected fuel. LF and MP is a little more. Hydrolox, and LH2 are slightly less than LFO, hypergolic is about twice the LFO cost, and EC is more than the part description cost by more than a factor of 2. Soyuz DM and OM have craft costs = description. SMX has the craft cost always higher than the stated cost of 8,600, often by more than 2x. Apollo and Orion RMs and OMs are all the same price for a craft as their description. SC-D-CM description matches craft cost. Both Shuttles match description cost. PPC matches description cost. The new fixed station parts I know have not been balanced, etc, but their costs all don't match. The inflatable station parts all list negative prices, and much higher craft prices, obviously. Clearly the parts with fuel options have the issue (anything with "Configure Containers"). The tanks are the same in this regard. Placing an MFT-A that has a stated cost of 3,280 produces a cost of 6,148. The price of the empty tank is spot on (this is not true of the LC or SMX parts, but is sometimes true for the station parts, even with their wonky pricing---except for draining EC (which makes sense, actually)). The inflatables are weird even when checking them drained. Note that to check them drained, you have to place the part, then click the Fuel Type (custom) to switch. It seems to be the tanks with the "normal" 1-2 items (LFO), PLUS EC, mono, etc that show the most confusion. Assuming this is out of your control because of the way the VAB pulls prices from cfg files, perhaps a simple disclaimer in the part description saying that prices in the VAB part description are only true for ONE particular layout of the part, and can be substantially different, caveat emptor, etc. .

ALL campaign modes "tell a story." That does NOT mean that you follow some designer's story, it means that your career/campaign, can read like a history that makes sense. Campaign mode in Silent Hunter tells a story. The story of a particular submarine, under a particular commander. If you kept a detailed log of a patrol, it would look rather like a real patrol log. You'd spend a couple weeks sailing from Pearl to get to your patrol zone. You'd dive because you saw aircraft a couple times (much in time warp, obviously). You'd make a sonar contact and chase it to no avail. You'd get spotted by a seaplane who bombs you as you dive. Minor splinter damage, nothing to worry about. In that game, you'd know who was on watch, who is the best guy to have in the engine room if things get ugly, which guys got citations after last patrol, etc, ad nauseum. TW:Empire tells the story of your nation fighting whatever other nations you are fighting. I just don't get that feeling with KSP. Day 1, Dawn: We launch a contraption after taking an EVA report on the pad... for science! We learned a lot, and developed some new stuff walking between the hanger and the pad. Day 1, 5 minutes after dawn: We built a larger rocket and sent it pretty far out to sea before recovering Jeb. Woot! Day 1, 15 minutes after dawn: We built a multi-stage rocket, and hit space! We developed more stuff in the time it took to get Jeb home from the next continent over---which was happily virtually instantaneous for Jeb, he didn't even have time to lower the tray table. Day 1, 30 minutes after dawn: Orbit! Day 2: On the way to the Mun!

Nice! How's Kerbalism, BTW (feel free to PM, don't want hijack the thread, but I'm interested in it only as it relates to SSTU, since I'm not really using other parts right now)? I started reading the thread (from the title I had no idea it was life support, so I had initially ignored it), it looks pretty promising. Has SC-GEN-ISDC been through a balancing pass? I threw it on the pad to test it (in my only SSTU/KJR/KER build). By mistake I used the Orion capsule. It threw the capsule about like the LES does... so I added a few more as stages. I got an Orion to orbit with 13 of them as the only engines.

Yeah, I understand that I can point at models in a cfg, and make a single part... I meant "as-is" from within the game engine. I'm not saying it's not super cool that this is a thing... heck, I wonder if it would be possible to write a widget that you could drop a craft file (within whatever the required limits might be) on, and it welds it into a part that way....

I read your post before. I did nothing other than install SSTU. Are you suggesting that in my SSTU test install, with no other mods except KJR and KER I can replicate the craft you made? Regardless, I was copying the Block V Apollo CSM as per ETS, which looks like an abbreviated Apollo CSM, plus solar panels, with a different engine. It doesn't look like Orion writ small.

Not with SSTU as-is. Also, I was copying the illustration shown up the thread from the Eyes Turned Skywards alternate history.