tater

A few notes (latest version): There is still an issue with regular transfers between parts. you tell the kerbal to transfer, and when you ouse over the new part, it turns blue, then you click. It stays blue, and you have to hit esc. When you EVA, the game keeps focus on the part that he/she left most all of the time, instead of switching to the kerbal. The new KIS container is great, but 2000 liters is pretty large. The SC-62 is slightly smaller, at 1000 l, and the ISC-6K is 6000 liters---and your container is smaller than a quarter segment of that. Given that the ISC-6K is pressurized, and accessible from inside a vessel, I think that 1500 l for your container would not be unreasonable, 2000 l is clearly too large I think, it doesn't look to be 2X the volume of the SC-62. The Mk1 hab IVA... part of me really thinks that the hatches should actually be airlocks wherever possible. In that IVA, it would mean bring the door in, and making a little room there. The open hab minus an airlock would require that the whole space be depressurized. In a perfect world, I think that every single KSP part in the game would be scaled up 50%, leaving the kerbals the same size. Right now every KSP vehicle feels like a TARDIS when you see the IVA If the parts here were the large part size (3.75m), then the top of the base parts would be 1.875m instead of 1.25, the hatches on the side would all be fine, size wise, and there would be room for an airlock inside.

I use the alt key, actually (option key on the mac). Take a planetary adapter. If I hit "Opt" (alt) in the side farthest from the door, the gear part flips inside the adapter and is not visible. If I do the same on the side facing the VAB door it properly mounts to the node, but I have to hit the "s" key to get it pointed the right way (it defaults to "down" towards the ground, which definitely makes sense). With mirror symmetry, there ate 2 parts as expected, even rotated the right way... until you hit Opt, then the one way from the VAB for disappears, and when you actually get the selected part to click to the node, it drops to 1x symmetry. Does the same in the SPH, only the side that disappears is the "close" side when you first enter, and it sticks on the side away from that. Mirror also doesn't work. I also tested with docking ports (stock) they snap as expected with opt/alt, but no mirror. BTW, I rationalized the roof hatches the way Reiver did, I assumed they were emergency escape hatches. Note that certainly the greenhouse and hab require a full airlock, not just a hatch, because you cannot pump the greenhouse to a vacuum, leave, then refill it with air without killing the plants. The command modules are small enough I figured the kerbals used the whole part as an airlock, as they would in a capsule.

Fair enough, it's a small issue, though, IMO. IMO, the unfavorable location is not really different than a hatch that is substantially too small for a kerbal to enter though. Also, What about the rescue issue? Is there a way to force the game to not use a specific "capsule" for any rescue missions? Because it seems to borrow any that have crew. I was more concerned with a frustrating gameplay issue than aesthetics. Though the roof certainly is also an aesthetic problem, I agree. Perhaps a redesigned hatch? A hatch could be added to the lateral part of the deployed hab/greenhouse/lab, but the IVA would likely have to reflect an airlock... OK, here is the current situation on all the deployable units, the hatch before was a even smaller as it fit in the space the kerbal is facing, slightly above the side red band on the helmet I think, maybe halfway between that red, and the top stripe: Here is the only alternative for a hatch that almost fits our kerbals: You'd have a not terribly secure hatch (it has an angle, and is large), and even with the area inside the orange as the hatch, the kerbal would have to be assumed to duck as he enters, then sit, close the hatch, and remove the suit. The hab could assume that one of the staterooms has a bunk bed to buy the space, else it's the public space. The greenhouse would need to lose one window, not a real problem, and the lab has plenty of room. I've always been surprised that Squad did;t just make the kerbals ever so slightly smaller, this is an issue with most all the hatches.

I threw some wheels on them, making them rovers, moved them to a good spot near the landing site, docked them together, then with KIS/KAS Took the wheels off and stuffed them in a container (resulted in 4 fewer parts per structure, and they looked like bases instead of rovers). An observation on the new version: The landing gear parts don't want to easily snap to the nodes on the Meerkat or planetary adaptor. You have to rotate them, and I never manage to remember which way, so it's trial and error.

Realism is not even "usually" harder. People throw around "tedious" as if realism would require every single man-minute of work be modeled. In fact, we need only concern ourselves with what KSP bothers to model at all, and within that, what fidelity is possible. To the extent there is any correlation at all, I'd not be surprised if more realism within what stock KSP does would be easier, not harder. At 1:1 scale (set kerbin to some reasonable size for a small, earth like planet). All the parts are scaled in lockstep, so similar looking craft behave the same. The atmosphere would scale less, since stock is too deep anyway. Distances are a non-issue because of time warp, the only change is launch/reentry given limited time warp under acceleration. Docking is easier in many ways since you'll have more daylight if you plan properly. Planets could have some bigger, some the current size to make various difficulties. Minmus stays small, the Mun gets scaled up to the point that 1-stage vs 2-stage landers both have rationales. I'd argue that most of the difficulty in stock KSP is added in after the fact because of the tiny scale used, yet trying to make it feel realistic. Look at reentry, if kerbin acts like earth, nasty things happen at other worlds. On topic, this new feature creates balance issues as mentioned above for the simple reason that the game is not realistic about life support (that's sort of understating it since KSP is infinitely unrealistic WRT life support since it has none at all ). It's a peeve of mine to see difficulty stated as a function of realism with zero data to support it. Whenever anyone tries, they build a straw man on the order of "if you don't have to explicitly feed, sleep, and excrete with your kerbals, it's not realistic, so why bother at all?"

Realistic and hard have exactly nothing to do with each other, they are not at all related. If Kerbin were realistic, it would have lower gravity, and less atmosphere, making getting to orbit trivial, for example. For many, that would be easier, no? Having the antennas even matter is it being made harder contrary to realism, as the farthest possible transmission in KSP is about the typical close approach distance of Earth to Mars. Any transmission from a world inside the aphelion of Eeloo becomes pretty much trivial, the antenna combos are not much of an issue. So this is made artificially harder by being unrealistic, so that the gameplay is more like the real solar system.

Do "control from here" on the target station port, and point it normal, or anti-normal. Then get your new part roughly coorbital, but on the side the station port is pointing at, and point it the opposite direction (if the station port is normal, point the docking ship anti-normal). The use RCS to put your prograde onto the target. Go forward slightly, then translate till prograde and target are coincident. I do this and never even look at anything but the naval, even in the dark. If you are far off where the station's port is pointing, it will be more difficult, so eyeball yourself close to that axis first, and it's a cake walk (it will mitigate drift). With more manageable craft, it really isn't necessary. to go to that trouble, just start the alignment far away, and tweak it in (my usual method). Dunno, sharpy, I think I dock better with a pint in me

Yeah, it's picky about what gets docked to what, frankly, I've had the same issue. Like which ship is in control when docking takes place determines the primary vessel of the docked craft. Instead of unlocking an re-docking stuff, I've simply opt-F12ed (alt-f12 on a pc) and told the game to complete the contract---I know I built everything new, I can't be bothered that the game is sometimes flakey about accepting the resultant craft.

The problem is that the game will happily create rescue missions using any pod with a crew capacity, apparently. I solve the "roof" problem (not really much of a problem, where you enter seems arbitrary, and if you nitpick the roof, then what about an airlock where none is visible in the IVA?) by sticking a gangway airlock as an entrance for the base, then I transfer the guy where I need him. Any substantial base will have either a cupola, a planetary command module, or a dedicated airlock, anyway, I think.

If the RCS is too close to another part in a particular direction and the thrust is blocked. But that one set of RCS is nowhere near the CM, which is a huge problem. The build aid looks like a good tool, but you can eyeball it with the CM in the VAB.

Blocking is also a possible issue.

Yep, resolution is a function of aperture (1.22Lambda/D), or the distance between 2 apertures (interferometry, which is mostly, but not only done with radio at the moment).

Lol, so true. Only if it has IVA.

I just started a new career, it only happened loading the save of the previous version. Actually, the save loads, but switching to the craft is an issue. All parts were stock, KPBS, or KIS. Based on the ground, or on wheels both affected.

Doesn't change my point. Any distant maneuver by definition takes place out of contact, and is therefore programmed. Point in X direction, and thrust for 0.1 seconds. Viking had a radar altimeter. Once reentry was initiated, it was on its own. In KSP terms, making the maneuver node is the "remote control," and having the probe do itself makes sense to me. Again, I'd like parts to allow for proximity retro burns, or something else to account for the devs refusing to give stock players the data they would require for even slight communications delays

I pulled USILS and it still happened. I use KIS/KAS, though, and kjr.

Finding useful amounts of hydrogen is a pretty big "if."

Light is light, it works, and small interferometers exist. A practical issue with optical is seeing. Meaning the the issues with the atmosphere which become worse when the paths for the light differ between instruments. Space-based optical interferometers have been proposed, and the Moon is a really good candidate for a VLA-like instrument (only optical, not radio).

I had the exact same problem this time as last time with my save game... Facilities landed, mun gone.

The etymology of aluminum as used in North America is very much like our use of soccer. Davy first used alumium, but 4 years later in his book (1812) he used aluminum. Only later did he change it to aluminium. At this point, the original spelling was already in common use in North America. In a sense, the North Americans are spelling it correctly, or neither of us are (and it should be simply alumium). It's just like soccer, which was coined by the British as some sort of slang for asSOCiation football, and that word landed in North America, and we stuck with it, even though it got changed on the continent, and we (US/Canada) never got the memo until it was too late.

I'll mess with this this evening when I have a chance!

Alpha Centauri.

I use kis so I'd be inclined to assemble a rover in situ

I'd say if not in communication you cannot make a new node. I think that ideally craft could execute nodes themselves, frankly. I'd then limit the future position of that node based upon communications lag (Kerbin to probe). So a probe is 5 light minutes from Kerbin, then the nearest you could place a node would be to occur in 5 minutes. Delay is pretty meaningless in stock because the distances are tiny (Eeloo is what, 0.75 AU maximum?) though. - - - Updated - - - Yeah, I use probes since I use life support, and distant missions are more complicated when I require that my guys have a place to travel in that I'd expect would be comfortable for a few years.

Rosetta is ONE example (comet, BTW). How much control did they exercise after Philae was released to guide it down? Right, none at all. They picked a location, and sent a command for the spacecraft to initiate "landing" (that implies a level of control it lacked) with that as the target area, nothing more. Current probes are becoming more, not less autonomous. Rovers that can avoid obstacles, for example. This trend will only continue. New Horizons is another example, while "remote controlled," the spacecraft is programmed well in advance because of the time lag involved. Direct control is impossible once any lag equals an inability to function safely. Any "remote control" not done in real time is "programming." You seem to be arguing the past, not me.