tsotha

Is anyone else having odd problems with the 1.24 release? I have a ship that keeps accelerating out of KEO in the absence of a source of thrust. The problem coincides with this release.

From a dV perspective a Duna shot is only a tiny bit more than a Mün mission, so if you're just going to land, plant a flag, and do some science there's no reason to build your ship in orbit beyond the entertainment value.

KIS/KAS is fine. There aren't that many extra parts. One thing I would do, though, is hook the ships up though one of the ground pylons instead of hooking them up directly. Things tend to be more stable, and if you put out a grid of pylons you don't have to worry about ground handling with the tanker.

The maneuver node problem sounds like you selected "control from here" on your grabber and forget to change back to the capsule or probe core. Is your grabber not pointing forward?

This. Grabbing something with the klaw makes it part of your ship, so you can transfer fuel and kerbals to between your original ship and whatever you grabbed. Also, EVA is fun when you get the hang of it. I'm getting no end of enjoyment building up stations using KIS and KAS. Like in real life, the key is to take it really slow at first.

Why the order? Ad Astra already has a functioning VASIMR engine which can be driven by solar cells for smaller applications, whereas nobody is even working on nuclear thermal.

VASIMR is an ion engine, though its design is a bit different than the ones in use today. IMO that's definitely the one that makes it into space near-term. And if you have enough power you can scale up VASIMR. It would require a nuclear power plant, but the hurdles to making that happen are more political than technical. After that some sort of fusion drive is probably likely, but I don't think any of us will live to see it. We might see a gas core nuclear rocket, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

I went around and around with thrusters when I started with RO. Usually the problem is the thruster isn't configured for the fuel you're using. You seem to have checked that, though, so another thing you might check is that the parts between the thrusters and the tank allow cross-feed. When I mounted my thrusters on a capsule it didn't work until I configured the capsule to allow cross-feed.

I've had this happen, but not for a year at least (and I play almost every day). It's true EVA isn't completely bug free, and you should always save before exiting the capsule. But you did get unlucky.

There's no way to make a game stable such that you can have multiple external groups modifying the same game state. That's really up to the people who write mods to sort out, and the best we're likely to do is something like CKAN which warns about common incompatibilities. There's no reason for the 64 bit version to be slower, though adding 64 bit references will make the same program chew up more memory. The multi-threading should make some things faster, though it adds new opportunities for bugs as well.

If we ever build one, it will be on the earth. The moon is a lifeless rock - it might be less of a technical challenge to build an elevator there, but what would be the point of putting that kind of effort into an elevator that goes from nowhere to nowhere? Even if you had a reason to be there, the same lack of gravity that makes the space elevator easier makes rockets easier too.

The answer to you questions is probably unknowable even by Squad, at this point. I'm not planning to delete my 1.0.5 directory until my must-have mods are working again.

You could use the explosive from KIS/KAS to blow them up. I'm a little unclear on why you have decouplers floating around. Don't they detach from only one side? Do you mean separators? If so, why not use decouplers instead?

Twelve launches is probably too low - they have a two-year backlog and are expecting more orders. They claim to be on track for a launch "every couple weeks". Is that real? Who knows.

It's not even clear biological immortality is possible in mammals. As you age your DNA is degraded in numerous ways (radiation, viruses, chemicals, off the top of my head). The way your body addresses genetic damage is to kill the damaged cells in order to prevent cancer (not always successfully, sadly). Over time things start to break down as you begin to have too few of important cell types. An immortality mutation would have have some way of fixing cells instead of just destroying them. I can't imagine what the mechanism would be. Beyond that, as others have noted longevity isn't a particularly desirable trait for a species no matter how desirable it is for individuals.

RO (plus a dozen other mods) works fine in the 32 bit client if you force it to use OpenGL. Not having any performance or crashing problems, either. Now, getting to orbit in RO. That I'm having a problem with.

DC-X was supposed to be an X program, meaning it was a technology demonstrator. In X programs, you build a few ships, fly them until you learn what you want to learn, and then shut the program down. Then you take what you learned and build something that you intend to fulfill mission requirements. See here for the long version: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/gettospace.html

I think FC disabled all that stuff in BTSM, so you should try removing that one.

When I'm doing a minimum-fuel rendezvous I usually go to the tracking station and time warp from there. You can warp at whatever speed you want.

Having panels that retract is useful even in the absence of heat. I can't be the only one who pulls in the solar arrays to protect them during a landing.

Yeah, Bob. Mama Kerman always said he was a bit on the sickly side. I always save before I do any EVA. Tatonf is quite right - there's a big random factor involved (which I'm guessing has something to do with rag doll physics).

Eh... is this true? I mean, the part about needing the shortest burn to land is true because your total energy is lower, but relative to the surface you should actually be going faster than you would at higher altitudes.

On earth you get about a kg of lift for every m3 of hydrogen. So your 1 ton sat is a little more than a 10m cube (assuming the envelop weighs something). The Hindenburg weighed something like 232 metric tons.

You should really have a look at video.

I'm kind of surprised he survived a water impact, but Mitch is right - his melon is indestructible. I've always wanted to try a "rescue" using a suborbital probe that just gets close enough to switch to rescuee. Then I can use his jet pack to land. So far I haven't been able to get the timing right, though.