RizzoTheRat

What mod are you using for those LF tanks? I agree the standard tanks aren't great for use with nukes, but can still work well I've not really had much trouble with Nukes overheating except on very long burns, in which case you can just throttle them back and run them for a bit longer. This used the landers engine from launch, and once in kerbin orbit went to Minimus and then the Mun without needing to throttle back.

You could try tweaking the maximum thrust on the each engine of your existing ship to get it to balance properly. I had a similar problem with a drilling rig I landed on Minimus, in that I hadn't got the lift engines correctly spaces around the CoM so it always pitched up. A bit of practice thrusting in orbit led me to reducing the max thrust of the front engines, which I believe I believe then scales linearly with the throttle, and ended up with a small enough asymmetry that the reaction wheels could handle it and keep the ship straight.

I use Dropbox, less hassle than photobucket or similar as I don't need bother uploading photos, just bung it in the dropbox/public folder on my PC and right click to get the public link. However I'm surprised someone saying to use URL tags, that doesn't seem to work for me on this site, however in the bottom right of the box I'm typing in is an "insert other media" button which gives an option to insert image from url

That's just crying out to have another ship sat the other side of the flagpole, got any other designs you're attached to?

Nice design. I'd be tempted to land the land the last one and leave it parked up somewhere rather than recovering it.

Same here, I'm using 4 Komsats in LKO to get coverage, but deploying a ground based network sounds like a great challenge.

Any firsts really I guess. First orbit after several sub orbital cockups, first landing (as opposed to crash) on the Mun, first docking after ages jockeying around to try and get in position...

I'm not convinced I want to know the first date I did something in KSP, it would highlight how much of my life I've spent on it, I certainly wouldn't want it tracking how many hours I've spent in game, especially if it flagged it up somewhere my wife might see it

I'm also another fan of the Tug approach, I tend to build stations that can be moved by a tug or have a transfer stage to get them to their required location and then stay put. I then use smaller tugs or resupply ships to haul crews and fuel rather than a huge mother ship. I fancy having a go with a life support mod at some point though, in which case I guess motherships will be become a lot more important. However I'm trying a slightly different approach In my latest game. I built a lander capable of pushing it's own fuel tanker to the Mun and Minimus, so I'm thinking of expanding on that idea for longer range missions. Obviously this will mean low TWR craft and long burn times but on this kind of design I could relatively easily add a couple of engines to the side of the tanker stage, and still use the lander engine. Plus as I'm using RemoteTech I can automate the burns to a degree rather flying manually which makes long burns more acceptable. This pic is after launch when it had reinforcing struts, but after redocking I had no stability problems (flew it to the Mun after landing in all biomes on Minimus), with a larger docking port on a bigger ship I should still be able to keep the length down to help stability, but KAS is always an option to fit some removable/replaceable struts to be fitted before taking longer trips. KJR just feels a bit cheaty to me. I've also used wing components like this to space out the engines/tanks on previous tug designs, leaving space for docking ports in the centre, allowing for a much shorter overall ship than if the docking ports were on either end of a body that contained all the fuel.

Not being a console gamer or regular Steam user I'm not even 100% sure what this is. Won't it just be like the "background" contracts in the career game, ie first flight to X altitude, first orbit, firs mun landing, etc?

A bit of both. I start a new career every time they release a new version, and given that I don't have as much time to play as I'd like, this means I spend very little time with a fully unlocked tech tree, so tend to scratch build most things as there's always some new technology since my last build. Having said that I'm using ScanSat and RemoteTech, so I have some standard designs for scanning or communications satellites, and associated launchers that I launch several times (currently have 8 identical communications and 3 identical scanners in space), and I usually reuse the same vessel for early Kerbin orbit rescue missions and tourist trips. Once I've unlocked the tech tree I've dabbled with SSTO spaceplanes as tankers or crew shuttles to LKO, and SSTO rockets to LKO with different upper stages.

Thanks, about 3200 m/s dV was enough to all biomes on Minimus with only 2 refuels, and it managed 2 biomes plus a plane change on the Mun. There's always room for improvement though, I had way too much battery capacity on it, and the tanker stage was enough to get it to Minimus, land in all biomes, fly to the Mun, do 2 landings and completely refuel, so a bit more than I needed there too. More thought needed on the RCS placement as they were at 45 degrees so less efficient than 90 degrees, I guess rotating the docking port and controlling from there is the easiest bet.

I did quite a bit of science

While I agree with the rest of your post I have to take issue with this, theres often quite a bit of swearing in my games, usually at the same point as the violence.

Decided to take a bit of a departure from my usual designs when launching my first lander to Minimus in this game. I usually go for a Mk2 lander can with single set of experiments on board and put a station in orbit with a load of crew that I can train by swapping crew each time the lander refuels. However this time I decided to go with 2 crew in separate cans so they can bring back 2 sets of experiments from each landing. The design wouldn't have worked to well on the top of a launch stage either so I ended up with one of my strangest looking launches to date Launched with 2 Skippers and 2 Mainsails Dropped the skippers In Kerbin orbit ready to head to Minimus, front section is the orbiting refueling station while the rear is the lander, Not done the maths to see how using a Nuke compares to a conventional engine but I'm hoping the extra weight I'm lugging on each landing will be offset by needing haul less fuel out to Minimus. Nice wide undercarriage makes it ideal for a landing on Minimus slopes.

That's very useful, thanks so some i3's are better than some i7's and i5's, but Celerons are uniformly crap. Given that my home PC is a Phenom II x4 970 I guess anything in the top 3-4 tiers are worth looking at. Annoyingly the neither Surface Pro's i5-6300u or the Dell Venue's i5-4300y are in the list, but given that the other i5's starting with a 6 are all near the top it bodes reasonably well for the Surface.

Ooops, failed to check which sub forum the old thread I found thread was in. So is the clock speed generally more important than the processor type? Back when first upgraded my 486 there was a choice of about 4 processors, these days the choice is bewildering. I was originally assuming Atom < Core M < Celeron < i5 < i7. But then there seem to be different generations within each processor... Anyone got any good recommendations for review/benchmark sites, and also any ideas which benchmarks might best reflect KSP performance?

There's a few old threads on this subject, but I'm assuming the required spec has changed a bit in the last couple of years. I'm toying with the idea of buying myself a new lightweight laptop, or maybe a 2 in 1 like the Surface Pro 4, and I'd like to have something that I can run KSP on. My understanding is it needs a reasonable processor but not much in the way of graphics performance, is this still true of recent releases? The Wiki recommend and i5 or better processor, but doesn't mention speed. I've tried it on a Win 8.1 Dell Venue tablet, which has a 1.4 GHz i5 with 4GB ram and it's rubbish (runs at about 1/4 speed with a 7 part craft), so I'm guessing a 2.4GHz i5 Surface Pro isn't going to be a lot better. Any recommendations on minimum spec I should be looking at?

Stacked but with radial attached lift engines. On my latest start I've recently launched my first LKO comms network, a 4 satellite cluster each with 2 x DTS-M1 (Mun and Minimus), and a Communication 16. They launch in a vertical stack, 3 have an FLT-100 tank and Spark engine, which is enough to lift them from the vessels initial orbit to their required orbits, while the 4th, which is on the bottom of the stack, has a much larger tank and an a swivel engine. I then had 4 radial tanks/engines asparagus staged for launch, meaning the bottom satellites engine is used from launch all the way the it's final orbit. I find this makes for a shorter and much more stable craft than vertical staging, and the upper satellites are connected to the booster stages with struts for stability. Controlling it form the bottom satellite also makes for a much more stable launch. In a previous game I launched a Minimus lander with 2 satellites attached radially which worked but meant the satellite design as a bit more complex as I had to leave one side free for the attachment point.

http://xkcd.com/1356/ I'm jealous though, working away at the moment and won't be home until Christmas eve...and KSP won't run on my tablet. Seriously considering buying a Surface Pro...

How would you control it on in an iPad? I've had a go at loading it on a Dell Venue Pro, and it seems to run ok but touch screen controls are a nightmare. I've just bought a bluetooth keyboard for it so I'll give it another go next week. In my case I'm weekly commuting at the moment and my laptop takes up way too much space in hand luggage on the plane, and is a lower spec than the tablet, so I quite fancy being able to play a bit of KSP in the evenings while I'm away.

Not yet because they keep releasing new versions before I complete the career so I go back and start again Not getting much opportunity to play at the moment so I doubt I'll complete the tech tree on this game before the next release.

My first use of KAS to fit some parachutes to the return capsule of my munar station that I forgot fit before I launched it. Also fitted some struts to brave the large monoprop tank that I forgot to build in to the station before launch and had to add on afterwards. The previous day was not a good one

Payload first and then see what I need to get it in to space. I do have some fairly standard first stage designs that I tend to use but I build from scratch each time.

No big explosions but a whole lot of stupid. Relatively new game, only landed on Mun and Minimus once each. Contract to put a station in Mun orbit. To save on launch costs I did a single launch with the station (Lab, Hitchhiker, orange tank, nuke, docking ports), lander, and a Mk1-2 pod based return capsule. Sent the first crew down in the lander...realised I'd forgotten to fit RCS thrusters, made several unsuccessful attempts to dock with the station before parking it, EVAing the crew over tho the station, and sending the useless lander to crash in to the Mun Launched a replacement lander, with a second return capsule and extra fuel. Got to the station and realised I've not fitted RCS tanks to the station to store spare propellant. Sent a crew down in the lander, returned to station, loaded them in the original return capsule...spotted it's got no parachutes So now I'm going to have to dock the new lander to the old return capsule to drag it out of orbit, and the next supply run is going to need an RCS tank with a docking port on each end so I don't lose a port. I did wonder about bringing up a docking port with several parachutes attached but I'm not sure I'd trust it on re-entry and it'd be difficult to fit. Alternatively I guess I could see if I can attach parachutes using KAS but I've not really played with that yet.