MacroNova

All of these work in 1.0+ even if they haven't been updated. Kerbal Engineer gives tons of useful info. MechJeb does too and it has an autopilot to boot. Precise Node makes it so easy to fine tune maneuver nodes to get that perfect encounter. Kerbal Alarm Clock turns the game from running space missions into running a space program. Stock BugFix corrects some of the issues with the game that haven't been patched yet. Stock Plus (same author) is being designed to make even more improvements. Right now it adds extra tweakables to the stock fairings for number of pieces and ejection force. Remote Tech overhauls the antenna system to require Line of Sight and have the antennae be in range of each other. Unmanned craft won't fly without a connection to the KSC, which you get to provide by building satellite networks to bounce the signal. Mod makers are still working on this one, but the latest Dev Build is playable despite one or two bugs. USI Life Support is RoverDude's Life Supprt Mod. Kerbals need to be supplied or they go on strike and behave like tourists. Comes with a greenhouse part that allows them to extend the useful life of their supplies.

They nerfed the Funds -> Science strategy because it was too overpowered in .9. The issue now is that due to rounding errors you can lose the money but receive no science. I'm still in the relatively early game and I'm not messing with strategies. Part of that is because the setup costs are too high.

Use the vacuum button, but go to atmosphere mode to check your TWRs at various altitudes (less than 1.0, especially at the first stage, will mean your rocket struggles to gain altitude). Also, you need a really good launch profile to make it at 3500m/s.

The tier 2 pad is known to be "sticky" - it's a bug. Upgrading or using clamps should fix it.

I thought scrounging up the Kerbucks to upgrade the buildings to tier two was pretty achievable, but I think you make a good point about the drasticness of the upgrade. In my previous career games, I only upgraded the VAB to get custom action groups.

If you plan to make multiple trips, ferrying the Ore means you don't have to build the refinery into your lander, or it means you don't have to dock with the refinery on the surface.

Aside from the overlapping text bug, these builds are functioning really well and appear quite stable. Does anyone smarter than I know how to deal with the text bug?

It seems that when the Kerbals run out of electricity but not supplies, they eat all the supplies in an instant. Can anyone confirm?

Feedback/Suggestion: I think it's a lot more intuitive for the players to have 15 days of supplies per seat built into the crew cabins and command pods, and set their starve time to zero. No real gameplay difference that I can detect but it will provide a much smoother transition to interplanetary flight, and it will simplify the states of the Kerbals. Right now they can be supplied, hungry, or on strike. Changing it as suggested, they would either be supplied or on strike. But the times would be the same. Edit: Well, I guess this makes sense for food but not electricity. That's unfortunate.

I feel like the sort of issue that Steve is talking about could be resolved if there was an option to have commands execute at a certain delay after 0:00 on the mission elapsed timer.

Other than aesthetics, why do you need to be able to do this? - - - Updated - - - This functionality was in the previous edition of the Stock Bugfix mod, but it was removed in the latest release (not sure why).

Awesome. Does this also grant the pods a small mulch tank and if not how do you accomplish that?

The fragmented separation effect is not a concern for me at all. What's worrisome is that they seem to be tuned poorly so that in many cases you're better off not using them. Between their high mass and high drag (for fairings, anyway) they can impede a launch instead of facilitating it. However, I agree the UI is pretty darn slick, and with a bit of rebalance they will be an excellent addition to the game.

It doesn't help that the colors of the text when making a fairing do not stand out at all against the background of the VAB. I have a really hard seeing them myself and I have three perfectly working light cones in each eye, thank you very much. I have to frequently rotate the camera to get a better backdrop.

See d-bag comment above mine, implying Priuses are flimsy and helmed by bad drivers.

I just think the growth of hiring costs is overtuned.

I'm using build 325 (I think) and it's working pretty darn well so far. Would love it if the dev updates came with changelogs but I totally understand why they don't. I had no idea so much work was being done with so many updates being uploaded, but I can't wait to try the latest tonight.

I guess all the people I know who drive Priuses never take them on the highway. Thanks for educating me!

The Prius does this. I like this idea a lot.

I do think recruitment could use a balance pass. Right now you are encouraged to get all your Kerbals from rescues. I rescued a couple of Kerbals to fulfill contracts and the price to hire more shot up really high. So now I'm stuck at this place where it's too expensive to hire anyone, but I'm short on a particular skill of Kerbal (pilots). That means I need to keep rescuing them until I get lucky.

Is that really true though? It seems like the re-entry heat has gotten so mild that you practically don't need heat shields and only the little bits like batteries on the outside of your pod are in any danger. I found the system challenging but manageable in 1.0. The heat shields being physicsless generated the majority of the complaints, in my view. Once you fixed that, you could recover some decently complex return stages (capsule, inline command pod, maybe a science jr or service bay) if you designed it well. I agree that it would probably have been best for the game to tone down 1.0's re-entry heat but in 1.0.2 the pendulum has swung too far.

So the point of the OP is that the game forces you to deploy your fairings? I don't really have a problem with this, personally. I also find them pretty easy to work with once I got the hang of it. My issues with fairings 1. I don't really understand how to create interstage fairings. I've been putting all the non-aerodynamic stuff on top to minimize the size of the fairing I need to make. Sometimes I'd like to hide stuff in the middle, in which case I use the service bay, but it would be nice to use fairings. 2. Is all the mass still contained in the base? Fairings get pretty heavy and if ejecting them doesn't shed the mass then that's a real problem (bug?).

For me, 1.0.2 made going up a bit harder and coming back down a lot easier. You really need to stick with your prograde marker now on the ascent or you'll start to tumble really easily. On the other hand, re entry heating doesn't seem to be substantial enough to be of any consequence any more.

The biggest issue is the small fuel tanks you start with. You need to stack a lot of them but you don't get struts for a while. That makes rockets really bendy and hard to control with SAS on. Turning SAS off in the thicker atmosphere actually made my 1.0.2 ascents a lot easier.

Last night I was deploying at relatively high pressure (~.4 - .6) but if I left it at 500m I barely slowed down in time to splash down safely. If I was over land, the chutes didn't reach full deployment and I came in too fast. I had to change them to 1000m.