Gaarst

This tool can help you: You can use it to find Earth-Venus-Earth (or Earth-Mars-Earth) trajectories using theroretically no more than that of the initial ejection burn (keep a small margin for correction burns).

And I used to be proud of my Earth-Jupiter-Saturn trajectories... I feel really stoopid now

DV requirements for transfers being absurdly low in stock KSP I have never felt like it was necessary. The few m/s of dV you can gain are often compensated by the increased mission time, and you can obtain the same result by adding a fuel tank to your ship anyway. On RSS on the other side, gravity assists are a real treat. Because you need so much dV to go anywhere and because transfers times are stupidly high (50 years for Hohmann to Pluto, no thanks), you find that gravity assists can save both dV and time for some missions. I'm still fiddling around (still have trouble planning 2 or more assists for a mission) but it's extremely rewarding. It's unfortunate that assists in the stock system are often just a cool trick. The Jool system is an exception: I love swinging around the moons there. Any tricks for complex gravity assists like this one? I'm already using the planner and have some experience with assists but I never succeeded in pulling dead accurate assists requiring several bodies (for rendez-vous with an asteroid/comet for example).

You actually want the best compromise between a high TWR and a light engine. Having too low TWR causes losses of dV when doing manoeuvres. It's not a lot when comparing to what you gain by using a lighter engine, but it's enough to be significant when considering electric propulsion (at least in real life, KSP's Dawn is extremely powerful so I don't know if it's still valid).

I don't know about PhysicsSignificance, but in your particular case, I know that lights are quite laggy.

Still missing my Alt-I shortcut...

@Murdabenne @CarnageINC I initially thought of locking this thread and opening a new one to keep the 1.2 library available. But thinking about it, there will be no mods removed and the mods updated for 1.2.x pending updates for 1.3 will keep their 1.2 tags in the meantime. Mods that would have been updated to 1.3 can be assumed to be active and to have had a 1.2 release, save "Continued" mods. I don't think a new thread is necessary. We may keep double tags for some time after the update while people are updating to 1.3 but eventually nothing should be lost during the transition. Mods will still be there with their links; worst case scenario you click on a 1.3 mod and it happens to not have a 1.2 release, but I think it's the simplest solution.

My opinion on the matter from an older thread (about test-animals), replace "dogs" with "chimp" and it still works:

If a release is available, I'll change it to green. Give me a few minutes and it's done.. I'll move the mod to the VAB/SPH category. For the description, what do you feel about @CarnageINC's description two posts above? I'll change it to this now, but if you want something else I can change it again, it's not a problem. EDIT: and all done!

A poll of what should be in the game without rocket parts as an option. I'd almost mistake it for an official Squad poll. Also, I don't think that 1.3 will have new parts. The emphasis was made on the localisation (and bugfixes) and the expansion has nothing to do with 1.3. But yeah, rockets parts (stuff to build actual rockets not mining stuff or shuttle parts). More of them, and overhauling the current ones (style and performance). And please get rid of these stupid tankbutts and make all engines surface-attachable.

Basically, yes you want a big bell when in vacuum and a smaller one in atmosphere. KSP pretty much has it the wrong way round. Engines were designed this way with little regard for real-life performance (KSP engines are pretty much magic anyway). I fully support the idea of having more realistic engine models, regarding expansion ratios, but mind that changing the size of engines for an update will most likely break many crafts. For this reason there are limits to how big nozzles can be made to fit in the current model. The Poodle uses a twin-nozzle design which allows to solve this problem, and removing powerheads from the models altogether could help gaining some space. Either way, I don't think a rocket engines revamp is still planned. Squad made it pretty clear they were putting it on hold for an indefinite time. If we're lucky we'll get it for 1.4 but not any earlier.

@DoctorDavinci Are your concerns about this thread or the mods development thread? Camera Tools is not yet on this list: it's ready to be added, I just need to get some time to review and add all the new mods Carnage is giving me. If nothing catches fire in my house, I should be able to push the update tonight. BDAc is shown in this list as updated for 1.2.2 and the link links to the BDAc release thread. I am not sure what is the issue here.

Simply paste the link to the album.

Whatever it equals it's not realistically balanced (as pretty much everything in the game). IIRC powers (in and out) in KSP are way too large compared to battery capacities. I know RO uses 1 kJ for 1 EC but it rebalances the consumption of pretty much everything else.

Rep ranks don't mean anything when there is no negative rep. The more you post, the more you get. Rep is a matter of how long you've been there rather than how "well" you've been there. If you value rep look at rep/post ratio rather than absolute rep, and even then the fact The Lounge doesn't count towards your post means that rep/post ratio is not a guarantee of the quality of what a user will post.

I'd say CNSA first, then ISRO (don't underestimate them, they are doing really good so far, give them time) are the future of manned spaceflight. As much as I love ESA, they don't have a manned spaceflight program, and EU's current situation means that they probably won't get enough funding to develop one any time soon. Roscosmos' Soyuz is getting seriously outdated without any replacement available thanks to great budget cuts (Angara A5 flew once and is nowhere to be seen, Soyuz-5 and Federation are still hypothetical). Russia's future in space is grim*. JAXA is the same as ESA, they lack the resources for a manned program and it is clearly not in their priorities. I don't have much hopes about NASA's SLS. If they are lucky they can do a couple Moon orbit missions but if a market doesn't magically appear for super-heavy payloads, it won't fly more than a few times. I'd even bet Block II will never fly. Private companies depend on how well they can sell space tourism. They are not going to spend resources there if there's no profit to be made: Boeing, ULA, SNC and BO are doing it because NASA is funding the CCDev but are not interested in going any further. SpaceX is kinda on its own. They are overly ambitious and like to promise things but have trouble delivering**. Dragon v2 will fly, I doubt ITS will ever be built. They do a lot of PR stunts to gain public interest but as long as there is no economic interest in going to Mars (there is none) they won't do anything. FH getting the Moon flyby mission is probably as far as they will go in the near future. China's space program is growing really quickly. They have clear objectives, essentially unlimited funding, and the technological and human resources to go where they want. The only thing that could prevent them from achieving their goals is, paradoxically, too fast economic development causing losses of industries and eventually turning them into USA#2 with the same issues. India is basically China a few years behind. They need to sort things out with their GSLV Mk.III to finally kick off their manned program but I trust them. * Things could go a bit better if they associate with ESA, which they are doing for ExoMars. I believe that a cooperation between the two agencies would represent the best hopes in manned spaceflight for both, but the current political situation is going against this. ** SES-10 was an amazing achievement but the true economic benefit is yet to be proven. And FH is still several years off-schedule. EDIT: this poll is more about "the future of US spaceflight" really. The US are no longer leading spaceflight, get used to it.

Stick another one on the other side of the craft to transfer momentum to (like a Newton cradle). I'm not 100% sure this will work and you may need to use a separator to neglect the mass of the rest of craft that you are detaching.

This probably already exists but I wanted to see what I remembered of Excel (this didn't really test anything but, for once, I've produced something useful). It basically calculates 4 things: Delta-V from a circular orbit to another circular orbit; Delta-V from a circular orbit to an elliptical transfer orbit; Circular orbit that can be reached from a circular orbit using a given amount of dV; Transfer orbit that can be reached from a circular orbit using a given amount of dV. It works both ways: from lower to higher orbit and vice-versa. Retrograde burns will be indicated by negative dV (going opposite direction of motion). It is set as default for Kerbin (I wrote it for RSS Earth and the values seemed sensible so I think it's correct, I won't take responsibility for missions failing because of erroneous calculations) but you can easily adapt it for any planet by changing the planet µ and radius which can both be accessed from the Tracking Station. Since I can't solve transcendental equations (or be bothered checking that they are actually transcendental for that matter), the last two calculations require the "Solver" function of Excel which might not be installed by default but is free AFAIK. If you don't have it, you can just trial-and-error your way through using the first two calculators (this is basically what the Solver does anyway only automatically and using fancy numerical analysis methods). The spreadsheet should contain enough instructions for you to be able to use it. If not, just ask. Download link (.xslx file written on Excel 2013) (This isn't really a tutorial but I think it fits in the section, if not, just say it and I'll ask for it to be moved wherever)

What Galileo said, with link.

I wonder if you could obtain the opposite effect by using an extremely over-expanded nozzle...

Where is the second problem? And yeah ITS is a pretty terrible idea. I don't see it taking off before 2040 at least, and never in its current shape.

RSS is updated for KSP 1.2 so it will work on 1.2.2. To install it just read what's written under the "INSTALLATION" section in the thread.

From the Station Science mod thread: You should only need a "Science Lab" part (I don't think it's the same as the stock one) and maybe a scientist (I'm not familiar with this mod). If you think this is a bug with the mod, you can try asking the author in the release thread here:

Yes I've seen this. I've find the closest one for dark green in the palette is the 3rd from the left in the top row of "More Colors" (Hex#006600) but it's not quite the same and it's honestly bothering me. I can get the original shades but having to type the code rather than click the colour is a bit tedious. Edit: Dark green: #008000 (not in the palette, closest is 1st row 3rd column) Light green: #00FF00 (1st row 6th column) Blue: #0000FF (6th row 1st column) Yellow: #FFD700 (not in the palette, closest is 7th row 17th column) Red: #FF0000 (7th row 13th column)

Adding these right now! Your work is awesome! Thinking about it, a spreadsheet is really good idea and now that we have got a rather complete modlist I think we can transition the whole list to a spreadsheet. (Also the 600+ mods are starting to lag the OP when editing) If you don't mind we can go organise things with Carnage on PM. (I'm not familiar with spreadsheets and don't want to steal your work so I'd be happy if you could "officially" join us)