Wintersdark

Have you used the Narrow Band Scanner to see exact concentrations near you? The instant scan just shows averages per biome, if I understand correctly, while the surface scanner shows the location at the pinpoint your at; the NBS shows the local area so you can find better concentrations nearby.

I think it was Infernal Robotics that had them, actually, the autostruts. You'd put the start/end points, and they'd auto-strut things when you docked.

Not in EVA, but there is a strut mod that allows automatic struts when docking... I forget what it's called, though, and don't know if it's working in 1.x.

Yeah, doesn't appear to exist. I was playing with Distance, and it's working well enough for me... though, I'm also suffering from wuss issues. It wants me to start my burn really close to the ground. But it seems to work.

In another thread, we were discussing landing, and KER's Suicide Burn readouts came out. People where referencing "Time till suicide burn", but I've been unable to find that option when editing an existing display or making a new one. I can only find Suicide Burn Altitude, Distance, and dV (All three under Vessel). Where can I find Time Till Burn? It would really make landing a lot easier. Also: Suicide Burn Altitude and Suicide Burn Distance: What exactly do these mean?

I was trying to do this, but when editing an existing display or building a new one, I can only find Suicide Burn Altitude, Distance, and dV(In the Vessel section) - no time to burn or duration of burn. Where do you find those? I was hoping to add another HUD display with them, but I can't seem to find them. Also, what exactly do Altitude and Distance mean in this context? Altitude is the Altitude at which you should start the burn? I've noticed that Altitude keeps decreasing as my lander falls, so I assume it's NOT the point where you should start the burn (as I fall, speed increases, so I'd need to start the burn higher over time, no?) Is that over ground, or over sea level? What does distance mean?

WHAT?!?!? Oh. My. God.

This is a pretty cool approach, it's a much more challenging method for the pilot and isn't very practical on more broken terrain (see: practically every normal body in KSP). At least, seems that way to me. I've tried if a few times, but never really managed to make it work out well. Maybe it'd be easier with Mechjeb and such, I dunno.

Agreed. I'd go so far as to say that KIS/KAS would be the perfect fit for 1.1: It vastly increases gameplay options, makes EVA's with Kerbals actually useful. Instead of just making missions to Go Places, KIS+KAS gives you things to do once you Get There. Base construction with KAS is awesome fun, and the ability to actually recover from catastrophic problems mid-mission with an enterprising Kerbal and spare parts is fantastic. It adds an entirely logical and important part of gameplay that really needs to be there. Launch a mission to rendezvous with an existing satellite, attach upgraded parts to increase it's capabilities; so much more interesting than scrapping it and launching a wholly new one.

Yes. When I was new, I spent a lot of time in my early career mode play (0.25, I think?) biome hopping on Kerbin and getting all the science there I could. What a waste of time. Even with really basic parts, it's not hard to do a Munshot, a simple flyby - hell, you don't even need orbit, just enter it's SOI and grab science. A low-altitude orbit with a Kerbal popping EVA reports over each biome gains hundreds of science, and requires practically no tech. Minimus after, and you're well into the 300-cost science tech. I never even bother with Kerbin science anymore, not at all. I'm a big fan of Career mode, but in an odd sort of way. I love contracts, see, but I detest having contracts be my only source of income. I'd love to see government funding based on reputation, with Contracts as extra income and the KSP version of Quests. Contracts are an excellent source of "What should I do next?" and the Career mode progression sets limits on your play which (in my personal opinion) makes gameplay so much more exicting. For example, I just had "Explore Gilly" come up. I take that, then decline a few random contracts until I get more Eve related ones... Then, with a set of Eve/Gilly based goals, I set about designing as cost-efficient and multi-purpose a mission as possible to achieve the various contract goals plus any others I can cram in there. Trying to achieve a multitude of goals in a single, cost effective and efficient mission makes the game a world more fun for me. I find in Science/Sandbox mode, it's too easy to just throw parts at a problem with no limits, and that's fun for a while but (for me! YMMV!) it doesn't hold my attention long enough. I've found 1.x's Career to work a lot better for me than the previous ones, as the more varied contracts allow for more interesting complex missions. Doing this - these multi-purpose efficient missions - has totally removed grinding from career for me. I don't ever do missions I don't want to do, and instead just work them into things I do want to do. A key point is that you don't have to do missions you don't want to. There's no penalty to declining contracts in the list that you haven't accepted - you can just freely decline them and have new ones appear immediately. - - - Updated - - - What's really fun is later you get rescue missions that include not only the Kerbal, but also his/her ship (or the remains of it). It's pretty easy on Minimus with a creative ship design (lifting a couple tons off Minimus isn't a huge deal) even at pretty low tech, but it gets a lot harder on other bodies.

I don't really understand how to use KER's suicide burn readout, could you explain? I've always done suicide burns with enough breathing room to go down gently afterwards, which is inefficient but pretty much every lander I use is different (career mode, science progress, experimentation) so it's tough to get used to it.

This. I use a long string of named saves for every mission, all named with a unique per-mission 3 letter identifier then what's happening (xxx Launch, xxx Duna Intercept, etc). This keeps the list of ALT-F9 loads easily sortable, and ensures I can revert not just to launch but to specific points in the mission. I never revert legitimately failed missions, as I enjoy rescuing lost kerbals and facing the consequences of poor planning, however I learned long ago that silly mistakes and bugs happen. Accidental staging, kraken attacks, etc. I've accidentally hit Z instead of X when I needed to end a delicate low power burn, for example. And more than once, I've F5'd after something bad happens. Named saves allow me to go back to a good point, and not have to entirely redo missions. - - - Updated - - - Hey, that's news to me. Thanks for that =)

This post wins +5 internets.

KAS will require KIS, but KIS can function on it's own.

I would love this too; I like to think Jeb has a HUD with said information on it while jetpacking about More directly, it's frustrating because sometimes it's difficult to judge speed and direction from the view - particularly at night and at weird angles. And our Kerbals totally lack the ability to try and dig into the dirt while sliding(or restart their jetpacks), so a botched landing while jetpacking can end in kilometers of sliding.

God, I can't wait for this. KAS is pretty much a must-have mod for me, it adds so much depth to what your kerbals can do.

Why can't you put a craft into orbit around Eve?

Yeah... I enjoyed the concept of heat as another build concern, but can accept that it wasn't working terribly well as things where. I hope it returns once we have radiators... As they are also needed for the LV-N.

So, according to the patch notes, there is no overheat mechanic at all anymore? So heat's now totally irrelevant for ISRU? Or does the drill just shutdown at overheat rather than throttling?

I'm not Particularly Smart with regards to these things, but I definitely am in agreement. It seemed bizzare how easy it was even for basic rockets and jets early in my career game to be hitting such insane speeds so fast. A simple jet with a basic jet engine, single intake and fixed wings breaking Mach 1 before the end of the runway, basic rockets pushing mach effects then going totally horizontal at 35km and that being an efficient launch profile... It didn't seem right.

Correct.

Wait, if you use the Surface Scanner within a biome, you get complete data for that biome? As in, all of it, or just a particular location? I'm a little hazy on narrow band vs. Surface scanner differences. The narrow band brings up the "minimap" of the nearby square region, if i understand correctly, but doesn't update the main resource map. The surface scanner.... Does? Add detail to the main map? I suppose I should start a sandbox save to explore it, but I'm torn - there's so much new stuff I haven't seen before and I'm hesitant to do that because I'm sure I'll just start monkeying around in sandbox and lose interest in my career save. Which would be sad, because my career game will keep my attention longer. Is there a user guide of any sort? Or an instructional video that's not some random streamer monkeying around himself?

I can't wait for KAS to be working in 1.0; it's awesome for these things. However, the Rover/Tanker with a claw is a really great idea for moving resources between your base and a lander/shuttle. I feel kind of silly for not having done that thus far, and instead working hard at complex systems for aligning docking ports

Indeed. I'm much happier with Heat as another mechanic to deal with, rather than abstracting it away entirely. Much like Electric Charge, for example. Having heat be a thing, and needing to design our craft with it in mind makes craft design more interesting.

To my way of thinking, past behavior from previous versions is now irrelevant, this is 1.0, the official release, and I found this behavior to be troublesome. I chose the small gear bay because the only other rover wheels I had unlocked at the time had a lower crash tolerance and as you can see from my first image, I was using these to land without any other landing struts. I assumed they would work as "wheels" for the contract and it did not occur to me that one wheel type would be acceptable and other wheels would not. All I would ask for is either better clarity on the contract wording ("outpost must be on rover wheels") or perhaps keep the language the same but make sure all the various wheels can satisfy the requirement for the contract. According to Arsonide above, this is being looked at now as the small landing gear should work: