Red Iron Crown

I think you're making a mistake trying to mold the Kerbin system into real planet formation theory. Its parameters are what they are for gameplay reasons, it's no more complicated than that. Any conjured up explanation of why it is so is justification after the fact.

Isn't that exactly what I said?

I think the first test of an Apollo LEM's soft lunar landing capability was manned.

Wrong. Kinetic energy is 1/2 mass times speed squared. You're thinking of momentum, which is related but not the same.

Isp in seconds is measurement system agnostic, as both metric and Imperial systems use the second. It makes as much (or as little) sense to metric users as Imperial users. And I think you mean interplanetary.

On thinking about this a bit more, both my and Merisan's suggestions only protect against hard drive failure, not against screwing something up in your save and restoring a previous version. For that, Windows' built in previous versions feature is quite useful.

Is Origin really that bad? Honest question, I've never used it.

Opinions vary strongly on this. It depends on the individual player. As for your suggestion, I would just as soon have a proper autopilot rather than backdoor one by training Kerbals.

I generally don't use parts packs or gameplay altering mods. My must-haves are: 1. MechJeb 2. Editor Extensions 3. Kerbal Engineer Redux 4. Kerbal Alarm Clock

Make a hardlink from your save folder to a folder on another HDD, keeps things synced automatically. Instructions for how to do this vary by OS.

I think the smaller size was a concession to playability from before we had time compression in the game. It has the side effect of making the planets improbably dense, maybe they have a baseball sized piece of neutronium at their cores.

Ike is in an almost synchronous orbit with Duna. Its orbit is just a tiny bit eccentric, so it slows when further from Duna and speeds up when closer, causing it to appear to oscillate eastward and westward when viewed from Duna's surface.

Specific impulse is a measure of how efficiently a jet converts propellant mass into delta-V. The higher the Isp, the more delta-V is produced for a given amount of propellant mass (or, alternately, the less propellant mass is needed for a given amount of delta-V). Units for Isp can either be meters/second (more intuitive yet strangely less popular) or seconds, which must be multiplied by g in the rocket equation. When given in m/s it is the same as the jet's effective exhaust velocity.

Only the numeric keypad + and - keys are mapped by default. First thing I do on a new install is map the + and - from the main keyboard as the alternate keys for this, as I play on a laptop. You can do this from the main menu > settings > input. Really should be the default mapping, as laptops outsell desktops these days and I don't think one can depend on all or even most players having a numeric keypad.

I can't recommend this mod enough. The vertical snap is a gift from heaven when arranging asparagus staging, and the additional snap-to and symmetry modes are excellent. Highly recommended.

How is it not an engine?

They're three different orbits at three different inclinations, no guarantee any of them would hit the poles or have a point where all three intersect. About the only guarantee is that every orbit is over the equator at two points, but those points are likely to be different for each orbit.

You can't have it both ways. Either MJ is easy to add to the core game or it isn't. In the first half of your post you say that adding MJ is "quick and only needing one person for QA", then later talk about how it will "strain workloads and delay release". So, which is it? Similarly, if they planned to REPLACE manual piloting with MechJeb, you would have a point. And spaceplanes did change game mechanics, by allowing lifting craft! It suddenly got much easier to get into orbit or make an SSTO. It defies imagination that you can't see the analogy between C7 and MJ, other than being deliberately obtuse. Certainly, there are differences, as in any analogy, but I think the point stands. That's an unfair characterization. I would never support a reduction in game modes. I know there are a lot of people who enjoy KSPs piloting, and they should be able to do so. But MJ doesn't take that away! If implemented, I expect there will be people who don't use it, just as there are people who don't use spaceplanes, or ion engines, or rovers. My position is, "MechJeb would improve the game experience for enough players with minimal impact on players that don't want to use it, so it should be included."

To transfer fuel: Right-click one tank Alt-right-click another tank Transfer!

Amdahl's Law. Almost as ruthless a tyrant as the rocket equation.

For the other part of your question: From here. Edit: Ninja'd, and by a mod no less! Oh well, my response was more thorough.

I don't know that you can speak for the devs' motives authoritatively in this way. Right, because what's important to you is all that matters. Other players obviously want and use MechJeb, why are their priorities less important than yours? A counter-example: I don't like spaceplanes, never have, likely never will. Rolling C7's mod into the core game did nothing for me. But I know that many players like them, so I understand why it was included and that those other players' priorities are valid, too. The game is not just about me and how I like to play. Plus, I can still play my way, without spaceplanes. Now reread the above but substitute "autopilot" for "spaceplanes" and "MechJeb" for "C7's mod". Would that be too difficult a position for you to take? Not everyone is as determined to learn by trial-and-error as you are. Many will just be turned off by the game's difficulty and not look back, or even discover that MechJeb is a thing. I have a reliable tanker that I've used many, many times to refuel things in LKO. I feel no "rush" or "pressure" when piloting it manually, I've done it too many times for that. Mechjeb reduces this tedium for me. Likewise for long nuclear or ion burns, I don't get a lot of fulfillment from manually keeping the nose pointed in the correct direction for minutes or hours. That same argument can be applied for every mod that was incorporated into the core game. It's inconvenient, at best. I don't think any single one of those mods is as popular as MechJeb, but I do think that some of them (or something like them) will be added to the core game. No reason it couldn't be disabled by default in the core game, or have it increase usefulness as the game progresses (it does integrate into the tech tree in a way that introduces players to it gradually). "Strain on workload" and "delaying releases" are FUD, as far as I can tell. Every new feature added increases the complexity of the game, but I don't think anyone would suggest the devs stop adding features. Honestly, your posts are an excellent example of the "my way is the only correct way to play" attitude that I (and others here) find so condescending.

Yeah, I just read on Reaction Engines' site that they expect 55 hours of engine time to complete 200 flights.

I don't know, 100 hours of engine time is a lot of launches. Skylon is only meant to be reused for 200 launches, if the burn time is 30 mins or less then it may not need to be done at all.

Theoretical doesn't mean successful. The Titanic wasn't a theoretical ship, even though it never successfully completed a voyage. The N1 wasn't theoretical either, they actually built the thing even if it didn't work. I would consider SLS as still theoretical at this point, there has not been a full scale complete example built yet. It's getting ever closer, though.