Violent Jeb

errrg. Last night I sent a 14t lander with an "orbital refuel cell", so I could accomplish 3 landings on the mun with munar orbit refuels. I've been working on the design for a day or so. Finally succeeded at making the craft controllable, so we head out for the mun mission To further demonstrate my k-peen, I successfully navigated a direct insertion (without getting into orbit). I got all the way to mun orbit before I realized that the lander doesn't have a docking port so I can't refuel, wasting the fuel cell and ending the mission. D'OH ! Revert to the VAB!

Yup that's definitely the problem i'm having. Intermittently, the game will not choose a part out of the part list when i click on it. Other times it seems like parts won't stick on a given mouseclick, which is particularly noticeable with fuel lines or struts. When this happens, I have jogged the mouse around a bit, released whatever part i was holding, pick it up to "confirm" my clicks are working.. then within a few clicks it happens again. Oftentimes I end up thinking my mouse/keyboard is the culprit but it has only seemed to be an issue with KSP! I have found that certain things seem to help. "grabbing"/rotating the camera with the mouse seems to ensure the next few clicks are reliable. additionally, to overcome some of these challenges in the VAB (i'm sorry fortunately it's not a huge problem for me out of VAB), i have found that "extended" mouse clicks, where i "hold" my left clicks down, seem to work better (maybe the mouseclick is being recieved over multiple frames (where it might be frozen one moment and out the next). Either way, let's hope for a fix!

Is this why parts don't want to "click" in the editor/VAB? I've had this problem for a LONG time. I've only been noticing spikes on launches since 1.0 (with the smoke on the pad, presumably)

Wow! I've been wondering what the deal is with my panels for a while.. jeez. The shrouded ones are heavier, yes? I guess that means they're going on the atmo landers! Thanks!

I'll put my hat in the "too expensive" camp. Kerbals shouldn't cost more than the rockets. I do think that the cost of having more Kerbals employed at ksc should increase, but it should do so more linearly. Maybe each kerbal should cost 5k funds more than the last one, based on the number of total kerbals you have. I shouldn't have to choose between extreme costs or to rescue kerbals from unrealistic locations. Unless I purpose build a rescue craft (which can usually do 4 orbital rescues with 5 landing "pods"), it is not realistic to otherwise hire extra employees in the early/mid game because of how tight all the upgrade margins are for the first tier of upgrades. AFAIK, NASA had a replacement astronaut available for each member of a given mission, so the first two concurrent launches should allow me to have 4 pilots employed without an unreasonable cost. All told, i'm much more in favour of a recurring annual cost for all employed kerbals. In this way the career mode will encourage remote crafts where possible, and create (small) recurring costs for which the science module will offset nicely. Choosing a "salaried" system also means that the cost of having multiple employees would scale appropriately - having 10 employees will add up after the first year, fortunately that time will allow a budding space center to cover some of this overhead in a more organic way. You could even have a "salary rate" slider at career start, to satisfy a person level of difficulty. In addition to this, a salaried approach will also flesh out more options for manipulating the KR (that's kerbin resources) dept of KSC. For example, Higher level astronauts will logically have a higher annual cost, which means that your costs will grow more realistically, vs having the 10th kerbal cost several million funds or whatever. Regardless of how it is handled, kerbalnaut cost is Definitely not balanced as of yet.

-Instant Atmo-Drag values -Instant Orbital period values -Instant pork-chop selection for interplanetary transfer -Orbital shape w/incl (no more back and forth to the map) -RCS dV -Realtime TWR information -Target distance at closest approach -Time to AP,PE -Target inclination (did I mention I don't have to go back and forth to the map?) I've stopped using mechjeb for launches, never bothered with automating much else (i enjoy piloting); but the wealth of information it provides is as unparalleled as it is flexible. I also like that is a mass-less part, since information like the above should be stock when doing rocket science! IMO!

I've landed variants on both minmus and Mun with substantial success. You're right, the impact resistance will allow you to abuse your landing noticeably more than with landing legs. Before they break, they will "pop" which gives an engineer the opportunity to salvage the part. What I have done is place LY-10's on the "front" and "back" of the craft. This works even if you radially attach them to an upright rocket. Now, you attach Rovemax M1 to either "side, and you have a 4 point wheel system, which is quite balanced. Start with the brakes on. I have found that you will need MINIMUM 10t craft in order to get sufficient traction on the mun (even more for minmus). The trick is to point your LY-10s so that they face down enough to "push" against the ground. When your landing "legs" also make your craft mobile, the benefits are huge. Crafts can re-position or even make small journeys to nearby biomes. It is definitely worth experimenting with. I had a few designs where the entire craft lands, and a small return vessel sits on top of the wheel-legged rover as well (so you can establish a base and exploration mission at the same time). I can generally find a smooth mun landing by eyeballing the craters carefully when i create my landing node, to ensure I land on a space between craters; never in ​them.

I completely disagree. It might be good if you've found some way to farm science in kerbin's SOI, but many of us have not, and find typical playthroughs to be sufficiently challenging to acquire science. Personally I have launched 20-30 missions and still haven't unlocked half the tech tree. I usually get experiments on all the KSC biomes, i have been to the mun 4 times, minmus once, and have been everywhere but the polar caps of kerbin, and i have earned at MOST a total of 2k science. Sure, if i want to throw up the science module and hit ............. then sure, science is easy. I try to roleplay a bit, and not leave my space center inactive for any period of months or years while i farm science, and therefore in the short term, without fast-forward, science absolutely does not need to be nerfed. If you're going to just time-adjust the game simply to farm science you may as well not play career mode. I mean i realize you play the game the way you want but you're essentially just playing the game to fast forward through orbits. Furthermore, if you have made trips to 9 biomes on minmus and not gone interplanetary, you are actually spending the "end game" just cruising around on minmus. the science module is supposed to (afaik) be a late game tech to help you slowly generate income with a sufficiently leveraged science>funds strategy to fund your operations with less grinding. If you head out into the kerbolar system when you are first able (before the second 500 tier r&d upgrade), then you will be challenged to see new things and get science in new places. If you choose to farm science on three objects there is nobody else to blame. Personally, If they "nerf" science any more, I will have to complete 20 missions just to unlock the tech to build a plane. another 10 just to get docking ports. That's a grind, and that just sucks. I play on normal, and if there is a way to clean the tech tree in less than 20 missions without time adjustment, i'm all ears. If a mission takes .75 hr thats 15 hours just to unlock tech, and many of the higher upgrades are essential for "workhorse" crafts. That's 15 hours in the SOI, followed by how many hours of potential subsequent interplanetary colonization? 45? 75? How long should I be grinding until the potential of the game is available to me? We shouldn't be fighting to unlock "essential" science the entire time we play the career mode. I like the balance as is, it certainly shouldn't be any harder. They have rebalanced r&d mods for people who want to grind for the 1000 unlock tiers.

Hey^, why don't you just drop the simple .dll into your gamedata folder and enlighten everybody who uses this mod? Thanks for all the work OP - i might be able to find a use for the Nerv with this.

I feel the same way about the MODS since I run 1.0.4., they're all mostly working, I'm not missing anything. oh, and I'm practicing the newest version, with the minor drag changes. The change log from 1.0.2 to 1.0.4 is significant. I think the only mod that ISN'T working for me is ambient light adjustment, and maybe sciencealert - minor stuff.

MULTIPLE passes dipping into the atmosphere between 55-70. Staging to slow myself if needed. I usually have 500 dv on my crafts for getting on the ground. I have been trying to avoid the heat-shield in lieu of more "re-usable" parts. I try to keep my sensitive equipment behind tanks or within the angle of the command pod. My most recent find is that a decoupler can be placed on the craft "upsidedown", will still detach fine and can serve as a very functional reusable heat shield. Not sure if it's cheaper than a heat shield, I just know that it works. Who knew there was ablative material on the decoupler lol. I have seen some of the "huge" shields, and they are not aesthetically pleasing to me, nor would they be fun to get into orbit.

I'm happy. It's not save breaking, Flight/physics in the Kerbol system didn't change, I can use the probe and the solar panel. Assuming the dish works with RT2, I can use that too. ..and it's not asking me for more money! It's a nice mod. I hope they'll integrate it into 1.05 stock because.. parts. Finally, has anybody done the mission yet? Does it actually locate larger asteroids in the outer system? How much larger? That could* really flesh out the late game potential. Thanks SQUAD, hopefully more good news ahead!

Just putting it out there, the ONLY engineer report feature I would find useful is a delta V readout, the feature they have to debate. So keep debating squad.. i'll keep installing mods to improve upon your "features" until then. Seriously, what is the mindset behind NOT adding it to the readout? Do they think that we would all enjoy doing the manual calculations each time we swap a part out during design? Do they think the school children will have nothing to work towards? Make it toggle-able from the menu. I can't think of a single reason NOT to include it.

My list of complaints is getting shorter every day. I REALLY like that MK3 part strength got fixed.. but i'll have to get back from duna to determine my feelings for the aero. I'm also excited to try out some SRB's again.

I will echo the sentiments that the "un-fun" aspect of all of this is new installs and re-learning the atmo. I think the present aero is at least a "realistic enough" starting point, assuming 1.03 is quite the same as 1.04. Then again, I'd been thinking that the last 7 updates i've done. Went from .9, to .9 FAR, to 1.0, to 1.01, to 1.02, to 1.03 then 1.04 in the last 60 days or so. In 1.0, the crafts HAD to go up 10km before turning. In 1.2, you can control the rocket on the first 10km, 1.3 I played for around 6 hours, and your parachute window was ~10 seconds in most cases. As soon as I turned off the game, 1.04 was available. New observations, new techniques required. I am quite tired of starting a new career, and redesigning crafts to accomplish these goals. With the absense of clear communication, it is hard to know when you should dig your teeth into a new career. Sure, I can start one now, but what if 1.05 comes out monday? Failing that, if I wait a week or two, 1.1 might roll out a week into a new save. I was just preparing to try some 1.02 challenges right before TWO back-to-back patches. So i've moved on to a different game for now, not because i don't want to play ksp but because i have no idea when it will change again and I just want to play the newest build without issues. Thought this was a finished game, as denoted by the 1.0 sticker. Just prepare the release, and test it. Test it for months. It is clear that 1.04 had less than 24 hours to test. So when the problems of 1.04 are found, PLEASE - fix them carefully. Wait months, and ensure all subsequent bugs have been squashed before 1.05. When 1.06 comes out, do the same thing. Do not test for 24 hrs. FWIW, .9 was 0.9, 1.0 should have been 0.92 1.01 should have been 0.94 1.02 should have been 0.96 1.03 should have been 0.98 and maybe 1.04 would have been a suitable 1.0?

Self appointed guardians of the status quo. Some people complain - some people even whine. but IMO the oddballs are the people who blindly defend an unfinished game. Much like the second poster pointed out, this forum is here explicitly to discuss our feelings about this game. For better, or for worse. Even if the conversation is unconstructive, it is still superior and certainly more on track vs conversations about the conversations. You ever hear that saying, the customer is always right? We're the customers, deal with it. Good thing it's not your game.

Thanks a lot for the suggestion! I might just try this mod out anyway, there's some great work here (and quantitatively much more). I think Eeloo will forgive me.

Is there a planets mod which keeps the stock bodies completely stock in terms of orbits, sizes & locations, but simply adds new planets/moons to the outside of the system or anywhere in between? I would LOVE to have some new planets to admire and explore, but asking me to move eeloo (and anything else) is not something i'd like to do. I'd like to keep the system the same so I can easily re-orient if i am without/remove the mod.

You're right, I don't believe in doing periapsis kick burns. I've been under the guise that each 20 min orbit is going to sufficiently adjust my ejection angle such that a single well timed launch is more ideal. I would be happy to update that viewpoint. How do you go about determining which burn will be the final burn, and where will your ejection be with relation to the target? If you're saving 900 m/s on a burn i'd like to know how to keep the ejection angle in check. (i'm aware we're slightly off topic, but i'd be happy to incorporate a .25 TWR design parameter using LV-Ns if I can still get around the solar system with minimal fuss Generally, I can't speed up time to a suitable rate for these burns, unless my orbit is 120km+ (and IRL time is by-and-large the most valuable resource for me). In that case, would the gains from multiple periapse burns offset the ÃŽâ€V losses from utilizing the oberth effect at a higher altitude AND the adjusted ejection angle? As of now i settle at 70-75km orbit. I'm sure I will get around to testing it myself but it's easier to start doing things "the right way". Plus there's the task of an interplanetary with 10+ engines.. Edit: While i'm here and editing. The hypothetical burns I talked about are almost always greater than 0.6. How long (or how far) does the burn ETA have to be from periapsis to make you decide to do multiple burns (burn ETA > 1min, 3min, 5min. etc)?

Does the "narrow band" still appear to be "most of the chart" when you look at all of the potential payloads, and not just the one the LV-N is good at? This image shows conclusively that anything above 50t is not going to be reasonable using the LVN. Additionally, you mentioned staging. How many stages should an interplanetary stage have? if you're dropping engines mid-burn that messes up your maneuvers even more. I prefer my interplanetary burns in one stage, so the charts are well suited to that analysis. I don't care how you slice it, you will not move 100+ t interplanetary payloads quickly (accurately) or with low part counts, using the LV-N. I've been launching 800 t crafts with 50-80t payloads using mammoths and rhinos and my part counts typically do not go above 150. The same simply cannot be done with any sort of effectiveness using the Lv-N at that scale. The LV-N certainly needs more benefits to outweigh the considerable drawbacks.

I must agree that the LV-N does not excel in many areas. As pointed out on the first page, because of their 4.5t weight, they are generally not effective for payloads below 10t. For comparison, I typically send a 14t lander to the mun or duna, which can seat two kerbals, and 1 of every experiment, with sufficient power. As you expand operations, your payload can quickly exceed 30t. As a general rule, I refuse to burn (even interplanetary) with less than 0.4 TWR (my optimal is 0.6), because I see diminished results from long and inaccurate burns. I like to be able to do any burn in one shot, and usually less than 120s - so my kerbals always get where they're going. As your weight slowly increases beyond 30t payload, the number of LV-Ns (and associated parts) will proportionally increase. As a rough benchmark, if your craft requires 10 LV-N engines, it will need 10 connecting tanks, 10 fuel lines and maybe even 10 struts. This means that using LV-Ns in even with a remotely reasonably sized configuration you have an interplanetary stage that is easily 50 parts once you include telemetry, docking ports, sas, rcs fuel/thrusters. Once you have a launcher and a payload, you can easily clear 200 parts, which is too many for many people. So far, we have a very part-heavy craft with a low TWR. Consider that in career mode this craft will also be easily 50% more expensive than a comparable LFO/OX rocket. The ONLY drawback to having to use LFO/OX rockets is you need to bring more fuel. One part usually accomplishes this need. As i will demonstrate with an image from http://meithan.x10.mx/KSP/engines/, using 10 engines as a reasonable limit for most users, it becomes clear that as your payload exceeds a meager 30t, you WILL NOT get more than 6k ÃŽâ€V out of your LV-N, without substantially increasing the number of engines and parts. Alternatively, we have the Rhino, with a respectable 345 isp in vaccuum. This engine WILL get more than 6000 ÃŽâ€V, and usually with only 1-3 engines. as your payload increases beyond 30t, the payload fraction actually grows with the rhino. When fuel is less expensive and uses less CPU resources than efficiency, the payload fraction is largely moot anyway. It seems to me there is a very narrow band where the LV-N is superior. It appears to be best (and indeed only useful) in the range of 10-30t crafts if you don't mind longer burns and smaller TWR.

This is why I use the non-steam version. I have rarely if ever experienced loss of data, FWIW.

You can quote assault my post all you want. It is bad because squad were to spend their time working on the game instead of working on the bottom line, we'd be quite a bit further along by now. If you don't get that everytime a dev has to sit down and talk to us about these "promotions and schemes and novelties", that they are opting out of days of potential productivity, then we have completely opposing viewpoints (as demonstrated by your above post). With that in mind, it does not change my opinion, nor the fact that others share my feelings. I would rather see 1.03 than any of this other stuff.

This, 100%. Don't particularly care if you think its a rant. Where is 1.03 with the handful of fixes that are rather important. When can I feel like i'm sitting on a stable version where the part values (or even the physics of the universe) are not going to change arbitrarily on me? When can we expect to not have frequent CTD.? When are the heat mechanics going to work as advertised (and not leak memory)? When can we expect space bound liquid tanks? When will the word of the devs (ie, 1.03 "days, not weeks away") be held to a standard? Since 1.0, I have watched through the devnotes as the story unfolds. Two (or is it three?) people have left the team. So.. 20% productivity hit? There were 3dprinted ships, there are plushies for sale that don't even have a physical design available to view, there are lots of talks about kerbal for schools. Now there's a port of a game that isn't finished, while the game is being re-made in unity 5. Are they making unity 5 64 bit from the start? I doubt it. The writing is constantly on the wall here now. Now, we have this big PS4 announcement. Yeh. Game ports should probably be done once the game is at least stable. Just my IMO. Vanilla KSP on console. Wow. Programming the game, giving us features which were indicated.. these things should have been years before any talks of porting this game. Why does it seem like this has quickly become a big cash cow? Maybe squad had good foresight in the beginning but now it seems like the cart is constantly being put ahead of the horse. Remember that whole SimCity situation? I'm sorry if this post offends anybody. I'm quite happy with this game, i'm just not happy with the present state of affairs/direction, although post 1.0 i guess we should just "be happy with what we get".. just could have been so much more.