Zargg

I agree with the OP this is a good idea. Transmission protocols that correct data loss are pretty trivial, it just comes at the expense of needing more time (and energy) to ensure all the correct data is transmitted. I think the in-game penalty is not so much time, but having the energy. If your signal is so weak that you are re-transmitting over and over, you risk the chance of running out of energy and only getting the partial science at that point.

Somehow burning hard to land on Tylo was my first screenshot!! Obviously didn't worry about the screenshot button until I figured out orbital mechanics

As a general answer, in map mode you can bring up the information window and it will tell you the atmosphere height of the target (make sure you are focused on the planet). Anything above that should be fine!

OMG....thank you Snark!

Yea I admit, I'm a 1 Kerbal kind of person, no matter how long or far he has to travel. He must get lonely sometimes... But I do like the idea of some sort of multiplier for if you do a mission manned as opposed to a probe core. Doing the explore contracts with a probe and just leaving it there feels incomplete to me and shouldn't be worth as much as if you actually sent someone there to experience it. Then even more bonus multipliers when you bring the Kerbal back. Think of it like the moon landing, no one remembers the first satellite sent there, but everyone remembers Apollo 11!

Always check that you have the right crew in there! On numerous occasions I've been meaning to take an engineer, but due to reverting to VAB or whatever, Jeb ends up back in there, but his badSness doesn't fix solar panels

I think an easy way to visualize this is go in game and look at the orbit lines and look at how the velocity vector (speed AND direction) changes throughout this situation. First start with a beautiful 100kmx100km orbit around the Mun. Your velocity is always 100% horizontal to the Mun, even though gravity is pulling on you, so you don't have to do any 'work' to fight gravity. Then drop the PE down to just 10km and look at the velocity as you approach the Mun. At first, you're falling and gaining speed from gravity mostly in the vertical direction, right? But if you look specifically at the PE moment, what would you notice? You're velocity is 100% horizontal again without you doing any work! Your velocity vector has automatically had its vertical velocity nulled out just by the shape of the orbit! So you just dropped 90km in altitude, but didn't have to put any work into fighting gravity, so you got a free (as in vertical velocity) 90km drop in altitude. Of course the energy you gained is now built up as horizontal velocity, but that doesn't put you in any danger, and the whole point would be that if there was an atmosphere, drag/chutes would have a much longer time to bleed that off since you are starting again with 0 vertical velocity. As opposed to going straight down, where you would have gravity building up your vertical velocity for that whole 90km that you would have to cancel out in the few seconds you have before hitting the ground.

Yea just had both of these...EVAd in space and got back in and another Jeb was still floating outside! Also got rid of all my staging for some reason.

ah and for the display, in NVIDIA control panel, at the top you should have a pull down menu "3D Settings" that has one option, to show "PhysX visual indicator" or not. Flip it off.

Curious, in the NVIDIA control panel, under 'Configure Surround, PhysX', do you have PhysX settings set to CPU instead of auto? Not sure where you would control displaying the status though, I don't see any with a quick glance through the settings.

Yea I'd like steam achievements. Seems like it would be easy enough to convert some of the "world first" accomplishments to start with. Then add things like 100 hours of flight time, or 50 hours of EVA, 1000 launches, escape the kerbol system, etc.

Are you literally exploding Tank 1 using Engine 2 exhaust heat? I mean....I guess that works...but most people avoid exploding their craft on purpose lol. And I wouldn't be surprised if the deltaV loss from using the second stage with empty first stage still attached is greater than if you just have a decoupler to get rid of it.

Either completing all the Explore contracts, or when a new update comes out, whichever is first!

This is definitely an issue for me too hehe. Kind of stupid that you launch into orbit, set a maneuver node, and then have to go back to KSC to time warp forward to get really close to it and risk overshooting. On one hand, if you can do maximum timewarp at any time in KSC or with another craft, regardless of where all your crafts are, then why wouldn't you also be able to do it when piloting that specific craft, since it's all on rails anyway right? On the other hand, crafts entering and exiting atmospheres and SOIs during this have a very high chance of experiencing a kraken attack. Seems to me like time warp should only be limited when you are about to enter (or are in) an atmostphere, or if you have an SOI change. Being in low orbit around Gilly and not being able to go faster is super annoying!

landed my Kerbal on Duna, using my main chutes to land....quickly realized I didn't bring an engineer to re-pack them...time for a rescue!