kmacku

If you want a stock space mining simulatorâ€â€and this is just a suggestion, mind youâ€â€you could play EVE Online.

Read the title.

I'm a theater person. Not a lighting designer by trade, but I do have some experience designing/hanging lights and running a light board. I have to say, KSP's lighting system is...surprisingly good (save for dawn on some surfaces being way too dark, but that involves programming atmospheric light distribution, and isn'treally the scope of this discussion). Mostly, I'm referring to the various light modules, particularly the ones in stock, the Illuminators Mk I and II. Now that with career mode asking me to do so, I'm building more bases and stations, and lighting them first went from, "Can I see it in the dark of space or on the dark side of the Mun/planet it's orbiting for docking procedures? to "Okay, I slapped a few lights and glowy things on. :blush:" to "OH MY GOD WHY IS IT BLINDING MAKE IT STOP :confused:" and, now I'm realizing that the lighting system is actually a lot more intuitive, and I'm using my theater background a bit better. For instance, I have an off-set topside docking port on one of my ground bases for a "hopper" style reusable lander to dock. There are mounting areas on the modules surrounding it that make great lighting positions where I can utilize key, fill, and back lighting. By altering the action groups slightly, I can have the base lights run on a separate hotkey from "docking mode" where the clampotron rises out of its fairing, is lit by lights specifically designed to light it, and all the other base lights are killed save for maybe a few running lights on its perimeter. While this sounds cosmetic, and it's certainly not rocket science (though it is lighting theory, which is pretty darn close), I've run some test designs during Kerbin night, and it actually works really good. The difference between all lights at 1.0 and key at 0.75, a blue fill at B somewhere around 0.5, and a backlight also at about half, is, for one, really cool, and two, of marginal use, but helpful nonetheless. And since the function exists, why not spend hours perfecting it? However, right now, in order to best test the lights, I have to time warp to Kerbin night, focus the lights in the SPH/VAB, go out, test them, revert back to the construction phase, and refocus from there, only vaguely able to see the difference until I'm back out and unable to move them again. Any lighting designer will tell you that lighting focus is best done in the dark, and while I'm not saying the SPH/VAB should have an entirely dark (0 ambient light whatsoever) setting, something just above that would be really nice, if just to see the effects of different lighting plots/arrangements on a craft, station, or base. If that were to happen, I'd love to do a tutorial either in slideshow or Youtube format on how to best utilize the lighting options to help players get the looks on their stations/crafts that they're going for. It's not that this is currently impossibleâ€â€there's just a step in the middle of streamlining the process that could, I think, be eliminated. So, please, think of the station lighting. Edit: Aaaaalso, just saying, stock RGB options for modules with running lights (i.e. Mk II cockpit/crew modules, but also maybe cupola module and science lab if you ever give those running lights) would be just fantasic. Because a Tron-themed heavy lifter is what these Kerbals need.

Ah, thank you. I was reading up on Intermediate Plane Design and thought I was going crazy, trying to figure out what the heck this "lift rating" thing was.

Okay, with all the new information/encouragement, and with an increasing desire for efficiency when fulfilling contracts, I'm coming back again to spaceplanes. I've looked around a bunch of places, but I cannot find out where anything tells me the lift rating of my craft, or the component wings of its construction. I've tried right clicking the wings for additional info (nothing), right clicking them after construction (allows me to change wing strength/mass, but no showing of lift rating), I've looked in my FAR and KER menus and can't seem to locate anything...so, can anyone help me out? Current mod list: FAR Kerbal Joint Reinforcement Kerbal Engineer Redux B9 Aerospace (with Firespitter 0.90 compatibility fix) KW Rocketry Mechjeb Kerbal Alarm Clock Docking Port Alignment

At least this. Right now, this is my biggest "complaint" that doesn't involve bugs/glitches/crashes. Docking ports in general need to be strengthened; I can deal with massive ship wobble (nothing a few struts can't fix). But when your interstellar ship is basically a daisy chain on rockets...I dunno. And my Minmus station is kinda wobbly like a big dumb jellyfish trying to get people to read its pamphlet at this point.

Actually, I'll second this. I have cancelled contracts thinking I was going back to the KSC screen...or, not "thinking" that so much as, like the OP says, it's a muscle memory thing.

So, I'm having a recurring problem, and I think it's leading to difficulty in flying, or at least it's hampering my ability to design spaceplanes. I have the basics down at least: CoL, CoM and where they should be in relation to one another, how to check where that balance shifts as fuel burns, so on. Literally everything I design faces a few red (incorrect) numbers, and they're usually if not always the same culprits. It's usually (if not always): Mw (is positive, should be negative) Yß (is positive, should be negative) Lß (is positive, should be negative) Lß is the big one; it's red on every one of my designs, but there are a few others that pop up in that Lateral Derivatives zone, and I just have zero concept of how to get them "righted". This was with an entirely symmetrical spaceplane of really simple design, before I've added any science modules, ladders, gear, accessories, snacks, etc. to it. I usually run my tests at 10km and Mach 1, but I jump around with different altitudes and speeds to see if things change, but they pretty much remain constant. Any help would do!