Coam

I'm quite looking forward to larger wings. At current, bolting huge numbers of small wings together to get a Mk3-based airplane to leave the ground is quite tedious. Other spaceplane parts are quite useful in rocketry, such as the round Mk2 spaceplane adaptor, which is useful for emulating Gemini with a Mk1 pod or widening the base of a Mk1 Mun lander, as well as providing fuel in a nose-cap for Rockomax parts. That said, I'd love to see more rocket parts too. Perhaps a 2 Kerbal capsule based on Gemini or Voskhod? a few more stock Soviet-style parts would be cool. Adding more uses for space-stations would also be quite nice. At the moment I've found nearly all of my needs for one can be met with a Skylab style station attached to a big fuel tank, although building something more complex may be a fun project, there doesn't appear to be much practical advantage to it.

Today I started a new science mode game, then edited the savefile to unlock parts early so I could count all of the science earned from research properly. (Just using science to log what I've done.) I performed various missions I'll hopefully get around to doing reports on later. (2 satellite launches, 1 piggybacked suborbital spaceplane flight, 1 suborbital capsule launch, 1 atmospheric research flight, 1 crew rescue flight, 2 LES tests and 1 operational LES use.) Rescuing a splashed-down Kerbal from their capsule using a seaplane is pretty fun. Launch Escape System pulls Jeb away from an uncontrollable rocket. Piggybacking achieves little that a detachable SRB couldn't do cheaper and safer in this case, the craft becomes unstable at ~4000m so launching at that point is required. It is capable of reaching almost 130km on a suborbital trajectory, however. My rescue flight ran out of fuel on the journey back to KSC. The plane left KSC with less than 50% fuel to ensure good STOL performance, ran out of fuel shortly after reaching nearby land, then fell over on the rough terrain due to the odd landing gear layout.

Today I tried to build a T-38 style training jet Largely failed in aesthetic terms, though the result looked quite futuristic. Decided to bolt it to a large fuel tank+booster set broadly similar to the US Shuttle Toyed with this for a bit, rotating the booster engines and adding a silly number of reaction wheels to it (which later turned out to be unnecessary.) Got it to Orbit, this being the my first ever functional shuttle design. Currently only useful as a training craft, theoretically the centre tank can be swapped to a cargo hold at the cost of requiring better piloting to attain orbit or reduced flight range after atmospheric re-entry. Climbing to Orbit De-Orbit burn Re-Entry Runway Approach I'd like to note the very visible MechJeb module on this craft is only useful for delta-v statistics and theoretical orbital manoeuvres - ascent must be flown manually, tweaking the thrust limits on the engines, or the craft will lose control and fail to achieve orbit, as the design is not very stable.

I'm not really concerned for 64bit in itself, but I'd like to see the game better optimised (if realistically possible) than it is at the present, since that would increase performance even for those using 32bit machines or machines with less than 4GB of RAM, and doesn't rely as much on Unity being improved.

There are spoiler tags. They work the same as you'd expect except you have to title them. [spoiler=title]content[/spoiler]

I prefer the views to the graphical quality in itself. It's no space-engine, but there are still some remarkably pretty views in KSP. I still notice how pretty Kerbin can be when making the first suborbital flight of a new save, or how tiny it looks when you're out at the Mun or Minmus. This would probably be similar even if the graphics were far less detailed.

Yes. Rocketry - particularly being able to design and fly your own rockets, was the main attraction of the game. That's not to say I don't value my crews now, of course.

I liked the showing of fuel draining from individual tanks rather than from stages as a whole, to an extent. It made my rockets feel like they had more fuel. On the other hand overestimating the amount of fuel present is never a good idea. Also, I like how the Mun and Kerbin looked in 0.13.

Since we're not at 1.0 yet, does everyone here count as having pre-ordered, and thus get the parts?

I'd be okay with free DLC (basically mods from SQUAD), provided it was made separate either because it differs from the main purpose of the game (say, a story mode) or because it would add a large amount to the regular download size and possibly see little use by a lot of people (say, another star system.). I'd probably download most official DLC if that was the case. I'd be against paid DLC. I dislike the feeling of only buying half of a game that comes along with the existence of paid DLC.

I didn't see this suggested, so apologies if it has been suggested already. Occasionally, it comes up that one part is more useful than another for a certain use case - ie, the FL-T800 is a useful thing to have on a 1.25m spaceplane, but the style of the tank, with its black bars, doesn't really fit into the style of the 1.25m airplane parts. I'm aware that if one really wants a craft painted a certain way, they can edit the textures of parts. This has the problem of editing the part for all ships using the part, however (unless you duplicate the part, but then you've two copies of the same part...) With some kind of integrated painting system, one could repaint the FL-T800 white, making it fit in better with the overall design - perhaps with the ability to save the new paintscheme for future use, or simply have it cover the one craft. Beyond making rockets look more coherent, I'm sure someone out there just wants a space-station painted in all sorts of crazy colours, or to camouflage their fighter jets. I can see some problems with it, both in that some parts may not fit being repainted very well, and in that it may detract from the overall style of the game (where rockets are clearly assembled of differing parts, rather than looking entirely consistent on the outside.), but I'm interested in what others think nonetheless. If going for realism, perhaps paint could induce a slight weight penalty. (As with the Shuttle's white tanks.)

I'll have to go back to putting fairings on things. I haven't been bothering much recently (partly due to a lack of launches that really need them), but I used to do it for aesthetic purposes so I can always go back to it. Generally my rockets have been designed to look plausible in reality, so there's little need to rethink designs.

Firstly, if this would be more fitting for a separate thread, I apologize. Something tells me it's better here. Perhaps because this thread already discusses the relationship between the Forums and other communities like Reddit, SA, 4chan, etc. A mixture of an idea and a question: Would it be possible to set up an official way of giving anonymous feedback to announcements, and perhaps just in general? Personally, I have little worthwhile feedback or ideas to give, but there are some advantages to the format for those who do - primarily that reputation and actual content are kept separate. Without fear of reputation loss or ability to gain a reputation, there's a likely inclination to post more honest feedback. If made as an official Squad thing on the KSP site and then posted as a link to the other communities and the forums, it could allow for a wide range of feedback without splitting players into individual groups - hopefully giving a more accurate picture overall of what people want instead of having the different views of various communities. Of course, being unable to split players into groups is disadvantageous in some ways too, but I assume if a group is relevant then that can be asked for that information when giving feedback (ie, if interested in the views of newer players, ask for people giving feedback to say how long they've had the game when doing so.) I'm unable to take this further at the moment, towards suggesting actual ways of implementing an anonymous system because different ways have different advantages and disadvantages. (A forum-style would allow for discussion, but has risks if people make inappropriate posts, a survey or simple feedback form where the only people to view it are the sender and Squad would remove that disadvantage, but also removes the ability to read discuss feedback.) So this is just a general idea. Oh - as a secondary advantage, by being linked directly to here and to other sites, perhaps small pieces of information posted elsewhere would come into view for the forum users more rapidly.

"Kerbal Space Program 1.Go for launch." Came to mind.

I would like to see this implemented. Vector-5's way of doing it seems better than treating it as just-another command pod.

Today I made a few airplanes. Two may end up having a use, one was just for fun. First one was a Biplane, done as I had yet to make one and because I was interested how it would perform. It is capable of flying at speeds below 30m/s and has a seat behind the main cockpit for a passenger. I think it is the most easy to fly plane I have designed so far. The science bay and dual-radial intakes are purely fitted for aesthetic reasons. The spotlights are fitted as my first test flights were conducted at night. Second was a T-Tail passenger jet with space for 28 Kerbals. There is also a three-engine variant (not pictured) which is somewhat similar to the Boeing 727, forgetfulness resulted in a lack of a tailcone in the screenshot. This design wobbles under time acceleration, likely as the fuselage has no struts being quite long. I should probably have placed the struts on the wings underneath them rather than on top of them to make it look tidier. Finally, I designed a tiny plane which is launched from a larger plane, this was for two reasons: 1. It's quite fun trying to cram an entire plane into such a small area 2. Releasing an aircraft in flight is quite entertaining, even if of limited use in this design. The launch plane is a fairly boring design. On the small plane, once the controls are configured so that one set of wing-controls handles roll, one set handles pitch, and the tail handles rudder, it's actually surprisingly flyable - albeit hard (though possible!) to land, hence the parachutes.

Firstly, Thank you to everyone else who replied as well. The additional information is helpful, I just can't think of relevant ways to reply to large amounts of it. I hadn't considered that the simplification of drag into mass would change this aspect of gaining speed by diving. If that method of generating speed when engine power is gone (whether the engine fell off, or ran out of fuel) doesn't work, is there an alternative way of gaining speed for a glide (beyond perhaps wiggling the control surfaces.), or is the best thing to do simply to dive low to the ground and try to manage a controlled, slow crash rather than try to move as far forward as possible? As a general question: Would it help to simply consider airplanes a special class of rocket, as opposed to actual planes, with regard to piloting? This came to mind when I remembered another oddity, that planes can often be pointed straight up and climb better than they do when angled.

I assume the drag rule includes additional wings. Is there any rule of thumb for when "More wings" ceases to be useful for lowering takeoff speed? To be honest that is also my question - basically, what are the rules of the odd aerodynamics we find ourselves flying in using stock, so that I can adapt my flying habits to this new way of doing things? At the moment I basically apply my understanding of normal flight and apply corrective measures when that doesn't work... which often doesn't work. Other users seem to manage flight (indeed, even SSTO spaceplanes) with stock aerodynamics. My aim isn't to complain about the current model (which I could just mod out), it's just to ask what rules I should use for operating below space. In the end, this information might be useful for stock SSTO designs. As for the specifics of why I'm not going into space... it involves a problem with the Unit-E life support on a Minmus rocket.

I'm not particularly knowledgeable about aerodynamics, but stock aircraft handling has always felt off to me - aircraft handle very differently to my expectations from other simulators. In a rough description, I would say they handle almost like rockets - during a turn, they seem to maintain speed in the direction they were previously heading in, instead of maintaining forward speed but relocating it to the new direction of flight, among other oddities. I've seen a few videos of people flying with modified aerodynamics like FAR and those aircraft appear to operate roughly as I would expect. I was testing a new plane earlier today and flew it up a few thousand metres high, then glided it back to KSC. Even during steep dives the plane lost speed without thrust, and sometimes appeared to gain speed when pitching up. My expectation was that one could trade altitude for speed when gliding, but this did not seem to occur, with speed loss remaining constant. I tried another test prior to making this post, this time using a different design, and placing it into a vertical dive with engines powered down. Again, it didn't gain speed and proved unable to pull up before crashing despite remaining fast enough to fly. (Contrary to expectations.) That specific example is possibly an oddity of the speed indicator rather than aerodynamics, but it lead me to wonder. How do stock aerodynamics actually work? What are the general rules? What traditional ways of flying (such as trading altitude for speed) work differently in stock aerodynamics? I understand this is a broad question (or series of questions), but hopefully it can yield some explanations that are useful to keep in mind for future plane designs and future flights when using stock aerodynamics.

It might be more convenient. Things do have a way of making themselves apparent already, though. Maybe it would make giving feedback easier, for better or for worse.

Exploder 1 to Exploder 8. A series of very wobbly satellite launchers that tended to be hit by their own SRBs, sometimes at full power resulting in the entire craft exploding, or during gravity turn destroying the main engine and leaving it unable to reach orbit. Alternately, a small rocket powered plane called "Lodens Lament", since Loden was the only pilot and it required parachutes to descend safely once out of fuel.

Floating above Kerbin aboard my StarLab space station. I decided the main 3 Kerbals were safer there than they would be in most other places, though I guess they'll have to come home sooner or later.

I've not yet found a use for a massive station (maybe that will change as I get further away from Kerbin), so every station I've made so far has been assembled entirely on the ground then orbited in a single launch. I'd likely always mount an additional docking port to larger stations to allow for future unforeseen expansion.

The rather unexciting StarLab Mass: 11t Parts: 34 Height: 6.5m Width: 2.7m Length: 8.2m Crew Capacity: 3 in standard operations, up to 6 if necessary. Liquid Fuel:90 (the station is not fitted with an engine, so this is purely for the event a visiting ship doesn't have enough fuel.) Monoprop Capacity: 300 (~160 remaining) Scientific Capabilities: Gravity scanner x2 , Temperature scanner x2, Mystery Goo container x2, SC-9001 Materials Bay x1, Crew EVA capability, Laptop that still has "Y2K Safe" sticker for typing up crew reports. Possibilities to make it more exciting currently being considered by Mission Control include pushing a StarLab into a Mun orbit, using it as the starting point of a larger station, or launching 3 more StarLabs, 1 with a multi-point-connector, and docking them all. This provides no additional scientific value, but might look cool.

I built a small 1950s style jet (based on the MiG-15, but not greatly accurate.) then used it to test an Ejection system. The system isn't ideal since crew have to be transferred to it on the ground, so it has little advantage over just detaching the nose with a parachute. It's also not ideal that you always have to manually swap to the ejection seat, even if you select "control from here" before firing. After further testing, it seems a more effective ejector system than I would have expected - It can eject on the runway at 0m/s, during regular flight or aerobatic flight, at low altitude while inverted (so long as the parachute stages at the same time as the rockets), and is capable of landing in water safely. When fired uncrewed by accident (and thus being unable to stage the parachute), the crash back at KSC only damaged the rockets, leaving the seat intact. EDIT: I tried another low altitude ejection test and the seat performed as planned, so I turned the plane around and flew over it at low height. The seat reloaded above the plane and fell into it, making it get stuck in the wing. The plane lost control and crashed into Kerbin. When the explosions cleared, only two parts were left: The cockpit and the Ejector system. I suppose a use for the system would be if a spaceplane took damage during ascent that would mean it was impossible to land, the crew could transfer to these seats in space, then eject once the plane falls to low altitude.