Hotaru

The "Explore X" contracts are a perfect example of the kind of contracts that should be user-selectable, not just whatever strikes the RNG's fancy. So, you want to go to Duna? No, I really, really think you should go to Vall. Because reasons. I'm an RNG. Your argument is invalid. Tourism is another one. How cool would it be if you could define which destinations you're offering service to? So tourists will quit trying to book flights to Eeloo on Munar Spacelines, Inc. Dammit, guys, I'm not offering flights to Eeloo yet! We haven't even been to Duna! We haven't invented nuclear motors! We haven't even invented Poodles! What could possibly have possessed you to think you can buy a ticket to Eeloo? Another one is... well, all of them, really. They should all be user-selectable. All it would take is one new screen in Mission Control, with two lists of checkboxes: contract types, and destinations. Select which ones you're in the mood for, deselect the rest, problem solved.

@DunaRocketeer The T45 is actually one of my favorite engines to use for large upper stages. Also, I'm enjoying seeing how far I can get with early-game engines (although most of the rest of the tech tree is unlocked at this point); really the only other viable option would be a cluster of Terriers. Bravado 1 at Eve. Space station ops. Sagacity 1 at Jool. Probe launches. Bravado 1 encounter with Eve.

Year 7, day 35 was the date of the Bravado launch.

Bravado 1 underway. Intrepidity 16 and Minmus ops. Bravado 1: first kermanned flyby of Eve. Also: Kerzer, Tangel, and Chris arrived at station Patience II aboard Intrepidity S-6, bringing the station to its full operational crew of 6 for the first time.

Texture Replacer changes textures but not models. Props like the hair and glasses need Kerbal Inventory System. Those particular ones, I think, are from Pro Props, which adds a variety of items which can be equipped via KIS. Downside: doesn't work in IVA.

I agree. It doesn't happen often, but I have run into a few situations in which I needed to be able to quickly set "control from here" on a hard-to-reach part, and it would have saved me some headaches if I'd been able to set that to an action group.

True, but about a third of the full science value can be transmitted, which is still a fair amount of science from distant targets.. (My use of the word "return" in that sentence may have been misleading, needless to say that probe will transmit data but not actually return to Kerbin for recovery.) Thanks! Videos are a lot more work than screenshots so don't expect them too often, but I do plan to make more in the future.

Almost, finally, getting to the point of starting kermanned interplanetary missions. Current plan is for a kermanned Eve flyby, Bravado 1, to be launched at the next window--the vehicle is already built & its departure should be in the next update. Hopefully. Unless it isn't. Boring stuff: TL;DR: KIS for helmet lights, Hullcam VDS for cameras. Intrepidity 15 mission to the Munar Farside Basin in convenient YouTube form: Sagacity 2 and Timidity 5: exploring Ike. Patience II and Endurance I assembly and crew rotations. Intrepidity 13 and 15: new discoveries on the Mun. Pugnacity RCS pod: exploration of Minmus.

So I've been playing career mode. I haven't been hugely worried about contracts since I'm far enough along that cash isn't much of a problem, but recently I started to notice something: I was only ever getting "science from x" and "plant flag on x" contracts. The cycle goes something like this. I accept a contract for science from Mun surface. Easy, accept, send a mission there, complete the contract, go back to pick another one. Science from Dres. OK, I've got an orbiter there, couple clicks later that one's done and I'm picking another one. Science from Kerbin. OK, send a crew report down from my space station, done, pick another one. Science from Eve surface... wait, what the heck happened to other types of contracts? Why haven't I had a tourism contract in a while, or a satellite launch, or a survey...? And then I remember the contract weighting system. Of which there is exactly ZERO mention in game, which is why I forgot it existed. "Science from x" contracts are easy to the point of being practically free money--> I always accept them--> game is convinced I want to do nothing but "science from x" contracts--> I stop getting any other kind. I remember back when the weighting system was introduced, I think in 1.1. I posted my qualms about it in the Devnotes thread. A lot of people agreed with me but obviously Squad ignored me, because I turned out to be completely and utterly right. Especially since the system appears to be incredibly sensitive--accepting or declining just a half-dozen or so contracts is enough to throw the weighting all out of whack. The problem is, there's a lot of situations in which a user might always accept a certain type of contract--but that doesn't mean they never want to do other types. My science contract issue is one example. Another would be a user who, as a rule, always accepts rescue contracts--they would rapidly end up doing nothing else. And there are undoubtedly others that I haven't encountered yet because I personally don't happen to play those ways. For my own purposes in my own game, I'm not that bothered about it. I've already edited my contracts.cfg to disable rescues to avoid that problem, I'll probably just edit it again to disable weighting entirely. My concern is for relatively new users, users who are averse to modding for whatever reason, and users on consoles who don't have the option to edit config files. Such a user might not even know the contract system is weighted, let alone how to edit configs or selectively accept and decline contracts to manipulate the weighting system, and a few missions into career mode be completely baffled by why they're getting nothing but constant, endless rescue missions. So here are my suggestions, in ascending order of probable annoyance to implement: remove the weighting system entirely, add a toggle for it in the difficulty options, or replace it with a system where the user can set their own priorities.

Mouse over the maneuver node in map view to bring up the information. Right click on it to make it "stick" and stay displayed after you move the mouse away. Same works for AP/PE, AN/DN, intercepts, spacecraft info, etc. PS. If the maneuver nodes are stacked (i. e. in the same exact place or very near, such as periapsis kicks) mousing over them will show info for both. Same goes if other info-displayable stuff is there too.

Does it have a battery? (A separate one, not the one built-in to the probe core.) You mention adding one but I don't see it in the screenshot, unless it's mounted on the opposite side of the probe or clipped inside somewhere. Not sure if that's even a requirement but might be worth a check.

I think this was done for gameplay reasons rather than realism. If the relay antennas were just as capable as direct antennas, same mass, same space, why use the direct ones ever? So the tradeoff is relay antennas have relay capabilities but are heavier and bulkier. Seems reasonable to me.

Personally I don't think it's a silly suggestion at all: I think the stock game should at some point get better-looking water. The old water was, as has been mentioned, kind of weird looking and also SOLID, but it had a kind of nice textured shininess to it whereas the current water is completely flat, with no sense of depth or wave action, let alone any kind of reflection. Scatterer I think goes too far in the other direction: it's super-realistic looking and looks great in screenshots, but comes with a substantial performance hit that not all of us have hardware to handle. (Personally I can run the game with Scatterer water but the FPS hit isn't worth it.) What I'd like to see in vanilla KSP is a middle ground--something with a little more depth, nicer animated wave action, and especially some reflectivity, but not so detailed as to be a huge FPS hog.

Boring stuff: Installed Engine Lighting. Night launch of Intrepidity 12 on a Frumious VI rocket. Intrepidity 12, an even more repetitive mission to the Mun than usual. More probe launches. Rationality 8 at Gilly.

Both. They will continue to launch modules to space stations in the Kerbin system, after which they will be used for the first stages of kermanned interplanetary exploration--preliminary missions to Duna, Ike, and Gilly. The screenshot a couple posts back shows a mockup of the interplanetary ship, based on an Intrepidity lander and a modified Frumious upper stage. That system will use three Frumious launches for each interplanetary mission--transfer stage/orbital module, tanker, and lander. Eventually the Frumious will be replaced by something built around 2.5-meter engines (due to lag if nothing else), but for the time being I'm kind of enjoying seeing how far I can get with only T30s and T45s.

And we're back. No mod changes in spite of the long gap, so far everything still seems to work fine in 1.2.2. One small change in plans, however: since it looks like the PorkJet rocket parts will not in fact be made stock, and I've noticed the engines have slightly different stats to their stock counterparts, I've decided to stop using them. Space station Patience 2 in orbit, with Intrepidity S-4 docked, after installation of solar array and laboratory modules. Rationality 7 and 8, probes to Moho and Gilly. Patience 2 crew rotation and assembly flights.

I actually think it's a good category for KSP, which is partly about fun with explosions. I just think nominating it for only that is missing the point.

It occurs to me (looking through today's awards and seeing nothing I can vote for) that this wouldn't bother me at all if KSP had also been nominated for one of the other awards. The problem isn't "KSP isn't about explosions," so much as "KSP isn't just about explosions." If it had also been nominated for, say, "Just 5 more minutes," I'd happily vote for it in both categories. But seeing it only in the explosion category feels like blowing stuff up is the entire point of the game, and those of us who like to, say, explore space are just a few niche weirdos with no lives. So although I appreciate the recognition for one of my favorite games, I can't help but be a little insulted.

A game where like 80% of the point is avoiding explosions nominated for the explosion award? That seems... wrong, somehow. If I want explosions I'll play a game where I'm making my enemies explode. I prefer to avoid exploding, myself.

None of the above. Well, all of the above really, but the two visuals that I find most distracting in stock KSP are the skybox and the Kerbals. If I could have only one cosmetic mod in my game, it'd be Texture Replacer.

Nope, I'm still around. Real life has gotten a little more interesting the past month or so and I haven't been playing KSP, but I'm looking forward to getting back to it. Taking occasional breaks helps avoid getting burned out in the long run anyway so when I do come back I should be a little more in the spirit of things.

@Andem Thanks for the suggestions, especially GEMFX. I've installed it for this update and it has some severely cool effects. Bit of a frame rate drop (weirdly a lot worse in some places than others--especially the VAB, for some reason) but since it can be toggled without restarting KSP I can live with it. Still experimenting with the settings, might take a couple updates before I'm really satisfied. Right now it looks great on the Mun and airless bodies but the atmospheres of Kerbin and Laythe still look a little overexposed, and I can't decide whether the dirt-on-the-lens effect is too harsh or not. The third kerbonaut class with a mockup of the Bravado interplanetary spacecraft. Left to right: Jochelle, Ziggy, Agalinne, Lemlock, Gemlina, Alvis, Johndo, Phoberta, Deblian, and Hayberta. Intrepidity 11, yes we're going to the Mun again, shut up. Rationality 7, Timidity 4, and Rationality 4, probes to Moho, the Mun, and Jool. Patience 2 solar array installation. Also: Lodald, Chris, and Tangel returned from Minmus station Endurance 1 aboard Intrepidity 8. Intrepidity 10B delivered P2 Kerzer, S2 Thomptrey, and E2 Mitrie to Endurance 1. Intrepidity 10, with the same crew, ended in an abort after the service module failed to separate from the Frumious II rocket.

@Angel-125 Thanks! I wouldn't say the Valor didn't work out; it served its purpose (transporting multiple kerbals to space before the Mk 1-2 pod or 2.5m parts) even if it only actually flew two operational missions. Its main trouble was stability; it would work a lot better with a decent autopilot, both going up and coming down. A bunch of mods try different approaches the early-game 2-seater problem. In addition to MOLE, HGR and Ven's Revamp both add 2-seat pods (in 1.875m and 2.5m sizes, respectively) and there are a couple of standalone mods, including Corvus and K2, and probably some others I'm forgetting and/or don't know about. My personal favorite is the HGR "Radish" pod, but they're all good mods. I've used some of them in the past and will again in future--but for this save I kind of enjoyed the challenge of coming up with a stock solution that wasn't too inelegant. "Joolrise" over Vall as seen by Rationality 4 during its second and final flyby. Rationality 4: "Grand Tour" of the Joolian system.

Kerbal Modding Program.

Boring stuff: TL;DR: Uninstalled SVT. Intrepidity 9 en route to Minmus. Circumspection 3, first unkermanned landing on Duna. Rationality 3 encounter with Eeloo. Space station ops. Intrepidity 9, second landing on Minmus.