Hotaru

Just because they'd be too big to push around doesn't mean they wouldn't be worthwhile. At some point they just become new destinations that can be orbited, sampled, and landed on like very small planets. Personally I'd love to see an intermediate class of body: procedurally generated and discoverable just like the current "potatoroids," but bigger and otherwise treated the same as planets. These could populate an asteroid belt, with the occasional Trojan or near-Kerbin asteroid, and maybe even a few periodic comets. I think such bodies would make for a very interesting new category of mission targets, just like asteroids and comets have increasingly been targets for missions in real life the past decade or two. They also should be relatively easy to add to the game compared to, say, new major planets.

If so, it'd go a long way toward explaining where all those mysteriously stranded Kerbals in need of rescue are coming from.

Last couple real-life weeks have been pretty busy, some good stuff and some less good but all of it conspiring to keep me from playing KSP. Still slowly making progress though. SS Valerie departed the Jool system on a two-year transit back to Kerbin. Sungrazer 1 finally reached its periapsis and returned near-Sun data. It reached an altitude of about 678,000 kilometers before overheating. An unmanned mining rig completed my first landing on Dres in advance of a manned mission still a few weeks out. During descent, it happened to get a good "family portrait" view of the entire solar system. Bottom to top--Dres (obviously), Jool, Eeloo (hard to see, it's above and to the right of Jool), Eve, Kerbol, Moho, Kerbin, and Duna. A new light Spacebus, Wanda, went up from KSC on a boosted RLV-330. SS Hornblower arrived at Moho after an hour-long orbital insertion burn and several more burns to circularize. In spite of all the radiators, its engines were pretty near to overheating by the end of the burn.

I tend to call it a "friendship."

It's worth keeping things in perspective here. I severely disagree with this particular decision, and I think it is absolutely a breach of our trust as paying customers. On the other hand, it's just a single decision, made for openly-stated, technical reasons, not some nefarious scheme to make a fortune by ripping off customers. On the whole Squad has been extremely supportive of its community, much more so than any other developer I've ever dealt with, and I don't think it's quite fair to condemn them as a "poor company" or any such thing because of a single incident.

The more I think about this business, the more it bothers me. I bought the game through Steam. Whatever early access there is for Steam users, as it stands now, I'll be able to download, play, report bugs, whatever. So that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is Squad going back on an explicit promise that Steam and KSP Store users would be treated equally and get access to new versions of the game at the same time. I'm worried because this sets a dangerous precedent. Sure, I got lucky this time and ended up in the "privileged" group that's benefiting from this particular decision, but what about next time Squad goes back on their word? Just cause I'm not getting shortchanged this time doesn't mean I never will in the future. To be perfectly honest, I'd rather have 1.1 later, and buggier, if it means Squad keeps their promises. I've been waiting for 1.1 for months, another couple weeks won't kill me. Neither will the (probably inevitable, open beta or not) 1.1.1 hot fix.

Ah, I get it. I missed the part where this was going to be a series of pre-release updates; I was picturing a single download two weeks in advance, with no further updates until the full release. My mistake. I still think it's bad form.

As somebody who bought KSP on Steam and so will be able to download the 1.1 pre-release, I still think this is pretty inconsiderate towards people who bought the game directly from Squad. There was never any indication given that there would be any difference in updates available to people based on where they bought the game, and it was at least implied if not explicitly stated that everyone would be entitled to the same updates. The fact that it's an experimental pre-release doesn't matter: it's effectively the same open-alpha/beta state of every release prior to 1.0. Even if this isn't a breach of any actual legal contract, it's still bad form. I don't understand why Squad's own servers apparently can't handle the rush of downloads expected from a 1.1 pre-release, but presumably will be able to handle the (undoubtedly even bigger) rush when the full release is out. What's the difference?

The mod I use for this is an old one called Nebula Decals. Last updated for 0.25 but still works in 1.0+. Uses Firespitter.dll for texture switching and TweakScale for re-sizing.

For number two, I would say instead "try a different mod setup." If you've been playing a heavily modded game, try a pure- or mostly-stock install. If you've been a stock purist, try mods. If you've done both, try different combinations of mods. If things get too easy, start adding things like life support, Real Fuels, Remote Tech, or OPM. If things are still too easy, try switching to 64k or even RSS/RO. All of these things have the potential to help keep things interesting. That said, I have to agree with everybody who suggests "play something else for a while." I've been playing KSP about a year now and have already taken several months-long breaks during which I played Skyrim or GTA or Assetto Corsa and never touched KSP. When I finally got back in the mood and started KSP again, it was just as much fun as it had ever been, and a lot more fun than if I force myself to keep playing it when I'm starting to get burned out.

@PTNLemay The red exhaust is stock LV-N's with Real Plume Stock exhaust. After spending a few days on Laythe to wait for the Dauntless/Valerie stack to pass overhead again, Elizabeth returned to Laythe orbit to rendezvous with them. The crews of all three ships then transferred to Valerie (along with lots of science data and all the remaining fuel) for the trip back to Kerbin. Dauntless and Elizabeth will remain in Laythe orbit. Valerie departed Laythe for Pol at the next opportunity. The landing on Pol was tricky. Normally I let MechJeb handle this sort of thing, but Valerie was running low on both oxidizer for its Vernors and electricity for its (feeble) reaction wheels, so I had to do the landing manually. And by "manually" I mean manually: no auto-land, no SmartASS, not even stock SAS because all of those are pretty inefficient with RCS propellant. Bob: first Kerman on Pol!

A few years ago, the SS Dauntless launched from Kerbin for the Jool system. It was a preliminary survey mission, and once it arrived it completed encounters with all of the Joolian moons except Pol (including an EVA pack landing on Bop). It was never meant to return to Kerbin, though, so it used the last of its fuel to transfer to an inclined orbit of Laythe, where its three-Kerman crew has spent the last few years awaiting a relief mission. Yesterday, the relief mission finally arrived. The mission consisted of the SS Valerie, Starlet Elizabeth, and an expendable transfer stage. The stack of ships arrived in the Jool system via a powered Tylo encounter (during which the transfer stage was jettisoned) and an aerocapture at Laythe which put them into an eccentric orbit. After a plane change at apoapsis, the ships aerobraked into a 70x70km orbit to rendezvous with the Dauntless. That done, pilot Raymin and engineer Seanory took the Elizabeth--a modified Starlet SSTO--into the atmosphere for a landing. It was a little tricky, because the Starlet normally lands nearly empty whereas Elizabeth had to land fully-fueled, but with added lift from its braking rockets it was able to make a safe landing. Raymin: first Kerman on Laythe!

My space program passed a couple of minor milestones yesterday. With five science stations (as well as the lab on the Rumfoord) turning out data and all my major construction programs complete, the program is "in the black" again for the first time in several years. Also, with the arrival if Jool Orbiter 4 at Pol, I can now say I have orbited every body in the stock system. It was a good day for my unmanned program, as by coincidence a number of probes all arrived at their destinations within a few weeks of each other. Eeloo Orbiter 1 orbited and mapped Eeloo. Jool Orbiter 4 mapped Tylo, Vall, and Pol. Dres Orbiter 2 surveyed Dres in advance of a Kermanned mission currently outbound. And Moho Orbiter 2 finally arrived at Duna, which it mapped before transferring to Ike. It had originally, obviously, been meant to map Moho, but it encountered that planet with too much excess velocity to capture into orbit, so I decided to redirect it via an Eve flyby and several large maneuvers in solar orbit to Duna, which both saved me the trouble of launching another probe to Duna and completed a contract for encountering all three planets. Meanwhile, the Hornblower finished refueling itself and lifted off from Minmus. Fully fueled, its TWR on nukes only is about 0.1 at Kerbin; even on Minmus it can only just barely take off without the auxiliary motor. After a few weeks in high Kerbin orbit, Hornblower executed an extremely long (more than an hour of real time, between lag and that I can't use physics warp) departure burn for Moho. It's not an ideal transfer, the insertion burn will be almost 4 km/s, but that will still leave it with plenty of delta-v to spare for the landing.

In the stock system I think Gilly is where it'd be most noticeable. The upside is it'd be a lot less tricky to get an encounter if it was near apoapsis.

@elpollodiablo The mod is called Nebula Decals. Hasn't been updated since 0.25 but still works in 1.0+. Having once again changed my mind and decided I want to finish my 1.0.2 save off and start a new one in 1.0.5 (with a mission reports diary and possibly a video series) I'm trying to make some progress toward achieving the goal I set for this save: land and return from everywhere in the stock system. The Constant picked up Dottie from the Eve Ascent Vehicle and brought her and her science data to the Eve station to wait for the next return window. The Arnold stopped at Base Coalwood on Minmus to refuel, mostly so it could restock the LKO fuel depot which it emptied on the way to the Mun. Arnold then returned safely to Kerbin. Although the Mammoth-powered Spacebus 3H does work, it's inefficient and pretty ungainly. I'm looking at a smaller, more efficient 3H-B version which swaps the Mammoth for a Rhino and uses SRBs to get it off the pad; the prototype, Dorothy Ann, is under construction. (Hopefully I won't need too many more of these things because I'm running out of names.) Phoebe departed Gilly on its way back to Kerbin. It's taking a very inefficient trajectory, but it will arrive months before Constant, which is stuck in low Eve orbit and has to wait for a proper window. Starlet Alice delivered a four-Kerman crew to the ISRU cruiser Hornblower in LKO. The Hornblower then burned out of LKO for Minmus to refuel itself for a planned expedition to Moho.

SS Arnold left KSC on a crew rotation run which will also test its ability to land on the Mun and take off again, which is important because the plan is for it to be used at the next window for a tourist run to Duna and Ike. It rendezvoused with the Rumfoord in Kerbin orbit to pick up the skeleton crew who had been processing the data from Rumfoord's Duna mission, and deliver a full crew for its upcoming departure for Jool. It then refueled (completely draining the LKO fuel depot in the process) and headed for Base Ardan on the Mun. Meanwhile, the Rumfoord starts its two-year transit to Jool with a series of perfectly-timed 90-second periapsis kick burns thanks to the Maneuver Node Splitter mod, which thankfully seems to work fine in 1.0.2.

The point isn't whether you agree or disagree with that particular example. The point is that any rule that limits the possible approaches to a challenge has the potential to put people off and it's up to the challenge creator to decide whether it adds enough to the challenge to be worth it. The K-Prize thing wasn't a very good example. It really only bothers me because of the connection to the real-life X-Prize; if it were called "Kerbal Spaceplane to Orbit Challenge" I'd never have complained about things that aren't spaceplanes not being allowed. The Elcano ferry thing is a better example: it's a rule that doesn't really add anything to the challenge.

A few things that put me off a challenge: The first is anything that boils down to part-count (or, the "Who Has The Fastest CPU Challenge"). A lot of challenges look interesting at first, but as soon as I start thinking about how I might actually build an entry, I realize I'll run up against my part-count limit long before people with more powerful CPUs and almost immediately lose interest. The second (not entirely unrelated) is the phrase "No mods allowed." While there are exceptions--some challenges obviously only make sense with stock parts, or without MechJeb, or whatever--a lot of challenges just ban part mods when they could be much more inclusive by (for example) having separate stock and modded divisions. The reason this is related is, one of the main things I use part mods for is reducing part-count. Attempting something like Jool-5 without part mods on my system is borderline impossible due to lag, and even worse if I'm not allowed KJR. In general, as soon as I see "no mods" in the list of rules I instantly hit the "back" button. A third, more minor issue is unnecessary rules. Example: why is the K-Prize limited to horizontal take-off SSTOs? Why exclude SSTO rockets (especially since a number of entrants to the real-life X-Prize were in fact rockets)? Another example: Why can't I use a rover-and-ferry arrangement in the Elcano challenge? It's a completely arbitrary limitation that adds nothing to the challenge and requires entrants to use cumbersome amphibians to circumnavigate Kerbin where a ferry would make much more sense. While this sort of thing usually doesn't cause me to instantly give up on a challenge, it can be discouraging enough that I eventually lose interest. For me, the Elcano challenge is a good example of the right way to do it (neglecting my complaint about the ferry issue). It's a difficult-but-doable challenge that I probably wouldn't have tried if it weren't suggested, with a very inclusive set of rules. Jool-5, with a relatively inclusive list of allowed mods and separate ISRU division, is another good example.

Returned from Eve for the first time! After disconnecting the ascent vehicle from the mining rover, Dottie had to climb an extremely long ladder to get to the cockpit. Liftoff! After much messing with save files, F5/F9'ing, restarting and finally (paradoxically) uninstalling KJR to get the thing to stand up under its own weight. Even after all that I couldn't get it to not break its landing legs, so it went up with most of them still deployed. Boosters jettisoned, the core takes the ship through most of Eve's atmosphere and starts the gravity turn. Unfortunately it's a bit of a noodle without KJR, and I had to do nearly all the flying manually since MechJeb didn't know what to make of it and it didn't have stock SAS. Clear of the worst of the atmosphere, the Poodle second stage ignites to put the ship into orbit. It turned out to be insanely over-designed, in fact it made orbit with enough fuel left in the second and (unused) third stages to get all the way back to Kerbin. That's not the plan, though, so now Dottie is waiting in Eve orbit for the Constant to pick her up and return her to Kerbin at the next window.

Finally managed to get back to my main career save after a week stuck in OS X to do homework. This is a launch I've been looking forward to for a while: the SS Hornblower, a prototype self-refueling interplanetary ship inspired by some similar designs I've seen in this thread. Unlike my Aqualungs and Spacebuses, which are reliant on stationary mining rigs for surface refueling, Hornblower has its own ISRU equipment. Surprisingly, the ascent to orbit worked on the first try without trouble. It has nine nukes in three nacelles, with a single Mainsail auxiliary engine to provide additional TWR for takeoff and landing on larger planets. I don't remember the exact figures (I built it a while ago) but it has something like 9,000 m/s of delta-v fully fueled, and enough TWR to land anywhere but Kerbin, Eve, Tylo, or Laythe. (Duna is marginal.) It went up unmanned and rendezvoused with Super Aqualung Violet to take on fuel. Once it has its crew, it'll stop at Minmus to fully refuel itself, then depart for Moho.

If you don't want your mods to be freely redistributed, don't publish them under a license that allows free redistribution. If you want to allow people to build on your work but not just re-post the original, pick a license that allows redistribution of derivatives, but not the unmodified original. This is exactly why we have licenses in the first place: they give mod authors control over if and how their work is redistributed. If you want to play it safe, you can always stick to "no redistribution without permission." Personally I think it's poor etiquette to re-post somebody's mods without consulting them (unless they've made it explicitly clear that this is OK), but if the mod author picked a too-permissive license, that's at least partly on them. Of course, if people are violating the licenses by re-posting mods elsewhere, that's another story.

That can sometimes happen. Hit Alt-F12 to open the debug menu and click on "clear input lock stack," that always clears it up for me.

In the case of KerbalStuff and Curse, it was the majority of people who upload and download mods. Whoever they were exactly, more of them went to KS than to Curse. I wouldn't suggest that partnering with Curse was specifically meant as an insult to the community. I think it was neither more nor less than a questionable business decision. Frankly, I think partnering with such a tacky site makes Squad look bad, especially if people frequently end up on the main Curse site with its huge T-Mobile banners everywhere and not the much less horrible, and ad-free, Curse Forge site. Still, I think the fact Squad's official mod hosting site had less activity than its community counterpart--which itself was created entirely as a response to Curse--should be a hint that the Curse deal just isn't working out as well as Squad expected, and that they should at least contemplate alternatives. That could mean finding a better outsourcing partner, building their own site, or supporting a community-run site. All the choices (including just sticking with Curse) have pros and cons, but I don't believe any of them would be prohibitively difficult.

I think this is where you misunderstand me. It's not about what we have access to. Obviously Squad isn't forcing us to put our mods up only on Curse, nor, as far as I know, have they ever considered doing such a thing. It's more about Squad's attitude towards the community. On the whole, Squad is extremely supportive of the community that has developed around KSP, which is one of the things I really love about them and this game. The whole mod repository business is a glaring exception, and it could be fixed with the simple addition of one extra link each to the game, KSP home page, and/or this forum, leading to whatever the most active community mod site is at that moment, if such a site exists. This would be extremely simple to implement, and would require only occasional, cursory checks on the situation to maintain. It would not take significant dev time away from making the game.

If Squad actively supported an official mod repository like SpaceDock, it could conceivably be made much less likely to fail. Replacements could be found more easily for people who leave the team. Reliance on individual users who might get burned out could be avoided. Improvements could be made based on community feedback. It would definitely be trickier to manage than the Curse partnership, but possibly worth it if handled well. Or it could be a fiasco like the original Space Port. It all depends. Either way, it's not a completely ridiculous suggestion. I agree there's a good argument to be made in favor of the outsourcing option, although I still don't understand why Squad picked such an unpleasant partner as Curse. No. In fact I suspect such a list, updated irregularly and frequently left out-of-date, would do more harm than good by directing people to old, defunct sites and away from new, active ones. What I would like is for Squad to call attention to the main community repository, especially if it's so successful it actually hosts more mods than their own official partner. For instance: suppose when you click "Get Mods!" in the KSP menu or on the forum header, instead of taking you straight to Curse, you get a dialogue with two options: Official Site (takes you to Curse) and Community Site (takes you to SpaceDock). Yes, someone would have to keep track of what the most popular community repository actually is, but based on the history of KSP mod repositories so far, that wouldn't be too hard. (It could get awkward if there were two community-run competitors of roughly equal popularity, but that seems unlikely at the moment.) And if there simply stopped being a popular community option, that button could just go back to sending people straight to Curse like it's always done.