Hotaru

Modders can put stuff wherever they want, of course. My question is about Squad's choice of an official partner for mod hosting. Frankly I'm not all that bothered about it, I'll keep happily playing and modding KSP no matter who Squad decides to partner with. But I have to admit to being a little insulted by the whole Curse business.

I absolutely agree Nexus could do with improvement. I'm pretty used to it because I use it a lot for Skyrim, Fallout, etc. but it's not really that great a website (and I didn't know you had to register to download large files, that's kind of stupid). Again, I mentioned it only as an example of an alternative that wasn't Curse--I'm sure there are better alternatives to both of them out there. (I hope.) So I just went to KSP Curseforge and actually looked at it for a bit (which I haven't done in ages, since I usually avoid it like the plague), and I have to admit it's not quite as awful as I remembered. Not brilliant, but not unusable either. (Curse-not-forge, on the other hand, was even more awful than I remembered. I got a horrible massive pink T-Mobile popup ad covering the actual content, not to mention an Adobe "update Flash!" notice.) I still say there must be a better option out there. Of course as soon as I finished writing that, I decided to take a look at Curseforge again to check something and got an error. All in all, I think I'll stick with Space Dock. What? I was referring specifically to the screenshot of the Curse home page you posted when I said it was littered with ads! (Admittedly the same is true of the one you posted of the Nexus site). And now I look at that screenshot more closely, I see they're not actually ads, but links to various sections of Curse. My mistake. But it's still such a horrible, cluttered layout I just assumed it was littered with ads and left so fast I didn't have time to realize my mistake.

Because we don't like it. By "we" I mean "a fairly large number of users, including me." Obviously everyone doesn't object to it, and it's risky to even say most users object to it, but I think it's safe to say many users prefer to avoid Curse for one reason or another. Honestly, my main objection to Curse is nothing to do with ads or malware, it's just that I just think it's a lousy website. Badly designed, badly laid out, unpleasant to use. Nexus is somewhat better, in my opinion, although I mentioned it more by way of an example of an alternative that wasn't Curse than an actual specific suggestion. Frankly I think KerbalStuff/Space Dock is orders of magnitude better than either of them. If the Curse(forge) KSP page looked more like the KS/SD home page--uncluttered, nice design, featured mods displayed prominently--a lot of my complaints about it would evaporate. As it is, the Curse page is littered with ads horribly cluttered, and the KSP Curse Forge page is basically one big ad for itself. PS. As Sal points out below, there aren't actually any ads on the Curse page he posted a screenshot of. It's just an awful page layout.

Here's my question: why Curse? I don't mean, "why did Squad decide to outsource mod hosting instead of building their own Spaceport Mark 2." The reasons for that have been explained at length, and I don't entirely disagree with them. My question is, of all the sites or companies they could have outsourced the hosting business to, what posessed them to pick Curse(forge)? There are much less objectionable alternatives out there, the only one I know off the top of my head is Nexus (which does have ads but is nowhere near as awful as Curse) but I'm sure there are others. I can't believe Curse was the only option. So why did Squad go with them, and stick with them obstinately in the face of a constant stream of complaints from users? Honestly, I'm baffled by the whole business. Curse is such a slap in the face to a community Squad has otherwise been extremely supportive of. And while Squad didn't completely ignore KerbalStuff as has been claimed, they did in my recollection make a point of avoiding mention of it when possible; all official links to modding sites point to Curse, with not even a hint that alternatives exist. I bet a lot of users not active on the forums think Curse is the only (or at least the definitive) modding site for KSP, which is a shame because a lot of good mods aren't available there. In any case though, I'm really excited to see the progress on Space Dock, which I think will be a worthy replacement to KerbalStuff.

You're right, but it's still not the usual way for quitting a full-screen program like a game. At least I don't normally use it that way, I generally only use it to quit windowed applications. It seems to work fine with KSP, fortunately, but in other full-screen programs I've had it cause weird problems or just be ignored completely. I'm not sure whether Alt-F4 is considered force-quit on Windows or just a standard keyboard shortcut. I've always thought of it as force-quit. And I know there is a mod that changes this, but this section is about suggestions for the stock game. This is absolutely something that should be implemented in stock, I really shouldn't have to install a mod just to avoid the ridiculous maze that is the current system for quitting KSP. PS. I've also had to use command-option-esc on occasion, since for some reason KSP freezes up on OSX when it runs out of memory, instead of crashing to desktop like it does on Windows. (Great selling point for Windows there: On our OS, games crash better!)

Command-Q works fine on OSX, Alt-F4 on Windows. I've only ever gotten save-file issues if I happened to quit while the game was in the process of saving, which can be avoided by waiting a few seconds after a scene change or hitting F5. That said, it's a bad sign that we're all using variations on the theme of force-quit to get out of KSP rather than the game's own "quit" button/labyrinth. I haven't actually timed it but I'd guess it can take at least half a minute to get from a flight scene all the way out to the desktop using the standard procedure. It would be extremely nice if we had simple "Quit to Desktop" and "Quit to Menu" buttons in every screen, followed by a single "Are you sure you want to quit?" confirmation, just to avoid doing it by accident. Interestingly, the current system actually makes it more likely for me to accidentally quit the game, rather than less. I frequently make hard saves while in flight, the key command for which is Alt-F5. You can imagine what happens (on Windows anyway) if I happen to accidentally hit just one key to the left!

I would guess forum post views only count if the user actually clicks on the embedded video to watch it.

My experience is that a completely stock game generally runs fine on any platform. A few informational mods generally don't hurt, but as soon as I start adding part or cosmetic mods, 32-bit starts crashing pretty regularly. This install doesn't have any part mods, but it does have EVE and Texture Replacer, both of which are pretty memory-hungry. I also seem to have lower tolerance than a lot of people for low FPS. Anything under 20 bothers me, and I consider anything less than 10 unplayable. That together with a slowish CPU pretty much limits me to about 100 parts--hence why I can't really do much without KJR. Anyway, more progress on my stock career: First landing on Minmus, now with the three-seater pod. Uprated version of the launch vehicle adds a transfer stage for interplanetary missions. A double mission sends one crew to Duna... ...and another to Ike. I'll probably have to stop once I've got these crews back; the constant restarts are annoying, and I'm looking forward to getting back to my main save anyway. Even with only one landing in one biome for each mission, this will still bring back enough science to unlock most of what's left of the tech tree. A flight or two with the gravioli detector should finish it off.

Does this work for reentries at steep AoA, as with the Shuttle? I've always preferred to build low-drag, high-TWR SSTOs that blast out of the atmosphere before any serious heat builds up, and then reenter at ~70º AoA, bringing the nose down to glide in somewhere around 900 m/s and 15,000 meters, after heating has died down.

Spent the last couple days playing a pure-stock career. No MJ, no KER, no KAC, none of the mods I'm used to relying on, just cosmetics, UI mods and KJR (without which all but the simplest rockets make the game pretty much unplayable on my system due to strut-induced lag). It's been interesting, although I'm going to have to call it quits soon because even with the few mods I do have my OSX install crashes after a half-dozen scene changes. (Seriously, how is anyone managing to play anything other than a bone-stock game without either Linux or the 64-bit hack? How did I manage to do it back in 0.90?) Anyway, here are some of the highlights: First Mun shot, and first solar orbit (even looks a bit like a Luna probe). Finally realized that battery-powered early-game interplanetary probes are possible if you switch away from the probe while it's in transit. I figure it's in low-power hibernation mode or something. Why it took me over a year to think of that, I'll never know. Valentina completes the first EVA in Kerbin orbit. First (crash-) landing on the Mun. It was actually an orbiter, but had plenty of fuel left in orbit so I decided to try to land it. If you thought landing on the Mun without MechJeb was fun, try landing without SAS. Jebediah: first Kerman on the Mun.

Texture Replacer. The forum thread OP has links to a variety of Kerbal texture packs, including the two in the picture (Diverse Kerbal Heads for the guy and my female Kerbal pack for the girl). PS. And Cetera's Suits for the suits.

Made a space shuttle! A little one. It's completely useless, of course, since it can't really do anything an SSTO or a regular old rocket couldn't do better. (Admittedly the same could possibly be said of the real one.) Even a single Vector is really more engine than it needs, but a T45 wasn't enough and those are pretty much the only options in stock. The 24-77s (there's another one on the underside) are OMS engines, since the angled Vector is useless once the ET is gone. Reentry is a bit hot since it doesn't really have the control authority to keep the nose up properly. Normally I maintain stability during reentry by transferring fuel around, but this thing only has the one tank at the back, so I just keep my finger on "S" all the way down to about 1,000 m/s. Landing is annoying too, since it handles like a brick and has only has the OMS engines to prolong the subsonic glide (and since I haven't set up my joystick on OSX so had to bring it in with keyboard controls). Still, it all worked and the ship competed a successful one-orbit mission. Might try building a version around Ven's 2.5-meter cryo tanks and 1.25-meter Skipper later.

I've been messing around in my OSX install--pretty much stock, except cosmetics, bug fixes, and KJR--for the past few days, taking a break from career mode, and ended up doing several things I'd never done before. First, I decided since I'd never done an interplanetary mission without MechJeb before, I'd go to Duna. Result: The whole first stage blew up when the boosters separated, but the rest of the ship still had enough fuel to get to the Mun so I decided to send it there instead. It had plenty of fuel to get home, but I somehow managed to send it off in completely the wrong direction, on a hyperbolic trajectory past Kerbin and out into solar orbit. So I fixed the booster problem, added a probe core, and sent up another one as a rescue mission, during the course of which I had to rendezvous with a target on a hyperbolic trajectory, which I'd never actually done before, MechJeb or no. (I've retrieved asteroids before, but always ones that had been fortuitously captured into Kerbin orbit.) It turned out not to be all that complicated, but it was still pretty satisfying to get that crew safely back to Kerbin. Anyway, once I got the crew of the first attempt back I sent up another mission which actually did make it to Duna. It was running a little shorter on fuel than planned once it returned to Duna orbit, so I decided to try departing via an Ike flyby, which was lucky, because even though it only saved about 50 m/s compared to a direct departure, the ship made it back to Kerbin with zero fuel left in the tanks. Probably as close as I've ever cut a mission without having to get out and push. After I got bored with throwing stuff at Duna (this is why I usually play career mode) I sent up a vaguely Mir-inspired space station, which I might expand later if I can think of anything interesting to add to it, and a claw-equipped debris-deorbiter. The deorbiter turned out to be so useful I'm giving some thought to building one in my career save.

This is one I made while I was playing with Real Fuels for the first time in sandbox mode: It got tested pretty thoroughly since various things kept going wrong with the rockets. I even had an automated abort sequence worked out after a while using Smart Parts: firing the abort action group decoupled the capsule and started the abort motors, obviously, but also started a timer to jettison the escape tower about a second later (with its engines still running, so it was pulled clear of the capsule), then jettison the retro-package and arm the chutes. All stock except for the motors, which are Ven's Snub-o-Trons, but an older version of it worked fine with stock Seperatrons clipped into the nose cone as well. A much simpler version (if you're not trying to make a Mercury capsule look-alike) is to just stick two Seperatrons on the sides of the capsule. Added bonus: since they're not jettisoned, they double as retrorockets with about 150 m/s of delta-v. For the Mk 1-2, I just use more Separatrons: The nosecone-and-Separatron approach is pretty reliable, and also works with a fairing below it, closed around the nose cone, for more of a Soyuz-style setup. Although if I'm going more for looks than functionality I might just use the stock LES (which is really good enough for any scenario other than a pad abort).

My experience is that disconnecting a thing with KAS and then immediately reconnecting it to something else can cause explosions. Not sure if it happens every time, but I think it's more reliable if you can disconnect the part, put it in a KIS inventory (the Kerbal's if the part is small enough, or a container), then take it back out of the inventory and attach it wherever you want it moved. As far as the harpoons go, I seem to remember I had them working once in 1.0.2, but I haven't had any luck with them since. If I want to use KAS to connect two ships, I use pipes (or one pipe and struts).

With the ascent vehicle. It's landing in the first image, not taking off. It is facing retrograde. It fired its retrorockets, then turned around for entry. Again, it's landing, not taking off. The airbrakes were used to stabilize it through entry, descent, and landing; they will not be used on the ascent. Had to be an engineer to hook up the mining rover to the ascent vehicle, not to mention repairing potential blown tires on the rover. Believe me, Dottie is just as BadS as Jeb. There's a reason she was picked for this mission.

Finally getting started on my first Eve return attempt. With the Eve fleet all safely in orbit, the ascent vehicle went down first, unmanned. It made a safe landing in the equatorial midlands at around 1,200 meters elevation, about 30 kilometers short of its intended target (which was in the highlands at over 2,000 meters), but still a decent site. In principle the ship can take off from sea level, but the extra elevation should give it a bit more margin for error. The mining rover was next, also unmanned; it landed under parachutes about 15 kilometers short of the ascent vehicle. Last was the heavily-instrumented hab module, which separated from the Constant in low Eve orbit, fired its retro-rockets, and descended through the atmosphere for a landing about 5 kilometers away from the ascent vehicle. Engineer Dottie: first Kerman on Eve!

A Thud-like arrangement isn't that hard to get with stock nukes: attach a slanted nose cone or tail cone, flat end down, to the side of your ship, then attach the nuke (or any stack-mount-only 1.25m engine) to the flat end of the cone. Obviously that's two parts instead of one and it's a lot longer than a Thud, but if all you need is a way to mount an LV-N radially it should work. I use this arrangement a lot for heavy landing craft, where trying to mount the nukes underneath the tail would result in ridiculously long, spindly landing gear. Looks cool, too.

Glad you like them! I may set up a showcase thread at some point and put some of my more interesting designs up on KerbalX, although I'd like to test them in 1.0.5 and possibly make de-modded versions (I mostly use mods to reduce part-count on things like RCS and ladders, so it shouldn't be too hard) before I do that. Having completed its mission in low Eve orbit, SS Phoebe headed for Gilly to refuel and pick up a couple of contracts. Conveniently, Gilly was near periapsis so the transfer only took about a day and a half. Phoebe stopped to pick up Ansa Kerman (formerly of Jeb's Junkyard), who had somehow managed to get herself stuck in a Mk 2 cockpit in high Gilly orbit. Apparently Jebediah is running his own space program completely independent of my one, may have to ask him about that when he's back from his tour at Base Ardan. Rescue done, Phoebe landed at the Gilly mining rig to refuel and drop off the rig's temporary crew. It's not meant to be permanently manned, at least not at first, but it'll need a crew to refuel the Aqualung tankers for the duration of the current Eve expedition. It might get expanded into a proper base in the future.

Finally finished the arrival maneuvers for my Eve fleet. The flagship Constant, carrying the Eve hab module, needed several long burns to circularize in low Eve orbit. Neither the ascent vehicle nor the mining rover had enough fuel to circularize and land without refueling, so they had to make several aerobraking passes each. Super Aqualung "Blue" deployed the mining rig on Gilly, which is now operational. Phoebe left Eve station for Gilly, where it will drop off the crew of the mining rig, refuel, and then--hopefully--depart on a round-trip to Moho.

Small mod suggestion, since you're talking about ship names: Nebula Decals. Not updated since 0.25 but still works fine in 1.0+ (might need thermal info added to the configs, I can't remember). Has a variety of flat decals (which look good on the Mk 3 parts) and a curved one. I think TweakScale and Firespitter .dll are dependencies (for re-sizing the decals and switching textures, respectively). I've been using it for a long time and find it extremely cool to have names actually painted on the sides of my ships:

I've got a few in my current career save. Auk XII was the last mission of the original Mun/Minmus program, and the second landing on the Munar far side. The pilot, Julina, reported seeing a UFO while on the surface, which she described as a light appearing to be from a spacecraft making a flyby of the Mun, but which Mission Control was unable to connect to any known ship, probe, asteroid, or debris. When Julina tried to lift off, the Auk toppled over and was mostly destroyed due to a guidance error. The wreckage was later stripped of equipment by the "Michael Palin" rover during its Elcano mission. Julina was rescued by the unmanned Auk XII-B, and later vanished along with Bass Station in Minmus orbit under strange circumstances. Nemo Station was the last of the Phase I space stations, and the two expeditions sent to it were the first to depart Kerbin's sphere of influence for deep space. Nemo spent about two years sending back science data, but eventually it became too expensive to keep it supplied with fuel for the constant course corrections required for periodic Kerbin encounters, and it was abandoned after Expedition Nemo-2 departed. It's still out there, empty but fully functional, circling the sun in a little under a Kerbin year. Various plans have been proposed to make use of it, including moving it to a more stable orbit where it could be permanently manned or redirecting it to Duna via a Kerbin gravity assist, but so far none have been attempted. Shuttle Belatrix exploded on-orbit during a mission to modify an expendable transfer stage (which was also destroyed). The crew was rescued by a Starlet light shuttle, but when Shuttle Deneb was sent up on a mission to salvage some equipment from Belatrix, it disintegrated a few seconds after takeoff and crashed into the ocean. That crew bailed out safely as well, but now nobody will go anywhere near the wreck of the Belatrix.

Working on the arrival of the Eve fleet in my 1.0.2 career. There's six ships, and each one has to make a course correction, an orbital insertion burn, a plane change, a circularization burn, and then a variety of other maneuvers to get it to its ultimate destination (Gilly, Eve surface, or rendezvous in low Eve orbit). A new Nuclear Aqualung, "Violet," went up from KSC to replace "Cyan," which will probably be towing some base modules to Jool at the next window and will therefore be gone at least a few years. SS Phoebe arrived first in the Eve system, carrying the science and power modules for the Eve station. Starlet Constance flew a tourism and crew rotation mission to the SS Rumfoord in Kerbin orbit. Phoebe rendezvoused with Super Aqualung "Red" and the Eve station core in low Eve orbit. With the modules assembled, the station manned, and a few EVA reports collected for the lab, the station (still officially unnamed) is now operational, awaiting the arrival of the various Eve landing craft.

FMRS, Flight Manager for Reusable Stages. I've never gotten it to work consistently, but I don't think I've tried it in 1.0.5 yet. If you did get it working it would open up all sorts of interesting possibilities: air launch, TSTO fully-reusable shuttles, flyback boosters, SpaceX-style first stage recovery, etc. Honestly though, most of those things would be fun to do once but kind of a pain to do for every single launch in career mode when (in the stock scale-model solar system anyway) it's generally easier to just build an SSTO spaceplane or reusable rocket.

[trying to resist urge to be sarcastic] If it isn't obvious from all the other replies, we've had this conversation several times in the past. (About once a week since MechJeb was first introduced a few years ago, far as I can tell.) Although one or two people might give you a hard time about it, the general feeling on this forum (Reddit might have a different view, I wouldn't know as I never go there) seems to be that what mods you use in your own game is your own business, and the only time using MechJeb is definitely cheating is if you use it in a challenge in which it is specifically prohibited. Whether you feel you're cheating yourself by using it is entirely up to you. Me, I use it left and right, but if you're into coding/scripting I do think there's something to be said for having a go at writing your own autopilot in kOS. Not everybody's cup of tea, but I've been messing with it lately and it's incredibly satisfying to watch a rocket fly to orbit on guidance software I wrote myself.