Hotaru

On the main KSP home page, if you scroll down a ways, all the dev notes, news about 1.0.5 and upcoming 1.1, Twitter and Facebook updates, etc. are linked there. As long as you remember to scroll down, even a cursory glance at that page will tell you KSP is still under active development.

I'd say go for an Eve flyby to drop your periapsis down to match Obemy's orbit. The worst part is going to be the burn to lower apopasis, and then the corresponding burn to raise it again once you've got him. Might be able to use Eve again on the way back too, which would have the added benefit of making aerobraking into Kerbin orbit a bit gentler than a direct return. Drop him off in Kerbin orbit and send up another ship to bring the pod down; no sense carrying parachutes and heat shields all the way down there and back. Other than that, I figure just pack as much delta-v as you can get around a probe core and a claw. Fortunately his ship is only 1.8 tons. PS. This might be a good mission for ion engines, since the highest delta-v burns are so close to the sun you might get away with one Gigantor per two or three ions. It shouldn't be too hard to get 10,000+ m/s of delta-v to work with that way, plus whatever you used for a Kerbin departure stage. PPS. I just took a look at it in map view: getting to that orbit and back directly from LKO is going to take at least 9,000 m/s each way. You could save some of the Kerbin departure burn (~500 m/s) by leaving from Minmus, probably another 1000 or so each way with Eve encounters, and potentially most of the Kerbin arrival burn (another thousand at least) by aerobraking, but that's still on the order of 14-15 km/sec of delta-v you'll need to put into LKO. Even more taking into account the extra 1.8t payload on the return trip. Maybe a nuclear departure stage, then go to some kind of asparagus ion setup? Probably no getting around having a ridiculously low TWR at some point here. PPPS. It's definitely possible with ions: stacking a bunch of xenon tanks, two Gigantors, the big probe core from Asteroid Day, a claw, and a single ion I was able to get about 24,000 m/s in one stage, down to 17,000 m/s once I added a cupola (which Obemy's ship almost certainly is), but of course the payload is only carried for half the trip. Mind you the TWR was about 0.04 so this might take some patience even with 4x physics warp. The whole think costs about $150,000 and weighs 5.7t. Sticking a Kerbodyne tank drained of oxidizer under this with some LV-N's as a departure stage adds another 5-7 km/s of delta-v (depending on the radiator requirements and on how patient you are with low TWRs) and increases the cost to around $200,000--still a decent profit margin, even taking into account a launch vehicle. I don't know how 1.0.5 heating will affect this, I've never aerobraked or gone near the sun in 1.0.5 so that might be a problem. I also discovered that xenon is apparently set to drain evenly like monoprop, so getting a multi-stage ion setup will require careful management. Also, the stack xenon tanks are inexplicably not radially attachable (!!) so getting them to be jettisonable could be annoying. Still, I'm convinced it's doable.

With the Eve fleet safely underway, getting some miscellaneous jobs done around the Kerbin system. Spacebus Ralphie, a four-seat passenger rocket, took off from KSC on a crew rotation and engineering mission. It rendezvoused with the Rumfoord in Kerbin orbit, where engineer Wenlotte did some work on the lighting and communications systems in preparation for a mission to Jool at the next window. Ralphie then refueled and departed Kerbin orbit for the Mun, collecting science data on the way to deliver to the science lab at Barbicane Station. Some of the data turned out to be quite valuable, as it seems nobody had ever sent a materials bay or a barometer to the Mun before (go figure). Anyway, Ralphie dropped off the new crew at Barbicane and picked up the old one for return to Kerbin. Now it's on its way to Minmus to refuel again and deliver a new antenna before it heads back to KSC.

I use it in a few situations, but it's definitely something of a niche engine. With SRBs (or sometimes LRBs powered by Mainsails or Twin Boars) to get it through the first kilometer or two of thick air it can be a decent first-stage engine, as it's more efficient than the Mammoth. On very large vehicles it can be useful as an upper stage or transfer stage engine.

I agree with pretty much all the changes, will definitely give the modified config a try and really hope somebody from Squad notices this thread. To my mind the problem with the RC-L01 (the size 2 probe core) is that it's always inferior to a QBE probe core and a size 2 reaction wheel. The combination is cheaper, lighter, and has more torque. With a couple batteries added it has more electricity storage too. In fact in my 1.0.2 install I actually edited the size 2 reaction wheel to basically add the cost, mass, and functionality of a QBE, and now use that part as a size 2 probe core in place of the actual size 2 probe core. Considering the RC-L01 is a more expensive late-game technology, I think it should be balanced to be slightly better than the simpler, cheaper advanced wheel/QBE combination. As it stands now it's considerably worse.

Struts. Unfortunately there is no way to have multiple attach points in KSP: each part has to have exactly one "parent" part. The only exception to this is struts, which can connect any two parts. So in this case, you'd have to run some struts between the upper tanks of the boosters and the core. The struts will detach when the radial decouplers fire, so your boosters will still separate properly.

My old 1.0.2 install has EVE with Astronomer's Visual Pack; my 1.0.5 install has the new EVE and Scatterer. Both have Planetshine, Distant Object Enhancement, Chatterer, Real Plume, Engine Lighting, and Collision FX. As far as part mods go, don't forget about Ven's Stock Revamp, which in addition to looking great all by itself, does a good job of making stock parts look more consistent with mods like KW Rocketry which add more realistic-looking parts--especially engines. It's not a perfect match, KWR's bright-white tanks look kind of awkward next to Ven's grey ones, but they still go better together than KWR with stock. It's not really a cosmetic mod per se, but I also use KSC Switcher in my 1.0.5 install which can make for some launch sites a lot more picturesque than regular old vanilla KSC--I'm partial to the Lake Fortunate site myself.

Finally finished launching my Eve return fleet: a total of ten ships spread over six departures. Already underway are the flagship Constant carrying the surface hab and Super Aqualung "Red" with the core module for Eve Station. Spacebus Phoebe left Kilgore Station with additional crew for the mission as well as the science and power modules for Eve Station. Depending on how the delta-v numbers work out (it has about 6600 m/s fully fueled with no payload) Phoebe might be able to make the round-trip from Gilly to Moho and back once the mining rig is up and running on Gilly. The Eve Ascent Vehicle, partially refueled on-orbit, departed Kerbin unmanned (in what may have been my shortest departure burn ever, since its TWR is over 3 at Kerbin and it's going on a minimum-energy transfer). Super Aqualung "Blue" was next, with the Gilly mining rig and a surface tug to land it. Last to depart was the Eve mining rover and its transfer stage, which launched directly to Eve on a boosted RLV-320 reusable rocket.

I enjoy sandbox but the lack of either goals or meaningful limitations means I tend to get bored fast. Sure, I could build a rocket and fly to Duna, but why should I? To prove I can? I already know that. In career I have better actual reasons to launch missions than "cause I felt like it." I am also thinking about putting more detailed planning into my next save, already got some ideas for how to go about it (some of which I'm testing out on my current save, like keeping track of shuttle missions and station expeditions). And yeah, the mission control thing would be a lot of fun. I know it's been done, I saw someplace somebody did a whole Mun landing and return where the pilot was basically locked in a room with a computer and flew the entire mission from IVA, while "Mission Control" downstairs looked at the map, maneuver nodes, etc. and radioed him instructions. Back when I was playing X-Plane, before I got into KSP, I used to do some online flying and it was extremely cool to have a dozen or so planes all flying around the same airport being directed by a human air traffic controller. Maybe this is the sort of thing we'll get to do once we get stock multiplayer post-1.1. Anyway, still working on my old career. Super Aqualung "Silver" arrived at Duna with a space station core module, where it rendezvoused with the old "Kazak" landing craft left in Duna orbit by the Rumfoord expedition several years ago. Erithis took the "Eric Idle" rover out for a brief trip from Base Coalwood on Minmus to collect some science data from the surrounding biomes. Since the only previous use of the rover was an eastbound circumnavigation, the excursion marked the first time the rover had ever been driven in a westerly direction. Starlet Beatrix arrived at Coalwood (courtesy of its new landing rockets--this mission was my first time landing an SSTO on another planet). It dropped off the crew of Expedition 4, picked up Expedition 2 and the data from the rover trip, and refueled before departing for Bass II Station in Minmus orbit. At Bass II, Beatrix dropped off the data and an additional scientist to bring the lab up to full operational capacity, as well as making some minor modifications to the station before undocking from the station and heading back to Kerbin.

One of the reasons I haven't quite been able to let this save go is it's the first time I've ever really gotten into the end game of reusable launch vehicles, deep-space stations and bases, and a fully unlocked tech tree. Plus I have a personal rule of not visiting places in sandbox until I've "unlocked" them in career. It's stupid, but I like to feel I've earned my first landing on Duna or Eeloo or whatever by having to actually unlock the parts and pay for the mission, before I get to do it the easy way in sandbox. My original goal (back in May) was to visit, at least with a flyby probe, every planet and moon. That was achieved a while ago (the last was Dres Orbiter 1). The goal since then has been to land a Kerbal on every planet and moon and return. So far I've returned Kerbals from the Mun, Minmus, Gilly, Duna, and Ike, landed on Bop (by EVA) but not yet returned, and have missions outbound to Dres, Laythe, and Eve. I've got plans for the rest of Jool's moons, but I haven't decided yet what I'm going to do about Moho or Eeloo. Anyway, still working on it. S. S. Constant, the flagship of the Eve return flotilla, departed Kilgore Station after the crew arrived on a shuttle. Constant picked up the surface hab for the mission and departed Kerbin orbit for Eve. Mission Starlet-27 took off from KSC on a crew rotation run to Minmus. This is the first flight of the Mark III Starlet shuttle, which has landing rockets for operations on the Mun and Minmus. Super Aqualung "Blue" refueled the Eve Ascent Vehicle in Kerbin orbit, ready for its departure on a minimum-energy transfer in a few weeks.

I've got no problem with regular old autopilot, I used it too, and like you I frequently left the room to do other things during boring stretches over flat terrain (especially the flats on Minmus). What I'm talking about is this mod. It's a really nifty-looking mod (assuming it works as advertised, I haven't tried it yet) which allows rovers to drive around on their own, automatically, in the background. It allows you to land a rover on a planet, set its destination to the opposite side of the planet, and let it do its thing while you time-warp or fly other missions or whatever. Basically it lets you do a Spirit/Opportunity/Curiosity-type long-duration rover mission without either spending hundreds of hours driving around or putting your entire space program on hold. Brilliant for career mode, survey contracts, mobile bases, etc. (you can bet I'll be using it in my next career!), but I think it would take all the challenge out of making a circumnavigation--basically the whole thing could be completed at the press of a button.

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but I didn't see it on the OP or a quick look through the thread. I was looking through some old posts of mine that had their BB-code broken by the update, and I discovered an interesting little shortcut. I thought if I wanted to fix them I'd have to go through and manually correct every instance of broken BB-code, but it turns out that if you just click "Edit" and then immediately "Save," the forum parses the BB-code and the post is fixed automatically (just like it did with older posts when the forum was updated). It doesn't fix everything (quotes are still broken, spoiler tags disappear, etc.) but it does fix images, links, and at least some formatting.

If it's OK, I have two suggestions about the rules. One is to specifically disallow the new Auto-Rove mod. Probably goes without saying, but I figure always better to be explicit about these things. One of the things I like about this challenge is that it's generally very open to modding, but that particular mod has the potential to be a little too useful, I think. The other is to get rid of rule 3. I've never understood the point of it, considering the obvious way to circumnavigate Kerbin is to either use a rover and a ferry, or a boat and some sort of truck thing for a portage, rather than making a cumbersome amphibian. It's not like it's any easier to go the ferry or portage route (if anything it's more complex, since it requires coordinating two vehicles), and this always struck me as an oddly specific restriction on an otherwise very permissive challenge.

Getting back to work on my old 1.0.2 career save. I keep meaning to wrap this one up but I never seem to find a good stopping point. Moho Scanner 2, its original mission to map Moho finished, successfully completed a transfer to Eve. Nuclear Aqualung "Cyan" refueled the old S. S. Rumfoord, still in Kerbin orbit with a skeleton crew processing data from its mission to Duna, in preparation for an upcoming expedition to the Jool system. Super Aqualung "Blue" refueled at Base Coalwood on Minmus, and is now on its way back to LKO. The hab module for an Eve return mission went up on an RLV-320 reusable rocket. It will be part of a flotilla of roughly half a dozen ships departing for Eve over the next few weeks.

While messing around in sandbox saves I've killed Kerbals in most of the usual ways. Fire, explosions, disintegrations, long parachute-free drops, running out of life support, high-velocity impacts, low-velocity impacts, impacts with things that were several miles away at the time, etc. Even had one where the retro-rockets caused a capsule to crash into its spent booster, destroying both. In career mode, I take things much more seriously. I maintained a perfect safety record for a long time, and even now (still playing the same career since May) I've only lost two Kerbals, and possibly a third. None in a particularly painful way (as far as anybody knows), but all three in fairly creepy ways. Julina and Sidrie were the first crew of Bass Station in Minmus orbit. Both scientists. They were stationed there around two years, flying the occasional survey mission in one of the station's landing craft, sometimes ferrying a ship full of tourists down to the surface and back. Eventually, the survey contracts quieted down and the crew was left alone to process the data. A year later, another crew arrived at Minmus. Madra and Sheprod, aboard a mining rig destined to be the centerpiece of the new Base Coalwood on the surface. They burned into Minmus orbit, expecting to dock with Bass Station to refuel before landing. But the station was nowhere to be found. Several other ships, mostly tankers, were still in orbit, but the station, its two landing craft, and its two-Kerbal crew had disappeared. Although a search was made, no debris was ever found either on the surface or in orbit. To this day, no one is quite sure what became of them. Not long after that, KSC received a distress call from a Haica Kerman, stranded in a spacecraft in low Kerbin orbit. It was a routine rescue mission; engineer Shannon was sent up on the four-seat shuttle Alice to rescue the stranded Kerbonaut. When Alice reached Haica's spacecraft, at first Shannon couldn't see anything at all. As the ship drew closer to the signal, she realized the "ship" was actually just a probe core, adrift in space. No other spacecraft were anywhere nearby. Shannon retrieved the core, brought it back to Alice, and returned it to KSC. The engineers took it apart and found nothing unusual about it, except that it was an outdated model. There was no sign at all of Haica. No one knows what happened to her, or if she ever existed at all.

I agree, although most of the time it doesn't matter, there are some situations were being able to switch control quickly is important. For example, an air-portable rover I built has a Mk1 inline cockpit (facing forward) and a QBE probe core (facing up). The cockpit is fine for driving, but to be oriented correctly for landing I have to switch to the probe core, which is tricky to get at as it's tucked up underneath the chassis. So the deployment sequence is as follows: 1. Open bay doors. 2. Switch control to rover cockpit. 3. Separate rover. 4. Move the camera around to look at the underside of the rover. 5. Right-click on the QBE and select "control from here." 6. Orient for landing. 7. Ignite rockets. 8. Land. Unfortunately the camera position resets when the rover separates (which precludes doing step 4 before step 3), and of course I can't switch control before separating because the dropship has to be controlled from the horizontally-oriented cockpit. So steps 4 and 5 have to be done in a big rush to make sure there's time for steps 6 through 8 before the rover crashes. Having a "switch to" action assigned to a group would reduce the cumbersome steps 4 and 5 down to a single key press. Admittedly this scenario is a bit of an edge case, but I'm sure there are others where this would be useful. And in any case, it would definitely be more convenient even in less time-critical situations.

It's kind of hard to tell from the picture--is that a service bay right under the capsule? If so, it's possible that's the problem: service bays can cause issues with engines or thrusters placed near them. Basically, KSP isn't very good at figuring out what is and isn't inside the bay, so some of your thrusters might be registering (incorrectly, obviously) as "stowed" in the bay and therefore not working. If this is the case, try a setup with the RCS further away from the service bay.

It was split into a separate download. The large "HX" parts are available here on Kerbal Stuff.

Thinking about finally wrapping up my old 1.0.2 career save, so I've been playing 1.0.5 sandbox to test out some mods I'd like to use in future careers. Unfortunately my personal rule of "unlocking" planets in career before visiting them in sandbox meant my choice of destinations was somewhat limited; still, trips to Duna and Eve were plenty enough to try out lots of part mods, USI Life Support, Near Future, Orion drive, Remote Tech, and Deep Freeze in various combinations. Basically I want to make sure I've got the mechanics and interactions of those mods all figured out (and any bugs resolved) before committing to using them in a serious career save. Conventional rockets to the Mun. Orion drive to Duna. Nuclear-electric to the Mun and Minmus. Nuclear-electric again, this time to Eve, with the two-Kerbal crew in cryonic stasis for the trip. And a landing on Gilly, my first in an actual spacecraft.

Anyone who thinks space travel is "mundane" probably isn't part of the target audience of a game called "Kerbal Space Program" anyway. That said, I do find it interesting how entertaining "mundane" games can be (or regular games played in a "mundane" way). When I play Grand Theft Auto, I frequently go many hours without stealing a car or shooting anyone, instead just getting out of bed, driving around in a car I bought on the in-game internet, maybe getting a haircut or buying some clothes, listening to the radio, playing a round or two of golf, BASE jumping off a mountain, and then going back to bed in the evening. In other words, doing nothing I couldn't, at least in principle, have done in real life. (Well, maybe not the BASE jumping.) For some reason, I find this almost endlessly entertaining. In Skyrim, I've had a few characters where I installed some "hardcore mode" mods and enforced an "always-walk" rule. Just living in the world became an adventure in camping, hunting, and cold-weather survival (and occasionally battling dragons). The mundane aspects of the world were what made it fun, playing that way. Having to worry about things like where to set up camp and whether I had enough firewood, not just random encounters and dragon attacks. Before I was into KSP I played a lot of X-Plane, doing things like flying a Zeppelin from Frankfurt to New York in real time (about 50 hours) or a DH.88 propeller plane from England to Australia in a recreation of a 1930s air race. Time warp was an option in that game, but I never used it. The delayed reward of arrival at some distant destination after hours of carefully following rivers and monitoring radio beacons was half the fun. Again, endlessly amusing. I guess it's something about the fantasy of living in a slightly more exciting world than real life, or a fantasy version of real life where you can do what you want, take risks you wouldn't in real life. In any case, though, I'd never have put KSP in the "mundane simulation" category. Although it can arguably be played that way (I certainly try!) on the whole it's a lot more action-packed than, say, driving an imaginary bus from Tuscon to Vegas. PS. Don't tell anyone at X-Plane.org I called it a "game." Unless you want to read pages and pages of retorts explaining it's a flight simulator, which is completely different from a mere "game" in every conceivable way.

Since I haven't seen it suggested yet: One good way of getting coordinates is to use MechJeb's landing guidance "Select Target On Map" option. This allows you to mouse over the planet surface in map view, and shows coordinates, elevation, and biome of the location in question. Just copy the coordinates and enter them as a destination. Should be a pretty good way to find exact coordinates for smaller biomes like the Midland/Highland Craters on the Mun.

The way we currently handle Kerbal EVAs is already pretty confusing in my opinion. It's anything but intuitive and easy to get disoriented without decent attitude control, not to mention a weird navball that shows us the direction of the camera, not the Kerbal, and a default setting that causes the Kerbal to snap back to an arbitrary "upright" orientation whenever you try to turn. Disable the "EVA Kerbal auto-rotates to camera" setting and try Hullcam VDS for first-person view along with EVA Enhancements for better controls--that's closer to how it should be in stock, I think. Those two mods together can make tricky EVA work (like assembling stuff with KAS, or navigating to hard-to-reach science instruments) quite a lot easier.

So I was testing out some mods in my 1.0.5 sandbox save. One of the mods I wanted to try was Remote Tech; I'd used it before but never on interplanetary missions. So I sent a flyby probe out to Jool just to see how it was working. It arrived, everything in working order, but no connection. I checked everything I could think of: the probe had plenty of electricity, the dish was targeted correctly and switched on, the receiving dish at Kerbin was also targeted correctly. Then I looked at the map: Couldn't have timed the encounter more perfectly if I'd been trying. (Just in case it's not clear from the picture: the problem was that the Sun was exactly between Kerbin and my probe, blocking the line of sight.)

Even on a regular browser, 25 per page makes image-dense threads like "What Did You Do In KSP" extremely annoying to scroll through. Although having an option would be nice, I would rather just have the default reduced back to the original 10 posts per page--the main reason being that people do occasionally refer to specific page numbers within a thread, and using a posts-per-page setting other than the default can be confusing in this case.

I do this as well, but unfortunately I also like to send probes first. In my 1.0.2 save, whatever agency sends those Kerbals out there has beaten me to Ike (and by extension Duna) and Dres. Really hope 1.1 adds (or 1.0.5 has already added, haven't checked) a system to check whether you've sent Kerbals to the planet in question before spawning rescue contracts, not just probes.