Wolf Baginski

Check the Wiki, there's a list of keys for everything. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Key_bindings That's the English version

They're also found in ordinary aviation. One of the measures against icing in an inflatable rubber boot on the leading edge, which cracks the ice so that it falls off before there is too much loss of lift. The look in KSP is consistent with de-iceing boots.

I am just going to drop in a few thoughts, derived from experience with other software, but it is only Windows. 1: The usual advice is that you only need 64-bit Windows if you have more than 4GB of RAM. This is not in fact wholly correct. 32-bit Windows can't get at the full 4GB of RAM. Just as in the ancient days of MSDOS, you need address space for such as the video RAM. Using 64-bit Windows can make a big difference in the memory available, giving both the OS and the program enough memory space without paging to virtual memory. 2: One program I use can use up to 10GB of disk cache for data such as textures, which in that case would need to be downloaded over the internet. Most games have the texture data on a CD or DVD, but they're still slower than the hard drive. Something like load-on-demand that supports a disk cache which can be placed on any disk would open up the options, from slow hard drive via SSD to RAMdisk. And a cache system might be made more efficient than files on a disk. Again, experience elsewhere (and there is already a Mod which downsizes textures) suggests the cache might hold several versions of a texture, and only load the higher-res form of a planet if it is selected as a target. 3: A good starting default, which can be tuned by such people as heavy-Mod-users to suite what is on their PC, is tempting. But sometimes I have seen inadequate explanations of the options leaving them horribly misled.

I hit the docking-port crossfeed problem myself over the weekend. I was using an upper-stage with a docking adaptor to orbit a lander, rendevous with my Kerbin Station, and power the out and back trips to Mun orbit. If the part.cfg has a fuelCrossFeed parameter the lander fuel tank was drained. Yes, it can be manually set to crossfeed off. while on the pad, or any time in the flight. It's possible that you could use Mod Manager to set the default state to off, and that would leave you the manual-on option. I'd have to check, but the parameter isn't in all docking adaptors. There were a couple of things that would justify having a checklist, rather than changing a parameter. A checklist on a switchable feature is realistic, though using Mod Manager would be acceptable. It hides the countdown details.

Back to Kerbal Stuff and download then.... The message about compatibility is annoying. But if this means that the effort will be directed towards 1.0 compatibility, I can live with it.

I've given the wide lander a workout, a 5m diameter pancake tank with landing legs and radial motors around the rim. It worked well, but it is right at the far right of the science tree. Landing safely on a 12-degree slope on Mun. I was planning to use a booster stage for the return to Kerbin but it needs to be controllable to persist on the map. But there was enough fuel to get back to the KSC with a side-order of aero-braking from the highly elliptical Hohmann transfer. I may have had a Kraken attack on landing, or run out of fuel at the last moment. I am not sure.

This idea has been around for a long time. I remember it being picked up for the role-playing game Traveller, and it had been the subject of NASA studies then. That's over 35 years. And it isn't far off from the drops in Starship Troopers, though that was rather different. But real tests were done a half-century ago. With current Kerbal tech I could make something now. There's a Hangar set with includes a lander Hanger, to get you rovers onto moons and planets more easily. Comes with an add-on heat shield. But it could be any small object, unless you're using real reentry mods. For the look I'd use a ROUND-8 Toroidal Fuel Tank with an EAS-1 External Command Seat and a parachute. It might need a strut to connect things. Would the Kerbal's jetpack have enough delta-V to start a reentry from a low orbit. It could start getting a little complicated. The smallest size reaction wheel set and 3 or 4 separatrons? It wouldn't be so hard to make a small heat-shield that could carry an EAS-1 and a parachute.

There are several sets of 5m rocket parts out there  I have just been fiddling around making a Lander on a SpaceY base  and, with various other parts add-ons, there are several ways of assembling a monster rocket. Start with the SpaceY pack. It's one of a set of packs by Necrobones which combine into an impressive set. SpaceY Heavy Lifter Pack Modular Rocket Systems Fuel Tanks Plus Zero-Point Inline Fairings Color Coded Canisters It comes together fairly well. As a test, I built a single-stage SpaceY rocket which flew to orbit and then made a controlled landing, finishing with 1000 units of fuel left. I am not sure I need the Color Coded Canisters mod, but I am not sure it seriously affects memory use. I could leave out the Zero-Point Inline Fairings, and that might be a better trade-off. The next I came across is NovaPunch. It also goes up to 5m diameter, there is a long history, and it looks as though there is a wider range of styles. But perhaps it doesn't have the flexibility of memory use that Necrobones makes so simple. Either way, there's an advantage to shorter and fatter rockets. They don't wobble so much. I put a Kerbin Station into orbit as a fuel depot, and it was a bit of a hairy ride with the tank diameters I had. It's up there, with the crew, but it would have looked foolhardy to have had crewed launches. Though limiting the acceleration did reduce the wobble. I am also testing a short and fat lander, based on the smallest 5m tank. I have, for personal RL reasons, a dislike for long vertical ladders. It might be a good base for landing a large rover too. With 15.75 m for radial engines it can have a good TWR. [1] ​And it should land much better on slopes. I know there's something out there for a booster in the style of the Soviet N1, and you could lift something really big into orbit. I keep trawling the Mod sites for interesting stuff, and I know I have missed stuff So what else is there for the 5m Boosters. And has anyone done anything even bigger? [1] Those multi-engine mounting places in the NecroBones range can be flipped to mount several small items. I shall have to try it, better than radial couplers and stuff.

It has, I confess, been annoying week. One or two mod developers have already heard specific comments, sent direct. I have puzzled out a couple of things, but some of you guys can be more than a bit obscure. So I thought I'd try to make some helpful suggestions, rather than just ranting. 1: Building in help features is a good thing. But remember that the new user may not be starting quite where you expect. For an example of where this can be a needless puzzle, got look at the Wiki page at http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Subassembly Ask yourself this. How do I make and store a sub-assembly? I had to do a lot of digging, in a maze of twisted forum posts, all alike, before I found a mention that you needed Advanced Mode. I eventually found that: click on the icon at the top-left of the VAB screen, an extra row vertical of icons appears at the left, and one of these switches to the sub-assembly mode. 2: When you have a Mod pack with a large number of parts, a list is helpful. Plain text is good, with the part-categories. Some part details are more useful than others. For a fuel tank, diameter and capacity. It's worth knowing the thrust of an engine. 3: For the more complicated items, has some key detail been missed? Be careful of revisions. There is one useful utility that does one job in two distinct steps. There's a primary window, and you have to use sub-window A to get to the target planet, before the useful semi-cheat in sub-window B. There was a helpfile in an earlier version, and I was able to read the source, and this was mentioned. It isn't in the current system. 4: It's probably useful for you as an author too: include a readme.txt file which details what the Mod does. Include which KSP version it is made for. Some Mods have dependencies. List them. Sometimes a Mod might not depend on a particular item but you won't get the full effect without itâ€â€you can do things with the Tech Tree, but Rockomax-sized boosters need Rockomax-sized tanks. None of this needs great literature. But. as with so much else in the world, the bottom 10% can be really bad, and not difficult to fix. I have seen a few related things in part.cfg files, such as description texts with a spelling error, and a decoupler labelled with the wrong size. That sort of error is why even professional authors have to deal with copy-editors. Believe me, you can be uncannily blind to your own errors. "Just Read The Instructions" is a great name for a ship to land rockets on, but somebody had to write the instructions.