Enorats

10 gb of ram usage?! Holy mods batman! Yeah, that's the problem. KSP has to load everything all at once and keep it loaded, so it takes a long time if you have a ton of part mods it has to load. 10 GB is a TON. Prior to 64 bit anything over 4 would kill the game, and even now I don't generally go too far over that.

When I got my new rig a couple years back I didn't know a whole lot about processors. I ended up going with an i7 4820K, and it's worked great. Most of the "comparision" websites I looked at placed it as being equal or better than basically any of the others. Even the newer version of the same, the 5820K, seems to be basically identical in performance. It's got slightly slower cores but 6 instead of 4 though.. not as good for a game that relies so heavily on single core performance.

I can't imagine reentry without kerbal engineer redux. The heat tab gives exact numbers for which parts are closest to overheating and exploding. It gives critical temperatures, skin temperatures.. everything. The glow effects and even heat bars are wholly inadequate, like basically everything about the stock UI.

CPU. Hard drive only affect to loading. SSD's will start the game a bit faster. GPS is graphics. KSP has simplistic graphics, so it's never the limiting factor. RAM deals with memory, and how much data can be "ready to go" at once. Until recently it was capped at 4 gb, something most computers are well over. With 64 bit KSP that cap is gone, meaning we can use more mods which eat up memory. If your game is crashing to desktop, you may need more RAM. CPU is all about number crunching. KSP needs lots of number crunching. Even the best CPU's out there run slowly when you get above a couple hundred parts.

Landing planes has always been a skill with a learning curve. That said, a lot depends on the design of the plane and way you approach the runway. It also helps a LOT to use basically any UI other than the stock one. Mechjeb or KER both offer great info panels. The key here is that your "surface velocity" is actually a combination of two velocities.. your horizontal speed and vertical speed. The stock UI doesn't depict this. For example, you may have a surface velocity of "30 m/s" which is quite slow for an approach. But if that 30 is 10 forward and 20 down.. you'll blow up when you hit the runway. If it's 25 forward and 5 down.. well, still pretty fast but you'd likely survive. Basically, keep that vertical speed near zero on contact and get your horizontal as low as possible without stalling. Never try turning when you're touching the ground. You'll die. It's all but certain, and would happen in real life too. That's why trikes are so dangerous.

100%. I might not get them the first time around, but I'll get them eventually.

Wait, you managed to hit your 18th stage and you weren't in orbit yet?! What sort of monster did you make? Also.. second the CPU upgrade. That's the best way to improve the speed of the game from a hardware standpoint. FPS doesn't lag in KSP due to graphics, it's because your CPU is melting under the physics calculations. One that's a couple years old is fairly cheap these days, I got one of the best out there 2-3 years ago and it's down to like a couple hundred these days. Still as good or better than the newer ones too. The i5 and i7 chips are great, as is the other one that's similar (5870 maybe?). I think it had slightly higher ghz and double the cache size. That's the one I went with and it's worked great. Edit: It's the i7 4820K. That's the one I went with. Been a great chip, and it's basically got the same specs as it's younger brother the i7 5820K. Whether you're talking an i7 6700, 5820K, or 4820K the performance is basically identical across the board. Newer chips just tend to be slightly more efficient (in terms of electricity) and cooler running. Speed wise they basically maxed out what they could do with a processor core years ago and have been scrambling to figure what to do next.

I dunno if I'd bother with that one. I hear they have a tendency to blow up.

Ah, I see. Didn't know it was producing fuel during the time between landing and the crew arriving and using it to ascend. That makes sense.

Personally I've never understood why they landed the ascent vehicle before the crew got there. Shouldn't the ascent vehicle also double as the descent vehicle since it has to have crew capacity and land anyway?

As others have said, they're just not that useful. They can do a lot of things.. but they can't do anything very well or efficiently. We never should have built them in the real world, and while the game is a bit different many of the same reasons still apply. In general it comes down to this.. why would you ever launch what amounts to a space station up to orbit just so you can launch a satellite? Just put the satellite on a vastly smaller rocket and launch it directly. It'll be far cheaper and easier. Even if the shuttle (or even its boosters) are reusable, it just doesn't make sense. While KSP doesn't factor in vehicles aging and maintenance costs, it does still take vastly more fuel to get a shuttle and payload into orbit as opposed to just the payload. This is even more true if the payload alone is being delivered via a SpaceX style reusable system. Space shuttles just don't make a lick of sense no matter how you look at them.

Th intensity of sunlight drops increasingly fast as you get farther from the sun. Solar power thus decreasing increasingly fast. This is true in the real world too, it's a basic facts of physics. Craft in the outer systems need LOTS of large panels, or preferably nuclear powered reactors to power them.

This is more a problem with the Kerbalism mod itself. I had the same issue, everything breaks about 2000 times to quickly. Satellites I launched towards Minmus wouldn't go a week before having major malfunctions. In a few months they'd lose all solar power output entirely along with everything else. It's a great mod with many things I like, but it's new and not well balanced yet.

Once docked, just right click both tanks and hit "in" on the one you want filled or "out" on the one you want empty. Be sure to fill any offset tanks evenly to maintain your center of mass. Also, if you're new to all this.. docking is a pretty tricky thing. It takes most newbies a long time to get it down. Be ready to go watch some tutorial videos on youtube.

Who needs braking burns? Duna has an atmosphere. Just slam into that really hard. It'll stop you. Failing that, Duna has a solid surface. Slamming into that is sure to stop you too! More seriously though, short of a whole lot of math I'm not sure there is an easy rule of thumb to predict such things. Using a node is the obvious solution, but of course you can't actually do that until you're already on your way. By then you're already out of luck if you don't have enough fuel.

While you have some points regarding stat imbalances (which I have to point out are VERY easy to fix yourself by editing the part files, even a total beginner can do that), much of your trouble seems to be in engineering solutions to problems. Much of what you suggest can and has been done. You don't need to have a ramp to get a rover back on board a ship, especially not on a low gravity moon. Give it some RCS and visit Ike first. Your rover can then fly on and out of the bay if needed. Leave it on Duna, no need to reload it. Don't bother stowing experiments again, take the data and leave them. Use interstage fairings to shield unwieldy lander bits until you actually land. The smallest cylinder tanks used as a core with three 1.25 meter ranks placed radially (with or without decouplers) around it can fit inside one of the larger fairings nicely, even with landing legs attached to the tanks. And.. yes. Mods make or break the game in many ways. That's sort of expected. Squad isn't a large team, so a huge community of dedicated modders is understandably going to be able to do a lot more in the long run. Now that it's unity 5 and 64 bit we can use a great many, so it's up to you to decide which you want.

I've done a bit of everything. It really depends how long my career lasts. Early on everything is basically a custom one time use craft. After that launch it's outdated due to new part unlocks. Later in the career, after everything is unlocked, I tend to build standardized payloads and launchers. For a given mission I just match up the payload I want to send with a launcher that can get it there. It's actually less economical to do it this way, as often the launcher is overkill and not optimized perfectly for a given mission.. but, it saves huge amounts of time. I can put two subassemblies together and hit the launch button, simple as that. Additionally, if playing a "no revert" career it can be helpful to have a launcher you know is reliable and have experience flying.

Now I have to rush home and try putting fins on my rockets that are angled slightly like the fletching on my arrows. Wonder whether or not ksp will actually make them spin like they should. If so.. I'm curious how fast I can get one spinning too..

I'm not entirely sure what you meant by your boosters are being left behind. Maybe you attached them directly to the main stack instead of the decoupler? That seems most likely. I either that, or they're detaching and the aero forces are immediately slamming them into the side of your rocket and blowing it up. If that's the case be sure to place boosters to the "sides" of the rocket. That is, place them 90 degrees offset from the heading of your gravity turn. If you're launching out at a 90 degree heading (out over the sea) place boosters to either side of the rocket at 0 and 180 degrees. Any boosters placed at the "top" of the rocket will impact on release without several sepetrons to provide extra clearance. Again, by "top" I mean the part of the rocket facing the sky when you start turning.. the side facing a 270 degree heading on the launch pad, provided you're launching to 90 degrees (the sea).

Frankly.. armor would be worthless in space. Any weapons would likely be travelling at enormous speeds and wouldn't even require a warhead to utterly devastate a target. Armor wouldn't even do anything most likely. Stealth in space is mostly, if not entirely, Sci-fi. It's quite easy to pick things out in space if they're emitting any sort of light or thermal energy.. which, well.. everything using any sort of power would do. Best bet for realistically building efficient warships in space? Extremely minimalistic and expendable. Drone platforms built for autonomous combat.

If I had to guess.. physx is currently pwning your cpu.

Knowing Kerbals, they probably took the name a bit too seriously and strapped some boosters to it with a lot of struts.. then did what Kerbals do.

Wait, the ancient Greek played KSP? Those guys were so ahead of their time.

Last I tried using it (several days ago) the first landing gear unlocked (LY 01 and 05) was broken. Even on a light (as in, stupidly light) craft it wobbled like crazy when it worked, and when it didn't the suspension went haywire and started tweaking the craft around like mad the instant you spawned on the runway, leading to the landing gear blowing itself up in about 2 seconds flat before you even did anything. That ever get fixed?

I generally prefer to use the contract system more for challenges and goals than a method for grinding funds. Most games I either significantly increase the funds reward modifier (making most contracts give 2 or 3 times what they cost to complete), or make gaining science points give funds with the Science Funding mod. Let's me not worry about funding too much while still have the parts of the career mode I do like.