Korizan

Kind of hard to answer as the design and the shape dictate how you get it into Orbit. For example This was a test for the center piece of a refueling station. It weights in at 240 Tons with fuel. The total rocket weight on takeoff as you can see is 1,593 tons. As this is a 2 stage to orbit I only needed the seperatrons to push the old stage away and they are angled straight down instead of out.

Actually Aerospike engines are pretty small comparatively. The tests I know about was for the X-33 or VentureStar, they where testing out a linear Aerospike engine. Here is a link for the test firing and the WIKI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine

Welcome to space. All those numbers are required to define the Orbit. So what you see on the map view as nice little picture of the Orbit nice and easy.

Docking is rather painful when you first start. The magnets which are supposed to help you can actually make it harder (they are way too strong). The second thing to remember is that RCS does not START or STOP on a dime. You must overcome inertia and mass plays a huge role so everything has a delay and it is easy to overcompensate so be patient. Make sure you are controlling the craft from your docking port. Make sure the craft you are docking with is stable or not rotating. RCS has ROT and LIN mode or Rotation and Translation. So the first thing I did is map my Translation keys over to the keypad and I added in the Rotation axis as well (when I mapped them I made them active for all modes. So the only thing active on the left side of my keyboard for docking is pitch and yaw. Pitch and yaw are the very first things you want to null or align, after that is done you should not have to go back to those keys to dock. You slide into the port you don't fly into it, or in more technical words you need to null as many acceleration vectors as possible to make docking easier. Then it comes down to rotating your craft so that when you slide in front of the docking port you are doing it in the direction you expect to. Example - In my mind I think I am down and left of the docking port. (space is relative) So I rotate my ship into that orientation so that when I press the translate up, I actually go up (tap RCS and look at thrusters to verify) Then it comes down to slide up and left till I am in front of the docking port and then approach. So that means you don't play these games till you are close to the target 10 to 20 m When you approach keep it slow and if you are finding that you need to change an angle (STOP your approach) adjust and continue. (Later on when get more comfortable you can adjust on the fly) When you get right around 1m from target you should be able to turn off SAS RCS everything and just let the magnets do their job. You should be docking at <1m/s Hope this helps some, I do suggest you use the Docking Port Alignment Indicator to help you until you get the hang of it, you can always remove it later. Also start a sandbox game and launch 2 very small probes already docked, then spend some time docking them and undocking and moving them around till you are happy. Call it a simulator for your actual game. Best of luck and keep at it.

The Rapiers was my answer http://imgur.com/a/nmRu8 at 34 tons it appears to be the limit for dual engines before you have to upscale. In 1.0.2 I had more rocket fuel in 1.0.4 I replaced a fair amount of rocket with normal fuel as others have said air breathing now consumes a lot of fuel. This one is just a passenger shuttle which works for me, I am sure there are better ones but I find it is easier to move the cargo in expendable rockets. I think to many agency's in RL are too hung up on an SSTO cargo carrier instead they should just make one for people and be done with it.

Well most of the missions are generated randomly, and as such you get some pretty weird ones and even some that can't be completed. I don't know if it is possible but if Squad could add in a way for people to add missions into the game well... Not sure how much it would change if it would add more depth or if would be abused with 1 billion fund rewards. or maybe the squad could hold a competition of story lines to add into the game or or or. The point is as long as the missions are generated by a computer they really aren't going to change all that much. So you basically do the missions as a side line to progress your career and to fund the stuff you really want to do in the game.

" In Stanley Kubricks 2001 Space Oddysey alot of time passes between some of the scenes, and they tell the viewer this eloquently but fading out and fading back in. The user/viewer understands that time has passed. And thats all you need." I just don't see how this is all I need. Perhaps I am misreading your intent but this sounds more like removing warp and just putting in a jump system. Which turns it entirely into a flip to frame game and much less of a simulator. I suppose if you only ran one mission at a time I could see the appeal but what fun is there in that. IF you did that it would take thousands of years to get anything of value done. PS - And does lead to the question of why was the warp system put into the game instead of the jump function. And why did the squad make the system small instead of just mirroring the Sol system.

Safest place to warp for multiple days is KSC Simply because everything is on the rails so to speak. As it stands right now you have a warp to the next morning button @ KSC. The squad should be able to add in a button next to it for warp to "add time frame here" as the OP suggested. It might be a bit inconvenient from KSC but considering the Unity Engine I would rather take the safe road then have exploding ships due to a physics engine breakdown. PS - And to answer the OP question, warp isn't better per say other then it does depict the passage of time where a jump function literally removes distance from the game. With jump you could have lots of different solar systems in the game but it would break the game as well so to speak with no time reference. OR how do I say it, the game world would become a lot smaller if that makes sense. OR there would be no vastness of space in KSP which is exactly what the game is trying to depict.

Actually the contracts are about getting you cash to do what you want in the game. And yes Stick the jet engine on top of a Hammer SRB with some fins and a RGU and let it fly, quick and cheap. Sometimes contracts a good way to have some fun doing something as oddly as possible and get paid to do it And the most important bit is they open up better contracts. Think of contracts as a way to pay your bills or your job.

Mechjeb vs non Mechjeb, which according to most of the replies in this thread is about using an autopilot or not using an autopilot. If that is all mechjeb was then it could be a single window with a few options. Instead mechjeb is a tool set and how much or little of the set you use is up to you. Here is just 2 examples (to keep this thing from being a book) of the tools that mechjeb can provide and neither one involves using the autopilot function. KSp gives you zero ability to map or plan your ascent from Kerban. It is all by the seat of your pants and worse yet there is no way to review your ascent to see if the last 2 flights used the same or different profile. Tool 1 Ascent Guidance - With this tool you can go into Ascent path guidance and tweak your ascent path to your hearts content and get a visual representation of that path, then you can select Show navball ascent path guidance which paints a nice little target on your navball for you to follow up to your planned AP. As someone who has played Orbiter and used transx I can say I love KSP's GUI for maneuvers but it is not as precise as it needs to be (Mouse is good but it can be a real pain for tiny adjustments). Tool 2 Maneuver Node editor - This tool gives you the ability to modify an existing maneuver node by adjusting the Pro grade, Radial and Normal vectors in steps ranging from .001 to 10 TO some extent mechjeb is no different then Kerbal Alarm Clock or Docking Port Alignment indicator both of which I use for there own reason

And this is why when I start a new career I selected Hard then went and put the save game and quick save options back in. I save the game A LOT, start with 2000 and work my way down and eventually wipe out old saves and start the count down again. Especially if you are like me and have 6 different flights going at the same time. It isn't cheating it is protection again bugs in KSP and bugs injected from mods.

I actually found that the TR-2L actually provide too much grip (by design) especially for smaller rovers. I have gone back to the RoveMax Model M1 because it slides very nicely. Two very important things to do, CANT the wheels just a hair (less then one notch) and change your steering to the rear. And have a whole lot of fun especially if you add RCS thrusters.

The OP's Title should say "Some general thoughts from a Beta player" And from there it should go along the line of I remember when..... And I can't help but compare the beta version with the current version because I refuse to move on. Side Note And modders will update their mods or they won't. A modder has zero requirements to update. KSP has zero requirements to wait on a mod to catch up, they can update the game whenever they want. Yes I use mods but not many of them. Why because I learned a long time ago that you choose your mods very carefully or except that you will forever be several versions behind the game and will be forced to live with the bugs until your favorite mod author has the time and the desire to update their mod.

This has been a request for a VERY long time in just about every flight simulator I have ever played. I don't know if it is a technical issue or just the game designers not wanting to alienate those that use only one screen but.... Even if the second and third screen are just blank and you could drag windows over to them it would be priceless. Just about every modern plane out there has MFD's so make the second and third screen MFD's. Then you could bring up the map on it or an outside view or a million other items. So yes PLEASE give us true second and third etc screen support

More Parts more planets or solar systems. Kerbal Alarm Clock And Docking Port Alignment gets integrated into the game. I honestly can't live without those 2 even more then mechjeb.

I just starting playing this game back in April just before 1.00 came out. I started a New career when 1.0.2 came out. I find it interesting how people talk about taking a year off when it was still in beta. The game basically just got released April 2015, I really feel bad for people that burned themselves out already. Or worse played beta and burned themselves out on a game that wasn't even complete. All things considered it doesn't surprise me to see the burned out threads. This is a sandbox game and it has no end, that bugs some people as you basically can't win the game. The last I looked I had completed 35 launches if that is correct and I am still on Year 1 Day 114. I don't know how many contracts I have completed A LOT. Hmm is there a way to pull up those stats ?

Clicking on the ship just jumps me to that ship it doesn't allow me to rename it from the tracking station. Unless I am missing something. - - - Updated - - - Wait a minute you can do it. Click ship on left side the select the "i" icon on the right and click the orange bar with the name and you can change the name and classification. Okay that is a interesting way to go about it, and how long have we been able to do that ? And well this thread just became pointless. - - - Updated - - - Yeh some new categories would be nice even if they are marked as 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 they have the room.

I so want the ability to rename and Re-Classify ships I control from the Tracking Station. And the ability to Re-Classify things I don't control from from the tracking station as well. Why well so many things I want to mark as debris after the fact or change its classification after I undock from a station. Granted you can do that but you have to jump back into the ship, but every time you do that and it is one more loading screen for no reason. And how about a Contract or mission category while we are at it. Someplace to dump all those rescue missions or just a temp location to move ships we don't want to view at the moment. We just need some more tools to help us organize the tracking of objects in space. And no I don't want to destroy them I want to organize them. Thanks in advance.

I don't open my chutes till I am 10K or lower. I would really love a screen shot of your re-entry angle and speed cause I have never even came close to having issues of landing a Pod and a heat shield back on Kerban.

I have been building heat shields into my ships even before they where required. 1.0.4 Really didn't change very much for me, some small adjustments to PE but other then that, it was business as usual. You don't really need to go nuts with the heat shields there is NO requirement to burn off all your speed on the first pass. Aerobraking is all about capture, which is done on the first pass. However it doesn't mean you won't have to make 1 or 2 more passes to burn off the rest of the speed, there is nothing wrong with this type of trajectory. So I choose OTHER, stock parts but nothing extreme as it really isn't needed with the right trajectory and some patience.

I do have to wonder about the odds. First Russia loses their resupply then the very next run Space X has a failure. I am not one for conspiracy / sabotage but like I said what are the odds.

Hmmm the differences between a radiator and a heat sink. A heat sink like on your CPU basically reduces the heat by making the surface area very large. A radiator on the other hand uses a fluid to conduct that heat to another area where it can be more effectively cooled once again via a very large surface area. The exact same mechanic except the results are very different. So if the radiators in KSP are acting as heat sinks then they would cool down the part they are connected too. If the radiators are actually radiators then you would have to designate which part you are cooling and that part would be cooled. And then there is the rest of the ship which would get heated up / cooled down depending on materials, surface area, and distance from the heat source. So the question is, are the radiators in KSP a radiator or a heat sink. And the LV-N heating doesn't reduce freedom but rather adds balance otherwise you could argue it is overpowered. OR you could say cause and effect, everything has a trade off.

So I made a Space taxi to pick up and run Kerbals around. The only problem is when I tried to get the thing off the ground I could not get the thing to stop swaying no matter how much I reinforced it. And TVR-300L Stack Tri-Adapter was and is a very large hunk of junk. So rather then settle down and take it I started well inverting things. And in this case instead of pushing my taxi into space I basically pulled it up into orbit. Believe it or not it worked http://imgur.com/a/wDNr9 So anybody else have some interesting solutions or workarounds trying to get something into orbit ?

The first SSTO I built was under 1.0.2, It is small only has 2 Rapiers and that was it, I could get to orbit with 700+ Delta/v left over. I used it to bring Kerbals up and back from the station in Kerban Orbit the perfect job for a SSTO. Now the same ship (well had to change a wing angle a hair to account for the thinner atmo) now the best I have gotten so far is 577 Delta/v. The change really is the fuel cost while running on air, I am actually short on fuel not oxygen now. So be aware the Rapier eats fuel like it is going out of style. Almost like we took a step back to .90 I remember engines ate a lot back then as well. Ah well it still flys just needs more tweaking I guess. PS- The one sad bit is the rapier could actually fly fairly economically on air so power lands could be attained with the little fuel you had left over after a mission. Now don't even think about it, it will suck the tanks dry in a few seconds.

Now that is funny but you missed one other item from the OP's post. "(Warning: Contains NSFW language)" - Really, you have to warn people about nasty words you are not authorized to read at work (and if I spoke them even in private imagine the repercussion).... Nice one OP