Tourist

We'll call it a photo-finish!

First you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the wimmin... ah... reputation. Jokes aside, you get it by people liking stuff you have posted on in the forum. So be insightful, funny, informative and interesting, and the Rep will come. I will start you off. Frybert will start you off. Frybert and I will start you off.

I tend to use the Lemming method of getting off the runway. In other words, I let it run off the edge of the runway and then just start praying.

Stock habitation modules. Inflatable, solid, I don't care. We just needs something Kerbal's can live and work in while living on the surface of a planet, which doesn't have beds on the walls.

See, this is why I like this forum. What other gaming community can you think of where the answer to a game-play question leads to maths being deployed. And not just any maths either, but the kind that involves symbols and stuff. Don't get get me wrong, I don't really understand the maths that gets used here.... I'm a trial and error mission planner, but I like that this is the kind of place where this happens... hanging with the smart kids. Now I'm just going to go over there and bounce a ball, see how many times I can bounce it in an hour and then try to break that score.

Kerballed Eve landing and return back to Kerbin. I was so happy when the fuel ran out on the final stage and lo and behold it my PE was (just) above the atmosphere. What's more it was a very inefficient ascent (I veered off my ascent profile while switching to map view and keeping an eye on my heat) so it was absolutely repeatable. All that was left to do was pick up the kerbal in the mothership and tow command pod back to Kerbin. It was very satisfying. Although a close second goes to attaching a sciencebay to my base on Minmus. I've since seen people on youtube use wheels and landing legs to move components into place to dock with components on the ground. This appears to be the efficient, much easier method. However, they don't call me "The Hard Way" Tourist for nothing (or, well, at all really). Using a skycrane with four nukes, and a lot of RCS, and extreme abuse of quickload, I eventually managed to dock the components together via hovering the the component into position. It was not easy, involving hands flying back and fourth on the keyboard, adjusting throttle, using the translation keys, correcting tilts that occured because of use of translation controls when the RCS not being perfectly aligned. Sheesh... it was difficult.

If they do make a difference, then it barely has any effect. Many times I've gotten a space plane to orbit only to discover, yup, I'd forgotten to raise the gear. Any difference to the remaining fuel however was negligible especially compared to any difference caused by bad flying.

I don't think I've ever used anything other than a poodle for my Mun Landers and never had any problem with them.... I'm not a number crunching Kerbalnaut though, more of a "strap-it on, see if it works" kind of Kerbalnaut, so its possible my crafts may be quite inefficient.

Using the MK1 eyeball is cheating.

Only if they are using mechjeb (walks in slow mo towards camera in anticipation of explosion)

I agree it is totally irrelevant. That being said, beyond gender I would be interested in knowing the general break-down of the community on various statistical grounds. I can't see any realistic way of doing it, nor any particular benefit beyond personal interest, but I think it would be interesting to see a break down of the population on terms of: Age Gender (including a few other options, such as an "identify as neither" option) Country of birth Country of residence Current level of education Intended level of education How often do you play computer games (check boxes) Favorite game mode (sandbox, science, or career) Maybe some others... Now that would be interesting... impossible to organize in a way that makes the results statistically viable, also enormous care would need to be taken to ensure safety and anonymity, particularly of the young folk. But the results would be very interesting none the less.

Which category do space lizards fall into? We tend to reproduce as an inadvertent byproduct of infesting our host subject... usually prominent and powerful individuals.

@AlamoVampireUnsurprisingly I disagree on a number of points. Firstly, once in orbit, whether it be 75kms or 350kms the specific design of your craft doesn't really matter that much (except for perhaps dodgy placement of RCS ports and compensating for the lower receptiveness of high mass craft.) Also rendezvous and docking is not that hard, there is not that much nuance to it.... the only maneuvers you need to know are plane alignment, setting up a close approach, matching velocity/closing the distance, docking. The tools people need to do that is understanding the map screen and the navball. The problem is, Mechjeb does not explain these tools. It doesn't explain why it is burning anti-normal or normal at a specific point in the process, it does not explain why lowing or raising your PE or AP will help you catch up with another craft. These I believe are vital to understanding rendezvous and docking, but MJ only demonstrates by doing, it doesn't explain why. However I can see the benefit of mechjeb demonstrating the final docking part.... without mod tools like the docking alignment indicator this can be tricky, but I think most people will understand what its trying to do. Although as I noted, everybody learns differently, I may just be describing my own learning process.

I think you are onto something right here. The one (set of) rules to rule them all you may say.

Everybody! Quick, he's over here, GET HIM!!

I'm curious.... is there actually anyone on the other side of this debate? I mean, its come up many times, but I don't recall anyone coming out strongly in the alternative. Is there a vocal cadre of KSP puritans which I'm just skipping over in the comments fighting, gallantly fighting a losing battle for orthodoxy, or does this subject just keep coming up so we can all strenuously agree with each other?

Awesome! I think its interesting to see how a project evolves during its life-cycle. I think it is clear that KSP is a project where the developers have grown more and more ambitious as the project has gone on. If you read the link regex referred to and r_rolo1 posted, you'd think initially Harvester was originally thinking of something like simple rockets on IOS. A long way from where KSP is now. Clearly their confidence and ambition has grown, and I think there are signs they are getting more ambitious still. And this is a good thing.

With the greatest respect to AlamoVampire, I disagree that watching Mechjeb dock for you is the best way to learn... the reason being is that Mechjeb will do alot of stuff, but it what it will not explain why it is doing it. That's why watching the videos is better and using its advice to try what they describe. This is important because you may miss aspects of the process. For instance, you may not notice that the Navball switches modes from orbital speed, to target speed... it usually does this automatically when you get close, but if it doesn't, and you don't change it manually, problems like the kind the you describe can occur. Also, people are really good at learning by doing, but are generally pretty bad at learning by watching alone. The best example I can give about this is if you have ever been a passenger in a car to a place you have never been before, and which requires some navigating. If you have only been a passenger, the first time you come to drive the route yourself you may have no idea where to go... even if you have been a passenger on that route many times. However you generally only need to have driven the route once or twice before and you will remember how to do it every time after. Of course, people are different, and how people learn is unique to them. Some people really are good at learning by watching alone. So, do what works for you. I do feel I need to add, just because the "is X cheating" plague seems to have flared up today. Even though I don't think its a very good learning tool, I want to be clear that Mechjeb is not cheating, nor anything else that makes the game easier or more entertaining or less frustrating, to the way you play.

Multiplayer game(loosely defined, so can include the forum challenges, competitions etc.)? Cheating is anything which gives you an unfair advantage (emphasis on unfair, because it is not cheating to use natural advantages, such as skill, planning, hard work, experience or even luck.) So, for instance, using infinite fuel on a "land and get off Eve" in a forum challenge is cheating. Single player game? Nothing is cheating unless you can't "look yourself in the eye" figuratively speaking and say, "I did that".

On one hand, that was awesome thanks for the link. On the other hand, when I saw your post, and the link, I was secretly hoping that some KSP fans had made some Jeb and Val suits, and were playing around in a paper mache command pod.

I keep adding more rules to myself, for instance having enough living space for kerbals on long duration flights, trying to launch as much as I can via spaceplanes, only permitting crew transfer between certain modules. The terrible thing is I keep adding more.... I just spent an entire session refuelling a mothership via ore mining/refining on minmus. It took several return trips. My original plan was to prove the system works, in other words do it just enough times to ensure the plan was not fatally flawed and that it was only a matter of repetition, then just hyperedit the fuel into the ship. But... I couldn't do it. I just couldn't make myself do it..... I think I have a problem. So in answer to the question.... I think my play style has adapted to be more OCD.

Can't agree more. KSP is often described is being lego-like.... but, at least to the way I play, that is not true. For me its closer to Mecchano. Lego the only limitation is how many bits you have, and your imagination. A simple blue block can be a warp engine and take me anywhere in the universe with no limits save those I have imagined. On the other hand if I want to build a train in Mecchano that works, I need to work with the bits which can do that, and I need to follow rules about how to put them together to make it work. Much like Snark, I think it is good that not every part can be used in any way possible. For instance, I used to like how the Aerospike couldn't be stacked. Because, although it now gives me alot of freedom about how I use it, It means I no longer have to engineer around the fact that it could not be stacked... an element of challenge has been removed... not a major one, and from a realism perspective, I could not see why it could not be stacked... so ultimately I'm fine with it. That being said, I like (the) big tank butts and I cannot lie. I think they look better, but if the benefit is that engines, particularly the poodle are shorter then, on balance, I'm for it. (I find the poodle is really awkward size wise vis a vis the available landing legs.) So, finally to be on topic. I use the Rhino for the final push into LKO... I think its good for that purpose especially for the big stuff. I also use them for the outward bound interplanetary transfer stage for the big stuff, I know they are not as efficient as the nukes, true, but heck sometimes I just don't want to spend fifteen minutes watching the nukes do their thing.

Kerbals in my mind-canon are peaceful folk, with a childlike drive for exploration. They are not stupid, but simple in terms of their motivations... they just want to see whats over the other side of the hill, ocean, the horizon and beyond. This means I can conceivably see them not inventing bombs, but still inventing rockets. I can see them harnessing the atom to advance their march to the stars, but having no concept of using it to destroy. At least, while they are more than familiar with the destructive power of a less than optimally built rocket, they could not conceive of making them blow up stuff deliberately... why would you do that, you'd just need to rebuild it again. So generally, in a world which had never suffered a Hiroshima or Nagasaki, they would see nuclear energy as a invaluable tool for the exploratory instincts.

I think the more interesting question is, why do you need a giant space laser as a planet destroying weapon when you have the ability to create artificial gravity, that does not seem to be related to the ships mass or centripetal (or whatever) force. Just add more power to this system there's your system destroying weapon right there. Clearly the device which does this amazing feat is not prohibitively large, small shuttles and freighters have them.

Successfully planting a flag on Eve and escaping from the purple beast afterwards.