Barking Sands

I read somewhere that you were planning on tweaking the atmosphere settings to get parachutes working again. I slapped together a quick fix that works well for a gentle reentry at least, but gravity turns to low orbit are a bit out of the question (note that I'm not using the curve variables at all, so they've just been set to zero): ToySolarSystem.cfg at line 112 (Kerbin): [code]@Atmosphere{ altitude = 30000 pressureCurve{ key = 0 101.325 0 0 key = 7000 58.7101 0 0 key = 10000 31.9597 0 0 key = 15000 16.2569 0 0 key = 20000 8.1809 0 0 key = 25000 2.1065 0 0 key = 29000 0.5737 0 0 key = 30000 0 0 0 }}[/code]

Would it be possible to have CKAN manage mods that aren't installed in the KSP GameData folder? I'd like to use CKAN to keep a library of my favorite mods up-to-date, and then use the file manager to manually pull mods from the mod backup library into the game's GameData folder as I decide to use them. It would also be nice if CKAN could keep my personalized settings for each mod in a backup like the "downloads" folder, so I could update or remove mods without resetting them to the default settings.

I love doing rescue missions because it's both fun and it's a great way to bypass that exorbitant cost of new hires. I see more females in need of rescue than males, but it's just barely noticeable. I could definitely see having 10 females in a row, but I haven't had it happen myself yet. From what I've personally experienced, the probabilities of a female vs. a male in a rescue mission is about the same distribution as kerbals available for hire in the Astronaut Complex. I also think that the Steam forum post on this topic was a troll. A very successful troll.

Wow, thanks for this! It was released sooner than I expected. Couple of things right off the bat: In "Experiment.cfg" it reads "Wernher is especially exited" when it should be spelled "excited." Waypoint Manager isn't included in the list of optional dependencies to accompany this contract pack. Definitely should be in that list. Again, you rock. Thank you.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b8izcx1m2omz1vo/RSS_Stock_ISP.rar ^^ Link to a quick "ISP difficulty scaler" mod that ISN'T the ISP Difficulty Scaler, if that makes sense. I just threw together a bunch of config data that boosts ISP to 240% of stock. The stock ISPs are included in comments if you feel a need to tweak around with the scaling. This is more ISP than you'd need for RO, but without any boost to engine thrust, you'll spend more time getting around gravity during launch to orbit and therefore will require more delta-V. This way, stock parts that used to make it to orbit still will, but stock builds that used transition burns to other bodies will now be way overpowered. Only stock parts are included in the list, so no mods like KW Rocketry are supported. Just a cheap fix, hence the name "cheap." Also doesn't fit too well with MechJeb or KER, as the max thrust isn't calculated properly. Requires Module Manager. For RSS now, the early alpha version is available. Instructions are here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55145-0-90-Real-Solar-System-v8-6-1-Mar-30/page544 (Note posts #5433 & #5435) Don't expect it to work all that well, as it is in early alpha and uses the primary components from the 0.90 version as KSP-AVC will inform you during the loading screen. Some parts of the planets seem to have glowing holes in them, and it crashes fairly frequently but is still playable using the 2048 texture version only.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=451831161 ^^ Completed my first contract (collect science at the Highlands: crew report in flight, crew report landed, mystery goo landed, eva report landed, and materials study landed). I had to exit and relaunch the game because Jeb decided to screw around during EVA (controls don't work, WASD all just make him walk straight forward -- anybody else had this issue?). Upon reopening my career and selecting my vessel to "fly," I finished the round of experiments and clicked the green "recover vessel" button hiding behind the altimeter. The mission still registers as incomplete on all counts in the Mission Control building, and there are just green checkmarks but no green highlights for each of the mission requirements as shown in the screenshot. Did I screw this up somewhere or did I find a bug? Couldn't be bothered trying to replicate it at this point; everything KSP related is going screwy for me today.

Check out Custom Barn Kit here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/121100 ^^ Along with ModuleManager, this mod will allow you to create custom career parameters. Custom strategies aren't possible with it, unfortunately, but it does allow you to tweak around with the hiring cost settings at will. recruitHireBaseCost is the cost of that first recruit hired recruitHireFlatRate is the flat rate increase if using a fixed rate to change hire costs per Kerbal recruitHireRateModifier is a recurring multiplier (like an interest rate) that compounds if not using a fixed rate recruitHireFixedRate is a Boolean (true/false) that selects between fixed rate or compounding rate for price increases Used by itself, the mod will establish a 10,000 fund first hire cost and a 1.5% compounded cost increase for each subsequent hire. Hope this helps.

The 1 point when the contract says only "(+1)" doesn't look right, but that's how it's laid out until it gets changed to reflect the total value followed by the added value properly (if the total value is initially "0" then it won't show a total value at all even when it increases to 1 or more). It should be saying "4(+1)" when the actual total value is 3.5 because it's rounding to the nearest whole number. Squad could add a decimal point or two to make this clearer.

I have a suggestion for this problem: Add a function to the staging panel in the VAB/SPH and in flight. When right-clicking on a stage that has a decoupler, you can toggle "persistent" to have the game continue to track the components attached to that stage decoupler until it is recovered/destroyed (default "off"). Drawbacks to this method: the game would have to use a background simulation for that stage after it's detached, which would eat up CPU/RAM resources and there could be physics glitches (Kraken) as a result. It does have a chance of working, however, and it's also a method that doesn't affect gameplay or performance when not actively applied.

Not sure what you mean by "improve existing parts." You want to be able to spend more funds and science to continue researching parts that you've already unlocked so that you can increase their stats in some way (e.g. higher ISP for an engine; lower dead-weight factor for a fuel cell)? Doesn't sound like something even remotely simple to mod. There is just such a large collection of stats which are unique to each type of component, this sounds like it would be a nightmare just to write up the basic plan before coding even begins.

Did you try the "Wispy Mid-Res Alternative" volumetric clouds on the 2nd step? Suggest you go back and try that one instead.

This is almost starting to sound like a request for a mod to add these elements to a science mode game (which would be a topic for the "General Add-on Affairs" forum). Replacing funds with science points sounds pretty interesting; I'm guessing building and launching vehicles doesn't have any cost or only costs 1 science per 10,000ish funds. Any idea if the reputation system should be sustained or improved? I don't know much about contract modding, but I don't think you can add a building upgrade to the rewards of a contract in a modded script; unless there's some way to include that feature to a rather more complicated plugin. @TW1: I personally use edited career save files to do whatever I happen to feel like doing. Not exactly what you're looking for, but it's a little similar in that it's a way to produce a custom career mode. If you're interested, I have a career save pack including an experimental (WIP) "Vulcan Funeral Affairs" career. Most of the facilities are destroyed at the start and there are zero funds and -1000 reputation. The idea is to save the space center through judicious use of contracts. It's pretty darned hard.

Just looked up Scatterer, and it looks amazing! v0.0151 dated 20 May 2015 (today) still says it's a work in progress. Any idea what they mean by that? It looks pretty complete to me. I'm using the old Astronomer's Visual Pack with E.V.E. with includes "BoulderCo/Clouds/10 Astronomer's Atmosphere" in lieu of a "Scatterer" folder. That adds in some atmospheric scattering with just a hint of warmer colors near the day/night separators. Only folders in my GameData directory related to the AVP mods: BoulderCo DistantObject EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements PlanetShine Everything works just fine. KSP-AVC tells me that there are 3 mods installed during the startup sequence: Automatic Version Checker, E.V.E., and PlanetShine. I'm interested in following Scatterer now though ... does it fix the cloud collisions with mountain tops in AVP/EVE?

If you look to the left, you'll see me dancing in some sort of ... well, I believe the correct term is "jig." This "surface sample" contract doesn't unlock until after the R&D building gets the necessary upgrade I hope. Don't like the prospect of having experiments show up in those lists if I'm unable to perform them. Other than that slight apprehension of mine, it looks terrific. Thank you for the outstanding effort. It's going to be this and the anomaly surveyor that Squad really should consider implementing into the stock game. Seriously, that needs to happen.

Perhaps; but it would help if you posted some of the content from that crash report. Preferably an excerpt of whatever you feel is relevant, or perhaps just add the lot of it to a giant spoiler. Adding spoilers on this forum involves using brackets ],[ (in lieu of parenthesis) in a manner such as: (spoiler=Click to expand giant wall of text ...) Giant wall of text (/spoiler) Just looked at KSPRC v-0.2 [0.90] and it's a big one. That JJ Abrams style lens flare is suspect. Last mod I used that included lens flare was in 0.90, and even then it had a nasty habit of making the ground disappear visually. It also involved backing up and replacing a game file instead of adding a file to a GameData folder. So that mod didn't last very long. Also checked http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/116916-Comprehensive-Mod-Compatibility-List-for-KSP-1-0 for any entry regarding KSPRC and didn't see any. Very likely it isn't compatible with version 1.0.2. I personally use EVE with a few select addons from the old Astronomer's Visual Pack. Doesn't stagger my brain just looking at the stunning visuals, but it really does look amazingly presentable and more importantly it works flawlessly. Might want to look into an alternative, and I recommend AVP.

I feel that the nuclear engine already has its drawbacks: It's long and unwieldy, and its thrust to weight ratio limit its usefulness at planet surfaces. Spooling up/down (stiction) sounds like a great touch. Might even be true-to-life if NERVA NRX actually had a design that caused stiction issues. @Kelderek: Most people agree that the Nerva should have its own fuel; hydrogen propellant. All I know about the NERVA NRX is what I can find on wiki; and I don't think there's a substantial amount of information there as nuclear engines have always been highly unpopular for obvious reasons. Also, what KrazyKrl said.

I noticed Proot posted an FDAI (8-ball) navball on post #44 here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/...-ball%21/page5 I was trying to get the texture finished properly in order to use it as an actual 3-gimbaled attitude indicator (with the precious 4th gimbal magically functioning of course), but it's a Mercator projection and it's sideways. Should be oriented with black on bottom and white on top with the same central point and 2:1 aspect ratio. Any way to unwrap this onto a sphere, rotate it from 0,0,90 to 0,0,0, and export the texture with the new poles? I was planning on actually touching it up before working it through a pass in Blender to reorient it. For one, it's missing pitch angle numbers all over the Northern hemisphere, and B , the white half needs to be darkened to gray so as not to conflict with the yellow pro/retro markers. A second question: I'm looking at trying to use an alpha channel to add emissive shaders to my custom navball (EFDAI) on post 135 here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/...ball%21/page14 ... to give a slight glow to the reversed IVA navball and to highlight lines for added contrast. Do alpha channels work with Texture Replacer to add emissive shaders? If so, how? The custom navball just doesn't feel quite complete without the glow effects.

It might be easier just to suggest that Squad implement as many "quality of life" mods as they have time to work in. Flight Improved inflight information Flight data [*=3]fuel/oxidizer/monopropellant/electric charge gauge (IVA) [*=3]G-meter (IVA) Improved vessel control Flight management [*=3]Fuel should be drawn from the tanks nearest the engine first (not last) [*=3] Button to temporarily disable certain tanks and have them automatically reactivate when all other resources are spent Map Active flight [*=2]Switch between staging and docking (LIN/ROT) controls while remaining in map view (Allow use of docking linear RCS control to fine-tune orbits in map view) VAB/SPH Staging [*=2]Add new stage to separate parachutes from first stage by default even when no decouplers are installed User Interface Options [*=2]Add input options to change keys for staging/docking modes [*=2] Add an input key to toggle between staging and docking modes

Based on my calculations, a materials study while splashed down yields 9 science, but while landed yields 7.5; while you are clearly splashed down in the image, you aren't being recognized as splashed down in the game. That is just weird. Speaking of weird, how about the name "Weird Science?" Speaking of naming, is this planned to be a standalone mod or a contract pack for the Contract Configurator? I was thinking it was a CC contract pack that would be called something like the "Kepler Science Explorer" pack.

Have you looked at the default strategies? location: Kerbal Space Program --> GameData --> Squad --> Strategies -- Strategies.cfg It's all written there in human-readable text. As for a complete listing of all things that strategies can take as input and output (e.g. StructureConstruction, RecoveryMinimumDelta), I don't know of anything that isn't already there in the default config file.

That sounds totally awesome @nightingale. Can't wait to see a full array of land mass percentages. I can finally rule out Splashed@KerbinSrfBadlands, and complete my list of all possible reports with a science point spreadsheet. This is even more scientific than MythBusters. The contracts with waypoints to complete the more difficult biome studies are what will make this one of the must-have mods in my book. Way to go!

Thanks, Tebryn, for the Polar Conversion Distortion in GIMP video link. I found that helpful. Not a huge fan of GIMP or any other image manipulation software; not that it's overly complicated, but I just don't like the results I get out of manipulating images. They always add a small amount of gradient smoothing and it adds up after so many passes so that I usually end up with color soup before too long. I end up pasting my result after each pass into MS Paint and use the pencil to iron out every little wrinkle so I don't lose my precious contrast and definition. I've used the polar conversion to create egg shapes with numbers inside ... then just used my old best friend (MSPaint) to polish the "eggs." I was almost about to publish a new and improved version of the Enhanced Flight Director Attitude Indicator (patent pending ) when I noticed that my 70 degree pitch angle was actually closer to 75 degrees; so I had to fix the pitch angle AND redo all the "egg drawing" numbers so that they fit evenly between the pitch lines at 65 degrees. I've also ditched the heading/bearing pips on the 60 degree pitch angle lines, and I just went with a standard white segment for the 60. The old version looked like a crossbreed between Dr. Frankenstein's monster and Leatherface after a few hours of playing KSP with it enabled. So without further ado, here's the EFDAI lite: EFDAI Pro (fixed chapter ring on the upper hemisphere only): EFDAI Classic (peripheral chapter rings top and bottom -- recommended for spaceplanes & rockets with alternate starting alignments): EFDAI Limited (fixed chapter rings top and bottom -- one for equatorial orbits, and one polar (equatorial recommended)): Equatorial: Polar: Oh and one more thing: Using TextureReplacer, is there a way of applying an emissive shader map to brighten up the IVA ball such as shown on page 3 of this topic?

I got the inspiration from the "minimalist navball" earlier in this thread to use color coding, but not just in the cardinal arcs but also in the background colors. While this is useless to people who don't see the subtle color differences, I thought it looked pretty darn cool when I first tested it. Spent the last couple days furnishing the attitude indicator with all the usual amenities (pitch/bank angle contour lines & latitudinal pips for both mil angles and degrees), sacrificing numbers in the display for greater contrast and visibility. End result looks pretty spectacular in practice. The bank angle lines should be familiar to those with some experience with a standard PFD/attitude indicator cockpit. I skipped the 5 degree lines and just kept it to 10, 20, and 30 with 70 and 80 near the radial extreme. The new features are the latitudinal pips. The red arcs show heading/bearing in 5 degree pips on the 0 and 60 degree pitch angles. The black/white arcs show the same in 10/100 mil segments, which frame around the 45 degree pitch angles. What this instrument could still use is some indicator of North or 0 degrees from the radial positions. I've tried sticking something in, but compensating for the cylindrical projection of the texture file makes it unreadable, not to mention distorted and ugly. The color coding helps, but again that doesn't work for people who have color blindness. Colors I chose are green (North), magenta (South -- opposite of green), orange (East -- orange/yellow because of the sun rising theme), and teal (West -- opposite of orange). The background coloring is slightly tinted to match, with the Eastern hemisphere using just noticeably lighter shades than the West (which might help add some colorblind-friendliness). Preliminary version: HUDNavBall.png (for TextureReplacer): IVANavBall.png: On another note, is anybody interested in a NavBall texture of the 3-gimballed Flight Director Attitude Indicator used on the Apollo missions? There's already an image in this thread, but that image is actually a Mercator projection looking to the North with a 90 degree left bank angle, while the TextureReplacer mod uses projections looking to the North at a zero degree bank angle (it's sideways, and simply flipping it 90 degrees won't get it to render properly). Correct texture should look vaguely like: ^^ This could be a bit fun at least for a little while, because it allows players to try to "avoid gimbal lock" by keeping the vessel from pointing directly East/West while planning and executing orbital maneuvers. I'm sure there were other methods of avoiding a gimbal lock because the nav console had multiple inputs which would give the FDAI a different bearing and avoid issues when facing due East/West; at least temporarily. Still might be fun to try; just not really into putting in all that effort to make the texture if there aren't people interested in it elsewhere.

Yeah, sorry about that; I forgot to use quotes when I was posting again. It's always a nice reminder when my reply ends up at the top of the next page. Erm ... this stuff has me totally confused. I get the bit where you say that you can get science from "in space" while suborbital from space low, there's never been a question about that. Where you said "just need to get apoapsis inside the atmosphere," I think you may have meant "periapsis." I believe the debate was on whether the periapsis needs to just be under the atmosphere, or whether it needs to be gone altogether -- which xEvilReeperx showed that it need only be under the atmosphere with his screenshot. What I couldn't determine from the screenshot is his apoapsis which may have been under the atmosphere as well (if that makes any difference, which I doubt, but just being thorough). -- And now with this escape trajectory stuff. It's starting to sound like you might not be able to gather science while flying inside an atmosphere while "aerocapturing" from an encounter to a potential escape. You may need to wait until an orbit is established before gathering science or else you'll get an escaping situation instead of a "flying at," which might result in getting science from "space low" even under the atmosphere. I don't believe that's the case, but I'm not ruling it out yet. As to what does any of this have to do with gathering science from an atmosphere that Kerbol probably doesn't even have? Nothing. There's no way to be on an escape trajectory from Kerbol in KSP. The real hard stuff about filtering this list of all things KSP science: landed vs. splashed down. I've heard that it's possible to gather science while "splashed down" in Kerbin's grasslands. I've tried it (involves splashing down in a river instead of in the ocean) and I've only gotten yet another "splashed down at Kerbin's shores" situation, but I'm still convinced it's not entirely impossible. What's really gonna give me trouble is how many places on Eve and Laythe can you splash down and get a biome that isn't normally a liquid surface. Same goes for landing on biomes that are supposed to be liquid surfaced. There are some places on Kerbin that aren't shores but also don't require water wings in order to get the "Kerbin's water" biome while landed -- same is possible on Eve and Laythe I'm guessing, but it takes forever to get real data on any of this.

Can't tell from the screenshot or the test code whether the Apoapsis is above the atmosphere, but it certainly looks like you've disproven the wiki entry. Being a recent member of the KSP Science wiki program, I'm going to go ahead and delete that entry. If new data comes along that reconfirms it, there's always an "undo" button. I guess I'll just have to put it down to "rumor control." Cheers.