Barking Sands

From the KSP Science wiki: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Science "KSP only considers a craft (or Kerbal) to be flying in an atmospheric region if it is on a sub-orbital trajectory. For example, taking readings while aerobraking in the upper atmosphere will return data for the "In Space Low" situation instead of "Flying High" even if the altitude is below the edge of space." Haven't done tests on that myself, but it did sound a little suspect. My memory was telling me that it was the other way around if anything ... that a suborbital trajectory from space near the sun would return a "flying at the Sun" situation, but that would be incorrect. According to the wiki, if Kerbol had an atmosphere, you would need to perform a complete deorbit as well as get close enough to the surface to perform science tests while "flying." This could also be true only for vessel recovery and experience factors. I do know that a suborbital trajectory from, say, the Mun grants a bigger recovery science bonus when returning to Kerbin than does an orbital trajectory.

What about enacting an admin strategy that cuts down on recruiting costs? Any way to implement that? I've been thinking about assisting with the Strategem mod for KSP 1.0+.

I'm currently working on a giant list of all of the science in the game excluding Asteroids. Have some updates to work through seeing as some experiment limits have changed as of 1.0. So far, I have a total of 1,975 experiments. "[x] Science" mod shows a listing of 2,209 experiments, but a quick browse shows experiments that I certainly can't confirm to be possible (e.g. Crew report while splashed down on Kerbin's deserts). It's a lot of effort, and it's not a top priority for me at the moment as I've got so many other things to enjoy besides science and so little free time. Only things I've noticed regarding science, not all biomes can support all types of experiments (e.g. Laythe's The Sagen Sea doesn't allow you to perform a seismic scan while landed -- could be a tiny plot of land labeled Sagen Sea where you CAN, but I don't know about it if there is one). The sun also may or may not (probably doesn't) have an atmosphere or an area close enough to be labeled as "in flight" rather than "in space low." A suborbital trajectory below a certain height in space near Kerbol might just put down a "flying" situation for a brief time before you have to burn back to get on an orbit before things start to explode.

Kerbal Engineer Redux (With !!!111!!! for emphasis). I'm not crazy about KER, but with a bit of polishing, it should fit really well into the stock game. I personally would prefer it have a sort of whiteboard annex to the VAB/SPH build screens for the engineering data manipulation. Perhaps by expanding an engineering complex in career mode, it could unlock more advanced KER type of features such as atmospheric Isp calculations at various planets and altitudes. Essential barebones KER feature is the ability to see full vs. empty mass as well as cost on a stage by stage basis. The HUD features are outstanding, but they don't feel like they belong to KER as much as they seem almost like having a mechJeb 2.0 lite. Still awesome and I'd like to see those incorporated into the main game as well, but they're not as high a priority as the whiteboard with the ideal rocket equation and thrust/weight ratios that show min/max mass ratios.

I'm hoping that this thread will eventually house a collection of small and practical spacecraft to serve as a beginner's portfolio of VAB/SPH templates for a career-mode game. Not sure what kind of naming scheme to go with, as many of my craft may need to be renamed if they're to be sorted (in order to cut down on the snide little double entendre -- you know how it is). Ballistic Noisemaker MK-I (Formerly RSS MA Mk-I) First and foremost, we have a tier-3 tech single-seater to low orbit at well under 20 meters and 18 tons: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6pplx5ixtcmumwi/Ballistic%20Noisemaker%20MK-I.craft This craft requires the tech levels: Engineering 101, Basic Rocketry, General Rocketry, and Advanced Rocketry (Tier 3). Consists of standard Mk-1 command capsule, LV-909 lightweight engine, RT-10 solid fuel booster, and BACC solid fuel booster. Fins optional. Only useful for low orbits and returns or suborbital "ballistic" trajectories. Since the craft can't be returned from orbit without a pilot, it isn't ideal for putting Kerbals into orbit in order to transfer them to another station. XMP Starbug MK-VI (No relation to Red Dwarf) This is my experimental prototype of the premiere landing craft/ore extractor build (maximum tech level required). No ISRU converter, no antennas, no surface scanners, no parachutes, not even a launch vehicle. Thumbnail just shows a cocoon (procedural fairing). https://www.dropbox.com/s/3czm8yuxi04ibtn/XMP%20Starbug%20Mk-VI.craft?dl=0 The XMP Starbug's current issues (other than its lackluster features due to its tiny size for the mission profile) include launching difficulties due to its inverted state at launch. Controlled by a SAS drone core, the starting navball will show the retrograde angle during the entire launch sequence, so either attach a command & control unit on the launch vehicle, or prepare for inverted controls. After detaching the fairings and staging, the lander will be rotated 180 degrees so that the prograde is visible on the navball. Also, the Mk-55 radial engines will not activate during staging, so control group 1 is used to manually activate the engines. Control group 2 toggles the solar panels, 3 toggles the ladder, and 4 toggles the ore drills. The landing can is unmanned by default, but is designed to contain a single engineer to enhance the drilling efficiency. Not recommended to launch the vehicle manned as the pod is inverted and will subject the occupant to negative Gs.

Doesn't look good. You might try an Alt-F9 to see if there's an autosave available that's more recent than your quicksave. You might also open the saves in your file browser and see if you can replace the current save with another version (if there's more than one save in your savegame folder).

I appreciate the fact that this enhanced RTF strategy is a vast improvement on the old model. What I dislike about the model in general (old & new) is that it focuses its penalties on the recovery of vessels landed near the KSC. Using this strategy means actively avoiding the continent where KSC is located when deorbiting just to avoid taking an extra hit on recovery (technically, it's to "get your money's worth" when paying out of the ear for this strategy -- it takes quite a few recoveries to get an increased part value of 550,000 funds from the RTF strategy). Personally, if I had this strategy implemented at the start of my career and I had to earn 750 reputation, 550,000 funds, and level up my Admin facility to level 3 all in order to get rid of it: Totally would be top priority. I would love to see a strategy that is exactly the opposite of what the RTF commitment does: increase recovery rate gradient more than the default so that there is a higher percentage recovery factor over a slightly larger area near the KSC, and then it drops off much more rapidly to penalize you when you plop down vessels on other continents, poles, or far-side oceans. (DART strategy)

I was thinking almost the same thing. There's been a long-standing combat aviation program called DART (Downed Aircraft Recovery Teams); perhaps Squad (or somebody who knows how to add modded contracts) could add in a new DART strategy that either compliments the Recovery Transponder Fitting or replaces it entirely. You could compliment the RTF strategy by adding a DART strategy which increases recovery factors within a 250 km radius of the KSC, but adds a cost to reputation on recoveries farther away to simulate diplomatic complications due to international borders. You could replace the RTF strategy with a DART strategy that does literally the opposite of transponder fittings: instead of smoothing out a gradient of recovery factors across the globe, increase that gradient with higher recovery factors within a range of the KSC and lower factors farther away -- this actually rewards players who take the time and effort to plan their deorbit burns to maximize recovery factors and penalizes them when they're too far off target. The current RTF commitment feels more like a penalty for doing a proper deorbit plan, not to mention it's earned back a negative amount of funds after the 550k I wasted incorporating it. Went back to the save file and refunded my costs of recovery since it was nice enough to give me the percentage value. Then refunded myself the cost of the strategy, and added in the costs of the contracts that I would have been completing in the time it took to do all those maths, then added a commission for the effort, and another commission for the time it took to write this post, and oh look at all the money! I can afford to actually use a recovery transponder fitting strategy now!

I was worried about that; thank you for the quick reply. I think it would help if the strategy made that more clear in the description from the Admin building. Personally, I don't think a recovery transponder fitting should have a penalty. The half a million funds in sunk costs should be more than enough to move forward with the fitting without any ongoing costs to production or reduced part recovery factors. Also, a reduction in part recovery greater than 10% is quite the penalty considering how close to the space center a 5 kilometer puddle jump is. This can be devastating when performing tests in flight on late-career equipment to complete routine contracts; the costs outweigh the payout for the contract rendering otherwise not-impractical contracts, well, impractical. Hope the devs buff the transponders yet again; this version of the strategy is still much better than the original (when a maximum strategy commitment increased costs to production to 106% and a maximum recovery value of 100% with a 15% increase at ranges beyond 200 km).

KSP Version: v1.0.2.842 Windows 32-bit Steam What Happens: Recovered vessels produce less than 90% recovery near KSC with Transponders enabled Mods / Add-Ons: All Stock Steps to Replicate: 1) Start a career mode game (if no career with upgraded Admin facility and sufficient funds/reputation exists) 2) Modify the "persistent.sfs" file to add 100% commitment for RecoveryTransponders (or 750 reputation and 550,000 funds) and fully upgraded Admin building 3) Build a basic rocket in the VAB 4) Launch the rocket and land safely 5,000 meters from the KSC (heading East just past the shores into Kerbin's water will do the trick) 5) Recover the landed pod and check the "funds" tab in the recovery stats window Result: Recovered funds from parts will show a negative value in parenthesis indicating that the Recovery strategy reduced the value of the parts recovered Fixes/Workarounds: - Don't rely on the Recovery Transponder Fitting strategy if you plan on landing most of your vessels back near the KSC Other Notes/Pictures/Log Files: - What the strategy advertises in the Admin building sounds like: If current multiplier is less than 90% then add 15% to current value multiplier, if new multiplier is greater than 90% then set multiplier to 90%. - Landing ~5 km from KSC produced a 97.8% recovery factor without the strategy enabled. The same landing produced a 87.8% (-10.2%) recovery factor with a 100% transponder fitting commitment. From this data, it appears the game is calculating the transponder recovery boost by reducing a 90% capacity instead of the 100% maximum capacity. - From what I can extrapolate, landing 372.4 km (screenshot below) without the strategy would produce a factor of about 81.9%. The same landing with the transponder strategy produced a factor of 75.6% (-6.3%). In this scenario, a 15% increase from 81.9% would result in a factor of 96.9%, but the game corrects for the >90% result by subtracting about 6% from the initial factor instead of either adding 8.1% (15 - 6.9) or by subtracting 6.9% from the final recovery factor to stop at 90%. - Landing back at KSC with the strategy enabled didn't affect the recovery factor even when that factor is slightly less than 100%. - Images Link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=438240005