bigcalm

* All crew must get a unique first. (For all bodies, possible firsts are: Orbit, Orbit EVA, Landing, Footsteps on the surface, Planting a flag, Driving a Rover, Docking in Orbit, and for some bodies, Atmosphere-Entry). * Whilst I don't play with the "harder" mode of MKS mods switched on (mainly due to bugs in previous versions), if I run out of supplies, or Kerbals go stir-crazy, they will be retired. * I must do it manually myself before allowing use of MechJeb (exception: Fine tuning intercepts). * No Kerbal left behind * No hyperedit except shunts, and only then after I've launched twenty of them. * In the early part of my career I often run "No unpiloted craft" - as in, if I want a satellite up there, it has get into its target orbit with a Kerbal on board. No robotic piloting should be required except for de-orbiting burns. This phase is officially ended on the first interplanetary shunt which is typically a SatNet.

I'm still on 1.3.1 but more because I like my current set of mods and career game. I have bought 1.4.x and the expansion but not played it a huge amount as I'm more interested in how far I can take my current career. 1.3.1 isn't perfect - the ships-bouncing-on-load thing is probably the worst problem (sorted by WorldStabilizer mod), and my career game crashes very often - a consequence of having too many mods and too many vessels. I think the actual crash issue relates to to the amount of time it's taking to (auto)save the game so if anyone knows how to increase the time it's allowed to do this can you let me know and I'll tweak it up a bit.

Building a colony isn't a mission for the newcomer - practice sending probes elsewhere first. And whilst Laythe is a great place to have a base, it's also pretty tough (see the mission linked in my signature) - a base on Pol or Vall is a better choice for access to the rest of the Joolian system.

I'm not sure this really counts, as it's a "five in one" satellite -- The five connected Sats are designed to detach and form a comms network. I do a lot of "SatNets" like this though. In the one above, I have 5 Sats attached to the remainder of a shunt (which also has its own relay dish), to be distributed around a body. In this case, because it's Gilly and easy peasy once you're there, I've actually got landing legs on all of the sats so I can land if I need to.

> -You must land on every single planet of the kerbol system before doing this but on jool. It's basically not possible even with a WhackJob sized craft launched straight from Eve. Not really a challenge so much as not actually possible.

The sliding will only occurs within physics range, so typically (unless certain mods are present), 150 metres, whilst timewarp is not active.

This is basically a bug that isn't easy for the devs to fix. You're more likely to encounter this bug on other worlds when base building as things gradually slide out of physics range, but can happen to Kerbals on EVA as well. The essential issue is that coefficient of friction doesn't really work - the physics engine jumps in, and moves your Kerbal or vessel very slightly downhill - it's often a speed of milimetres per second, but it is there. When you turn on warp, everything is "on rails" and therefore everything stops sliding.

KSP really doesn't give you enough information or reference points. But -- The TL;DR version is that you need to start with a circular orbit at 864.3 km, and then when you're directly above the target, burn to geosynchronous orbit height - after 2.5 orbit or 1.5 days you then need to circularise - and you'll be directly over the target again. You need maths to figure this out. KSP really doesn't give you enough information or reference points but we do have both of these points - the point directly above the target and the point where geosynchronous is. We need to find the initial orbit where we can burn and (eventually) reach the target orbit, with the transfer burn being done directly above the target. There's a lot more - but here's some maths if you're interested in how I determined the altitude to start from -- https://www.dropbox.com/s/ibtrhq7kya728on/geosynchronous.pdf?dl=0

Organics are unique in that they need a "seed stock". Imagine Supplies as being basically growable algae, but organics being actual plants (and animals perhaps). In order to start growing proper organics you need a small amount of organics to start with - to start, you hardly need any to get it going but you do need some. Sorry, but sounds like you'll be sending a probe at the next transfer window but it's happened to me in the past - you're not alone!

It looks rather asymmetric - how are you planning to push it to its intended destination in the first place? But perhaps that's really your answer - RCS ports should really be spaced an equal distance away from the centre of mass - so that's the way you should go and you should be able to do this using this existing design plus some cubic octagonal struts and RCS ports on the end. However, my own preference would be to make it symmetric even though it'll be heavier - and that way putting RCS on it would be a lot easier - any reason you can't replicate the Mk1 crew cabin and fuel tank on the other side too? Could you do this and just add a decoupler later to get rid of the relevant bits when you no longer need them to keep the centre of mass in a sane place?

Scott Manley has a beginner's series - it's for an earlier version of KSP but 95% of it will still apply. He goes through the basics and should help you get started. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d74m3qThOoU

I'm also still on 1.3.1 though I have bought the DLC - more as a "thank you" to Squad rather than it having content that I'm particularly interested in (let's face it, I got my money's worth a long time ago). I too have been to every planet and every moon, but really I don't find KSP getting old - it's more the additional challenges that you can set for yourself, though I think I would have stopped a long time ago if I couldn't have mods. Planet are a small bonus but increasing the longevity for me is adding more stuff to think about - adding MKS so I have to care about life support, adding Extra-planetary launchpads, adding electric propellers, sea-plane and submarine mod packs so I can explore areas that I wouldn't normally go to. My fondest wish for a KSP improvement is simply better memory management so that I can have fifty mods and a career with 150 craft on the go - my game does crash a lot.

Roughly, sea level on Laythe == 3000 metres altitude on Kerbin. Now you're testing a boat which makes this trickier, but really all you want to know is whether your airtakes / engines combo works there. In which case, build a small plane using the same number of engines and intakes, fly it to the mountains, and see if the engines work at an altitude of 3000 metres. If they do, on Laythe they should be perfectly fine.

I made a Mk3 SSTO spaceplane by accident. You see, I was planning to get a rather bulky thing down to the surface of Laythe, and rather than slap a de-orbit engine on it, I went for rapiers just to get it out of orbit. Then after putting the wings on, I was struggling with the centre of mass. One of the components was an (empty) Mk-3 to 2.5m fuel tank that allowed me to dock it to get it to Laythe in the first place, and filling it up with oxidiser sorted my centre of mass / centre of lift problems out. So, naturally, I test these things before hurling them a billion miles, so I try it from the runway, turn around and land in the grasslands, because landing gear can always be an issue. Fine, no problem, let's try it again - keep going. Hmm, big mountains coming up, let's just throttle up, get over them and land on the other side. Hang on, I'm going supersonic. And now hypersonic. Shall I try it? Yes, I've got some oxidiser. Made it (just) to LKO going the wrong way around Kerbin, with a Mk3 spaceplane that was never designed to do so. Here's a pic.

1. There's also some different nuclear engines available in the NearFuture mod - they're balanced, just tend to be larger thus saving on part count more than anything else. The only issue I've had with nuclear engine powered ISRUs is the engines are really long and it's fiddly to arrange the craft around them so that they have lowish centre of mass and won't tip over when you inevitably land on a steep slope. This will happen to you on Pol - there's very little flat terrain around so plan accordingly. 2. Bear in mind you will likely need a small amount of oxidiser - for your SSTO planes at Laythe, so don't forget the ability to transport it around. Sounds like you've got a great mission planned out ahead of you - apart from the vessels to Laythe (your primary objective), you're going to need the ISRU setup at Pol - one Lander, one orbital refinery and fuel dump, and one tanker and these can likely be sent in a single package. Good luck!

In my last playthrough and this one too, I went for the refuelling setup at Vall, though Pol was always a consideration. Its highish gravity well means that you need extra large vessels to do Vall efficiently. Anyway, pros and cons. Laythe: Pros: Can do it using an ISRU plane which is nice and air breathing and efficient. Great location. Cons: Can't automate landing a plane with MechJeb ; Using a plane will mean each refuelling trip takes ages; Designing a heavy ISRU plane that can land easily on Laythe is not a trivial task and you're more likely to crash it. Vall: Pros: Best location in the Joolian system; Can be automated with MechJeb; Flattish. Cons: Highish gravity well means larger engines, larger fuel tanks to make it efficient and thus pushing the thing out to Vall in the first place can be fiddly. Tylo: Pros: None ; Cons: HUGE gravity well means HUGE vessels to make it work. I wouldn't even attempt it. Bop: Pros: Low gravity well; Cons: Worst location in the Joolian system due to the inclined orbit. Very hilly. Pol: Pros: Lowest gravity well; Cons: It's a long way out meaning transit to the other moons takes a long time. Very hilly.

"Jebediah Kerbin, kerbonaut. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic kerbal. Jebediah Kerman will be that man. Better than he was before. Better...stronger...faster."

That's a very pretty plane. I've never used Karbonite - but have used electric propellers from mods to get around in Eve (with an on-board nuclear reactor) - it's slow but will work pretty much forever. Here's a one man ascender. Stock apart from the MechJeb and a small amount of MKS supplies (which basically makes it heavier). And after I built this eighteen man ascender (which worked), my hard drive ate itself in disgust. There's an ISRU setup in the middle that's invisible and causes an awful lot of non-fatal explosions on take-off.

Yeah, I ended up with Acme Corporation designs like this for planes. It works but it does look a bit silly I'll admit

Yes, I had this too. The problem is that your centre of mass is a long way from the heatshield on the bottom and as a result, once it starts turning, there is likely no stopping it from flipping and then exploding. However, an Eve ascender is a big thing and it's really tough to keep the centre of mass near the heat shield - your design skills should be going towards the smoothly aerodynamic ascender, not the descent. You're completely right in mounting heatshields near the top to counteract this - this is by far the simplest solution to this issue and can be applied to most craft.

It's for an older version, and spamming intakes like that won't really work in the current version, but take a look at Scott Manley's Orange Tank Efficiency video - he essentially builds an almost SSTO (ok he drops a bunch of air-intake engines) that uses a single orange tank of fuel and takes it all the way to Duna and Ike and then back to Kerbin.

Whilst I agree that they have some similar resources ( Polymers, Metals, Machine Parts/Metals, Specialised Parts/Electronics ), it's pretty different, and also, Surviving Mars isn't really worth playing unless you're a huge fan of Sim City style games

All good advice above - building an SSTO (i.e. Single Stage to Orbit, i.e. Not throwing anything away) that will get to the Mun will be difficult. Not Eve ascender difficult, but close. I would recommend that you try and land on the Mun and come back using staging first, before attempting this. Then if you want to attempt the SSTO to the Mun idea, it's simply a matter of designing planes that can get into orbit with a lot of unused delta-v. If you're willing to use mods, Kerbal Engineer Redux will be able to tell you what your delta-v is in flight and during design though it won't help you fly the mission, and MechJeb2 will give you the same information but actually help execute maneuver nodes. From low kerbin orbit (which typically takes 3500-4500ms to reach), you will need roughly 2100ms delta v to reach the surface of the Mun, and around 1100ms extra if you want to return to Kerbin, though having slightly more than what's required is strongly recommended.

It's called the "CC-R2 Connector Port" - in my game it's in both Utility and EVA item tabs. You will need KAS installed as well as KIS I believe, and as Geonovast noted, you must have unlocked the relevant node in the tech tree.