Evanitis

I love to use spaceplanes for re-entry in early career before I can build proper SSTOs. Notice the verb 'love' - it's not a choice of efficiency, precision or anything. I don't think it's cheaper and part-count is bigger unless I don't include gears and aim for ocean-landings. I use low-tech spaceplanes because controlled gliding re-rentry is really fun. I also like the added difficulty of launching. Having a winged something on top of a rocket isn't really an option, and the solutions for having the payload on the bottom of the rockets are interesting. Lemme drop my most efficient design here, the Eight-Pack. It takes 8 tourists (+pilot) to orbit (and back) with 29 parts. I'm working on a version that can also do rescues - this one is a free spirit that does backflips on the way up, resulting in highly inclined orbits.

You misunderstood. That was the pod he spawned in - I just flown by with a probe to gain control (no navigation nodes yet for precise rendezvous), and pushed it down from orbit in EVA.

Welcome back to KSP! As you noticed, atmospheres got more realistic since you weren't around. One of it's results is trickier re-entries. Hitting the lower atmo with high speed usually has explosive results. That's not a problem if you are coming down from a low orbit in a shallow angle, as the upper layers eat enough speed. But careless suborbital flights, or interplanetary aerobraking without a heatshield will be painful. The atmo change also means your most ideal ascent profile will no longer will be 'upwards than turn right' as in some earlier versions. You can start a proper gravity turn now after a few thousand meters. And mods? Dunno, whatever you feel missing or want more of. Some people prefer parts, others go for more planets, better textures and visuals, contract-packs,autopilots, more readouts, subtle improvements of stock mechanics, added realism, etc. Though unless you have some supercomputer, avoid installing mods you don't really need. KSP runs in 32bit at the moment, so it can't really use much ram. Though Chatterer and Kerbal Krash System are my favorite universal mods - they'll bring much fun regardless of the rest of your setup of how you play. And unless you computer was considered a potato even years ago, add Planetshine and Scatterer - those improve visuals greatly for the cost of no noticable performance loss.

That sounds real cool. If you only get as far as cheering when staging happens, and moaning and panic when something explodes, we'll be happy. Yeah, watched my first live-launch, and I realized what I was missing all along.

I played my newest career game a bit.

Hehh, same here. I thought it's a sisyphean, boring~ish looking pointless game... and in the next moment I have screens full of a chaotic contraption that works against all odds. And I wake up with the desire to build even more of the same. (that's not mine. I'm nowhere near that tidy) (poke me if you're up for multiplayer in the ~GMT area)

KCT simulations revert automatically, no matter the result. Thus after satisfactory testing, I need to do the actual mission - without saves. It also costs some funds per 10 minutes - a symbolic amount in normal mode, but that's still a lot with 30% income. I heard other (self-regulating) solutions too - like using a sandbox save for testing (too much hassle), or testing by reverts (too much temptation do do the same when a disaster happens on a 'real' launch). I prefer the mod. I realized that I love my failures. But it's not fun to have them on costy, untested rockets.

Everybody in the world wanted to see how 3D cinema looks like. There was a movie that shown the possibilities of the technology. So everyone watched it, even people who have never been to cinema ever since. The numbers made the producers think that the movie was good. Now they'll sink a ton of money into the sequels. But don't worry for them. It's calculated risk - they won't be starving if the franchise turns out to be unprofitable. Though why would it be? People loved Pocahontas back in the day.

Well, there's a KSP Greenscreen mod to quickly get renders from the game's engine that you can key easily. There's also a plugin for Blender that makes 3d models from KSP .craft files. If you prefer other 3d software, I'm pretty sure you can just export them from Blender in your favorite format to use in your favorite program.

@tempsgk My favorite mouse's middle button also died... a few years ago. I tried a few replacements, but I always got back to the old one sooner or later. So... you can use all functions with using CTRL or SHIFT and... on of the two buttons. Can't tell exactly which one does what, but you'll figure it out. EDIT: Ahh, it's a software problem, only with KSP. Strange. Have you tried turning it off and on again reinstalling the whole game?

You overestimate us. There are many seasoned players (I guess) who never knew you also have to go sideways to reach orbit before trying KSP. On topic... So we gonna lose Phobos... Nooo! I loved that planet in Warframe... And I can't wait to see what will be there in the Expanse series. I'm sad. Let me check how much time I have to enjoy the though of it's still being there... 30–50 million years? That sounds all right, I'm not that sad anymore. I was half-expecting it to happen in this decade. Or on Wednesday. Though I indeed knew about people on the ISS.

Well, there is Field Experience. It's not exactly what you are looking for - it won't get more xp to your kerbals, but it eliminates the need for them to return to Kerbin for levelling up.

Mehh, RL spceflight looks too easy. Just checked the SpaceX launch - those cheaters set up their nodes -before- even launching. And they probably have some supercomputer - no slowdowns during the entire process. Ok, that might be because of the low part-count. Also... I want a mod that plays applauding if nothing gets destroyed on staging. Also also...

And more importantly... are there bookies where you can make bets? That's the first launch I'm following, but it feels more fun than watching sports.

Excellent timing I must say... my KSP interest just started to go downhill. I noticed the all too familiar symptom of playing dozens of one afternoon indie games instead of continuing my career.

@benjee10 I'm using scatterer, but I never noticed it's sun-flare differs from stock. Maybe I should check the most recent version. Or maybe I should switch the KSPRC one off, to see if it's behind that. EDIT: checked it, and you are right. But I'll stick to my current (incorrectly drawn) one - I like it's very strong effect. Maybe I'll even get myself to correct the hue one day.

It's from the KSPRC Renaissance Compilation. Keep in mind, that it's a -very- resource intensive pack, so if you don't have some supercomputer, installing it will have a serious performance impact (if not downright crashes for eating all your ram). To install just the sun-flare, add only the KSPRC folder from the archive to your GameData. From that, you can delete the textures and atmospheres folder, and only keep 'Assets', 'Plugins' and the .dll files.

That sounds like an all right proportion for me. The rocket TWR is low indeed, but that only means it needs an irregular ascent profile. I think if you don't pitch up after firing the nuke, and stay on ~15° AoA, you should reach orbit. Keep in mind that your initial AP shouldn't always reach 70km - if you raise your PE to 70km+, it won't degrade much if you already reached 50-60km. (of course, AP and PE still switches, but you get what I mean.) If all else fails, you can switch the whiplashes with rapiers. Add just a tiny sip of oxidizer so the hybrids can help the nuke a bit in the circularization.

Do you know a non-stock sun flare that doesn't do this? I have a relatively pretty one, but it also stays behind objects. I'm also not a fan of it's hue. It's cyan-blue, but it's reflections stay yellow-red. I'd fix the latter problem myself, though I was always lazy to figure out how to tinker with a .unity3d file. As someone doing video-editing, post-production and compositing... I feel with you. Though we don't add the flare (and similar effects) because we -think- all camera shots should have it. Such artifacts help 'fake', compsed shots to look realistic - and that's our main goal in such situations. It's an easy, and cheap solution. I love when I -don't- have to add these. But when I have problems as wrong light-direction or very mismatching color or exposure with the source material (be it a 3d render or an actual shot), adding a lens flare, some bloom, maybe an extra light can cover an ugly bit. Now if the customer pays me enough and has a good taste, I try to find a better workaround. But it's usually the opposite: I can't allow myslef to always avoid quick cheap solutions, while random bosses and even directors tend to melt from satisfaction when they see a lens-flare. Common conversation: "That shot looks dull Evan, do something with it!" *tinkers with colors, exposure, contrast, motion blur* "It's getting better, but it's not enough, got any more ideas?" *adds lens flare, bloom, dark vinyl on the edge* "Yes, that's beautiful! I'm buying it. Now do the same with a few more shots." *sigh*

Well, all launched parts arrived to Duna. Just some got integrated into the atmosphere and the soil.

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Once you have probe cores, that's kinda' the only use of pilots.

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