Evanitis

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Alien Space Programs. There's a Duna and Eve version too.

I also remeber times when I could splash into Jool with 9k m/s... though it was really really long ago. Maybe 0.9? But the dV required to sling infront of Tylo is minimal if you fine-tune your approach right after the transfer burn. I kinda' like it better - slingshooting is awesome. Though I'm concerned about Eve. I have less experience with that planet in the newer versions. Gilly isn't much of a help when slowing down, the atmo is thick there and you can't sling while the entry. Guess that's the place where one goes with maxium ablator.

Reentry got tougher, but nothing unmanageable. Though aerobraking with interplanetary velocity is kinda' asking for a superheated discombobulation. These days I wouldn't attempt it without using a local moon's gravity to decrese my speed first. Also, keep in mind that Laythe is a moon too, so the rules of gravity assisting also apply. So if you are attempting aerobraking on it's 'retrograde' side, you'll -gain- speed in the atmo instead of bleeding it. And poof. My recent Laythe flights indicate that a 35-40km PE on the planet's prograde side safely eats up 3600 m/s of velocity without a heatshield, while trying the same on the other side sends your charred remains on a Jool escape trajectory. Of course, coming from Kerbin means that you'll need Tylo anyways to slow you down, but it can capture a craft coming from Kerbin with a hohmann transfer in itself..

Today's best: I haven't the slightest clue what's going on on this one.

Yay, thanks!

Four? I only knew about one... where to set these and what's the difference?

1.1 will use a newer Unity engine with multithreading and native 64 bit support, so each of us can expect a sizable positive impact on performance.

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Well, if you can get to orbit, you are trough the hardest part. From there it's only a matter of addig moar boosters for more payload, balance wet-dry CoM so the plane won't flip upon re-entry and finding the perfect ascent path for any given plane. That last part is the trickiest, as the ideal flight path depends on the power of the engines (most likely it's different in the jet and the rocket phase), the weight of the craft and it's drag profile. Ideally, you want to climb to ~10km without exceeding ~320 m/s only on jets. Depending on your TWR it can be achieved by having full throttle with a 10-30° angle of attack. If you need more AoA than that to keep under the desired speed, it signifies that you probably have too much jet engines (needless weight). Once you get to ~10km, you can start gaining speed by lowering the AoA to ~10°. Turboramjets or Rapiers with shock cone intakes should be able to take you to ~1200 m/s on about 18-20km. Ultimately you'll reach a point when you can't accelerate anymore. That's the time you can fire the rocket engines (or switch mode on Rapier). Once there, you can pull up - but do it slowly as a too fast pitch will bleed your precious speed. If your rocket 'stage' has high TWR, there's nothing wrong with a high AoA. 40° will get you out of the atmo fast and than you can circularize. But a lower TWR setup can also be good at this point, you just need a lower AoA. If you burn with nukes at this point, it can be as low as 10° - you'll get the escape velocity slower, but you won't overshoot your desired orbit height by raising your AP too fast. Hope I could help a bit.

I often get the most spectacular trajectory constellations around Jool's moons... but I never did screens of that. Though yesterday I started a career with KSC placed on Laythe, so I guess I'll have better ones soon. This was my return trajectory after from the first orbital flight without nodes unlocked. Fully accidental, I was already planning to send a rescue that I didn't need afterall.

Since everyone doing RSS and RO and such coolnesses... I stared a new career on Laythe. The sights are beautiful, Jool is majestic. Those moons are pretty comfy. After an overbuilt first orbit mission, I managed to also get three flybys and and a most spectacular free return trajectory at the end. For like 110 dV in two burns, without nodes. I would never admit if it was almost totally unintentional, instead just take a look at that trajectory in the album... whoa. I bet soon I'll be able to tell all the moons apart by without the map. I also launched a double rescue. But the first stranded kerbal was so glad to see us that he forgot to kill his velocity and smashed the engine on impact in a pretty ugly way. We tried to use it anyways, but it wasn't overly happy about that attempt. At the end the careless guy had to push the craft home while his buddy waits for the next mission a Tylo orbit. I wonder how will it be when I start geting high Joo orbit rescues with various intersecting moons on the path.

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Great looks and precise functionality on both crafts. I'm especially astonised by the Squirt - I can't figure out how the heck it keeps underwater. Lovely. Though my experience about the subs in 1.0.5 is that it's easy to make one, just hard to do it right. I think the main difficulty comes from that the craft needs to be amphibious in stock - if you can roll into water, you most likely can climb out. Anyways, building one with the VesselMover mod was too easy, so I didn't use it anymore. Dang, now there's even a shipyard mod, how cool is that? Anyways, if you are looking for even more challenge, try one that can also fly, or even go to orbit. I had a terrific time designing such craft. Though I'd love to find even more similarly challenging tasks involving submarines. I wonder if there is an underwater map of Kerbin..

Many people has no problem -not- using the functions meant to do stuff they prefer to do manually, just as they don't use the stock debug menu to have infinite fuel or no gravity. But indeed, MJ's landing autopilot is downright op, the rendezvous one is silly a bit, while the docking automation wastes a ton of monoprop. But these things are -fun- to do manually. But doing a 10+ minute burn is boring as hell, and if I don't pay attention, I can overshoot by a few million kilometers. Nudging the stock manuver node for minutes to set a precise node is also unfun. Just as calculating your dV on paper. I can't let those functions go.

Dunno, that's the part where my common sense is satisfied. The higher enregy orbit is longer, so it takes more time to... go 'round it. I'm pretty sure that's not exactly how it works, but 'seems' logical.

I'm still waiting for a comparative dissection of game-mechanics in Planetbase and Sol-0 form one of the gaming sites. I totally wanna buy one, but can't decide which one. Though I'm not in a hurry - interesting KSP mods and challenges pop up a lot faster than I can try them.

Don't worry about it. It's... not complicated, but really doesn't feel 'right' for the common sense. Fortunately, you already have the perfect tool what will eventually make you understand what's happening: KSP. It helps more than any explanation we can give. Let me quote mr. Munroe:

Hope you'll stick around. Spam F1 ingame and show us your creations!

Mehh, MJ is like the F12 menu. Some functions of it feels downright OP, others make some processes more convenient, and there are a few you can't live without once you tried. The MJ I use feels like KER+a better PreciseNode.

Yay! Gonna fling around all the moons without conics and nodes now!

I generally agree with you, but not -always-. If someone has a lot of Steam friends (many people do), they'll constantly see how hooked you are to KSP, what's a free commercial to the game. I'd totally go for the Steam version if I was buying it today.

Sure, why not. Though I'm just a common user, so that wall of text looks like chinese to me. Not sure how big of a chunk of the data is interesting after such Exception, so I'll paste relevant looking pages here. If the whole log is helpful for you, holler and I'll upload it somewhere. Beware, a huge block of code resides in the spoiler tag:

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Ahh wait, there's a guy around somewhere who's avatar kinda' summarizes my memories from the early KSP... Yup, there it is: