Nich

The major problem is hard does not enforce hardness. You can simply grind around the hardness. You can land on the Mun with Tier 1 tech and level 1 facilities but most people wait for 2.5m stuff and level 2 facilities.

I want to use more standard lifters but most of mine are custom builds. In career which I mostly play every launch you have new and interesting parts to make more efficient lifters. If your not using KER or MechJeb for dv readout creating a very efficient cost effective lifter can take a lot of time (in excel). If you are playing hard no save no revert 2 or 3 failed launches can bankrupt a space program. Any failed launches will generally may a contract a net loss because the margins are quite small. Most of my Hard missions barely pay back 150-200%. Where as on normal I would not do a mission if the return on investment was less then 1000%

In 1.0.5 7:1 was the best I was able to achieve with a very slow glider type craft with an AOI on the wings. With out it I think I would be happy with 5:1. I do think this is countered by the huge amoun t of lift created at stall limit. Most of my space planes are able to land around 50 m/s at 25 degrees AOA without flaps. Most commercial planes can not do this requiring 60-70 m/s at a minimum.

Updated the original post with a video

well I figured that it is a command line but you need to change your directory to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mono-3.2.3\lib\mono\4.5" I completed the guide but CKAN still doenst work. any suggestions?

I found a guide to setup CKAN for XP https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/wiki/Installing-CKAN-on-Windows-XP-%28Unsupported%29 but there a step I dont know how to do Import trusted root certificates from Mozilla into Mono's certificate store mozroots --import --ask-remove Is this just a command line?

This is my first time installing CKAN. I am running XP 64 I get an error when attempting to connect for auto updates, but CKAN will start up. When I get refresh to get the list of available mods I get the following error "Connection to https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN-meta/archive/master.tar.gz could not be established. Repository successfully updated" The walk through mentions a mono ckan.exe but I can not seem to find it.

Well first off there is your mistake. Mun flybuy can be accomplished with 0 tech and no facilities upgrades (assuming just a command pod). Hard + grinding = normal mode. For safetys sake I like to have terrior at least for Mun and Minimus. My last play through on hard was amazingly easy Mission 1 Launch pad science Mission 2 Runway science Mission 3 Vertical launch for Flying, high atm, low space Mission 4 high orbit science (I was trying flyby but came up short) MIssion 5 Flyby Upgrade launch pad

Here are mine but they really are not the best option. I really only did it because the nuke was the only engine used for the mission with a supply tank left in orbit. I think I got something like 9000 ish dv out of that engine.

Problem is craft explodes because skin temp reaches max. Thermal control system would work off the parts internal temp which has no effect on the skin temp. Skin temp is based off radiative flux coming in and out.

It drive me nuts that i have to scroll down to the most recent post. When I click on a topic it should automatically take me to the latest post. Not sure if squad has control over this but every other messaging board I use does this nicely.

Have a link to the original mission that just looks like it wouldn't make it lol @Foxster, @Signo

Waiting for RO and RP-0 to be updated to 1.1 I played a hard no save no revert and sadly found it surprisingly easy. I am thinking of trying a remote tech/KOS play through possibly doing a hard no save/no revert. I made it past a breaking point in 1.0.5 and duna, guilly, ike were all in range pretty easy after a minimus landing. However thinking about landing with time delay out at duna didn't seem possible and without it seemed too easy. I am also open to other suggestions but I have not seen any interesting challenges in a while.

@Starwaster Well it has been 10 years since I have taken any physics classes so maybe you can enlighten me. What happens in the following situation. You have 6 fly wheels with identical moments of inertia x1, x2 y1, y2 z1, z2 x1 is at max RPM. y1 and y2 are accelerated to maximum RPM in opposite directions to cause no torque. y1 has a positive RPM and y2 has a negative RPM. What is the net torque required from z1 and z2 to prevent your craft from rotating when x1 is decelerated? I am definitely a bit fuzzy on this math and all I can remember is right hand rule and cross products. I believe you only need cross products if the torque is not 90 degrees. So when decelerating x1 precession from y1 would be in the positive z direction and precession from y2 would be in the negative z direction canceling each other out. Perhaps I am missing a coriolis effect or I have completely forgotten how gyros work or something but yes I agree this does seem to violate conservation of angular momentum.

Well I learned the method from a Professor who spent 40 years designing gyroscopes and autopilots for honeywell and when I saw the actual math it looked legit to me so feel free to believe what ever you want.

Yes you can. I don't remember exactly how it works and to be honest I don't care enough to look it up but let's say you have 2 sets of reaction wheels. Now let's assume you have 10m between each set. Now let's assume X1 is saturated. X1 has become a gryo scope we can spin up y2 causing a tourqe that has to be canceled around z1 however because of the monument arm it is only equal to 1/10 th the tourqe in y2. Now that y2 is also a gryo X1 can be desaturated causing a tourqe of 1/10 around z2. Now if I remember correctly the tourqes around z1 and z2 are opposite each other so they can just cancel each other. Even if the tourqes are in the same direction because of the lever arms you are dividing the mommentum by 10 every time you transfer the momentum. http://www.google.com/patents/US6523785

Whipple or explosve armor is easy to beat all you need is a projectile that splits in half before impact. The first small bit goes through the shielding layer and the second goes through the heavy plate

I was talking about the dynamics of an aircraft following a set AOA. If your loosing altitude you will pull up too far and start loosing speed until prograde dips low enough that you start loosing altitude and gaining speed. In my experience my planes have had very little, negative, or no dampening to this mode of oscillation

@Accelerando HAHA I had to google strawman. After reading your post and considering it your 100% right. I was giving people way to much credit. Infact after thinking about it I now believe space "conflict" is a 100% chance certainty however I have some points. First off all the "wars" you listed were not wars. I do not want to offend any veterans but these conflicts were more policing then wars. I am no expert in history but in Vietnam we were not allowed to send troops into North Vietnam out of fear of starting a war with China and Russia. Thus we were sitting ducks just waiting for the North Vietnamese to go south and attack the South Vietnamese. Afghanistan was not a war against Afghanistan but a war on Terrorist that claimed no nation state and many experts believe simply fled to other countries after the invasion of Afghanistan. The Iraq war lasted what 9 days before their military was crushed? Might as well mention our most expensive war to date. The war on drugs has been the biggest loss yet for the US lasting 35 some years and only increasing the value and profits of the drug lords while costing the US Trillions of dollars. As for WWII the reason it did not bankrupt the US was because the world economy was basically non-existent at that time. Do I see space terrorism in our future Yes. Do I see space piracy(gangs) in our future Yes. Do I see space policing in our future Yes. Do I see a space arms race in our future Yes Do I see a space based Civil war? Maybe In all three cases I see combatants living among the civilian population. I do not see a need for a battle cruiser but I am trying to imagine how combat would play out. Perhaps hacking for control of life support systems of a station that the enemies have free accesses to. In a space based economy I don't see closing your doors to be a viable option so Traders will have free access to your station. For the arms race it will be very similar to the nuclear arms race of today. A build up of unimaginable destructive power and the only thing that prevents it is mutually assured destruction.

Although I now see you said nation states implying multiple countries colonized something and those colonies revolted declaring their independence. Then the colonies get so big that they run out of minable asteroids in the asteroid belt. Now you have 10^10^10^10^10 people living in juipter sized spaceships. Assuming they do not have the tech to outright mine planets (really there just big asteroids when your on that scale) and have not developed the technology to go interstellar then I would think that these space colonies would have the same problem US and China have today that if they go to war it will bankrupt both countries.

I am going to have to disagree. Earth countries will never fight in space. Lets look at a hypothetical US captures an asteroid that is 90% unobtainium and starts to mine it. Then China decides they want the asteroid for them selves, attacks the US mining equipment and seizes control of the asteroid (armed vs unarmed). The US would respond by blocking all trade in and out of china. Then with air strikes take out strategic defences, manufacturing and weapons stores until someone surrenders. (armed vs armed) This assumes neither side would go nuclear which is a major deterrent but the strongest deterrent is the fact that the US and Chines economies are so intermingled that war between the 2 countries would likely bankrupt the entire world. We will never see Armed vs armed inspace at most unarmed "civilian" targets will be attacked with political repercussion back on the surface but I doubt this will ever happen. What is the most valuable thing on earth? Diamonds, Uranium? I suspect it would be cheaper to mine these out of landfills then trying to return materials from space.

aka guided missiles

I was actually thinking of adding a suggestion to squad to allow control from here on engines (for shuttles) but your trade marked cores solves every problem perfectly. Although on airplanes I prefer tilted wings. Does your tilted core prevent oscillations while following prograde? That has been my major challenge

Note sure what you are talking about, destroying planets is easy. A large enough nuke over the planet and you can blow off a majority of the planets atmosphere. A small nuke at the appropriate point in the core could stop the magnetic field allowing the sun to strip our atmosphere. Or best yet a small ION thruster could move an existing asteroid into a collision course turning earth into a molten hell that very few lifeforms survive. My personal bet would be a self replicating nanite that converts the atmosphere to something poisonous. I cant imagine a way to destroy a sun or galaxy but figuring out how to trigger an early super nova would wipe out life in a solar system. As for bending EM waves around a craft to make it invisible I know I have seen research by the air force that says it is feasible. (We may already have it but it is classified but I doubt it) 0 point energy thrusters are already under testing by NASA and it is debatable whether they are real or just measurment errors

@Jarin Ah this is where we differ. I see space engagement range to be measured in light years. I personally cant imagine a space war ever happening. Earth based war may have some very minor scuffles in space but in the end it will be won or lost based on earth based logistics or economic warfare. 1. near infinite unclaimed resources available in space and billions of earth like planets in our galaxy alone 2. development mismatch (baby vs navy seal) Us - Gentlemen behold our power we can now destroy the enemy's galaxy at a push of a button. Aliens - Awww so cute but seriously we destroy universes like you cut grass and sorry but your universe just keeps expanding and is getting shaggy and our neighbors are starting to complain.