nerdboy64

I've been working some more on the game, and I decided to make a video of my progress. This is all coming in the next version which is still in development.

At least it looks pretty. What sort of rocket did you have to launch to get an explosion like that?

This is a tough one, and everyone's making a good case for the things they think are useless. But for me, it has to be the ion engine. Even though KSP's version is much more powerful than real-life equivalents, it's still too weak to be practical on anything. Even if the main body of the craft were literally an ion engine, a xenon tank, and a probe, it would need so many generator parts that it would still be too heavy for the engine. In fact, the only use I've found for it was making rovers before rover wheels were added (and even then it couldn't climb the smallest hill). I've also tried making solar aircraft with them, but I find that most of the power comes from the infiniglide bug to the point where the engine may as well not exist. Other engines, even the horrendously inefficient ones, have SOME use. I've even found a use for the tiny grey one: Escape pods! But never have I found a situation in which the ion engine is even somewhat practical.

I've finally made my first working K-Drive, rather blandly named "K-Drive Demonstrator 2." It's nice and compact, using only 1m parts, and is surprisingly reliable. Now that I have a working design, I'll have to experiment a little more with this "technology."

Not surprisingly, I enjoy gaming (besides KSP I mostly play Minecraft, World of Tanks, and War Thunder), as well as programming my own game and drawing.

CPU: AMD Phenom x4 II 965 RAM: 16Gb GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 by EVGA Still on old-fashioned hard drives, but I'm looking into SSDs.

I learned about it when Kurt (of Minecraft Far Lands or Bust fame) made his first video on it, which just have been a couple years ago by now. I immediately downloaded it, as the game was still free back then, and when it switched to the paid model, I bought it because I liked the game and wanted to support the devs.

After several of my own failed attempts, I downloaded Redshift's version and still got little success. Activating the drive while already moving caused the plane to explode immediately, while activating it from a standstill caused the ship to accelerate only lazily, drifting right until it eventually fell on its side due to the skinny wheelbase. Am I doing something wrong here? I'd love to actually get something working with this device.

Since I discovered the concept of a Kraken Drive just a few hours ago, I've been trying to develop one with no success. Apparently using the "Start: Deployed" tweakable on the gear de-bugs the part that causes the K-Drive effect to work, and the solution is to "restart the game several times." Clearly I have not restarted enough for it to start working again.

I can't remember if I've already posted it here, but once I tried to recreate an Apollo moon mission with a spacecraft as close to historically accurate as I could get it. Eventually it worked, but (spoiler alert) it wasn't on the first try. First spacecraft design. For historical accuracy, I didn't use any "asparagus" staging. Thus, the rocket I ended up with was very tall. The tallness of the rocket made it incredibly wobbly, which ended in the failure of various part linkages. But hey, at least we know the escape tower works.

Gotta be the original StarCraft. It was already "old" when I played it as a kid, but I still thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was the first real PC game I had ever owned, and I played the crap out of it. Never got into multiplayer, and also cheated a lot on the singleplayer, but I had fun with it.

On Windows, if double clicking doesn't work, right click and select Open with... >> Java Platform (SE) Binary. Not sure about Macs; I don't own one.

I'll be sure to do that with the text file. If you can't move at the beginning of the game, go into the Crew/Power tab of the manage ship screen and put some crew and power into your engines. In the coming version it auto-distributes, but not in the current one. After that it's WASD, arrow keys, or right click to move around the world and left click to interact with stations, enemies, etc. As for ship parts, you can't rotate them yet, but that's a planned feature. I'll see about maybe getting it in by the next update, but no promises.

Don't worry, that's coming in the next update.

Glad you like it. I didn't use any sort of game maker program if that's what you mean. I programmed it in Java with the Eclipse IDE and did the art in Paint.net.

Click manage ship, go to crew and power, then drag the sliders all the way to the right. Then you can move around with WASD. Sorry, I should have explained that somewhere.

So, everyone knows the good old "two scientists walk into a bar" joke, right? Well, I recently heard an alternate version: Two scientists walk into a bar. The first one walks up to the counter and says, "I'll have some H20, please." The second one says, "No need to be so pretentious about it," and orders a beer like a normal bar customer. The first scientist curses silently at his failed assassination attempt.

Always check the comments for developer news posts. Since summer of 2013, I've been working on making this game as a hobby/practice project. Shipyard is a 2D turn-based space strategy set in a sci-fi universe, with the main mechanic being the ability to build ships from individual systems such as crew's quarters, engines, reactors, etc. It's still very early in development, with many of the core features only partially implemented. I am posting here mainly looking for feedback on what I have so far and/or suggestions for the future. If you're interested, you can read more and download the game by clicking the link below. It requires Java to run. Play Shipyard! Gameplay from version 0.8.0 (This was originally an early preview and is now somewhat outdated): Screenshots for the skeptical (These are also outdated; they're just here to prove it's not a scam): Ship Interior Editor: Ship Weapons Navigation Screen:

Mine's orbiting Duna aboard the Titan I, mothership for the highly ambitious Duna Extended Research Program (DERP), while his buddies do all the boring sciency stuff. Note: Jeb does not actually like the Titan. It is too large and underpowered for his tastes, as it took several orbits around Kerbin to get to Duna because it didn't have the TWR to do it in a single burn. He thinks it would benefit from MOAR BOOSTERS. I guess that's what I get for trying to send the equivalent* of three big orange tanks to Duna with only four nuclear engines. Also, the landers were very heavy and attached with a single standard docking port each. They threatened to snap off at any moment, meaning Jeb had to be more careful than he was used to. Overall, Jeb will be happy to get back to Kerbin and strap himself to some good old-fashioned SRBs... Just as soon as the emergency refueling tanker gets there, that is. *The Titan has a single orange tank, and each of the two landers has four 1/4-size tanks.

Try Bandicam. If you don't mind a watermark at the top of your videos, you can record 10 minutes at a time (as opposed to Fraps' 30 seconds) with the free version. It's not a perfect solution, but it's the best you'll find for free.

After posting here a couple pages back, I realized just how silly my classification system was. As such, I just drafted up a new, more efficient classification system that more accurately describes a craft. Here's the completely rewritten version, which I will begin converting all of my craft to follow: FAVCS 2: Fusion Aerospace Vehicle Classification System 2 Every vehicle has a three-letter "major class" based on the kind of craft and the role it plays. The major class is made up of two "minor classes" - the type and the role. The type is a two-letter code and the role a one-letter code. TYPE CODES: AC - Aircraft - Anything which flies but does not leave the atmosphere. SC - Spacecraft - Anything designed to operate entirely in space, and only enters the atmosphere at launch or landing. HS - Hybrid Spacecraft - A craft designed to operate both in space and in the atmosphere (other than merely to pass through it, as with a pure spacecraft). Plane-style SSTOs belong in this category. LV - Land Vehicle - Drives along the ground. May have small amphibious or flight capability for added versatility, but this may not be its main mode of propulsion. ROLE CODES: T - Transport - Transports nonliving cargo - Applies to all types P - Passenger - Transports Kerbals beyond the required crew - Applies to all types L - Launcher - Carries a payload to orbit; distinguishable from "T" class in that it does not carry them to a precise location - Only applies to type SC and HS vehicles R - Research - Carries crew or equipment for the purpose of scientific research - Applies to all types G - Generic - Designed to carry only the required crew and supplies - Applies to all types If a vehicle is considered experimental or in development, a lowercase "p" is appended to the major class. EXAMPLES: A single-pilot, plane-style SSTO would be an HSG A plane which transports cargo would be an ACT A prototype launch stage would be an SCLp A scientific rover would be an LVR Every vehicle also has a model number. This is simply the order in which craft were registered in their class, and is separated from the major class by a hyphen. EXAMPLES: The first single-pilot, plane-style SSTO would be an HSG-1 The twelfth plane which transports cargo would be an ACT-12 The fifth prototype launch stage would be an SCLp-5 Finally, minor revisions to a design that do not constitute an entirely new model are designated with lowercase Roman letters after the model number. The original model is considered the "zero" revision, so the lettering begins with "a" at the first revision, "b" at the second, and so on. EXAMPLES: The first revision of the first single-pilot, plane-style SSTO would be an HSG-1a The original model of the twelfth plane which transports cargo would still be an ACT-12 The second revision of the fifth prototype launch stage would be an SCLp-5b

Mine is rather complicated, but I'll try to explain. First, every craft is given a class based on its function. The current ones are as follows, but I can add more if I need them: C - Civil Transport - An airplane which is designed to carry kerbals. T - Transport - A plane designed to carry a nonliving payload. J - Jet Aircraft - Any jet-powered aircraft that doesn't fit a more specific classification. HS - Hybrid Spacecraft - Anything which launches horizontally, flies like a plane, and ends up in space, regardless of staging. R - Pure Rocket - Launches vertically and uses only rocket engines. If the craft is unmanned, an "A" for autonomous is placed before the classification as well. Then, each craft is given a numerical model based on the number of engines it has. For example, a jet aircraft with two of only one type of engine would be a J-20. Why a zero at the end? If there are more planes of this class, they would be J-21, -22, and so on. If a craft has more than one kind of engine, things get complicated. An SSTO with two jets and one rocket would be an HS-210, assuming it is the first of that class. If there are more than ten models in a given class, an additional hyphen is inserted so the eleventh SSTO with two jets and one rocket would be an HS-21-10. Technically, this doesn't allow for engine counts in the double digits, but I've never built something with that many anyway. For craft still in development, a lowercase "p" is appended to the model code to mean "prototype." Prototypes are numbered separately from released models, so a J-10 and a J-10p are not the same aircraft. Finally, I like to give each craft a whimsical name based on what it does. My jets are usually named after birds, my SSTOs after Greek mythological figures, and my rockets something pseudo-scientific that produces a humorous acronym (Ex: "Duna Extended Research Platform," which is abbreviated to "DERP"). Some examples from the Fusion Aerospace catalog: C-20 Pigeon - A twin-engined jet airliner J-21p Pelican II - Second prototype of a twin-engine flying boat HS-210 Photon - Small SSTO with two jets and one rocket HS-830 Hercules - SSTO with 8 jets and 3 rockets (It's quite the unwieldy brute to fly) J-30 Heron - Three-engined airliner. It's under the "J" class because "C" hadn't been invented when I designed it.

I made a seaplane. The first version had extra engine pointed down, but I decided that was cheating. After a couple days of revising the design, I've come up with something that works surprisingly well. It's able to land on both water and solid ground, is pretty nimble in the air, and can take off at under 30 m/s.

I decided that two pairs of engines was cheating, so after much development I have come up with a fully HTOL design. It's also much more maneuverable in the air, and has full amphibious capability including a takeoff speed of under 30 m/s. I did it by moving the engines down, moving the tail up, and adding extra control surfaces under the wings reminiscent of the flaps used on actual airplanes. The only gripe I have is that it doesn't sit in the water quite as nicely as its predecessor, but that's not a huge problem.

I'll be interested to see your design.