Highguard

Not at all. I'm saying the essential points the stream is making/addressing must be scripted and rehearsed. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but many live TV and radio programs have phone-ins. Talkshows are, by their nature, largely unscripted but at least the presenters know what they're talking about. If someone asks an off-topic question or discussion moves to something that can't be demonstrated in a reasonable time then it's shelved or carried-over to another program. Improv doesn't mean "do rubbish or waste time because you've got nothing better", it means "do something entertaining or useful right now". There's no excuse for incompetence and bad presentation.

No, the routine of base design goes like this: 1) Spend hours getting ports aligned. 2) Spend more hours getting ports aligned because of suspension differences. 3) Fail to dock ports because the landing zone is not perfectly flat (co-planar). 4) Use the claw instead of ports. 5) Suffer Kraken attacks. Which means I have a much lower level of patience than many people, who do build wonderful bases. My view is that they are much more trouble than they are ever worth without ... 6) Give up and install KIS/KAS so you can connect parts without docking.

Your first 'flight' - not leaving the launchpad - should give you enough science to unlock 'basic rocketry' and 'engineering 101' - which you seem to have as you are using the SC-9001. Almost any second launch will then let you get 'general rocketry'. With the T-45 engine and larger fuel tank* that provides you can easily build a SSTO rocket that reaches orbit and returns the capsule. Hint: take the right contracts and you can get enough money from this that you can switch back to KSC once the rocket is in orbit and upgrade the astronaut's complex. This allows you to EVA your pilot in space for lots more science (and contracts, maybe) before you return the capsule. [*The larger fuel-tank is useful because it makes the rocket less wobbly, but it isn't strictly necessary. Similarly, the gimballing on the T-45 makes launch much easier but you might be able to manage with just the T-30 if your steering is good enough.]

It's just live versus pre-recorded TV. If you know you're doing a live show you need to rehearse and prepare much more carefully beforehand. BEFORE you start streaming, get a version of your rocket into orbit. THEN stream building it, with the classic cut to "here's one I prepared earlier, already in orbit" to show your next point. Not doing things like that is just lazy and unprofessional. "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail". Unfortunately, most streamers have yet to learn that lesson.

Someone: 1) With something useful/interesting to say, 2) Who has scripted and rehearsed it well, 3) Then used decent recording and editing software to present it concisely, 4) Keeping the whole thing short and to the point.

For me, the main difference is I only have toworry about docking when they retract, instead of panicking. It all depends on how crowded your space-stations are, I suppose.

I can confirm that the parachute in that tutorial has not been corrected for the new aerodynamics and will fail to brake the capsule unless you change its settings as suggested by Vim. This topic has been reported and commented on in a few threads before - you are not alone in being caught out! Rest assured it isn't your faulty flying :-)

Of course, the heavier and more expensive ones also have text that says the shielding protects the panels during re-entry. Changing KSP so unshielded solar panels get destroyed by drag/heat while the shielded ones are protected would have been the sensible option, but now we're stuck with panels that just won't close ... ... Unless you edit \GameData\Squad\Parts\Electrical\1x6SolarPanels\1x6SolarPanels.cfg (for instance) and change "retractable = false" (about the last entry, if I remember correctly).

Realism would just annoy me, because it would never be "real" enough. Next thing you know I'd want the tech-tree to make sense, and that's never going to happen! A different solar system changes the context, which I like.

How about: 1 Konstantin (Tsiolkovsky) - of rocket equation fame 2 Sergei (Korolev) - rocket designer 3 Laika (no surname as far as I know) - first dog in space 4 Yuri (Gagarin) - first man in space 5 Valentina (Tereshkova) - first woman in space, in case anyone had failed to notice ^^ 6 Alexey (Leonov)- first spacewalk 7 Valeri (Polyakov) - longest mission

Interesting observation. The Victorians were running the British empire using telegraph cables around the world but the essential point was that there was 'somewhere' to run those cables to. Since there is no population outside KSC to connect with there'd be no particular reason to create a ground network unless it was easier/cheaper than a satellite constellation.

NOT parts-mods. They take a lot of memory for the model and textures. Unfortunately, IIRC, all the resources used by mods are loaded at start-time, rather than if/when they are actually used. Info-mods (KER, KAC) are generally low-memory, since they're just reporting or recording information that's already computed by the game.

There's always KOS (scriptable autopilot) too.

Hang on, hang on! We're all missing the most important statement in the OP: *Sob* Apollo was still the icon when I was a kid (and whether it would get to the moon).

Corollary: who is this "Squad" gang that seem to have stolen KSP from poor Deported B.V. and claim to own the game?

As with designing anything, start small and work your way up as you develop experience. Start with single-engine designs and just see how much each engine can carry to orbit, if anything. The amount of dV used in/near vacuum isn't usually enough to make it worth carrying specific engines for that. Once you've found an engine that can SSTO 5t for example, progress to 10t just by bolting two of them together! (Except where you find a better single-engine design) Except for very heavy payloads (>100t), I've never found a need for more than 2-4 parachutes on the launch vehicle, although it depends on how much fuel you reserve for a powered landing. Generally I stick them as 'nose cones' on side-tanks if the slots are available, otherwise as radial-mount inside a service bay where I also put the batteries, probe core, SAS unit and what-have-you. Airbrakes are great for keeping orientation during re-entry as well as just the braking effect but quite often you don't need them at all anyway. Fairings very much depend on the payload, although for fuel tanks and command pods they shouldn't be needed. Docking-ports are good for bringing a payload back down but otherwise decouplers are just as good. The payload isn't going to be affected much by the separation force anyway, but it can be tweaked in the VAB if you have a problem with it.

Getting to orbit (my version isn't as good as Vanamonde's): http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/133723-I-m-new-to-KSP?p=2184849#post2184849 But that isn't the easiest thing. You don't need a link for that - just go to the VAB and put an SRB under a command pod.

Ground stations. Easier than orbital insertion and don't have to do station-keeping.

Pure rocket SSTOs are easy to build than spaceplanes and much better able to handle wide or awkward payloads. "Shuttle" style suffers from the aerodynamic limitations of spaceplanes and the fuel-hungry limitations of rockets. Either SSTO approach will always win, if you can get anywhere near KSC without wings and wheels.

I posted exactly what you ask for in a thread started by ... oh, you. Two days ago. Did you try it?

Don't know if there's anything you can do about the struts but if you want that rover to connect at its docking-port then you'll have to make the docking port its root part.

http://shop.maker.tv/collections/kerbal-space-program

Memory leaks are when a program doesn't release memory properly when it's finished with it, so next time it needs some memory it grabs a whole new chunk instead of reusing stuff. If every time there's a scene-change 10Mb isn't released, for example, then after 10 scene-changes the program is using 100Mb more than it needs. That only gets worse, until the computer just can't assign any more memory - then bye-bye. Knowing this doesn't always make it easy to find exactly where the leak is or to fix it. Although I do get crashes because of the memory leak it's a lot better than in early versions. The most annoying thing for me now is the lack of design information like dV and TWR. Of course, there's a mod for that ...

Everything I've read says you don't need any, they're a hangover from 1.0.2 or something. They're useless or even positively dangerous during ascent/descent in an atmosphere, since it's the outside atmosphere itself that is heating the ship. In vacuum even around Moho things shouldn't get hot enough to explode.

Getting to orbit is not easy when you're starting. Most of the video or written tutorials available are out of date and give the wrong advice and most of the people streaming spend more time exploding than showing anything useful or interesting. Make sure anything you are watching or reading is for version 1.x of KSP or later as the atmosphere changed completely in that version. For practice, launch a small, simple design that you know works. Then do it again and again and again. Simple rocket: Mk1 command pod with Mk16 parachute on top and TR-18 decoupler underneath. Two FL-T800 fuel tanks beneath the decoupler and a T-45 engine. Make sure the engine is in stage 2 (lowest) in the VAB, decoupler in stage 1 (middle) and parachute in stage 0 (highest). Launch: i) Engage SAS (T), throttle to full (Z), stage to ignite engine (space). Ascend vertically until speed (on the navball) is over 100m/s. ii) Disengage SAS (T), yaw right (D) 5-10 degrees or so until the yellow prograde marker on the navball catches up with this heading. iii) Re-engage SAS (T), select the 'prograde' setting for it next to the navball. Prograde should keep slowly moving towards the horizon and SAS will keep rotating the vehicle to match - this is the crucial "gravity turn" that gets you the horizontal speed you need for orbit. Vertical speed isn't nearly as important most of the time. iv) Switch to map mode (M) and when you apoapsis (Ap) reaches 75km or so, cut engine (X). Cruise into space at 70km, then create a manoeuvre node at Ap to "circularise" your orbit - push prograde so the periapsis (Pe) is also out of the atmosphere and ideally about the same as Ap. v) Look at how long KSP thinks the burn will take and the time until you reach the node. Full-throttle again (Z) when the time-to-node is half the burn-time (so if the burn's meant to be 20 seconds, start 10s before you get to the node) and burn until your Pe is more or less where it should be, then cut throttle for the last time (X) and wonder what all the fuss was about (as if!). If you don't "gravity turn" enough, you'll still go to space but will probably run out of fuel trying to circularise. If you gravity turn too sharply at any point drag on the rocket will probably make it flip over. If you get the turn right but drift to the North or South you'll end up with an inclined orbit, which is not necessarily a bad thing. If you mis-time the circularisation burn you'll either run out of fuel, get an Ap that's much, much higher than Pe (also not necessarily a bad thing) or both. Once you can fly this design to orbit you're ready to try your own. And they will each need several-to-many test flights before you're comfortable with them. Once you are comfortable flying some of your own designs to orbit you can really start experimenting. Once you start really experimenting, there's no escape from KSP. [Quit now while you have a chance!]