BlondMartinez

D. Toggle-able heat shields on some parts (spaceplane parts, capsules, and the like), plus some seperate-stand-alone heat shield parts, like the 10m inflatable.

Seeing this too with engines mounted via servo on a VTOL jet craft

i’m seeing this too; working to try and use servos to rotate jets to make a VTOL SSTO. They either spontaneously disassembly immediately on loading, or the servos won’t turn (or, my favorite, one of the servos won’t turn). Super frustrating.

It's a feature, not a bug, that it's easier to get to orbit in the Kerbin universe. The game explores what space-travel might look like under those circumstances. Given how the game strains under high part counts, I don't want even bigger launchers to hoist my interplanetary ships into orbit (and if I did I'd run RSS)

Why do you say that?

SRBs are great for providing a good initial kick off the pad to reduce gravity losses. Up to the Thumper they work great for this. The new, larger SRBs (plus the kickback) have such a long burn time that they don’t fit the niche as well: designs that have decent launchpad TWR end up accelerating so much towards the end of S1 that significant aero losses occur.

Hi All- I am in the middle of my first attempt at returning from Eve. I've landed my return rocket, empty of fuel, along with mining equipment to refill the tanks. Unfortunately, only one of my gigantors survived the landing. Oops. So I don't have enough power to run my mining rig continuously, even during daytime. I figured this wouldn't be a problem. It might take a long time to fill the tanks, but I'll just time warp it. Unfortunately, however, the drill shuts down when power is depleted, but does not automatically turn back on. So managing the mining will involve sitting at the ship, turning the drill back on, over, and over, and over. Sounds tedious. Any tips for walk away mining? So far the only options I've thought of are not great: 1.) Cheat 2.) Send a rover with a bunch of gigantors and a klaw to give the ship a power boost. Cheers, Nick