RocketSquid

Let’s say I have an impactor experiment set up on the surface, with adequate power nearby. If I crash a girder segment into the ground nearby at 50 m/s, not enough to destroy it, will it activate the experiment?

I just noticed that the Trinity has a hover controller, and I had a brief moment of awe/terror before realizing it was probably not meant for use with the engine in explodium mode.

Each mode has a very, very different learning curve. Sandbox: From my experience, at least, there is not one. I spent infinitely more time goofing off or designing huge craft I would never ever be able to launch than I did making anything. Science: Pretty good, overall. The tech tree keeps you from getting overwhelmed by too many parts at once and a combination of boredom and the lure of science pushes you onward to other planets. By the time you fill out the tech tree, you'll probably have landed on Mun, Minmus, and Duna. Career: Hellish grind. You'll get very good at doing certain types of mission, but you'll probably spend so much time taking temperature scans at random spots for funds that you're not going to have much time for anything else.

I'd like to throw my support behind improved action groups, a nuclear reactor part, and some better ISRU-based surface bases, which some people seem to be conflating with terraforming??

There are three that come to mind 1. In an old sandbox save, I wanted to send a fuel tanker to duna. Unfortunately, I had fuel cells on it, and I left one of them on while I warped. 2. In a less old science save, I did a particularly bad job of sending a ship on a return trajectory from the mun. On its own this would not have been a problem, but I then proceeded to warp nearly a year in the future before I remembered which button “kill warp” was. 3. In that same science save, I once tried to build a base using KIS but forgot both the screwdriver and the engineer who was supposed to use the screwdriver. 4. In a much newer science save, I learned that the trucks at the desert runway are physical objects that you can crash a rover into. 5. Later in the same save, I learned that because the center of mass changed as it consumed fuel, my VTOL was in fact a VTHL. Unfortunately, I figured this out while it was almost out of fuel and flying over the highlands. I ended up having to use hyperedit to refill the fuel tanks, since the alternative was having to restart the mission (which was already on the fifth try) 6. Just recently, I tried to send a scansat to minmus and somehow decided it would be smart to use the universal storage 2.5m to 1.875m service bay as an interstage fairing. Because the upper stage engine had a rather large bell, and because the service module has some little frame thingies to help hold the wedges, the service bay latched on tight after being decoupled, and because it’s rather heat resistant and the engine was a vacuum engine the engine could not blow it up even at full throttle. Fortunately, there was still enough time to revert to vehicle assembly and use an actual fairing, after which time the mission went smoothly.

Definitely going to install this, provided I can get the rest of my save to cooperate.

Will it work without Scatterer? Scatterer messes up my oceans.

Hmm, is there any reason this wouldn't work in 1.7?

Yeah, but I don't fancy doing five or six Mun missions again. I just got through that science grind. Of course, I can technically just... copy over the science and such. Or copy in the surface features. I don't know which one will be better.

Oh dear. Staring at that thing gives me a headache, but I suppose it's unavoidable unless I want to lose quite a bit of stuff.

Is this just straight up editing the SFS file or is there a more elegant way?

Are the surface features added to planets in existing saves or is a new save required to get the full experience?

Excellent, thank you.

I remember last time I made a large surface base (a couple editions back), it flipped over on loading. Does this still happen? If so, is there any way to prevent it other than making smaller bases?

No, only the science container part and certain probe cores allow that. However, this module manager patch should add the functionality to every part with a science container: @PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleScienceContainer]] { @MODULE[ModuleScienceContainer] { @canBeTransferredToInVessel = True @canTransferInVessel = True } }

Here’s the thing with the DLCs: when I pay for a DLC, I’m not (exclusively) paying for the content in the DLC, because a lot of it has already been done (in some form) in a mod. I’m paying for the continued maintenance of that content, and a guarantee of its compatibility with future versions. If I had a dollar for every cool mod I’ve had to stop using, or eschew using altogether, because it wasn’t compatible with the latest version, or every time I had to hold off on an update for weeks at a time while waiting for mods to update, it would be enough to pay the $15 dollar price tag of a DLC many times over.

I think the problem is that everyone has their own idea, not just of how difficult life support should be, but how complex it should be. I, for example, think Snacks! is too simple, and Kerbalism and USI-LS are both too complex. TAC-LS plus Kerbal Health is about the right level, because I do want habitation mechanics, I just don’t want to deal with the supply chains that come with USI-LS. But at the same time, I have both TAC and Kerbal Health set to non-lethal, akin to the default settings for USI or Snacks, because I want to have second chances. However, if I had to pick one to base a hypothetical future stock LS on, it would be USI. Most of my problems with USI are there because it is a mod. The lack of compatibility with various other mods, the super-tight integration with MKS, and even the complexity, seeing as most of that comes from the MKS integration.

One time (okay, fine, yesterday) when testing a new shuttle design’s reentry characteristics, I did a deorbit burn right after the circularization burn and bumped into the LV. Another time I smacked into a service module during reentry. As for orbital debris, I’ve had it come within physics range (I think) but never close enough to get a good look at it.

My craziest was when my mun mission ran out of monoprop so I launched a space station to resupply it. My dumbest was when I launched a fuel tanker to duna but left a fuel cell on so it ran out of fuel on the way there.

The default spring strength is a bit (okay, more than a bit) too high. Turn it way down, but not all the way, and turn damper strength a bit up and the issues will be reduced, if not totally solved.

First thing I try: probably a boat. Maybe a screw drive, maybe some paddle wheels, maybe just robotic oars.

Oh, that might be my problem. The other big concern might be the placement of the gear; I don’t think there was enough of it on the back even though there was a pair behind the center of mass. Looking back, I’m guessing the spring strength was probably far too high, since that seems to be the case with the stock gear as well.

Yeah, but it doesn't exactly hurt to have it on a tether. That way you can have higher gravity for the same rotation rate. Plus, if you've got a reactor, you can use that as your counterweight to save on shielding. I imagine the counterweight would probably be the propellant tanks, and the reactor if it has one.

Aha, I was trying to launch from landing legs, also it may have been a bit too long.

It is possible to make more stable alternatives to DNA with different materials in their spines, using DNA as an intermediate step. However, most of the study has been into their stability against heat or against biological/chemical attack, not against irradiation, so I'm not sure if they're actually more useful.