Blaarkies

Nooo! That career overhaul guy will probably show up now and fill this thread with tales about how bad KSP career and science points are

Back in 1.1 with all those docking port bugs, i just decided to go all claw from now on...all the kraken-claw bugs were literally less frustrating

By render, do you mean graphically? I don't think it(the visual atmosphere) is actually rendered at all then(as in textures or volumetric gasses), but the sky color changes based on the camera's altitude: Zoom out until you can see past the planet, and you should see black space...but when zoomed in at a craft landed on Kerbin you see blue sky instead of black space I have zero supporting evidence for this, but I hypothesis that the "sky" color changes based on eye altitude

Based on physics it is more likely that they should have thin atmospheres, but that doesn't mean the game actually implements that. In game they have absolutely zero atmosphere, just like the Mun, Moho, Minmus,...cannot render something when the game says it's not there

A probe with relay dishes can doe everything that antennae(direct) can do, and also be a node for relaying other probe's signals. Relay dishes are heavier though(there is no reason to have both on one craft...except maybe the atmospheric antenna?) So pick your best relay dishes, stick 4-8 of them on a big fuel tank with an engine, probe core, solar...send it to Eve, get it in a eliptical polar orbit so that the Pe gets to 90km on the south pole of Eve...and the Ap almost exits the SOI at the north

Jinne wees rustig bra, dis nou nie so erg nie gaan gooi net 'n tjoppie op die braai! Steam is good if you plan on having a lot of games...everything is in the same place and much more accessible than some alternatives. But if there is only ever going to be one single game on steam, then it's not worth the hassle.

I don't think Duna Atmosphere will really affect Rhino's Isp, so landing on Duna is definately a better idea with the Rhino. My point is, that thing produces 200t of push...a 400t craft is not a shuttle anymore, it's almost a small mothership

*you mean "thrust", right?

KR-2L has an Isp of 340s. Thats an upper ceiling of 7328.62m/s dv...at a TWR approaching 0 You can reasonably gather about 3600m/s dv from such engine with adequate thrust for orbital maneuvers. Unless you are using the Rhino for aesthetics, i would recommend using the Poodle or Aero-Spike. Poodle gives you the best Isp that LFO-only has to offer, and the TWR is better than terriers. AeroSpike has decent vacuum Isp, and amazing TWR. Depending on the type of burns you need to do, either of those could be more useful. You shouldn't have more than 1 TWR for orbital maneuvers (I stick to 0.5 even), because that means you are dragging along massive engines which drains your dv...space doesn't care if you have a V8 engine, it only cares about the sum of your acceleration TIP: Build the payload part, add some empty LFO tanks and engine. Check the weight. Now fill tanks, and check the weight. Go for 2/3 of craft mass being fuel...so empty craft weighs 1ton, filled craft weighs 3tons, then you get 3600m/s dv

Using gravity assists from Eve saves a lot of dv...but it does require some fiddling about. Launch for a flyby of eve, then when still near Kerbin use a maneuver node to see the results depending on which side of Eve you arrive on, how close you approach Eve and so forth. A Pe at Moho and Ap at Kerbin is much harder to fix than the same orbit with an Ap at Eve. Don't bother with gravity assist at Moho, it is barely a planet. Just remember Sir Oberth

The hardest part in stock is building big ships practically. All the structural considerations, keeping down part count for Ion engine craft and refueling the 20+ fuel tanks on the craft because there was no bigger tanks. Doesn't tweakscale remove that difficulty then?

Please don't.

The purpose of the science labs are to test players' self-control via the temptation to click the "Transmit science" button

Thats a very good point. Minecraft suffers the same lack of motivation. After you have mined enough for a diamond suit and weapons, you no longer want to mine...theres nothing down there you care about anymore. Dabbling a bit in redstone keeps a minecraft savegame going, the same way that KSP allows weird stuff like Eeloo bases or Eve landers...they aren't practical neither profitable, but we still enjoy that even though it has no "purpose". I think the Monoliths could teach us a bit about space exploration

You have to put relay dishes up in space...thats it really, is that confusing?

I don't see that happening with anything useful/practical. I don't grind contracts once i am halfway with the techtree, i just choose what fits my bigger plan. I thought i am wasting money on a Eve lander/accent, it turns out the flag planting contract on eve alone paid out the lander and booster...twice over. I went ahead and built a modular base on Laythe using a VTOL dropship, total price was 3 or more millions...yet i ended up with more funds than i started with just because of some random orbital station contracts i selected beforehand. Obviously it is not true sandbox since career funds are still finite, but at no point did i feel i was considering funds at all...there was always enough of the ever increasing number. This was pure stock, so I know that part packs like B9's HX mothership parts can get real expensive real quick If you are having a hard time on normal by the time you land on Duna, you might want to check out the tutorials first. Seriously, funds are in such huge quantities by that time that everything can be upgraded at once. That's why we don't play normal mode My point is, career mode on normal is unbalanced in funds/science. You start out with a real fun challenge, then at some point the game just keeps giving you massive rewards for simple contracts...it devalues everything you did in the career mode

Normal career mode actually turns into Sandbox mode after the first interplanetary landing, funds do not matter anymore at that point.

How can you make a space station around something that does not exist?

@molecule9 Try pressing "v". It should change your camera mode, keep pressing until you get to "Locked" mode. This will lock the camera behind your space craft's control point(like the cockpit usually), similar to what you would see if you were inside the ship. Try this, see if it helps you figure out how the navball works(its really important to understands the navball, it is a really powerful tool)

...Dovakiin, is that you? Look at the "crosshair" at the center of the navball. That marker never ever rotates or moves around(relative to your screen)...but the navball behind it definately spins and rotates. So, pressing "A" will always act like your marker is following the LEFT side of the navbal; pressing "W" always goes to the bottom of the navball and so forth... In thruth, the navball is static and locked to the surroundings...it is the ship that spins around the navball. The navball locks so that the brown section points is towards gravity, and North(the red line) points towards the "top" of planets Having w,a,s,d around the edges would not help at all since they will always stay static (like paper stickers on your computer screen)

Check your drag. I dont know if KER shows it(or calculates it), but FAR certainly does. You will have more atmospheric drag going west bound because of the poorer flight profile(need more lift to fight gravity going west bound). So going east bound, you dont need to pull up as much to stay at altitude(because you fight less gravity going east bound). Pulling up less causes less atmospheric drag, causes better efficiency(even though the thrust to fuel flow ratio is consistent) EDIT: Just saw the "A.Cd: 0.07" text. Thats your drag coefficient iirc. More Cd means more drag(it describes how UN-aerodynamic the aircraft is, at the current angle of attack) So suddenly pulling up should increase that number, but point perfectly at prograde should minimise that number

Wait at the landed at the launchpad/runway, look at your surface speed. it shows: 0m/s...good(obvious I know) Now, click on "Surface" and it will switch to orbital velocity. This will show +- 174m/s in the east direction(because kerbin spins relative to the stars) When you fly east you are already 174m/s closer to being in orbit. Even worse when flying west, you are not just standing still but actually flying against that bonus(so going west you have 348m/s disadvantage) My point is, check your orbital velocity when doing those east west tests. You will see that east has a greater orbital velocity, and therefore less gravity drag(which results in less wing lift needed, less angle of attack and better flight profile...more speed thus) Edit: Jet airbreathing engines burn more or less fuel depending on the altitude AND speed they are currently going at. You have to meticulously check that those are equal in both tests

Then what is a Kerbal? Explain yourself!

I once built a modular moon base on Ike. I don't know how, but after I was done assembling it I had spare parts left that couldn't be attached to the base further

Same here(well, only 15k) but i haven't even returned Jool science yet. It feels like "just a number" now. Can we do anything cool with it? Maybe a ball pit/pool filled with all the science points, then we swim/dive into it like Scrooge McDuck