Blaarkies

Balanced seems like "hard" or 50%, depending on personal skill. That will max out techtree after almost completely farming kerbin soi. The toughest i tried was "hard" but with 30% rewards, no contract-science, no strategy-science, no MPL-science. It was actually really fun, you go mad with launch costs and re-usablility, there is a tough wall to climb over before the first mun landing...but it is definitely possible to max out the tree, only after many interplanetary landings

Like a spaceplane tumbling out of control, while you are trying to right-click the correct two fuel tanks and transfer some weight...pause would really save us there

Imagine standing still on the surface of Kerbin. Click the speed indicator to switch from "Surface" mode to "Orbital" mode. It should show that you are actually moving(relative to the orbital reference) Now, imagine being at geostationary altitude(2700km ?). How fast should your orbit speed be, so that your "Surface" mode speed shows zero? Like @Gaarst said, you need to move much faster at higher altitudes to stay above the same spot of ground...and by "higher", I mean 10 times higher than the altitude that planes can fly at

Lithobrake , you mean like the Mars rovers in those cushion balls...but instead with girders in KSP?

I only use the SPH in career. Just one building to upgrade, and it can build rockets and planes...the VAB is difficult for building planes, being far from the runway and all that. The SPH feels much more free as well(if the camera rotation is not centered on the rocket in VAB, it is hard to see/place parts in awkward positions)

A little context would be great, don't you think?

IRL planes don't go to space, thats all there is to it. You are comparing real life orbital vehicles against atmosphere-bound vehicles, ofcourse IRL the rockets have a harder time than planes...A fair comparison would be Falcon 9 vs SKYLON...well, SKYLON doesn't exist yet, that says something about the complexity of getting a plane to orbit. Compare the complexity of a rocket and a normal plane...a V2 against a plane with a similar range. The V2 suddenly doesn't look so complex anymore

That's a pretty bold statement for someone who does not provide an experiment like I asked, or provides any maths to support his claim, or has dabbled in simulating physics to see how programming this stuff really works. You are following a very "tinfoil hat" approach to this argument by dismissing counter-arguments(made by some very prominent member of this forum) without disproving their claims. There is a reason why the majority does not agree with your point...it's the same reason why the majority of the science community does not agree with the EM drive. Not because it is ridiculous, but because there is not enough evidence for the claim. Did you actually read all the posts in this thread? You know how you find it hard to believe that my simulation actually exhibits the Oberth effect without it specifically being programmed into...I feel the same way about you continually jumping over people's explanations, without telling us why they are wrong. You claim that a ship with fuel for 100m/s dv will only be able to achieve 100m/s dv in deep space...but deep in a gravity well it somehow will achieve 100+ m/s dv?(please record the change in speed within 10 seconds of the burn, since the escape of SOI will be greatly influenced by the effect that the rest of us are trying to explain to you). This is because of the "ISP buff" that the Oberth effect induces, right? I do not believe you are a fool, and neither do i believe you are trying to embarrass yourself...but you are definitely trolling this thread big time, I have never seen such a successful troll EVER! Well done!

Right-click main engines Set "Thrust Limiter" to 5% Hold down "Control" button Tap the "Shift" button Only RCS is faster than this(since you can increase/decrease speed in any of the vector you wish...just by pressing a different button)

So you are implying that i am lying about the Oberth effect in my little app? Not very nice of you then... I have a very clear Oberth effect in app, but no code to actually "apply" it...it just happens. So i would really like if you can explain how Oberth is applied to my app accurately without me adding any code to take into account this effect. Yes gravity does not feed any energy to the craft, definitely not what I implied but sorry if it could be misread that way. So, if we are in a highly elliptical orbit(very almost escaping SOI) and we increase speed 10m/s in the prograde direction(at Pe) we will exit the SOI with much more than 10m/s...this is known. Now let us redo this part using: - SRB - Mainsail - Ion engine ...what you are implying, is that the 10m/s SRB/Mainsail will escape the SOI with a higher final velocity than the 10m/s Ion engine? Think about this one for a moment. Does the fuel type, exhaust velocity, TWR or even the existence of the exhaust trail even matter? If the spacecraft was magically accelerated in the same circumstances as the other engines...would it have a different velocity at SOI escape? Well Sir, let us settle this argument like the true scientists we are. Provide us with a reproducible experiment that proves your hypothesis.

No it doesn't. I have written a tiny Autohotkey app that simulates gravity...by moving the mouse cursor around on screen Anyway I definitely did not add any function called oberthEffect(ISP, TWR)...but the cursor still obeyed the Oberth effect when I pressed the accelerate key at low altitude vs high altitude All it needs is an accurate simulation of gravity. Mine used something similar to numerical analysis - run free body diagram forces and effects at very short time intervals. So i am unsure what exactly SQUAD "added" to the code for the Oberth effect, as it works realisticaly by default

Take a Mainsail powered rocket, add fuel tanks on top until you get 800m/s dv Get that up to a 71km x 71km orbit Make the manuever node of 800m/s prograde Note the new Ap height Take an Ion powered sat, add fuel and stuff until you get 800m/s dv Get that up to a 71km x 71km orbit Make the manuever node of 800m/s prograde Wait until the node points less than 10 degrees from horizon...and burn only while the node points less than 10 degrees from horizon. Note the new Ap height Both Ap height are nearly the same(Ion should be worth about 7m/s less). This is because is because of cosine losses. Cos(10')=0.98, that is the amount of dv you are gaining in the direction that you actually desire...if we could minimize that angle we would have the equivalent of an instant burn(almost like the mainsail) But thats Periapsis kicks, what about Oberth? Oberth is not programmed into the game and calculated under the hood. It is an effect that derives from the nature of the law of gravitation being inverse squared to distance. As long as gravity is calculated accurately, Oberth will just seamlessly join the show, never specifically being invited even...it does not know the ISP stats of any engine, it does not know the TWR of any craft, it doesn't even know how much cosine losses you had. All Oberth is concerned with, is your change in prograde speed at periapsis

Take Rocketdyne tank(biggest 3.75m fuel tank), attach a 2-way adapter to the front and on those two nodes you can add an ISRU, drills, etc. And also the command pod on the top node(I find the Rockomax 1.25 -> 2.5m fueled adapters easier to use than the 2-way adapter). Add legs, nuke engines and "spark" engines for VTOL use. This thing can land itself easily on gilly, take off again for easy docking in space, go back down and refill again. Large quantities helps make this less effort per mass of fueled attained

Ion drives really only suits a small portion of the player base...try sending a tiny ion powered probe to some interplanetary destination. If that didn't frustrate you, then you might start building ion tug-boatships Once you have a refinery on Minmus, nuclear tugs become really, really cheap(maybe almost free?). As long as you go big, there is no way that Xenon power can compete. * big ba-eeg-!/ noun(as used here) 1. multiple Mk3_Liquid_Fuel_Fuselage_Long tanks filled with many, many liquid fuels filled up to the brim, loaded on top of some lander contraption hoisted by multiple NER Atomic_Rocket_Motors. See also: Docking via "The Klaw", EVA-Transfer pipes, dmagics-modlets

FALSE! Minmus has no "sky" ! just kidding About the Xenon storage...are you playing with some mods? In Stock/vanilla KSP there is no mining/converting to Xenon...the only place to get Xenon gas is at the VAB or SPH, nowhere else ...but, you could get edit your ISRU's "part.cfg" file. Just add the ability to convert ore to xenon ("ModuleManager" mod is great for this)

@jeancallisti, THIS^ And also this little thing: Hold down the wheel-button on your mouse(middle-button it was back in the day)...while holding that down, move the mouse around. You will see the camera itself rotates left/right/up/down(without circling around the craft). This can give you an edge in finding those parts, but it's also useful for docking massive ships that have a center of mass(camera center as well) far away from the pointy docking port edge

Use the camera...no really, switch camera mode to "FREE". This will make the bottom of the screen stick to kerbin. -Now focus on eliminating any Inclination difference(get that AN/DN down to 0.0'). -When you are close enough to have visual contact with the target(2.3km i guess), burn to cancel all relative velocity(end with 0m/s). -Now watch the target(with Kerbin at the bottom of the your screen, you are using camera "FREE" mode, right?). +-Is the target at a higher altitude than you? Thats a higher/slower orbit than you, so to reach it, you must burn a little bit backwards(retro orbital) and also somewhat upwards(towards target)...the navbal TARGET indicator will seem way off, but with some practice you will be able to perform a near miss every time(almost as good as the russians with the MIR "docking")

Oh yes of course, thats what I meant with the complexity argument...most games that touch on being dependent on physics are bugged out and fail before release(some really cool looking alpha's with physics based sword fighting and the like...but they jitter around, swords become ragdolls, etc.). But KSP is seems like some AAA game even when almost everything is real-life physics dependent and open sandbox. I love the game, despite my rant about bugs My point is, imagine you had a "~", "-noclip" cheat in Alien Isolation...you could cross that barrier wall in 10seconds(and responsibly turn OFF the cheat on the other side) and continue the game like nothing happened, bonus points for telling the devs about it afterwards. I have HyperEdit installed as well, but only for use as Advanced-F12'ing. You know when you hit the "cannot leave craft while under acceleration"-bug around the Mun, on the mun space station that has no fuel of thrust...you see the Ap rise till it is out of SOI, going into Solar orbit. And you realize that this station costs half a mountain of funds, you cannot even "role-play"-explain how it happened. That's when I hyperedit it back to Mun orbit. I use it strictly for bug fixing, therefore I feel console players should have the option of alt+F12 as well...what's the worst that could happen, right?

No it's not like that with any other game Most games don't have the complexity that KSP has(attaching physics parts in ways that were never intended) and most games even have a checkpoint save system that makes you lose 5-10minutes when a bug appears...not 3+ hours of KSP gameplay This reminds me of Tomb Raider - Angel of darkness...there were some gamebreaking bugs there(locking you in the current level)...i wish i had dev tools(no-clip) or something. But I found an online cache of savegames and used the start of the next level. I was happy to continue playing that way. But bugs shouldn't be "accepted", they should be stomped, fixed or given a workaround...having to play a lower difficulty so that you can manage enough funds for the occasional bug-apocalypse is not a valid workaround, I want to challenge myself to the maximum difficulty sometimes. It's a game, it should be fun AND fair...it is a way to forget about the unfair(literally bugged) world around us. I know this won't do my -(savegames)- any good, so just to make it clear...i am not trying to pick a fight, or even voice opinion. It is interesting to hear perspectives from other side

Small drills are limited to greater-than 2% ore concentrations. This shouldn't be a problem as long as the difficulty is not set to hard. So they are awesome for asteroids(just don't use the small ISRU on asteroids), but using small drills for a binome hopper could be risky. Don't you mean "Surface mode - Retrograde"? The radial out vector will always point perpendicular to you trajectory, away from gravity...this isn't necessarily upwards, it twitches around as you burn towards it(not affecting your velocity at all). But retro-grade will kill velocity until you get to 0m/s(then it switches to SAS-hold mode) * To dodge a hillside like you mention, burning towards Pitch:90'(center of the blue hemisphere of navball) will give the best chance at avoiding a crash

Falcon 9's all the way! ...well, using the Twin-Boar engine, and a heatshield up front, also some parachutes. Ok, ok, but it looks like a Falcon 9 after the landing is done

Yes it good to report bugs, but can I continue my career 10 minutes after reporting the bug? i guess not, so i still fail the contract. How is that relevant to the dev tools not being needed? In my current career save, I cannot easily play through those bug. Hard difficulty tweaked to 30% fund/sci/rep income. Failed contracts put me back 5-10 contracts when no fatalities occurred. The cool thing about playing on hard is "No reverts"...so i do get penalized(like NASA) when my launch fails and the new space station module burns through the atmosphere, i accept that because it was my bad decision making that caused that...but a bug just completely destroys my will to even mount a rescue mission. I know super-hard is not a standard difficulty, but I have no problem with the "career-grind" that everyone hates...it pushes me make the most cost efficient rockets I am capable of, I love it! But bugs and only bugs ruin this experience If you meant that dev tools "shouldn't" be in the game, I completely agree(thats what "IDQDQ" or "CHEESE STEAK JIMMY'S" is for). But KSP is a few versions away from not needing dev tools for players though

All is true, but strongly disagree with this part...What happens when the game cheats YOU out of an awesome opportunity?! ...lol just kidding(for dramatic effect). What I mean is, when you setup a low dv mission to Moho using an Eve slingshot, everything goes well and according to plan...but then the intercepts flicker like an old florescent bulb. Fine it's just hard to read the numbers, but sometimes the intercept doesn't even happen at all...because I was given faulty data. Press alt+F12, set inf fuel, burn somewhere until you get a true intercept, disable the inf fuel and continue on with life. "Rescue x Kerman from the orbit of Gilly", just to get there and find that the kerbal or wreckage was never even spawned(mission is bugged and impossible to complete now). There goes contract failure penalty funds/rep, and also the now-useless rescue ship all the way at Gilly orbit...unless we alt+F12, contracts tab, click "com" at the rescue contract! Was that cheating? * I get that it is really easy to misuse the dev tools in order to cheat, but I feel bad for the console player who will walk straight into similar contracts and have to suffer a penalty because of russian-roulette bugs

Well, jet turbines produce lift in a fore direction, and then thrust is only something rocket engines do...this sounds a lot like the 2-3 different ways of explaining why airplanes fly: Bernoulli's principal about fluid pressure flow, Newton's 3rd law about reactionary forces, ...i think there is a third one as well Anyway I get what you are saying, at speed the blades act like wings(thats why helicopters don't fall like bricks when the engine goes out...they sometimes do survivable crash landings). Now the real question is: Is a vertical drop parachute assisted plane still a VTOL? I feel planes are masters of aerodynamic forces, they should be able to use it to their advantage anywhere...parachutes feel like a moment of uncontrolled panic

sorry i misunderstood your mission plan...it sounded like you wanted to do an quick Ap eva