Blaarkies

I feel the same way about sandbox though. I have no use for space stations, fuel depots, mining, cost efficient launch vehicles...since i can always just add MOAR BOOSTERS! It feels silly building an interplanetary ship in orbit because I can just launch that from the ground. It seems a bad idea to even look at the reliant or flea engine when there are so many better engines to use. Who would use the sputnik probe, or folded solar panels when there are RTG's? Early jet engines quickly become the slow boring choice... But in career mode, we must solve a problem without infinite power. This makes every fund count, we want to re-use as much of the space station as possible, we can never afford to let a kerbal die even if we hate him, we need launch vehicles under a certain launch mass and cost, with bad early tech engines. It is a very forced way for the player to think outside of the box...kind of like the struggle NASA had with the first Mercury missions where Titans Atlas's blew up left and right? This isn't meant as an attack, none of the 3 game modes are superior to any other. I just wanted to point out that a lot of the stuff you mentioned fits perfectly when the perspective is reversed.

Does the RAPIER really have a turbine? It's Air Breathing mode sounds like pure rocket

No, i mean it still completes the quickload, but then when you realize that is is like 2 hours ago, you can just load back to the newest save(the one with the spaceplane-crash-into-the-VAB-for-fun save) and continue from there. The scene change is a good idea. Maybe if the current ship's "parent body" || "flight situation" differs from that of the quicksaved ship, then give dialogue? Such scene change should be obvious in game code Whats worse is when it's not even your fault: I have been playing career on hard for a while (and plan on using super-hard for 1.1 ). Anyway there is no quicksave, so accept my fate for bad staging, misplaced boosters, etc(that's what escape towers are for), but there is no way i will keep sending ships to Pol for landing when they splinter up 100m away from the surface. Or send a new ISRU base to Minmus because the old one "overheated" the moment I entered its physics bubble(but I can safely switch to it, and watch it refine ore for years one end) Or lose out on a gravimetric scan contract because ONE location is actually inside the atmosphere(they don't work in flight...only landed and in space)

"Occasionally something goes wrong a mission or two later and I reflexively click through the confirmation dialogue without thinking about when I last saved." I am sorry to be "that guy", but if you if you quickload out of habit before realizing it is a mistake...i bet it won't be long before you skip the dialogue out of habit. Quickload already has some safety features: -F9 is at the far top the keyboard, out of range of the commonly used buttons(the closest are: 8,9,0 action groups, backspace...maybe -+ map zoom?) -F9 already needs a "push and hold" for more than a second before it actually starts loading I had a hard time unlearning that back in qauke2, where quicksave/quickload was like F5/F6 IIRC? With no hold push, it is easy to trigger the wrong action. Anyway, a better solution i believe is, Leave it as is, but do an auto-save at the moment that F9 is pressed. Give it a different name than the regular auto-save which is quite useful as well. So when the unfortunate event happens, we can just scroll through the various saves and find the one we are interested in, since this thing really does not happen every 30 minutes. Off topic: Maybe the "Launch" button in the VAB should be moved away from the "Exit" button? I have had the occasional mis-click, leads to start praying that "Auto-saved Ship" actually contains my new super rocket, etc. What about a "Go to SPH" button there as well"?(it carries the current craft over to the SPH)

@Matuchkin It takes a lot of ego to claim that: "...he cannot take down or stop whenever he wants to, feels necessary, or is just angry at a certain aspect of the game." I imagine bac9 or blowfish will read this and think..."well, i guess this is my life now" and just update mods for the rest of their lives. Dude no! it's fun, it's cool, KSP is really great but it is still just a game(yeah i said it). You don't know what happened in the lives of the modders that stopped updating their mods, maybe they stopped for a really serious reason. But in case your post is not worded exactly as you meant, I do however agree on this point: "it is always better to hand management to another forum user." I bet a lot of the very old outdated part mods are still "in production" by hardcore fans of those mods, but because of license issues i doubt they may be shared...so, a final post in the mod page about the license being nullified would be cool so that someone else can pick up the torch if they want to.

I get the feeling that the CAPSLOCK precise control feature balances RCS thrust power based on their location. Using that and LOCKED VIEW makes docking super easy for me in stock game. And of course, hold down MIDDLE-MOUSE-BUTTON and drag the mouse around to pan the camera so you have a good view of the docking port Rotation via RCS with this method doesn't translate the ship around, and locked view makes the ships orientation to the parent body irrelevant. And also, no docking mode...that is a really useless feature at the moment

That is no landing, that is a watering! Come to think aboat it, the Falcon 9 is kinda like the Savior/Messiah of rockets and spaceflight. It is walking..err, landing on water and stuff, sending hundreds of payloads to space with only 2 bread...I mean 2 Launch Vehicles

@OhioBob Damn this forum is fast, well done that was a quick answer. I just want to add that, there exists some resonant periods between 1:1 and 2:1 -> 1.333:1 - This should give a low solar Ap, but the next encounter will only happen in 6 years But the difference in speed when swinging by Kerbin will be in the order of a few hundred m/s or so(since 940m/s burn at LKO gets you out of Kerbin SOI, but a 1200m/s burn will get you to Duna)

TL;DR -> Solar Ap = 29 576 962 461.7 m should give an orbital period twice that of Kerbin(you will encounter Kerbin again 2 years after your first approach, at the same location)...that is an Ap a bit past Duna's orbit? "sidereal period" is the term you are looking for(an orbit position relative to the stars): where: is the orbit's semi-major axis in meters is the standard gravitational parameter in is the gravitational constant, is the mass of the more massive body. Kerbol: Orbital Characteristics Standard gravitational parameter: 1.1723328×10^18 m3/s2 Kerbin: Orbital Characteristics Semi-major axis: 13 599 840 256 m Apoapsis: 13 599 840 256 m Periapsis: 13 599 840 256 m Sidereal orbital period: 9 203 545 s -> 426 d 0 h 32 m 24.6 s So I am assuming you dropped your solar Pe down to 13 599 840 256m, got an encounter with Kerbin and you need to know what solar Ap(after gravity assist) you should aim for(so that your orbital period is 2x, 3x, 4x,..etc that of Kerbin). So turn the above equation around(you want alpha): a = sqrt3( (T^2 * u) / (4 * pi^2) ) Ap = 2( a - Pe/2 ) 2x kerbin's orbital period: T=(9 203 545 s) * 2 = 18407090 s alpha = 21 588 401 358.8451 m Solar Ap = 29 576 962 461.7 m 3x alpha = 28 288 808 537.9473 Solar Ap = 42 977 776 819.9 m 4x alpha = 34 269 451 027.3265 m Solar Ap = 54 939 061 798.7 m 1/2x alpha = 8 567 362 756.83162 m Solar Ap = 3 534 885 257.7 m 1/3x alpha = 6 538 121 445.91076 Solar Ap = -523 597 364.2m *Note: Negative apoapsis could be difficult. Remember that these are basic ratios for YOUR first orbit...you could get a lot more different encounters by using a 1.53789x ratio and waiting for 10 orbits to go by(that random number is not tested, this is just for arguments sake). Shamelessly lifted a lot of info from these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_period http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Kerbin http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Kerbol http://www.sciweavers.org/free-online-latex-equation-editor -> Pasted .png does not work on forums

It is morally right get any older version of the game that you already own, but legally it could still be considered piracy(law has no logic, and it differs in every country). But I agree previous versions should be easily available through a dropdown menu(like minecraft versions?), because you shouldn't have to sneak around dodgy websites to get this stuff

I think it happens to all of us...my first Eve landing crew thought they could take off in the same single-nuke-engine lander. So they had a permanent stay. I stayed away from Eve atmosphere for a long while, until I had some 500 hours of xp. A lot of asperigus staging(120ton?) made it possible to get a lander can up there(this was before re-entry heating was stock). It was wobbly, unruly and generally frustrating. Now after a 1000 hours, better aero and re-entry I suddenly had lots of ideas: - Command seat + small probe(built in torque wheel) + small battery. - That was the payload, encased in a size1.25 fairing protecting the kerbal inside. - Every stage below it has a mass of 2times it's own payload(every thing above this stage's decoupler is considered payload) It was a 4stage rocket (vector on 3.75m tank -> poodle on a thin 2.5m tank -> 2sparks on a fl-200 tank -> ants on oscar tanks). Somewhere around 8000-9000 m/s dv if i remember correctly and a mass of 56tons...i still had to EVA and use kerbal jetpack to do the final dv. This ascent vehicle landed unmanned, with 7x3.75m heatshield below(hexagonal symmetry), it had long ladders connected to pylons, the kerbal landed with a small science collecting rover nearby, climbed up those ladders and boarded "through" the fairing. Those ladders safely decoupled away at launch. Oh and you need super confidence at launching to orbit...10 seconds of manual control, then lock to surface prograde It's really fun to do this(and you should!) but it definitely requires more than blind luck

because it's hard! I have heard of this before...but he didn't have kerbal forums to help him along

If you feel bad about abandoning Kerbals in space, then don't land them on Eve..that is a death sentence(or life imprisonment on Eve). Rather just get into a elliptical orbit(low Periapsis, High Apoapsis) so that you can get some Eve low orbit science. Use the high Apoapsis to get to Gilly and land there. To land and launch back into orbit from Eve, you need a lander that is a tower of rocketry at least 50tons heavy...such beast doesn't even get a capsule into orbit, it barely gets a command seat into orbit. Eve ascent is considered one of the "top 5 most difficult" stunts to pull off.

@r_rolo1 Thats some good concrete logic, if one is OK but the other is not, then why do we see numbers only for some situations? Why do we see any numbers at all, shouldn't Isp and Mass values be described with "Light / medium / Heavy" or a "green / yellow / red" rating in a progress bar? I get the lego design, it is cool, intuitive, easy to grasp. We use numbers because it is easier to compare parts to each other: Total mass? -> Look at the same number on a few different parts. Can engine lift this rocket? -> Look at two different numbers, the engine thrust should be greater than the Total mass. How far can this ship take go? -> Look at three different numbers. Engine Isp, total mass and fuel mass. The first two examples are given figures calculated for the player, but why is the 3rd example(dv) "too much number" to display? Yes you can launch successfully without checking your TWR, but in map view->craft info you have a current "Max Accel." readout. Just to have a current stage dv readout there would be so awesome without defying the "visible numbers" rule anymore than MaxAccel already does.

delta-v equal to isp? ...i think I understand what you actually mean. Let us run a LV-T30 "Reliant" Liquid Fuel Engine, with an isp of 300(vac) isp * 9.81 * ln(wetmass / drymass) = dv -1/2rds 300 * 9.81 * ln(2/1) = 2039.93m/s 300 * 6.8 = 2040 -2/3rds 300 * 9.81 * ln(3/1) = 3233.22 m/s 300 * 10.8 = 3240 -7/8rds 300 * 9.81 * ln(8/1) = 6119.80m/s 300 * 20.4 = 6120 So, "delta-v equal to (isp * 10)" sounds more like it. Then: - 1/2rds of your launch mass -> gives dv number equal to 67% your isp*10 - 2/3rds of your launch mass -> gives dv number equal to your isp*10 - 7/8ths of your launch mass -> gives dv number equal to twice your isp*10 For TWR, think about it like this: 10kN is nearly the same weight as 1ton(all part mass in KSP is given in tons) *I say nearly because: #kN = ( #ton * 9.81 ), so that 1ton=9.81kN. So just remove the last zero from the thrust rating number, and you know how many ton that engine could lift to a hover

VariableThrustLimiter -by Crzyrndm. It gives a second thrust limiter to SRBs. Thrust drops linearly to whatever the second limiter was set to(or increases, depending on how you set your limiter). This mod blends seamlessly into stock and really makes SRBs useful

@Pthigrivi create a new stage 0. Move all un-wanted staging events into that stage. You wont blow you landing legs before your parachute at least. Yes it shouldn't be a problem in the first place, but some bugs and non-feature we will have to work with for a while longer

Sorry for bursting bubbles, but this will have minimal effect on stock: -SPH/VAB: It will become the norm, a no-brainer to leave the best engineer in the VAB because that much cost discount will certainly help you send more craft further, earlier in career...the best engineer is getting a VAB job for the rest of his life unfortunately. -Astronaut Complex: Hiring kerbals are already way too overpriced. Just streamline rescuing contract kerbals and have a pick(no astronaut population limit either). If a lvl5 pilot can train a hired rookie to start as a lvl3 pilot, then why would we decide not to leave a trained pilot in the building? -Research Center: Put engineer in building, research, take engineer out. NOT doing this will become a rookie mistake. -Tracking Station: Isn't that what "Hamming code" is for? Like your computer is doing that at this very moment, not a trained scientist. -Any damaged Building: Press the period key, ">." on the keyboard. Because timewarp exists and because time is irrelevant in KSP, we cannot use time as a "currency" for anything else than rendezvous. Just fast forward years ahead and get all the stuff. Pilots lose become useless after the thin probe core is unlocked, Scientist are only good for resetting Goo/MaterialBay...but engineers, they repack chutes for Laythe/Duna landers, they fix landing legs of said landers, they fix wheels that constantly breaks around mining bases, they makes drills go faster... I apologize if this seems rude, I didn't mean to poke hole in this idea but rather show how it could be exploited. For a mod added to KCT this could be brilliant(given that LS is also active). To make kerbals more useful, they need some long term goal/utility: -Experience seems likes a goal, and it works...until lvl3 where no more changes really happen. -Autopilot stuff / reset science parts / fix wheels is good utility, but there needs to be more non-probe actions where you absolutely need kerbals(fix solar panels, snap-align docking ports, retracting un-shielded solar panels, etc.) I wont criticize without suggesting something in return, so here goes: How about those building traits are linked to your current most highly experienced kerbals? It takes away the tedious micromanaging of stuffing kerbals into specific buildings, but maintains your cool bonus effects. Maybe it only counts for live kerbals..."the top engineer died in a failed Mun landing the other day, the KSC almost shutdown because of financial issues"

@KerikBalm You actually hyperedited from surface to surface?! Thats confidence. I have seen too many burning up stuff when trying that, so if i have to, i hyperedit to Kerbin orbit, then to Duna orbit, then to surface. To be honest, I don't use it for recovery...I just save my sanity from bugs. Those kind of bugs where you reach your mining base and it suddenly overheats and explodes when it reaches the physics bubble? hyperedit a duplicate craft there. Or those where the space station scatters into pieces after the most gentle docking(bit tedious to redock all the modules even after hyperediting a duplicate). I am tempted to use it when pre-planned slingshots shows I will hit the final planet but by the time i reach the SOI the physics engine decided to miss that by a 100Mm...but I have to draw the line somewhere

But do contracts and the like pick it up? It should since it has command module.(yes it is definitely surface attachable)

well, if your SSTO's has a high success rate...you could just use Hyperedit and do a dice roll(like throw real life dice at your keyboard) to simulate the 1/12 failures, or whatever number better suits your success rate. Yes Hyperedit is cheating, but only if the end result is better than you have done many times before...but then, where do we draw the line on this?

Rescuing Fredgun will give you the ability to rescue all the future countless many lost-in-space kerbals...They will certainly be more kerbals than you have in the astronaut complex (just kidding, but seriously learning and pulling that off will make Fredgun[cool name btw] to be a more well known hero than Jeb)

I 100% agree, with this Oscar-B_Fuel_Tank you can do the same(hide it using gizmos). I bet there is a lot of other parts that can be used the same way( FL-T100 Fuel Tank , small MonoProp stack tank?). There are so many "BZ-52_Radial_Attachment_Point" parts in the early techtree that the game is just forcing us to go through the hassle of correctly aligning and hiding those parts so that the craft still looks good

No it's not following the same idea and it should not involve a separate vertical burn, at all. A "Reverse Gravity Turn" is exactly like launching into orbit as efficiently as possible. The differences: > At launch your TWR grows as your tanks empty. < At landing, your TWR grows as altitude decreases(if you burn up fuel) > At launch, you aim prograde and launch with a pitch as low as possible so that your AP is at minimum orbital altitude (gain horizontal velocity as quick as possible...without high-fiving mountains) < At landing, you aim retrograde and de-orbit from as low an altitude as possible (lose horizontal velocity as quick as possible...without low-fiving mountains(?)) No stock engines on any craft will give you 600m/s dv in 0seconds, so you will burn vertical based upon how long it took to lose all the horizontal velocity...this is inevitable, but it works the same way in landing In short, imagine you launch a perfect gravity turn where you one-burn the engines to orbit. Remember where you turned them off? That is where you start the suicide burn, ending with a landing where you come to a stand still 0m from the ground. If Minmus was only flats, you could get into a 10m high orbit, start burning retrograde and then just start pitching up to keep your variometer pointed at zero and this would be the most efficient landing for the craft's TWR(without 0.1m risk) Notice that nowhere should you ever split burns into horizontal and vertical separate burns. - 1.41 m/s dv in a 45'degree pitch gives -> x = 1.41 * cos(45') = 1 m/s (horizontal) -> y = 1.41 * sin(45') = 1 m/s (vertical) To achieve that with two burns, you need 2 m/s dv total. Doesn't seem like a lot, but it can be multiplied to keep this ratio...1414m/s is considerably cheaper than 2000m/s. But don't fret, this is worst case scenario. If you aim within 25'deg of your intended aim, you lose less than 10% dv

Sorry but what is "ultrasonic aircrafts" : -Subsonic 0-340ms -Supersonic 340-1700ms -Hypersonic +1700ms (mach 5) Mach 1 = 340ms(decreases to 294.9m/s at about 60km altitude) I am not attacking you, I like these ideas but I hate misinformation. On topic, those heat restive surfaces would be awesome(as an end game tech). If they add mass but also boosts the part's heat tolerance, we could build spaceplanes out of low-tier parts at the end of career. The engines is tricky, since the RAPIER can already easily do 1600ms on air breathing...that is already 71% orbital speed. Compare that to the SKYLON's projected speed of Mach 5.4@26km=1611ms, against LEO orbital speed 7800m/s : that is 21% My point is, the RAPIER is on par with the higher estimates of what a SCRAMJET can theoretically do...at least for the kerbal universe. So it might become difficult to add such a engine, without making other engines seem utterly useless