Hannu2

I thought some low value vessel. For example old barge from scrapping yard. Or maybe exactly defined place 50 m away from barge so that they could have used all navigation and investigation equipment. But probably you are right and repair costs and risks of expensive damage to the electronic equipment was lower than costs and risks of changing things would have been.

If they knew that success was nearly impossible why did they try to hit to that barge and damage it? Why not some less valuable target?

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to fit any sane life support to SQUADs numberless philosophy. You can put 12 km/s dv into a ship and eyeball trajectories and avoid thinking math or physics. But you can not estimate duration of such trips. It may be anything from a year to ten years. Or more including rescue missions. Life support must be practically free and therefore futile or some kind of half baked joke where lack of resources shows only some funny message box instead of killing kerbals and ruining mission completely. So it may be better than life support stays as a mod. Now there are several different mods from cartoony jokes to severe micromanagement drills for nerds.

Other writers told about difficulties of orbital assembly. Other thing is time. It was literally a space race and both participants feared that competitor win the race. They could not think what would be the most economic solution in long run. It is why there was so abrupt collapse of US space programs after Apollo. These solutions was far too expensive to be suitable for any commercial utilization of space and it took decades to build almost everything from scratch.

1. Axial tilts. Should be self explanatory. 2. Proper mapview-like mission planner tool. It should show positions of bodies and ships at chosen times, have possibility to simulate trajectories over several orbits (for slingshots) etc. It should have porkchop plotter and show chosen orbits in space. If SQUAD will not program every tools it it should be possibility to make such mods on well thought base. After these they should make better seed value based procedural planet generating code make true exploration a part of the game, but I think that it is not in foreseeable future.

Standard steel from car is practically as resistant as cardboard if you have oxygen rich gas at temperatures typical in gas turbines. Burning through with oxygen jet is a very common method to cut steel in metal industry. Corrosion resistance depends always on circumstances and chemicals. Anyone of so called corrosion resistant steels are not suitable for any purpose. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of different steel grades and those which are able to resist oxygen at more than 1200 K are very rare and expensive. Or in other word, exotic. Typically such dangerous conditions are tried to avoid in industrial processes and where avoiding is not possible, nickel alloys (even more exotic) are more common than steels as far as I know.

You are correct in defining realism. However, there seems to be a large variation in opinions which things people want to make by a realistic way and which things should be simplified. For example I do not want to make detailed EVAs, piloting etc. mundane stuff. I think that I am mostly a mission command. I plan things, send instructions to crew and make much technical micromanagement stuff to keep things going. But many people have perfectly opposite opinions. They want to make EVAs, pilot by hand, have interior models and they keep planning as a boring thing which should be simplified out of the game. In my opinion SQUAD should make the KSP as a platform which anyone could mod whatever they want. It is already, but it should be maybe more. SQUAD should make a bugless and effective physics engine, UI, career mode basics etc. basic stuff. It is not a bad idea to keep stock KSP cartoonish, numberless and oversimplified. However, engine on the behind of the screen should be made so that the game could be easily modded to even extreme nerdy micromanagement hell for professional engineers and scientists. Or whatever else. Most things are already OK and there are loads of well thought high quality technical realism mods but there are some several problems left. For example map view should have a complete overhaul. Not a graphical eye candy, which is probably already coming, but detailed simulator-like planning tool with built in porkchop plotters, complex slingshot orbit planner etc. As far as I know it is not easy or even possible to mod now. And of course, first of all, axial tilts. They could put kerbin's tilt as 0, Mun on equatorial orbit and KSC at equator, if they think that average user is retard, but angles should be able to change to more realistic and much more interesting values.

I can not say how long adaptation takes. But it will never be perfect. Typically people learn basic arithmetics during childhood when brains are easier to develop. At least I have programmed over 25 years (from I was 14) and can not use hexadecimal numbers without extra work. Of course I understand values needed typically in programming, and many thing are easier in hexadecimal notation, but if government would change banknotes and price tags to hexadecimal I had to convert everything into decimal system before decisions.

Difficult to say because it opens a whole new world. I have 20-30 mods I usually use but so far I have not used graphical mods except in 0.90 when I played in Linux. I came back to Windows because I felt it important to be able to run other software when I play. I have 16 GB memory and it gives possibility to use nice mods and certainly I will try something.

As far as I know there has not been any fixes on planets during several versions. Not in 1.1 too. But in my opinion Pol is worth visiting even with a bug. Especially if you can use surface scatterings. Most landings go without problems except annoyingly slow movements in low gravity and stupid timewarp limits.

I would not like such mission ruining thing. Mission ruining random accidents are OK, but there should be more interesting story and logic behind them. Maybe some kind of large ancient space station which could be investigated. It could give much science and reputation points but also some probability of severe problems (for example illness of crew members, sudden accidents (explosions in modules where kerbals are) etc.). Kicking the ship on the other side of solar system is rather cheap and boring way to cause problems. Unfortunately, as far as I know, SQUAD and most players are against all pseudo random things. But maybe it could be a mod. There is also one problem independent on personal opinions. It would be extreme improbable to hit a point like anomaly on random orbit around Jool. Probably only few of thousands of players would ever encounter it. If the game would not tell clearly what happened people would think that it was some bug. There has been bugs which disturb orbits in some versions.

What is enough depends on your mission planning. I try to avoid tight timings and do not need more than 3-4 % which is easy to find. If 10 % is not enough and you do not have any construction flaws you need another mining craft of larger one with more drills. As far as I know there are not significantly higher concentrations. Typically there is practically unlimited time to do things in KSP. For example, if I go to interplanetary expedition, I have to stay hundreds of days on target due to launch windows. I land, cruise couple of hours with rover, land on moon, set up mining craft and notice that I have made everything possible before one week has gone and my return window opens after several hundreds of days. In such situation I do not care if mining lasts 2 days or 200 days. Concentration of 3-4 % is more than enough then. I can always use timewarp and get tanks filled in few minutes of real time. If I have refinery on Minmus I have hundreds of days between launch windows to planets. It is again indifferent how long it takes.

Certainly not. Such claimed improvements are advertisement tricks in very special conditions.

I have not had much stability problems even I use mods (most of them popular high quality mods). There is memory leak which eventually crash the game but it is predictable if I watch the memory consumption. Using OpenGL gives couple of hours of playtime for me. I have never experienced for example corruption of savefile. But there are much reports of severe problems. It seems that there are some bugs which show themselves only in some computers. It is just luck that I and you have such systems which never activate these bugs. I hope that migration to Unity 5 fixes such things, and there are good reasons to expect that, but only time will show how many patches are needed before quality is acceptable.

No thanks. I have used thousands of euros to buy high quality camera objectives in real life to minimize such errors. So I do not want that they are artificially added anywhere. I think also that there are so much work in basic gameplay things that devs should not use their time to futile eye candy in this phase of developing. Lens flares would be a graphics enhancement mod. Crosses on stars are not lens flares. They are diffraction spikes caused by secondary mirror mount of reflector. In my opinion also astronomical photos look better without them and other imaging errors.

My kids need a computer and I think that maybe I give my computer (i7 3770K) to them and buy a new one for myself. But I will wait for Intel's Broadwell E processors and also that I have enough money to buy what I want to (also a 4K display suitable for photo processing). KSP will not certainly need 6 cores but it would be nice for PovRay rendering and my own hobby programming projects.

If we know nearby points from outside and inside and trajectories of planet and craft, determining the time of the accurate SOI change needs only very basic equation solving techniques. It is certainly possible to do. Prediction over longer time periods during mapping can be little more difficult due to several mimima but it is also very doable and also computationally cheap in one dimensional problem like this. We can do many assumptions based on known things about solar system. In my opinion such inaccuracies are totally intolerable in spaceflight game but unfortunately Squad have different opinion. It is true, that fixing errors does not benefit in mathless eyeballing playstyle which most players probably use and Squas has made much work to make it possible. But KSP should be also able to use for more engineering like playstyle. Even if Squad does not do it, they should make the game moddable to accurate gaming. I do not criticize patched conics model as a choice for game (here), but I criticize the fact that results of KSP's own trajectory predictions are different than actual trajectories it calculates. And these are not minor errors which can be compensated by burning couple of m/s. It is common (especially around Jool) that map view can not predict clear encounter with moons before couple of hours before encounter. Such an error typically ruins that mission completely in my style of play and it is very annoying. If there was even a simulation mode which would show positions of crafts and planets as a function of time (for example I could change time by rolling mousewheel) I could detect these encounters by myself and avoid them.

Orbit predictions, calculations and SOI detections are buggy. Unfortunately, they have been fundamentally programmed by using stupid algorithms (not suitable for this kind of purpose) and it is practically impossible to fix them without rewriting huge parts of code. So, they will stay buggy and we have to learn to live with it. Therefore it is necessary to make multiple checks and reserve dv for corrections. It is best to plan first correction immediately (couple of hours) after leaving Kerbin's SOI. Typically it is on first half on orbit and magnitude is 0-20 m/s (from Kerbin to Duna) if ejection was reasonable accurate. In first correction PE is roughly adjusted to somewhere near wanted value (0-1000 km for low orbit, 2000-4000 km for Ike encounter). Next correction is planned immediately after executing first. It is 40-70 days before Duna encounter. Then it is time to adjust periapsis altitude and timing of the encounter so that you avoid Ike (or encounter it at optimal position if mission profile is such). Time is adjusted by varying prograde and radial components of velocity about 1 m/s per step so that PE stays at given altitude. It is good idea to check everything just before executing the second correction. Then execute the maneuver and check everything again. Then it is time to warp on SOI change and make last fine adjustments when craft enters to Duna's SOI. There are several mods which give precise maneuver controls. Using one of them is very recommended if you try to achieve efficient interplanetary trips. Squad's stock numberless eyeballing maneuvering needs much extra dv. I do not use parachutes in Duna. It gives more risks, restrictions and problems than avoid costs. Powered landing from low orbit needs less than 1500 m/s dv which is quite practical to have.

Yes, there are some elements which are rare on Earth's crust and their limited availability and high price limits industrial applications. For example platinum group metals, which are used as catalysts in chemical and automotive industry and lanthanoid metals which have several uses in electric and optical industry (maybe powerful permanent magnets are the most important use). Most of these heavy elements in Earth have fallen to core soon after formation on the planet. There are much higher concentrations and practically unlimited amount of these elements in metal asteroids. It would need a huge investment before we can utilize these resources from space but unlimited supply and lower prices would finally give significant benefits and profits. It is not current yet but mining companies will certainly get interested in space mining when there will be significant reduction in launch prices (for example because re-usable stages) and commercial heavy launchers. I predict that severe development of mining machines may begin after couple of decades and first commercial mines begin to product after 50-100 years. I do not believe that human astronauts will get significant role as a workforce in that process and especially there will not be need for permanently manned colonies on asteroids.

1. I do not know much about martian geology and I think that nobody knows. There must be much basic investigation before we know what are best position for cities or mines. 2. First things are soil materials for building and concrete manufacturing. After that iron and aluminium. 3. Difficult to say. Probably somewhat like cities on Earth because they are practical forms and people are used to it. 4. 1000 years before it can be called as a city. Maybe then it can be a self sufficient community with agriculture (on areas around city), mining, industry, services, administration and tens of thousands of people.

First problem is that hydrolox engines have relatively low thrust. Therefore they are useless as strap-on boosters. They must have very high thrust at cost of ISP. I think that gas balloon is too weak to be useful in this purpose. Parachutes are stronger but not enough in booster recovery.

I do not know exact number but you can assume it to be infinite for every practical purposes. Anything which hit to ice at several km/s will be destroyed in millisecond. Galileo Probe entered to Jupiter's atmosphere. It may be thick and nasty atmosphere, but it is surely softer than ice at -150 C. G value of icebraking would be several orders of magnitude higher in spite of any imaginable air bag contraption. 8000 kg of fuel sounds great. What the heck they are going to land on Europa? Have they hired Whackjob to plan real probes?

My 1.0.5 is now playable with OpenGL. When 1.1 will come and all necessary mods will be updated I will certainly try 64 bit version with graphical enhancement mods, which I can not use now. If it is more unstable than 1.0.5 now I will try 32 bit without graphical mods. If 64 bit with graphical mods will be better or equal than 32 bit is now I am very happy.

It is clear that self-sufficient space colony takes hundreds or thousands of years to develop. It is never economically sane project, because generations which invest money to it get never any profit. It has to be rationalized by other means. However, it is probable that colony is needed to backup after several millions of years. It is certainly self sufficient and mankind has probably expanded to whole solar system before that.

Titan. Thick atmosphere and liquid circulation on surface are unique and create rich and interesting details.