SSgt Baloo

It's been updated. Have you looked for it here in the forums? I got it through CKAN.

I have that mod. The only quibble I had with it is that you have to add separate landing lights. Since I downloaded a parts pack with some useful lighting, it's become a barely significant factor.

It looks like if you hinged a second ramp to the end of the first, that might give you all the length you need. Also, if the ramp supports the weight of the aircraft, the person building the plane can just extend the ramp and have the front gear bound to an action group with it so he can extend the ramp to the ground and simultaneously raise the front gear, similar to how the C-5 does it.

ISTR that the front ramp on the C-5 is longer because it folds. Each part is half the length and there's (maybe) a third part about a quarter as long as the first two that actually touches the ground when it is extended. I'll go find a pic. *looks* Hey! I found a video of one deploying the front ramp. It starts at about the 2:10 mark.

Quite.

I always thought the original cockpit canopy for the P-75 looked like something right out of Buck Rogers. I don't bother making accurate copies of real planes. The best you can do without parts modeled on the exact plane you're doing is an approximation anyway. It's kind of like building with Lego, in that respect. You can only go so far before you have to willingly suspend your disbelief that the plane you just made actually looks like the real one.

The Stryker Mod seems to have several cockpits (postwar era) with "razorback" bits. Some of the command pods (1.25M) have the beginnings of a razorback on the back (with an additional attachment node at the upper back, for the razorback pieces), and there are straight and tapered razorback parts that can be attached to the upper node at the back of the cockpit, so you can run the razorback all the way back to the tail, if that's what you want. I'd like to see a piece that can substitute for the first razorback bit that could fit onto the back of a cockpit and make it look like the upper left side view in following image: And cockpits appropriate to the interwar and WWII era for them to attach to would be nice, too. Love the above suggestion for a tandem-seating trainer cockpit. Does anyone have plans to make a 1.25m inline cockpit with side-by-side seating? That way I could make a BAC Lightning Trainer homage. Like this guy:

I tried a couple of different things. I think if I double up on the second design and fill the space between the two passenger "bars" with wings, it might do better. Both fly reasonably well, but the bottom one is definitely a bit draggier than the top one. I think this will require more thought than Snoopy's doghouse did.

Vincent Burnelli advocated for a variation of the flying wing that transformed the center section of a plane from a tube into a wing foil section. I am trying to figure out the best approach to making something like this, but figured that it would be good to ask people who have been building these things longer than I have: how would you approximate this sort of design in KSP? My earliest attempts involved turning Mk-2 fuselage segments 90° to the direction of travel, and using them as wings, but it did not fly very well. Examples: Burnelli RB-1 Burnelli CB-16 A rejected shuttle design, apparently using the same design philosophy as Burnelli.

I gotta have Mechjeb and some sort of autopilot program that is relatively simple to operate. My hands tremble, and my fingers will sometimes command an unasked-for double-click, so anything that allows me to keep my hands away from making unintentional inputs is a good thing. I also like Easyboard, because getting the Kerbal close enough to board the vessel is a bit of a challenge, so it's nice to give him the ability to let himself in when he gets close enough. Other mods allow me to do things that the stock game does not, like all the airplane mods I have which gave me propeller engines, wings that can hold fuel inside them or cool-looking cockpits that make modeling things like the C-47 or P-38 possible. I love to build planes, and would not enjoy this game as much without mods like these. Some of the mods that give good approximations of real spacecraft (or in-game versions of fictional ones) can be fun, as well. There used to be a mod that came with two engines that had an ISP of 40,000 (no longer available ) that allowed me to stop worrying about running out of fuel for long enough to actually get a grip on orbital and interplanetary maneuvering. Some mods, I use because they reduce the stress of playing. I have anxiety disorders and don't want to wind myself up while I'm trying to unwind. The "ejection seat" mod helps me keep calm about the possibility of my plane losing control and killing everyone aboard. Ejecting is less stressful for me than reverting to launch or the hangar. Likewise, there are other mods that reduce the workload of flying a hastily-constructed air or space vessel. There are lots of great mods for this game. None of them are necessary for everyone, but they are all useful to someone. Thanks to all the modders for giving us these options!

Yes. I'm using Take Command. I suspect that the game treats a command seat very differently from a command pod. Enough differently that they'll jump out when you tell them to, but won't remember to take their 'chute with 'em when they do.

I love this mod. Now when I send the crew out to perform their duties, I might get most of them back intact. Is there any way to get these to work with a Stapp seat, so they can bail out, too? I have the open cockpit mod, and discovered that when you hit the abort button, the pilot in an open cockpit leaves the plane alright, but he forgets his parachute. Every time.

Well, everything works but the throttle. I can live with that. I have also discovered that I'm going to have to learn to build my planes less twitchy if I'm going to be using the joystick. Thanks!

Thank you. I'll go see if I can make it work, now.

Done. Still nothing. It detects buttons, but not joystick movement.

Seasonally-appropriate music, sung by everyone's favorite Wookie:

My Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick arrived today. KSP detects the joystick buttons, but can't seem to detect joystick movements. First, I tried starting KSP from the desktop without the joystick plugged in. No joy. Second, I looked online and found instructions to set it up, and they included having the joystick plugged in before you begin. Still no joy. Is there something more I have to do so the game can detect stick motion? What is it?

When I was a part of the gaming community we called this "BadWrongFun". It was a term intended to be derisive of people who believed their interpretation of the rules was superior to anyone else's, even if they were disputing with the author of those rules, himself.

Some of you obviously haven't had the pleasure of having your discussion of a mod interrupted by someone whose only contribution to the conversation is "I never use mods. Mods are cheating." I've only seen it happen on these forums a couple of times (and I don't go looking for things like that), but it's never pleasant, it's never necessary, and it's always completely irrelevant to the discussion.

Rockettes

Mods are just tools in your toolbox, and in my case, some of them are prostheses. I have nerve damage in my right hand (still the most coordinated hand I've got) and so I use mods like Mechjeb to prevent (or reduce the frequency of) the occasional nervous twitch which accidentally double-stages my flight or the spasm that turns what was intended to be a simple course adjustment into an adventure in regaining control before it crashes. I'm still patiently waiting for Pilot Assistant to be updated. That's a lot less "wandery" than Mechjeb's Spaceplane autopilot feature (which is still less "wandery" than for me to fly manually). Likewise, I love to make planes in this game, and like all the mods that let me make a wide variety of them, with many different powerplants to choose from, cockpits, and passenger sections. I also like the mod that lets me equip the pods with ejection seats. I don't actually use that one much, but I have anxiety disorders, and knowing I can save the crew reduces my stress to a level where I can enjoy the game. I've occasionally seen people express the opinion that any use of mods is somehow "cheating". I think what they are actually trying to say is "I'm better at this game because I'm a purist". Fine. Be a purist if that's what floats your boat, but don't use that as justification for telling everyone else that when they are using mods, they are "doing it wrong" (or "cheating"). Not using mods is just as "cheaty" as using them, unless you are trying to compete in a challenge where one or more mods are prohibited, and you used that mod anyway.

Seasonally-appropriate music: The Pretty Little Dolly, sung by Mona Abboud. Further reading: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-12-25/features/9512250014_1_dolly-tonight-show-sharp-comic-edge

Sometimes the holidays can be stressful. When I was a kid, we lived in Chico, California. Chico is located near Beale AFB. One Christmas Eve in Chico, we were watching the evening news when the station interrupted the regular news to inform us that NORAD had detected a UFO flying in from over the north pole at high speed. They went on to inform us that every effort was being made to contact the object by radio and that interceptors stationed at Beale AFB were being readied to pursue the UFO if it did not respond to radio signals. The evening news resumed. My sister and I were, respectively, 5 and 8 years old. We knew that this meant that that Santa was on his way. A few minutes later, they interrupted the news again and informed us that the UFO was not responding to radio signals. They added that the interceptors from Beale had been launched, (here they showed stock footage of F-102 fighters taking off) and that they would intercept the UFO in less than 10 minutes. The news resumed again. It was then that we realized that NORAD didn't know that this was Santa and was going to shoot him down. We started to panic. Mom and Dad were calmly trying to explain that Santa would be alright and everything would be okay. We weren't convinced. I can't say who, but one of us began to cry. "Waaaaah! They're going to kill Santa!" Finally, at the end of the News, they broke into the broadcast to report that the Interceptors were nearing the UFO, which had still not responded to radio calls. They put on an audio feed of the interceptors talking with ground control radar and we could hear the pilots as they calmly prepared to blow Santa to Kingdom Come. The planes were just about to fire when the lead pilot established visual contact with the "UFO". He said "It looks like a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer. It's Santa Claus!" Once they realized who it was, they provided him with an aerial escort into U.S. Airspace. It took my parents about an hour to finally calm down us kids down.

K, thanks!

So I should inform the CKAN guys, then? I have learned not to install things manually. I seem to have a talent for wrapping things around the axles every time I try to install mods manually, and I prefer to spend more time playing the game than troubleshooting it, so I'll wait until whoever can fix the problem identifies it and fixes it.