Buckley

Quintessential Kerbal logic. Love it. That's very much the spirit (and ker-reasoning) of my program at the moment. Also, Bob's face in the last pic is epic.

Hi, my name is Buckley. I'm a Kerbal-holic. I have no intention of quitting anytime soon.

BLASPHEMER! (:D) NO KERBAL (well, at least not Jeb) SHALL BE LEFT BEHIND!

O and thanks for the comments all. Next steps for KerboDyne Industries: I've got 2 of 4 of my Keostationary ComSats up and operational. (RemoteTech2). Gonna finish that network to support further local exploits. Im planning a 2nd landing for !SCIENCE! I'll be conducting some ScanSat scans to begin identifying a location for a base, after which I'll launch a 3rd Viking lander mission to plant a flag at my future colony and resource exploitation site. At that point I'll be starting up some OKS/MKS stuff at Kerbin and Mun. About then I suppose it's Minmus and beyond....

Heh. Similar to the landing process as far as not having a clue at first to use my instruments ... Started as another "hold my beer watch this" type thing... Which of course didn't end so well. Also, patience. Which is something that doesn't come naturally to me anyway. I too found it harder initially. But, once I figured out how to control my speed at various points in the process, how to appropriately use retrograde, target markers, and prograde on my Navball, as well as things like my camera angle and getting used to what direction a particular key would fire my RCS thrusters in I did ok. O, and I now have direct experience with understanding RCS thruster balance importance. <--- understatement of my short Kerbal experience thus far. Overall 11/10. Will definitely bang my head on my keyboard until I get it right again. The payoff was well worth it. Very few games have satisfied a sense of accomplishment like this. Thats the drug that's got me hooked atm. Technically, no. But multiple save scums later and I did successfully rendezvous lander with orbiter and return Bill, Doodyer, and Jeb safely. Ole Jeb's got more lives than a cat it seems in this play through. (Once I learn some more of the basic mechanics for things I intend to start a new career play through with less forgiveness for failures )

Actually probably complicated the entire mission for being still a noob. But I kinda wanted to do this "right" since it was my first real landing. I designed a mission complete with an orbiter, 3 Kerbs - Jeb, Bill and Doodyer (any Kerbal named "Dood" is alright with me ) and a lander. So, this was both my first time landing on MUN AND my first docking experience. Would love to tell you I got it on the first try, but that's all lies. Both landing and docking sufficiently kicked my behind before I got it. Like, prolly 4-5 save scums for each. But as I point out below I decided to allow the save scum given that I just flat out didn't know what I was doing vs. me just being sloppy. (I like hardcore style Career...have it modded up nicely too.) Overall I definitely improved things each attempt... and while I'm still very wobbily with some of this I feel sufficiently satisfied in all that I learned - I'm ready for more :). Anywho... I present - "Viking II and Viking II Lander - A Few Simple Pics" Stunning view on my approach: Took me four tries to stick the landing. I allowed myself save scumming b/c I was crashing due to just completely not understanding the mechanics at work. My first attempt I tried doing it pretty much without the NavBall, you know... "hold my beer watch this" type thing. Next 2 tries I very sloppily landed after buzzing around the surface - used my NavBall but got very sloppy and disoriented at about 2k off. Same with Third landing but instead of saving it I just burned in a fire horribly. 4th trip in I really took my time, used the tool available, and stuck it. Here's Jeb: I was more than stoked. Actually hooted rather loud after sticking it. Jeb was fired up too: Jebediah Kermin, certified bada**:

+1 The maneuver node is, I believe, 2nd only to the Navball in terms of importance and commonly used parts of the interface. (Ok, so the VAB/SPH editor could be up there too, but I digress...) As such, it should get all the love possible and all the little annoyances of the existing should be solved with extreme prejudice. . Seriously though, in terms of return on investment in terms of player experience it's a no brainer. Your proposal could be a fantastic leap for Kerbal kind.

*grumble grumble* What's this "planning" thing you speak of? j/k actually my OCD doesn't let me not plan... I usually have to remind myself that I'm "close enough" on multiple occasions as I'm analyzing what I want to accomplish and how.

Dang, I thought I was gonna have to live with my OCD in a closet forever after using an excel spreadsheet this past weekend to keep track of my current mod build. Granted, I have not yet reached the level of sophistication as your mighty fine specimen there, but I have been tracking mod name, download size (per ckan so that I can maintain some sort of objective baseline for how much load I'm placing on RAM), and version number. But now! It seems I'm not the only freak in the universe. Mon Frere! Mon semblable!!

HA! Ya, there was a period over the weekend where it seemed like where ever I aimed at landing meant I could reliably count on finding mountains. It's the little things we learn...

Heh. I just picked up the game little over a week ago and also hooked immediately. That thing you mention about the Kerbs... I just posted something about that in my intro post today. I really think it's that failure is actually such a funny thing. We take life too seriously in general... and if you are actually doing more in this life than just breathing in and out and scurrying from place to place in search of food and water then that means you are probably investing in learning of some sort... and with learning comes failure - or at least it should 'cuz I learn a TON more when I fail than when I succeed. These little green dudes that we strap on top of massive explosions and catapult into an unforgiving and indifferent universe really add a lot to help make the process of learning (and failing) fun. Anyway, sorry to hijack - having a blast here hope you are as well. B

Thanks mates. Yes yes. Absorbed is a good word for it. Unbelievable. I'm loving the brain-busters, the learning, the sandbox, the huge amount of possibilities.... I have an executive team meeting in about 8 hours - and I need to prep at least an hour for it plus drive there which is an hour. So I'll be getting about 4 hours of sleep tonight. Thanks Jebediah. In other news... decided to set up my ComSat network around Kerbin before doing more work at Mun. Using RemoteTech 2 and ScanSAT and absolutely love the details. I decided to just run 'em up into orbit using Kerbal'd missions. Maybe not the most cost effective or efficient solution, but I've had fun designing my "Truck" ... something I endearingly titled the KDI (KerboDyne Industries) 'Ox.' I'm on my 3rd revision of the design now so it's actually the KDI 'Ox' Mk.3. I think I've settled on a name for my Mun program. I'm going to call 'em the "Viking" missions. Perhaps not terribly original but my first rocket I designed for the first fly-by I called the KDI 'Longship.' Since Vikings were the original explorers I think it kinda fits. I'll have to mull over what I wanna theme my Minmus program.... but hey, seems like I've probably got a week or two for that. Plenty to do at Mun. It's probably over-kill now looking back on it, but I really enjoyed designing the 'Longship.' It was my first big-ish design... everything up to that point was low orbit, sub-orbit. Had a rather sleek 3 booster design with a good long main-sail up the middle. The 'Ox' is just a brute... but I can definitely see my efficiency in design improving. I just completed my 3rd ComSat launch and I'm to a point where after the 2nd stage (3 stage design - SRBs for immediate thrust, then a RockoMax LFE to get into orbit, last a Terrier LFE for placing the ComSat with the ComSat itself sitting on the top in a nice egg-shaped fairing.) I've got virtually no fuel left and am just entering a parking orbit of about 100k. Starting to get familiar with dV values at various stages as well as the effect TWR has on my velocity at a given altitute - really helping my design efficiency. Added 2 new pilots to the mix... Doodyer (as soon as I saw a pilot named 'Dood' I immediately hired him with no interview required :P) and some other dude. Using texture replacer and I gotta say the differentiation in hair style adds sooo much to the Kerbal thing. Ima relegate both of them to maintenance missions while Jeb takes care of the more high profile stuff. That is, assuming I don't esplode one of them gloriously ... which is bound to happen at any moment. (Already lost & resurrected Jeb once. He bailed out of his pod after landing on the side of a mountain. At the time I thought it was my only option vs. exploding in the pod as it rolled 5k down the side of a mountain. Funny thing is, Jeb bailed and disintegrated and the pod pretty much stopped just after I bailed.) Tired. Rambling. This is amazing. o7 B

Hello! I'm new too... learning as I go. Today a Mun fly by... next week - interstellar travel?

Downloaded KSP last Saturday. Knew little to nothing about it. First played for about 5 minutes last Saturday morning but was so lost I had to put it down. Picked it back up in the afternoon and the addiction started slowly building as I became more and more aware of what this game is. I am now hooked like few - if any - other game has ever hooked me... and I've been a gamer for a long long time (20+ years.) This thing is a piece of art already, and it's further potential blows my mind. I was thinking about what it is that makes the game so appealing... and in part I realized that if it was just a dry space/ physics sim without the little goofy green dudes it would likely not have nearly the charm. I think there's a very subtle - but powerful - thing going on with Jeb and Co. that make the failures that come with engineering interstellar travel endearing. Like, because of the humorous quality of the Kerbals I find myself laughing at myself continuously even after what may be my 3rd or 4th failed design attempt. If the Kerbs weren't in the background and weren't as goofy as they are I think the game would be too darn dry and serious and would likely loose it's appeal relatively quickly. But I digress. Amazing game. Been too busy learning it to sign up on the forums until now. I've so far managed to fly by Mun and return safely with a bundle of !SCIENCE! on multiple occasions. Will prolly be attempting my first Mun landing later today. I've been taking it slow - and have already jumped into mods. Like, last night I just did about 3-4 orbit missions to keep learning some of the nuances of the node system, various orbital maneuvers, etc.. Anywho... glad to be on board!