Kermanzooming

For me, one of the things that impacts career mode balance is the lack of time constraints. Contracts have expiration dates, but as you can launch a mission every minute if you like, the expiration dates are meaningless. That's why I want to test a 1.2 career with Kerbal Construction Time, which makes you take time for each ship build.

That's so good! Can't agree more; because with KSP, you don't only enjoy when playing, but also when thinking how to solve the problem at hand before your next playing session

???? May I ask you why?

This post carries a simple but very important message: Donate to the people that make KSP the game we love. Thanks to them, we spent countless hours playing a game that is so much better with mods that is a completely different game. This people devote their most precious resource (time), taking it away from work, family, friends and slepp for working for the community, because they, as you, love KSP. So let's give back some love to our modders; donate to them. The amount is not important, if you can spare $20, do it. If you can only afford $1, it's perfectly OK. It's not about the money, is about them feeling that not only them are committed to keeping KSP growing. I have already did it; I donated to @sarbian using this link. Now it's your turn; pick the mod you like the most, and donate to the modder that made it possible. It's fair, and the right thing to do.

No, the 3.200 part testing was done on a custom build Windows PC, but nevertheless it was done by the same YouTuber that had big frame rate problems with a 180 part station, so the performance increase is evident. Here is the full video

Just did a quick check on 1.2 on my MacBook Air and performance is much better than 1.1; faster loading times, faster transitions to and from VAB... Now, let's wait until the mods are updated and time to start a new career game...

Neither have I, although it fits quite well the KSP experience

In my Kerbin testing the next smaller wheels kept breaking when the Ore tank was fully loaded, and were barely able to move the whole thing, so yes, I think I'm stuck with the huge wheels. I'm pathologically unable to make planes; not spaceplanes, but any kind of (functional) plane. I tried once to create a Space Shuttle and had to give up... KIS and KAS could be an option, could send the wheels separately and attach them on site... although that presents its own set of challenges. I'm afraid Realism Overhaul is too real for me, I like the fictional setting of the stock experience.

So I was designing my PROMISER (PROspecting, Mining, In-Situ Extraction and Refining) mission to Minmus, and had to wrap my gigantic rover (those are the huge wheels) with a 3.75 m fairing... and the fairing only weights 15 tons! I was wondering if those procedural fairings I see everybody using on their KSP videos are lighter/more realistic...

I have been considering installing Remotetech and Kerbal Construction Time on my current career game; I was wondering what the effect would be. Will all unmanned and un-antenned probes be rendered uncontrollable? Will you start with the minimum building points for KCT?

Assuming you are talking about Kerbin, most people like to put their stations at 125 Km so you can benefit from time warping at 100x. Here you have the minimum altitudes above each body for the different time warping speeds. No matter the altitude, remember to make the orbit as circular as possible to make rendezvous and docking easier.

Yep, if you are looking for a map feature then ScanSat is the way to go. Kerbnet seems to be quite limited from the sparse information available.

It's like a map you can check from ships, to see biomes and set waypoints . From the devnote Devnote Tuesday: I ain’t getting on no plane! Devnotes

I feel your pain, brother; My MacBook Air can't even display shadows, but it doesn't really matter.

Agree, having more diverse worlds would open great possibilities for a more meaningful science, awesome contracts...

I have begun to think recently that this could be the reason most players never leave the Kerbin system (at least in Career Mode); as there is always something to do in the Kerbin System, you never time warp enough to get to your interplanetary transfer windows... That's why I think Kerbal Construction Time is a very good idea; it will keep the game time moving forward so you are not 'trapped' doing Kerbin/Mün/Minmus contracts

Exactly that. My point is that KSP is a game about designing optimal ships for a particular mission, and that usually means a design for a planet is not good for another one, while in NMS you use the same ship no matter which planet are you visiting.

I'm not exactly sure about that... KSP takes a lot of planning to design a viable ship for a mission, and a ship that worked in a planet in NMS wouldn't probably work in the next one. KSP is a game about ship design and flight, and if you want realism that is difficult to make compatible with travelling to different bodies. The same ship couldn't travel to Mars and Venus; wildly different needs.

Yes, KIS I already have installed. Apparently it came bundled with MKS-LITE, as I don't remember having installed it separately.

So I'm beginning my bases deployment using MKS-Lite, and I'm finding myself having to use quite complex solutions for linking additional base parts without using KAS. The thing is I'm playing on a not so powerful laptop (a mid-2011 MacBook Air) so I don't want to install anything that impacts the performance so much as to make the game unplayable. Anyone there wants to share their experiences with KAS? Does it impact the performance of the game , or is it safe to install on not so powerful computers?

Installing Kerbal Engineer or Mechjeb will make the game less of a trial and error; being able to design ships knowing their capabilities in terms of Delta-V and TWR keeps the game challenging but removes a lot of time spent on trial and error. Beware, however; once you try a mod, there is no turning back and you will end up with a lot of them

My rendezvous & docking experience improved greatly when I understood there is no need to cancel all relative velocity to the target until you are really close. I always did the same; kill all your velocity, point towards your target, burn. Kill again velocity, point again, burn again. And it works, but only if you are reasonably close and on a similar orbit to your target. The problem is that it is wildly inefficient. There is a better way; let me try to explain with a very crude graphic. The arrow marks what the velocity vector would do when burning. Burning pulls your "towards the target" velocity towards your attitude indicator Burning pushes "away from the target" velocity away from your attitude indicator That means that by burning not directly towards or away your target, you can ensure you are always moving towards your target without the need to kill all your velocity, which makes it way more efficient and easier.

Really? Didn't knew, I have never used any stock ship...

Not sure if a challenge, but the inusual configuration of the OSIRIS-REX launch vehicle (with only one SRB on a asymmetrical configuration), could be interesting to replicate...

I have to be very careful with mods as I'm playing on a not so powerful laptop; visual enhancements are out of scope for me, and I usually avoid adding a lot of new parts (although that increases startup time but probably doesn't impact game performance, right?)