Tyko

Right! thanks for catching that I'll update my post

Since @SQUAD redid the capsules the parachutes really stick out as being old textures. Those and the Heat Shield shrouds are some of my least fav parts because you use them on so many craft.

You can wait for Squad to do it or you can just install a mod - USI-LS has a couple, Near Future Technologies Stockalike Station Parts Redux also has at least one.

If you're using RSS there's a mod called RSS Date Time formatter that sets the game clock to match the real calendar. From there you could just fast forward to current times. Maybe you could combine that with Kerbal Alarm Clock? Not sure exactly what you're looking for, but I hope that helps https://github.com/KSP-RO/RSSTimeFormatter/releases The problem with syncing stock to real life is that the calendar is way different. Days are 1/4 as long, lunar cycles are different as are solar cycles

Near Future Construction has many parts similar to those, including the triangular storage tanks

Cool Snark! I'll check it out. Could you please add MonoProp as well? That's also a stock fuel, so it's a bit of feature creep (sorry) but pretty straightforward.

which mod has those cool hub-less wheels you've been using in your rovers lately? Are those Kerbal Foundries? EDIT: never mind...I found them in Kerbal Foundries

OMG sentient auto-updating mods #love wouldn't that be amazing!! Thanks for keeping Kopernicus alive and well. I too don't even bother playing KSP without your mod.

Anyone notice that the KSC doesn't point due East anymore? According to Kerbal Engineer a craft on the launch pad is sitting at 0.09721 degrees instead of 0.00000. It's a small annoyance, but easy for @SQUAD to correct. I feel like every couple of updates someone messes with the KSC location and doesn't include enough significant figures to properly define 0.00000 degrees.

alright, well know that your work is appreciated best of luck

Heya, sorry to hear about your machine...you should post a paypal. You've supported the community with your work and I'm happy to send some back your way.

@Tirello & @void_error you can move your KSP folder out of Steam and somewhere else on your hard drive. This will prevent Steam from updating it until you're ready. Can't do much for losing 1.6 now, but that trick will prevent you suffering through this again in the future.

RSS is 10x scaled over Stock. So it takes over 3 times as much fuel to perform a maneuver. I'm not sure RSS is really playable with stock parts. Like you said, you'd need much bigger stages and many more of them. I'd read the initial post for this thread. It suggests other mods to use with it.

Thanks for getting the update out so quickly! Nice work

@lunaris69 I'm with @kraden in that I don't give Kerbal veterans any magical survival capabilities. I have them set with the same USILS requirements as any other Kerbal. This removes the concern about Renamer. Just because a kerbal is a veteran doesn't mean they can survive without oxygen for weeks. Figuring out how to keep Kerbals alive on long missions is the entire point of USILS. If you're having problems with long missions another route would be to ask for help on how to keep them alive because it's very doable. Supplies alone works for shorter missions. Supplies plus recyclers can often double your mission lengths. For even longer missions greenhouses can provide life support nearly indefinitely. There are other strategies that work well too...One trick I've used is to send a re-supply ship ahead to my destination. That can sit in orbit around the destination until my crewed ship arrives then dock and top off my ship's supplies. This means that the crewed ship only has to carry enough supplies for one leg of the journey instead of the full round trip.

This is really cool! Another approach would be to build a number of smaller purpose built stations in that same orbit spaced around the planet or at least 5 km or so apart to avoid physics range. The advantage would be avoiding cool but cumbersome 400 part monstrosities. If they're in the same orbit the Delta-V to move from one to another would be really low - like well under 100 depending on how fast you wanted to get there. It would also give you an excuse to build little inter-station shuttle pods

sure thing. The limiting factor is usually Kopernicus. That's the mod that enables all the planet packs. Kopernicus is locked to a specific KSP version, so if that's not updated no planet pack will work. As long as Kopernicus is updated though most planet packs will work even if they haven't been updated.

Sometimes autostrut can cause weird problems too, however. Autostrut to Grandparent is the most safe way. Most people set Autostrut to "heaviest" which can cause every part to recalculate where it's strutted to whenever a new module is attached - this is what usually breaks things It also helps to build in a way that makes structural sense - Don't build long chains of parts just hanging out there. Physics in the game matters - if you have a big heavy component dangling out on the end of a series of other parts it's going to tend to whip around. Definitely keep your heaviest modules closest to the center and, preferably, balanced with another heavy module on the opposite side. Also use the biggest docking ports you can near the center. the bigger they are the less wobbly they'll be This is a bit smaller than ISS, closer to Mir, but it demonstrates the ideas I mention above - all the hab modules are weight balanced and the heavy fuel tank (pointing down) is centered and close as possible to the core. This is a very stable setup and easy to expand further

Aerodynamics matter in KSP...all of those changes to diameter are going to cause problems. Each change causes drag. Suggest smoothing it out. Use a cone shaped transition from your lower stage to your upper. Try putting your reaction wheel and your RGU in a material bay so they match the rest of your rocket Use a taller thinner 2nd stage fuel tank that's the same diameter as your engine. TL:DR - keep the rocket sides smooth going from smaller on top to larger on the bottom and use angled transition pieces to move from one diameter to another.

you might want to ask on the Kerbalism forum thread rather than just in Add-On discussions"...you're more likely to get your question seen by people actually using / developing Kerbalism

Welcome to the forums two things: RSS has been working fine for many peeps in 1.5.x and also appears to work just great in 1.6, so go ahead and play. it's against community rules to bug modders about updating, I know it's common on Steam and other places for people to keep asking for updates, but it's not something that's done on KSP Forums. Modders are working for free and at their own pace.

Just adding one more option to the excellent suggestions above. here's how I do it: Build your booster TWR between 1.2 and 1.5 and you're second stage around a TWR of 1 Set SAS to hold and launch straight up to around 90-100 m/s - This will vary depending on your launch TWR, but it's easy to tweak Tip your nose Eastward to 80 degrees - your prograde marker will start to tilt in the same direction Wait for your Prograde marker to hit 80 degrees then switch SAS to Prograde - now your nose will follow prograde and your rocket will start slowly tipping as it goes through a gravity turn You want your altitude to be between 8km and 12km when you're angled 45 degrees to the horizon. - If you want to fine tune this you can restart the launch and change the speed at which you do your initial tip-over. The higher your initial TWR the sooner you want to perform tip-over. Pro Tip: note your altitude at 60 degrees, this will be pretty close to half the altitude you'll hit when you get to 45 degrees, so you can tell early if you're on the right path or not. Stage as necessary and keep accelerating until you've reached your target AP then cut engines and coast. Depending on how deep in the atmosphere you are you may want to overshoot your AP by a 1km or 2 because the atmospheric drag will slow you down a little. When you're approaching your AP, plot a maneuver using the maneuver node to circularize your orbit Burn according to the maneuver you plotted. You're in orbit!!! As a final note, there are many variants for these launch parameters used my many skilled players. I've been doing a bunch of testing - higher vs lower TWR, earlier vs later initial tip-over, throttling vs letting engines run full out, etc. The changes I've tried definitely can affect the final DV expenditure, but I've found that most of these variants fall into a range of plus or minus 100 DV. When you consider that your total launch DV is around 3000(ish) that's only a 3.3% variance in total DV. Considering NASA had a 1-1.5% variance on their real-life "lives are on the line" accuracy for Saturn V you're doing pretty well - so, have fun optimizing, but don't sweat it too much

@Noud you need a Science mode option

Atomic Age and Cryogenic engines aren't nearly the same. They're actually very different. I know you're new to the forums, but I'm not sure how new you are to the game, so let's start very basic here. Key engine capabilities are: ISP in seconds - vacuum (VAC) and at sea level (ASL) - this is essentially the "fuel efficiency" of the engine, the higher the ISP the more DV you get from a given quantity of fuel Thrust in kN - vacuum (VAC) and at sea level (ASL) - How much force the engine can push with Mass in kg - how much the engine weighs. Thrust to Weight (TWR) ratio - a calculation of the engine's thrust compared to its mass Nuclear Thermal Rockets (NTR) - like those in Atomic Age or Kerbal Atomics - have very high VAC ISP, but low ASL ISP and very low TWR. They're great for pushing craft around in a vacuum because of their high fuel efficiency (VAC ISP), but you need a fairly heavy load to offset the weight of the engine. Doesn't make much sense to push a 10 ton load around with a 15 ton engine. Cryogenic Engines - are bi-propellant combustion engines just like the normal LFO engines in the game. They have higher ISPs than LFO due to the different type of fuel but still have really high TWR. They are really completely different types of engines. They're certainly not similar enough for you to say "Kerbal Atomic do the same job much better". There's really only one (broadly speaking) job that NTR do better than cryogenic engines - that's pushing big heavy loads around in space. For almost any other mission types Cryogenic engines are far better.

It's a cool idea. Depending on how detailed you wanted to get it could be faked pretty easily just using KAC. You could assign a number of days based on the cost of the rocket - just for argument lets say 1 day per 1000 kerbucks. When you've built your rocket, figure out how many days then just add a KAC alarm called "launch my new rocket". Since rolling out to the pad only takes a couple of days you could skip the whole "whoops! I accidentally left another rocket on the pad" because that wouldn't happen anyways...