Mjarf

When overtaking cars on the highway I think to myself "burning to lower orbit, lower orbit achieved, relative velocity to target is now approx 2m/s."

I put several Vernor thrusters on my lifting rockets to force it to go straight, this combined with careful maneuvering and several strategically placed struts make for a nice and stable rocket. I've lifted similar payloads on larger lifting rockets with no issues, might be because it has 3 Mammoth engines giving it plenty steering torque. I also set the gimbal limit to 30% to make it turn more gently, reaction wheels haven't been necessary with this configuration. I have noticed the fairing bug, and my rockets were more stable without fairings even with relatively un-aerodynamic payloads.

Welp, my Mun and Minmus lander weighs in at approx. 50 tons and has two stages and is lifted by my Thor 1.5 800 ton lifting stage, so I guess I tend to build my crafts rather large. My future Duna craft will probably use my Thor 2.5 1500 ton lifting stage just to get the modules into 200km orbit for assembly and launch from there. I like big rockets, it makes me giggle to see them burn an obscene amount of fuel and scorch the launch pad.

You can't go wrong with a sleek and simple design, a philosophy I seem to fail at. I tend to over-engineer everything, probably because I'm Norwegian.

Welp, after playing KSP for hundreds of hours I now definitely understand what's going on in the Apollo 13 movie. Now I get why they couldn't just stop, turn around and go back, I also understand the talk about re-entry trajectory. I should definitely watch that movie again. I also started planning a future Duna mission in my head at work today.

Had my first asteroid encounter today, was less interesting than expected, not entirely sure what I expected though. It was pretty much a large space potato that would only be somewhat useful for mining. I also filled up the fuel depot in my Valhalla station, it's got plenty fuel for future long, range missions. Planning on taking a manned flight to Duna very soon, just have to build a suitable craft. Maybe I should just dock a module with 8 LV-N's and fly the whole station into orbit around Duna.

Scott Manley has a video on rendezvous and docking as well, it's the one I learned from from. Rendezvousing is something that's really difficult the first time, but then it "clicks in place" in your brain and it's much easier after that first successful attempt. I've found that those intersect nodes aren't very relevant, focus on the visual approach in the orbital map, and use the navball in regular mode once you get closer than 20km or so. The way I do it is I go into a higher or lower orbit (depending on the target being in front of or behind me) until the two ships are flying close to parallel, then I burn to the same orbit height as the target's orbit, then I use the navball for the close approach. Don't worry about the orbits at this point, just focus on carefully closing in on the target. Patience is key here, as in most things in KSP.

I imagine Bill thinking "Hmm, I think there may be a slight design flaw in this new rover prototype..."

That's one thing I like about going to Minmus, the low gravity makes you burn a tiny amount of fuel. I would love to visit Duna soon though.

Sent a couple more missions to Minmus to earn more science points, saving up for them shiny ion engines.

I've learned that a combination of patience and strategically placed struts is the key to success, also thrust, you can never have too much thrust. Well, actually you can, I had a rocket blow up once because the insane amount of thrust quite literally crushed the upper part of the rocket, that was fun. Maneuver nodes can also be very useful when used right.

I add several strategically placed struts and A LOT of "Vernor" RCS thrusters on my lifting stage combined with a Large Reaction Wheel to pretty much brute force the damn thing to go straight. Yesterday I did encounter a similar bug though, my rocket started tilting at approx 15k altitude before it suddenly exploded and the pod went down with zero air resistance. It seems like there's definitely some kind of aerodynamics bug in the current game version.

Unmanned flights are of course safer, but I don't want my Kerbals to be bored either.

I've gotten started on my new Valhalla multi-purpose station. I recently started building an orbiting fuel depot but it turned out messy and improvised, this station is better planned. I started by placing a sturdy station core in orbit with ample power supply and plenty docking points and also decent illumintation. So far I've added a habitation and science module and the first section of the fuel depot which will consist of 3 Kerbodyne S3 14400 tanks. I'll also add a "lifeboat" and might add more living space, as I try to keep my Kerbals somewhat comfortable.

I know space crafts don't necessarily have to be aerodynamic, but that is a quite unusual shape even for a space craft. I kinda like it though.

After recently finally being able to wrap my brain around the rendezvous concept I've started the construction of a proper space station. I started building a simple re-fueling station a couple days ago, but it was turning into a hodgepodge so I de-orbited that to start from scratch. Today I built a proper core for my multi-purpose station that I've named Valhalla in tradition with my Norse naming. It has 2 Clamp-o-tron Sr. to attach heavier modules and/or dock heavy crafts, and 3 regular Clamp-o-tron ports for smaller modules and crafts. The core has a total battery capacity of 9010 units and 8 Gigantor solar arrays as power supply. It also has a HECS and CH-J3 that controls two Advanced reaction wheels to keep it stable. My old station liked to twist and rotate during docking and that's the last thing one wants when docking. Here's Valentina posing for the cam after de-coupling the core from the hauler craft. I also added a touch of madness to the station core to make things more interesting. I mapped the abort button to de-couple all docking ports so that it's basically a self-destruct button. The next step is to add a habitation module, after that I will add fuel and science modules.

I don't have a screenshot of it, but I did royally screw up on an "Apollo style" Mun mission last night. When I was about to rendezvous with the main ship in the lander I discovered that I had overlooked a tiny detail, the orbit of the lander was going the opposite way of the main ship! Lesson learned: make sure the gravity turn is in the correct direction.

KSP does make me laugh and explosions are fun, but I actually hate losing Kerbals, especially the "trio". I too did the "wee, 'splosions are fun :D" thing at first, but now I try to more constructive things and rarely play sandbox mode anymore. I prefer Science career, good middleground between sandbox and caree mode to me. And yes, when I first saw the thread title I thought it would be about the 5 stages of KSP addiciton or something.

Built a new experimental interplanetary cruiser today, the launch weight does concern me a bit...

Hmm, their lack of moar boosters is disturbing...

I've played MMORPG's online with people older than you actually, and I really enjoyed their company. They always had good stories to tell and also had a lot of insight. I'm 27 btw, so we're not all youngsters hehe.

It's just a matter of patience and trial and error. Just keep at it and you too will send scaffolding to the Mun in no time.

KSP is definitely a unique game, I have never played anything else like it and I can see how it can give you so much when you dreamt of becoming an astronaut. Your story is touching and shows how sometimes a game can be more than "a waste of time for kids". I don't have any crippling diseases and I have a relatively comfortable life, but KSP still gives me so much. Whenever I'm in a bad mood or feeling down watching Jeb's stupid grin when launching an over-engineered hodgepodge into orbit definitely puts a smile on my face again. I would love to see an improved "Nerv" type engine from "Tang Industries" in the next update.

I "accidentally" built a highly successful hovercraft today. I built this thing just to see what would happen, and it worked suprisingly (and hilariously) well. Added a few more parts and this is how it turned out. I imagine it might work as an exploration craft on planets that has an oxygen atmosphere.

I've seen far worse forum layouts on other forums, an unattractive forum layout isn't enough to deter me as long as it functions smoothly. I agree that a bit more contrast wouldn't hurt, I like things to be clearly separated.