Epicdreamer

After 6 years of playing never have done a Kerballed Eve return mission. Eve still scares the .... out of me.

Congrats! It never gets dull to read the enthousiasm about landing on Mun for the first time. Reading this I sometimes wish I could thouroughly forget the whole 'climbing the learning cliff' or 'hitting the learning wall' process and start all over.

Proudest moment? To get this "go- anywhere-low-g-cb's-ship" working. And completing this 'visit-and-and-land-on-all-low-g-bodies-in-one-launch' (meaning everything apart from Moho, Eve, Laythe and Tylo) Using all stock game mechanics. And robotics to deploy landinglegs and drills and making it all small enough (partcount-wise) that my computer doesn't melt. Yes I'm proud of that.

Out and return: Easy: Mun / minmus Bit harder: Gilly / Duna / Ike Even a bit more challenging: Dres, the low gravity moons of Jool Hard: Moho, Eve, Laythe, Tylo and Eloo. Harder: a comet! Go get them all!!

Kind of a complicated question. There are so many versions, still a phletora of interesting mods and personal preferences that there is no 'one' answer or maybe even concensus imo. Right now I'm playing the latest version: 1.12.2+both DLC's+kerbal RnD As the functionalty and game features grew with every new version I've been scaling down on mods. I'm not running a state of the art computer, therefor some performance-gain. A few years ago, I used Kerbal engineering all the time. For Dv calculations (now added to the basegame) and ground altitude (now added to the basegame). I allways used KAC, but last I week used the base-game alarmclock for the first time in a 11 ship mission to Duna. The build in alarm clock did everything I wanted it to do and the mission was a complete succes. Could not have done the mission with this 'ease' without the alarmclock. Precise manouvres I've never used. Carefully scrolling your mousewheel over a manouvre-node attitude/velocity vector gives me all the precision I need. Has been the same for years. But planning a route by using multiple manouvre-nodes became easier through the presice manouvre tab during flight. I'm not sure if Kopernicus works fine in the latest version, but if yes...there are no new planets added to vanilla. Also, clouds (EVE?) are still absent. There is no life-support added in later versions. So yes you need mods for that. I find OPM an absolutely stunning planetpack. I have really fond memories of the New Horizons system as well. Not sure if that works in the latest version. Building has become a lot more fun in vanilla with the adding of more structural parts, the 2 DLC's and a mesh selector. I recommend the DLC's (robotics!, ground features, scanning arms for rovers, ground experiments that take quite a bit of time to generate science, a purpose to land on other bodies, a purpose to build rovers!). To be able to give a lot of stuff different meshes (like white, black, SHINY silver or gold structural panels!) makes aestetics more of a thing. Great! I do notice that with later update's, Vanilla KSP (+DLC's) wants a bit more performance from my somewhat older midrange gaming laptop. A 1.3.1 game with about 30mods (planetpacks, parts, lifesupport and bits and pieces) runs very smoothly. 1.12.2 with DLC's and the mod Kerbal RnD is slower in loadtimes and has a bit more lag in flight, meaning patience in launching a 200+parts ships. But I don't mind. Hope this helps in your quest to build a new game.

I've spend more time on KSP than I would believe I'd spend on any videogame before I started playing KSP. And I'm not regretting it.

I've played the PC basegame for a few hundreds of hours. I've played modded installs for a few thousands of hours. I find ksp one of the cheapest hobby's I've got. So yes, it's worth it imho.

I'm pleasantly surprised by how well the stock alarm clock handled populating the Duna system with relay's, Ike mining facilities and a Duna surface mission. Got the last in a stable Duna orbit just now. It was my first go in fully using the stock alarm system. Playing latest version stock + DLC + Kerbal RnD. 4 Launches, 20 day's apart around the Duna transfer window. 11 spacecrafts and probes together. I set alarms for all correction burns, orbital insertions etc. The whole mission took about a week in the making. Even over saving, closing and rebooting the next day, and again, the stock alarm clock stayed persistend. I've used KAC for years. I'm starting to put confidence in the stock alarm system after this Duna fleet.

Spring 2016, version 1.1.2 Wheels were fiddly, no TWR readouts, no ground altitude, no advanced tweakables, no prioritizing fuelflow, no comms networking, no DLC's, to name a few. Quite a few parts and planets looked different, no mesh selector. I found it a real hard game to get into at that time. After a first playthrough I started using mods (engineering redux, lifesaver!), made a bunch of different installs with different mod-sets. I can't tell how many hours I've put into KSP. Nowaday's I find the basegame so much more matured that lately I'm playing vanilla. No, that's a lie. I still use Kerbal RnD to use the surplus sciencepoints after the techtree is completed. Best game ever!!

It got changed with the 1.7 update if I'm right. And yes, it's like the real night sky...and it's stock!

I can't even remember how many rockets I accidently launched...a few more than I crashed I think.

R&RS, pronounced as 'Ar 'n Ars'. Short for Resource and Relaxation Station

You're right, thanks. I forgot about that ticbox in the difficulty settings menu.

I might have missed the answer to this question reading through the other reactions, but yes, you can transfer fuel throug the Advanced Grabber Unit. Ideal part for refueler crafts/missions.

Just reading through the 4 pages of answers and reactions to the question should say enough. I don't think KSP can ever really die. To play KSP it doesn't depend on an online connection, running servers, forced updates or the need for anything else than a local copy on your hard drive. Keep that old laptop or desktop with a (few? lots?) copy('s) of KSP and the question should be: Is KSP dying for me? As long as you play it, it will not die...

While playing a session in 1.8 yesterday, I suddenly realised again what an exceptional game KSP really is to me. I'm a bit of an old school gamer by now. Let's say that the journey from the Commodore 64 to what is possible nowadays, what KSP is nowadays has been quite the experience. I remember being proud of putting 110 hours into Final Fantasy VII when it came out. I don't even know anymore, nor does it matter to me how many hours I've logged on KSP. And even after starting over a few dozen times, after playthroughs that took many many hundreds of hours, KSP still manages to completely draw me in. It just keeps ticking every great-game-box in my experience and never becomes dull. After more that 3 years of playing, I still want to do so much in the Kerbal Universe. I never had such a strong gaming experience that is lasting for years allready! I've started calling KSP a hobby instead of a game... I wonder how other long term players experience KSP after logging so many hours that keeping up with it doesn't really matter anymore. And on a different notice: Do I need help?

Experience wise I'd say 1.3.1. A lot more stability compared to previous versions (apart from 1.3), great mod-support, and ignoring a few bugs and glitches a nicely polished and very solid version. It gave me a sigh of relief not having to reboot KSP every hour or so due to game-crashes... Stock-game wise 1.8.0. Even more polished, performance went up since 1.7, stability is very good, nice clean visuals, and features where I needed my sacred KER for the most are now integrated in the base game. I enjoy playing 1.8 as much as 1.3.1, without the need for mods... Which is offcourse not true, after playing through my current carreer I'll probably start a modded version again to 're-re-spice' the experience...does KSP ever end?

Are there more civilisations out there?

Someone revving his motorcycle at a trafficlight, ready to go full throttle it seemed. Mind it was a winter day and it had snowed for a couple of days. I was surprised he made it to the first corner after the trafficlights. By the sound of it that corner was a bit to sharp lol...

It looked like a flea with a mk1 cp and a chute on top. It went kind of up with a deployed chute (check yo staging!)....and I was amazed. Been hooked eversince!

Well, since I rarely play in a full career save, but rather a science career (because while tried, I don't like the money thing, and I like to make up my own missions) I cannot advise on fund settings. But I do use the part pressure an g-force limits. And sliding the science refund back to 50-60% I need to get out of Kerbin SOI (or scrutinise every biome on Kerbin, Mun and Minmus) to complete the techtree. Next to that I usually set all body occlusions to 1, use commnet without extra groundstations, use control and comms blackout during re-entry, set re-entry heating to 100% (which it is by default if I remember well) and if I want to get tricky use no revert to launch or VAB/SPH and no respawning Kerbals. Makes a playthrough pretty challenging especially without reverting and respawning...and the sence of achievement even greater than on easier settings...

A visual tip for #2. In map mode select Minmus as a target. The orbit of Mun is perfectly equatorial and circular. Zoom out and align untill you see the Munar orbit perfectly edge on in front and Minmus orbit behind Kerbin. Now by turning the camera around Kerbin search for where both orbits cross with Kerbin in the centre. Re-align Munar orbit edge on and zoom in until you can see the launchpad position on the globe. Wait (or timewarp) until the launchpad, the centre of Kerbin and Minmus orbit are in line. Adjustment of cameraposition may be needed to keep the descending (or ascending) node behind the centre of Kerbin. Launch westwards and steer a bit towards the target marker when it gets visible on the navball to (roughly) align your orbital plane and go into orbit. Normally then I only need a little planechange correction burn to align my orbit with Minmus's... and burn for a hohmann transfer.

Playing pc since version 1.1.2. I've never used the cheat menu..or well, once to have a look at it. I like launching craft and test them during real missions. If it doesn't work out, then that's a bummer. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to get a craft functional. But when it does, I find the sense of achievement very rewarding and I'm a happy chappy. So basically I'm playing like on a console, but with mods...

You could use a powered servo instead of the free wheeling one, and set it to turn the same amount, but in the opposite direction of the powered servo between FUS and E...

With fuel the S3-14400 is a beast, but without it gets quite controllable. I usually send up interplanetary motherships, or modules for a mothership, empty. Makes controlling them a lot easier. Once assembled in orbit I refuel the mothership in one or a few refuel launches. Might not be the most cost/time efficient, but then again, sending up near empty modules makes that you can send more stuff in one launch. The first module doesn't need any control, apart from SAS and a reaction wheel. As long as its attitude is stable. I do provide the rest of the modules with (detachable) controls (monoprop/thrusters)...or send up a spacetug to assemble the mothership in orbit. And for the bigger, heavier modules....patience will help. Moving slowly is moving as well.