ARS

Personally, I think spaceplanes on eve is not a feasible option. You can't make a pure stock eve SSTO. Mainly because of these factors: 1. Eve has higher upper atmosphere altitude (90km), which means your craft is going to spend it's time inside atmosphere longer than on kerbin (70km) and that means, your craft will be exposed to drag forces longer than on kerbin 2. Eve has thick atmosphere that kills your engine efficiency, and there's no oxygen there, so jet engines is useless. The only engines that efficiently operates on eve is aerospike, mammoth and vector, all of these are rocket engines, they need oxidizers to operate, which means higher fuel onboard, not to mention rocket engines have lower fuel efficiency than jet engines 3. Eve has high gravity, which means higher Dv required to get off of it, however, with thick atmosphere, your craft is going to burn up while it's still on the lower altitude than what you did on kerbin, which means, your craft is subjected on atmospheric heating longer and risk being destroyed 4. Wings do not generate lift by itself. It needs a pushing force against atmosphere from engines to generate and maintain lift

Using flying drone on mars is probably a no-go since mars atmosphere is thin, not to mention dust storms that frequently occur on mars' surface. Remember, you cannot control drone using real time control like you did with RC drone on earth, at the distance of earth-mars, you can't joystick that thing. It's possible to make a drone flying on mars if it's light enough, but then it's highly vulnerable towards martian dust storms, even if it's landed, since it's light weight would make it easily swept away. Rovers have no problem though, since they are usually too heavy to be swept away On venus, a land-based drone is a straight bad idea. Using balloon on the drone might be a good idea, since venus atmosphere mainly consist of carbon dioxide, it's easy to make a balloon that float above certain height using the gas lighter than that, the problem is how to control the drone's heading. I don't know if there's a way to control balloon on venus atmosphere, perhaps using a series of propeller? I don't know About Titan drones, the main problem is power source. Titan only receive 1% of sunlight compared to earth, and even then, the light is filtered by titan's thick atmosphere, leaving only 0.1% of it reaching the surface, so a solar panel is not an optimal power source here. RTGs might work, but then it depends how powerful it is to power the drone for an extended amount of time while keeping drone's weight light enough to sustain flight

By the time we had the technology to build infrastructure necessary for terraforming mars, we are already have a technology sufficient enough to make planetary bases, enabling humans to live on mars, rendering the premise of terraformed mars a moot. Why terraform it if you can just expand the colony? It's much cheaper and faster to do that. A terraforming process might take millions if not billions of years to complete, while a colony can be expanded rapidly, take a couple of hundred years, and the expansion is significant, not to mention a planet-wide colony achieved basically the same thing: Martian colony. Want to terraform mars so you can walk on it like on earth? Just build a colony on a place you want to walk. Want to make mars exploration easier? Building colony is much faster than terraforming

When you facepalmed every time you see spacecraft in movie banks for turning

The best engine is the one that's suitable for your needs, putting large engine on small rocket is overkill, while putting small engine on large rocket is underpowered. For small sized rocket, I'm usually using skipper for first stage, medium sized rocket uses mainsail, while the large sized ones uses mammoth or 4 vectors. Strapping a couple of SRB might help to get some extra thrust, I'm usually using kickback SRB instead of thumper SRB. On large sized rocket, I'm usually replacing SRBs with wild boar boosters

What I think about real-life space combat, I personally doubt the combat will take place in interplanetary space, since air combat tactic on earth does not apply in space. I'm personally think that, if somehow 2 colonies on different planets start to wage war against each other, the combat would take place on the orbit of one of the planet, using tactic like these: -fleet A is heading on a planetary orbit of target planet from the trajectory where the target planet's launch site (or fleet) is still behind the planet -the target planet reposition the fleet B to intercept fleet A, while fleet A finished establishing orbit -both fleet now on a stable orbit (ex: equatorial orbit), but each of them heading on different direction (ex: fleet A heading clockwise, fleet B heading counterclockwise) - eventually, both fleets will get a closest approach between each other where they will unleash everything they had at each other - if both of the fleet still survives, then the next closest approach will be the next combat engagement. However, a cunning fleet commander may consider to change orbital inclination to attack from unexpected direction, increase their prograde to get range advantage, or perform any orbital maneuver to gain advantage against other fleet. The planet may send a fleet to attack other planet with the crew in cryosleep (dunno if it's viable for long range travel) that will be awakened before the encounter with target planet That's what I think

Makeshift adapter parts for oscar-b tank that also helps shifting CoM

Summon a kraken. The kerbal will transcend their corporeal form

For me, I love Career mode, since it opens all facilities in KSC, so my missions seems "meaningful" Sandbox mode is for testing something that I deemed too expensive or too risky to be tested in career mode without bricking my space program

Welcome to the forum! Hope you enjoy your time in forum! Feel free to ask anything you would like to discuss here

You wouldn't want to use wheels on gilly. Last time I'm landing on that ball of rock with my SSTO, it wasn't treated like a landing, more like a rendezvous with surface If you want to build a tanker for hauling stuff on gilly just slap a probe core, some reaction wheel, battery, antenna, RTG (or solar panel) and an array of RCS thrusters to move around. Trust me, when you use a wheel on gilly, most of your time will be spent making it move normally instead of hauling stuff. It's okay if you want to set up a mining base there, but generally, due to gilly's very low gravity, it's much more efficient to just use a lander as a miner and a tanker. It doesn't take a lot of Dv to get into gilly orbit Anchoring the whole mining rig on gilly is a viable solution to make it stand firm as you do your mining operation.

I got bored today, so let's design something Flying it normally would be quite boring. let's spice things up. First, the pilot will be Jeb (as always). Second, try to reach the highest speed possible with the lowest altitude possible Jeb's face says it all

In terms of designing any craft, I'm usually trying to keep the craft aesthetic looks pleasing while still retaining it's utility. Personally, I love the cockpitless SSTO as it gives a "Futuristic" feel to it's aesthetic compared to conventional aircraft look of aircraft cockpit, so it's no surprise that most of the SSTO that I created is drones. However, I DO need a crew to control the craft, especially during plasma blackout during re-entry. Adding antenna is not an option for me when I'm designing SSTO's aesthetic. So how I get both of the control and aesthetic? Simple: It looks cockpitless from outside Because I put the cockpit inside the cargobay Also, there's some particular feel for me when going IVA inside mk1 command pod, seeing on it's tiny window, it's all black before suddenly the cargobay door opens and I can see the starry sky from inside the command pod. I can only imagine myself unable to resist the urge to grab the hatch of the command pod and crawl outside it for EVA

High-speed, Low-drag!

A truck-sized ball-shaped cat is crawling with truck-sized ball-shaped bat on its head while they are both sleepcrawling before the cat fires a gigantic nuclear missile from its mouth and the bat fires a gigantic laser beam from its mouth

Your rocket ascends too slowly because of it's weight? Mash spacebar for getting rid all of it!

Must have: GN Drive, HRP (Heat Resistant Parts), The gold standard Optional: OPT spaceplanes, SXT, mk2 expansion, mk3 expansion

If it's about the name of my save file: NEED MOAR BOOSTERS If it's about the name of my space program... well... I have only 1 name, but it can mean several field of space program specialization. The name is ARS, which may stands for: Absurd Rocket Science (for building big dumb booster rockets) All-purpose Relay and Satellite (for managing communication relay and satellites) Absolutely Reliable SSTO (for building SSTO) Aerial Reconnaisance and Sightseeing (for managing atmospheric aircraft for science or tourism) Automobile and Rover Steering (for building land vehicles and rovers) Anyone Reacted with SCIENCE? (For doing SCIENCE!) Advance to Reach the Stars (for managing far off-world expedition) For the flag, it's either my profile pic, default ksp flag or trefoil symbol

Question: -does it have to be crewed, or can we use drone? -does part clipping allowed? -any restriction on part count? -does splashed down counted as landing?

Eris is my favorite

ARS here, reporting the result of Dres mission. Unfortunately, the USK Kishimura did not pass the testing phase since it's proved to be aerodynamically unstable to be brute-forced to fly on Kerbin atmosphere, with main issue being loss of control, solar panels being torn apart and the rib superstructure failure. According to our space program, we always have a Plan B just in case the first craft didn't pass our testing phase. Enter the Dres Unobtainium Miner, our "Contingency plan" Despite having a disadvantage of not having crew onboard for increasing mining efficiency, it boasts a higher capacity of unobtainium tanks, allowing us to add 10 more tanks on it (For a total of 57 tanks). It also equipped with a lot of GN condensers as well as GN Drive engine for dealing with a massive weight it'll be carrying home and also saves room from TAC Life Support units, allowing a communication dish and an orbital scanner to be equipped. Mission is a go. Launch! Reached Dres orbit after 2 years since launch date. Let's deploy the orbital scanner Dres scanned! Look at all that money! Beginning our descent to resource-rich area We don't need the orbital scanner anymore, let's decouple it Touchdown! Deploying mining equipment It took seven days to fill the unobtainium tanks, let's prepare for our return It has been 4 years since the launch date (That ship mass... It's no joke) We don't need the dish and drills anymore, let's decouple them while we are at suborbital trajectory Deploying heat shields Deorbiting (Even after decoupling the dish and drills, the ship mass is still...) Burning UP! Drogue chutes deployed All chutes deployed *DEEP BREATH* Vessel Recovered! Gained more than 188 million funds from 57 Unobtainium tanks MISSION COMPLETE!

Doing SCIENCE!!! Not sure if this works, but imagine if we can build a device for brain down/uploading, but here's the deal: if we pick all of our most brilliant scientists, upload and copy their knowledge into this device, and then distribute that knowledge into everyone on planet and work together FOR SCIENCE!!! (But hey, worldwide cooperation and no need to make monetary profit anyway), imagine how far our technology progressed because of that (though this might put our civilization in near hive-mind level) Other than that... GN Drive

Uuuum... I'm new with this kind of mod (hovering balloon and airships). Can I ask how to operate the blimp correctly? It's somehow taking off nose-first and it flew straight upward like a missile at mach 1 instead of hovering slowly when I increase the buoyancy. Can I have a guideline how to operate this? Thanks

Sadly, I didn't have a screenshot from that mission (It's my first unobtainium mining mission, so my time is being spent more in trying to save the ship from tumbling, but at least, I've figured out how to do it) However, a second mission is underway, this time, a massive mining operation to Dres. The ship that I'll be using is specially designed USK "Kishimura" (Based on USG Ishimura planet-cracker class mining ship). about 47 unobtainium medium tanks, 22 crews and TAC life support mod installed. The USK "Kishimura" weighs 500 tons (With 700+parts and over 5 million cost, that's no joke) I had to use GN Drive engine to make it fly since normal engine won't even lift it off the ground (And even with GN drive, it's still so heavy, I can't imagine how heavy it is after being filled). It's currently in final testing phase for it's departure into dres system. This is gonna be one hell of a party! Overall, about unobtainium, i think the weight-value is already balanced enough to make it's return feel "Rewarding" with the difficulty of transporting it (You don't wanna know how many times I pressed F9 to save my ship from eve). For eve mining, making a ship capable to escape from eve is easy, however, making a ship capable of escaping from eve CARRYING unobtainium is a whole new level. You can't just "Over-engineer" your ship to be able to do that, you had to take your Over-engineering into KERBAL Over-engineering to make it happen (Looking at unobtainium stats in gamedata file about resources, I was thinking "Well, this is gonna be fun") Overall, this is a very great mod, it gives me a reason to go to other planetary body to do something other than doing science or mining for fuel station. good job mate! Keep up the good work!

Trying to brute force my way to fly my 500 ton mining ship USK "Kishimura". It's so heavy and makes my laptop lags like hell at 2FPS (700+ parts is a no joke) before I finally gave up trying to fly this thing So... I decided to see some KSP stuff in forum, before I'm frozen in astonishment seeing this: https://thumbs.gfycat.com/SilverFlimsyBluetickcoonhound-mobile.mp4 That was AWESOME!