Jonfliesgoats

Has anyone run the reentry formulae for a given BC body and compared that to the performance we see in the game?

I think the OP's goals may be met by other technologies that were under consideration in the fifties and sixties and subsequently abandoned. In those cases we would still be talking about different motors sharing a power source rather than a single motor. History Trivia: US and Soviets both worked on different types of nuclear jet engines when they envisioned B-36s and the like flying for months on continuous patrol. Both designs used nuclear fission to provide the heat which is usually provided by jet fuel. One design, which was simple and reliable, actually ran air through or past fissile material. Extraction turbines drove compressors just like other jet engines. Unfortunately, the downside to this design was radioactive exhaust. This was considered irresponsible even by 1950s standards. Also, having air run past or through fissile material makes one wonder how the engine's reactor was controlled. Were air channels supposed to be installed in the fuel control rods of the reactor? I presume this was addressed in the design. Another design used a liquid metal or liquid salt to transfer heat from a central reactor to the hot parts of these jet engines, much like a Soviet nuclear submarine gets heat from its reactor to its steam plant. This was awfully complex and came with its own, new sets of hazards. Hot air in an airplane's bleed system is capable of starting fires and melting components. Imagine a broken joint in a liquid salt heat transfer system in an airplane! The most promising nuclear airplane was not a jet. Americans built a B-36 that was supposed to have its propellers driven by electric motors supported by an onboard nuclear reactor. This actually flew. Other problems made this project a bad idea. We didn't get the whole parasite fighter issue worked out, so this craft would be a giant nuclear disaster waiting for any hostile MIG 15 to take it down. Also, just like parasite fighter docking and deployment was a risky move, crew changes in flight were impractical. In relation to the OP: In KSP these technologies could provide nuclear jet engines that use no fuel (since there is no mechanic for consumption of fissile material, I'd suggest they use high quantities of electricity to simulate the heat from fission in these proposed motors). The player could switch to a NERV engine at altitude. Electric propellers could get the OP's craft to altitude, but it would be very slow for any sort of NERV or LFO rocket use. Anyway, it's tempting to be derisive of odd ideas. Real aerospace programs invested in radioactive, nuclear jets, so it's hard for any of us to really exceed the limits of impracticality set IRL.

There is a Squadcast?

Dynamic braking is an easy thing to do with electric motors and is easily installable on electric rover wheels. Rather than have rovers accelerate downslope to dangerous speeds, a tech node could allow dynamic braking to exist on wheels. This would prevent the coasting of rovers downslope to hi speed and charge batteries while providing a system of speed governing. The tech is already very old and exists. I do not suggest adding this to airplane landing gear until we see systems arrive IRL commercial or military craft. A tweakable in the part UI could set surface set maximum surface speed to run rover wheel motors and minimum speed to run rover wheels as generators.

Agreed. Kerbnet offers the ability to find anomalies, but I have not experimented with it to see how it "feels" to ,e as a player. Imaging along with some basic GIS tools in the tracking station would be neat too. It would be nice to have slopes beyond a certain gradient highlight in red, for example. Relief shading provides this data in other formats, but it is still difficult to identify locally dangerous slopes.

Yeah, I am pretty eager for console 1.2. Were careers able to be kept from 1.1.n saves on the PC?

I am excited to play 1.2 when it comes out for consoles. Is it possible for Squad to get FT or any other entity to invest more time in playing the game with high part counts, large numbers of flights and saves before it is released? I am sure many lessons have been learned, but a revamp of the QA process internally may be in order.

I'm not sure I follow. Explain please.

On console I can't play 1.2. I thought without KSC to probe communications we only have rudimentary control of probes. You are saying the probe can still maneuver per a node and execute a programmed burn? Or will it be able to maneuver to the maneuver marker and the player have full/no throttle control with comms out?

I have been as frustrated with console KSP as anyone, but I do remember the teething problems with the PC versions. As long as updates keep coming, I am happy. With regard to Flying Tiger, I wonder if they can find a different company to port 1.2?

More instruments and more variety in imaging gives us more reasons to launch rockets and spacellanes in various configurations.

They are creepy. I bought two for my wife and they'd grind and whir their servos while speaking Furbish. That said it's a cute variety of creepy, like watching twins ride matching scooters in matching helmets. I Jeb or Valentina Kerbal Furby would be creepy. Plus they would make happy noises when they are twirled or tossed around. Yeah, that's creepy but it's that cute variety of creepy Also, I didn't even know about the minions toys til I saw that video.

Yeah, and excuse me if I ramble on about stuff that is already in 1.2. I am a console player.

I was reading more suggestions regarding life support and thought "Why are we considering Kerbal life support before we consider Kerbal crash protection?". Right now we can subject our Kerbals to rapidly oscillating 15g accelerations along multiple axes for indefinite periods of time without killing them. This is silly. We should have our Kerbals black out/red out at 6g of normal or anti normal acceleration depending on Kerbal seat or capsule orientation. A blacked-out Jeb no longer provides pilot SAS. At 12g our Kerbals should not be reviveable until the craft is recovered.

Kerbnet is a great step toward improving the reconnaissance aspect of game play (from what I have seen. 1.2 is not out for Xbox) That said, we find ourselves landing with very limited resources at night save for some lights. The cockpit does have a radalt, but that is only visible IVA. Kerbal RADAR or LIDAR Imaging, thermal imaging, low light cameras, etc would be great to facilitate night landings, night rover operations (no plodding along until an obstacle or hazard is close enough to be illuminated by lights.). I'd imagine this data displaying not in Kerbnet, but either as an overlay of the planet or with a separate instrument that is viewable through the part specific UI. Radars could be anything from a boresight radar with an oscilloscope all the way to near real time IR or EO imaging. The instruments in the UI should be subject so some limitations that make them more realistic like slow update rates, poor resolution, etc. until improved sensors are added. This would take a lot of work on the part of Devs, I know. Still sensors and reconnaissance are an emerging part of KSP and, I hope reconnaissance becomes a part of our contracting system as well. Adding more of this experience could be very rewarding to players.

Even without airships, what about simple weather balloons? Admittedly there is no wind in KSP yet, so a balloon would only lift vertically over the launch or deployment site, but balloons are cheap ways to get science from the upper atmosphere. It would be cool to fly around releasing self-inflating balloon probes. Submarine parts could be useful for exploring the deeper parts of Jool's atmosphere which are currently inaccessible in the game. Buoyancy is buoyancy and, provided they could survive the temperatures, learning about the innards of Jool would be a neat mission.

After you experiment with parachutes for a while, it would be nice to have a parachute calculator in game. This could be incorporated into a proposed wind tunnel or just added to the VAB after certain investments in the R and D facility. There is an online calculator from ages ago.

I play on Xbox so I didn't have a chance to work with auto struts in 1.2 yet. I guess this is already addressed.

I would love to see better node editing. Trying to drag nodes to just the right spot gets tedious.

I think mods from the PC community could be made available as DLC in the consoles. Paying for multiplayer sort of runs afoul of Xbox live, etc.

Good comments, all. I think I am asking too much for a game to be technical and still cartoonish enough for kids.

Cool! How did I miss those?

I have the B button issue. Also, I had a surface base on the Mun that simply disappeared. I found when I was trying to return to the Space Center, I got a "this vessel is on a collision course" message.

I know some folks get Kerbals or waypoints. Can we name buildings at KSC2 or the Old Airfield after the guy posting all the KSP videos?

I have not seen auto strutting or played 1.2 yet. That said, IRL we rarely need to use external struts on high speed craft. Instead, we add mass by thickening the gauge of metal or composite used on monocoque structures, add internal spars, stiffeners, or build an internal truss. Struts are appealing for craft that don't see much of the atmosphere while they are flying quickly because the aerodynamic costs of the struts are offset by mass savings in comparison to overall thickening of materials, etc.. This is why we see struts all over Cessnas or modern biplanes. (Antique biplanes used struts and wires to maintain the rigidity of the wing box due to the limitations of spruce and other materials at the time, but I digress.). Anyway, can we get a slider that trades overall craft mass for overall craft rigidity? That would get us thinking about when to use struts v. When to use heavier materials.