Long Finger

The only bad DLC is the DLC that is stripped out of a game prior to release and then given or sold to buyers at a later date which includes all of those cosmetic DLC's, and worst of all, the so-called "pre-order bonus". Expansion packs created at a later date that add new content to already finished games is exactly what you should expect from good developers, and those developers most definitely should be charging for them. Expansion packs are not something you HAVE to buy to play the game, and you also can't expect people to WORK for free to produce new content.

Congrats to the winners and runners-up. I'm quite surprised my three favourites didn't even get in the top 10! @MinimalMinmus, @Red Shirt, and @Firemetal, your entries were all awesome!

Personally I really hate the designs I see where things are attached in such a way that they could never realistically function. For example you can stick things over the doors of a service bay (like some disgraceful youtubers) and still open those doors as if the things weren't there! I have had to come to terms with the idea of Kerbals living inside of a full fuel tank with a docking port stuck on it however, and I quite like the magic strutting feature because attaching struts nicely is sooo hard.

Making Kerbals a Multiplanetary Species by Elon Kerman What I’m trying to achieve here is to make Duna seem possible, and something that we can do in our lifetimes, and that you can go if you wanted to. First of all why go anywhere? There are really only two paths. One path is we stay on Kerbin forever, until there is some kind of extinction event, and the other is that we become a multi-planet species… Which I hope you would agree; that is the right way to go. So how do we figure out how to take you to Duna? Just to give you some comparison between the two planets: They’re remarkably close in a lot of ways. Early Duna was a lot like Kerbin. There’s been a lot of great work in exploring Duna and in understanding what Duna is like. So how do we get Kerbals there? If we look at a Venn diagram there is no intersection of sets between Kerbals who want to go, and Kerbals who can afford to go. What we need to do is move those two circles closer together. If we can get the cost of moving to Duna to be roughly equivalent to a median snack price here on Kerbin, then I think the probability of establishing a self-sustaining civilisation is very high. Not everyone would want to go; a relatively small number of Kerbals would want to go, but enough would want to go and that could afford the trip that it would happen. To make Duna trips possible on a large enough scale to create a self-sustaining city, full reusability is essential. I think that as we show this is possible. That this dream is real. I think support will snow-ball over time. So, er…. Any questions that I can answer?

This is very interesting. Do you have an internet link to Johnson's original work?

Collecting Science Data From Inside The Sun As daylight fades over the Kerbal Space Centre, the hopes and dreams of all Kerbal-kind rest upon the top of an RE-M3 “Mainsail” engine. I’m standing with Flight Director Gene Kerman at Mission Control, awaiting final checks of the SAS system and staging stack to complete, before the launch signal is given. I ask Gene how confident he feels about the launch being a success? He replies, “awww-whaaaa”. A somewhat unclear response but after the many reversionary test flights of the upper stage, he perhaps feels more confident about the scientific payload on the top of the rocket? “Mhmm mhmm mhmm”, he replies. With final preparations now complete it is time for launch. As the “Mainsail” ignites, it shakes the ground. Its massive 1379 kN of thrust unleashed onto the launchpad. Moments later, the ground still shaking the rocket has yet to lift from its resting place on the launchpad. Gene’s eyes flash briefly across Mission Control to Lead Scientist Wernher Von Kerman before returning to the launchpad, seemingly awaiting the abort signal. As the launch is aborted and the rocket recovered to the Vehicle Assembly Building, it is time to find answers. After further investigation the problem turns out to be a simple thrust-to-weight ratio issue. Since the current mission is to the Sun, so much focus was placed on the delta-V requirements of the rocket that this not-so-insignificant issue went overlooked. Wernher explains briefly that they simply forgot to run the numbers, but that it wouldn’t happen again as Kerbal Engineer Redux had since been installed. Returning to Gene at Mission Control, I ask whether the launch will now be rescheduled for a future date? He quickly replies, “a-ha”.

The info box isn't a quick manual. If it was the full manual would contain all of the same information. KSPedia makes no mention of anything in the scanners info box and is not intended as a complete manual. Nobody in this thread called KSPedia useless except you. Why are you so against having a really useful piece of information about the scanner in the scanner's own info box where it would be really useful? The same info box where all of its other useful info resides.

RCS thrusters placed on the outside of maintenance bays require you to open the doors before they will work!

What is the sense in putting that single piece of information for the survey scanner in KSPedia rather than its own expanded info box? Recommended by the same people that provide a quick-start guide precisely because they know no-one ever reads the manual. A TV is also a simple domestic appliance, whereas a Survey Scanner is somewhat more advanced using a combination of advanced sensor technology and witchcraft!

Can we add something along the lines of "Scanning Orbit: Polar +/-10 degrees" to the more info tab? We don't all automatically know that this is a requirement in the game until we try to do it wrongly. If it's going to tell us the altitude requirements, it should also mention the specifics of the required orbital inclination.

Ok sorted. The tracking station considered the magic o-ring to be debris and allowed me to delete it along with the pod remnants. The pilot will just have to live in the station until I can retrieve them. To remind myself of this frustration I've renamed Minmus Station Alpha to Minmus O-Ring Station Alpha!

Well staging the separator frees itself, the tank, and motor, which then tumbles off into space. The heat shield has a Jettison Shroud option that doesn't do anything, and jettisoning the heat shield frees itself and the now useless pod. It does however leave me with a strange magic ring floating in mid-air though.

I just launched a crude space station module to add to a Minmus station. I put an orbital scanner in a protective airstream thingy with the girder thing turned off and auto strutted it to a command pod with an o-ring tank and tiny motor on the back of a stack separator. I was expecting the fairing when staged to eject the pod as well but it hasn't! The pod is stuck there, being held on by empty space. I guess I could use the separator to free the pod and then rescue the Kerbal, but I'll still have the tank and motor suspended out there in a void. Is there another way to free the motor and tank and pod from the remaining invisible fairing?

The probe only needs a direct antenna but the range of a relay is better. I currently have a rover on Duna that only has a surface mounted direct antenna (because it flipped over and broke its HG-5 off) that can talk to Kerbin via a RA-2 in Duna orbit. Now that Duna is falling behind in its orbit I have 22% signal strength at approaching 20 billion metres.

Thanks. This is what I used in the end. Okay I see the reason for the change. I also didn't realise the ctrl zoom was OS level. I think the fact that shift was changed to cmd made me think that there was some other change for vertical scrolling in flight, but I just loaded up 1.2 and can see that it didn't exist in the first place! I guess I just made a taller rocket than usual! I still have no clue what horizontal scroll is with shift, unless it is for non-magic mice? Or what fine controls are? It would be nice if the key changes could be reflected in KSPedia.

Ouch! Sounds frustrating as hell. It's not Squad's server though. I downloaded the Mac installer earlier today in only a few minutes. I think you need to check your internet settings and/or change ISP!

How do you move the camera up/down in flight now? It seems the camera is always centred on the middle of my rocket but I need to zoom in and look side on at the top. I'm fairly sure shift used to do this in flight but it doesn't seem to anymore. I've noticed shift has been changed to cmd in the VAB too and there now seems to be some weird perspective zoom on alt and a full screen zoom on ctrl.

I switched it on at the default, but like wibou7 haven't really noticed any difference. The stock aerodynamics are pretty dreadful so pulling G isn't as easy as it should be, and G from parachutes isn't really a consideration since Kerbals don't need to be conscious at that time. They will recover in plenty of time for the landing.

Well if the read-outs were just there would you ever have learned how to calculate it? And is that better or worse in your view? B I feel is the true Kerbal way! Try and fail enough that you either switch to A and learn how to work it out in advance yourself, or get to the point where your changes to avoid failure are sufficient to succeed. Either way will be rewarding. If you want automated calculations I don't see a problem with that, but I think you should have to decide you want it and install the appropriate mod.

Take Command and something like Precise Node, since they both solve existing gameplay problems.

Precise node looks like it will make life much easier. Thanks.

It would be nice if manoeuvre nodes were more easily edited when zoomed out at solar system level. As soon as you deselect a node it seems practically impossible to get hold of it again unless zooming all the way back in. Mousing over Kerbin seems to bring up every line of text in its SOI. Also moving a node around your current orbit when zoomed out seems far to jumpy. Could we get something like a node selector button added to the right of the nav ball once a node is created, and when it's selected a blown up orbit representation if zoomed out beyond a certain point, so it's easier to move around when playing with intercepts? Or is there a trick to this that I just don't know yet?

Great ingenuity. I'd be proud to have come up with that! I tip my hat to you.

I dropped my first rover onto the surface of Duna... and it survived! Giggled like a little kid all the way to the ground. http://imgur.com/gallery/ZGmmE

Yeah I think they will always connect to KSC first and relays when KSC isn't available. To find the range between two antennas you can use this formula: sqrt(antenna1 * antenna2). The most important thing I've found is that the KSC can talk to relays at quite a distance but the actual range between two relays or a relay and a direct antenna is much less.