Zeiss Ikon

@zolotiyeruki I don't see much of that effect. Despite the fact my parafoil took more than three hours (half a Kerbin day!) to do what @Geonovast's speedy flier most likely did in half an hour, the difference in reported distance is very close to the actual difference in travel distance. Look at the maps; we wound up on the same peninsula; mine almost in the surf (like the Gossamer Condor flying from Crete to the Greek mainland), his well inland. Now, whether that reported distance is accurate or not -- I flew for three-plus hours at speeds from 20 to 40 m/s; calling it an average of 30 m/s gives a dead reckoning figure of 60 * 60 * 3 seconds * 30 m/s = 324 km -- which is still about twice what I expected from extrapolating early fuel burn (though I did gain a good bit by being able to throttle back and still fly higher/faster once I'd burned off some fuel weight; I started at 1.8 kN thrust setting, and finished the tank at about 0.6 even though I was flying twice as fast at 4x the altitude) against distance back to the launch system. Even if I'd flown the whole way at 40 m/s, that would only have been about 440 km, and F3 reported 744. However, a stock install has no better way to measure distance once you're more than 100 km from your launch apparatus. Now, if the F3 report included Kerbin's rotation, I'd have gained approximately half a circumnavigation just by being up there literally all night (launched shortly after sunset, landed a bit after sunrise) -- that's close to 1000 km just by riding the surface of Kerbin around. I obviously didn't get that. I can leave the wheels on the runway -- which would both lighten my craft (increasing my score; also by cutting the part count to 5) and cut drag, letting me fly at lower throttle, hence stretching my fuel. Flying as high as possible would stretch things even further; assuming the craft remains controllable without the below-center drag of the landing gear (I think it will, it was just as squirrelly with the gear as without before I figured out how to get the reaction wheel to do its job), I have little doubt I could bust 1000 km (measured the same way). I'm just not sure I want to spend another 4+ hours herding a craft that requires attention, at the least, every couple minutes to be sure it hasn't stalled and dropped. Then again, there's F5 and F9. I don't have to do it all in one sitting...

Just yesterday, I finished constructing a very basic 8-part paramotor (jet engine, landing gear, Command Seat, plus a reaction wheel and battery, pilot's EVA parachute for lift) and "helped" Jeb fly it more than 700 km. This was for a challenge from the Challenges sub-forum ("Go Far, Get Light"). This was 100% stock 1.4.3. It has been shown that you can construct a flyable atmospheric craft with just four parts -- three if you don't care if you can land. Other things you can do: go anomaly hunting (certain scanner parts will turn up "anomalies" that include things like the Munar Arch, Neil Armstrong Memorial, those monoliths, the corpse of the Kraken, and so forth). Go spelunking. No, seriously, there's a huge cave on one of the bodies. Explore Kraken drives (ship propulsion based on exploiting the physics errors in the game). I haven't gotten into mods, yet; the only one I use in my career is Better Burn Time, which (IMO) ought to be the stock way the game does what it does. The day will come -- I want to set up a full RSS/RP1 (Real Solar System/Realistic Progression 1) game, even if I have to go back to 1.3.1 to do it. I've been interested in rocket fuel tradeoffs since NASA was still launching only two men at a time, and the primitive rocket engines from the 1950s and 1960s fascinate me, in part because they're within the capability of an amateur to construct.

'Doh! My distance was 744 km, not 725, so my correct score should be 744 km / (8 parts x .719 T) = 129 (km/part*tonne) Yours, @Geonovast ought to be 854 km / (8 parts x .757 T) = 141 -- don't tell me I'm going to have to take off the landing gear and go back and fly it again...

In my experience, any property you can edit after the vessel is out of the SPH or VAB can (must) be edited individually for all the members of a set, even if originally placed with symmetry. For instance, if you place a ring of Puff engines around your orbital tug, and then (while in orbit) set the thrust limiter on one, you have to set the others individually. If you'd done that in the VAB, they'd have all taken the setting as a group. Unfortunately, I don't believe you can edit the color of lights after launch. Perhaps you can just set the lights in the landing gear to "off" and install separate lights, bound to the "Gear" action group, with your desired colors?

I fired up my freshly upgraded 1.4.3 sandbox to let Jeb fly this more than seven hundred kilometers. At 20-40 m/s. Over a space of more than three hours. I also discovered that a paramotor based on an EVA parachute glides better than it has any right to when it's carrying 465 kg of engine and landing gear.

Well, I did use a paramotor, once I got it to actually take off from the runway. 100% stock (haven't even got Better Burn Time installed yet) 1.4.3, upgraded from 1.4.1 just for this. Turned out to need 8 parts (Small Circular Intake, Z-200 battery, Small Inline Reaction Wheel, Mk. 0 Liquid Fuel Fuselage, Juno engine, LY-05 nose gear and a pair of LY-01 main gear, and a Command Seat, not counting the contraption needed to get Jeb into the Command Chair), but the whole thing weighed less than a ton on launch (exact weight unavailable at the moment -- vessel still in flight). I'll come back and edit in the exact launch weight and final distance in an hour or so when Jeb finally runs out of fuel. Amazing how long 50 units of Liquid Fuel lasts when you're running a Juno at around 6-7% thrust (1.2-1.4 kN at around 4000 m altitude). I'm going to put the rest of the pictures under a spoiler: Pay no attention to the Highest Speed and Most Gee Force -- the first time the craft stalled, it fell 3 km while I was looking at my browser. Caught it at 800 m, at 175 m/s near-vertical descent, and pulled all that G getting out of the dive after recovering. Do, however, note the distance -- 744 km. And the takeoff weight of the craft, including fuel (but not including Jeb)? Just 719 kg (of which 250 kg was Liquid Fuel). Final part count: 8. Further Edit: According to this: My score should be 725 km / (8 parts x .719 T) = 126. What did yours weigh, @Geonovast?

Or after something different.

Okay, I got it flying. In fact, at present, it's 25+ km from the west end of the KSC runway, climbing very slowly (1 m/s or less) through 1770 m altitude on appr. 14% power (just under 1 1/2 small divisions on the throttle) with SAS hold at appr. 14 degrees above horizon, with rate of climb/descent controlled with tiny throttle movements. I expect to get 150+ km before fuel runs out. @bewing, I don't doubt you're correct about the CoT vs. CoP, but I found that the small reaction wheel handles it just fine at this kind of speed (just under 20 m/s). More power will result in a climb you can't trim out, but what I found was causing part of my problem originally was that the alternator in the Juno wasn't outputting enough power to give the reaction wheel full authority. I added a battery, and got off the ground safely on the first try By the time I hit 1000 m altitude, the alternator had caught up and keeps the battery in a fully charged steady state. By then, I'd also adjusted the main gear to be wider and lower and moved it closer to the CoM, as well as lowered the nose gear and cut its friction to 40% (which greatly improved the takeoff roll). It's a little touchy -- too much power, it'll nose up uncontrollably, too little and it'll stall and fall (I've recovered from one such incident in this flight). Doesn't have the control authority (or I don't have the educated fingers) for aerobatics, but it's about as simple as a paramotor is going to get in KSP -- give or take landing gear... Edit: now it's 65 km out, still flying on 1.8 kn thrust at 2416+ m altitude. Fuel just now dropping to 60%.

Ugh. That's nowhere even close to a minimum-parts build. As noted, there are lots of control surfaces buried inside that compact unit. Meanwhile, I've come up with a way to take off from the runway, in theory. In practice, it noses down and twirls around the nose wheel, even with full up pitch input (I'm not sure the reaction wheel is getting enough power by the time the landing gear starts causing trouble). And it's bedtime for tonight; I'll fool with this more tomorrow.

Just about 20 minutes after EVA parachutes appeared in 1.4, someone came up with a method of getting a Kerbal into a Command Seat with a deployed parachute (you couldn't deploy the 'chute while in the seat until 1.4.3) and used that method to build a parafoil trike. They built a biggish monstrosity with folding wheels that must have come in at 4-5 T mass. I'm trying to build the smallest, simplest parafoil the game will support. I've got a setup with a single Juno, Mk. 0 Liquid Fuel Fuselage, Small Round Intake, and a Command Seat -- and then a pod on a launch clamp with a second Mk. 0 Fuel Fuselage to take a radial decoupler; the craft I'll fly sits on the decoupler before launch. I get Jeb into the Command Seat, set the parachute to deploy "immediate" and deploy it, spool up the Juno, and decouple; the craft slide forward off the decoupler, descends as speed builds up -- and then, if I have more than about 20% power, the engine unit and Command Seat begin flipping, pitching up through 360 degrees every second or so. This nullifies the thrust, so the whole contraption hits the runway about as far forward of the launcher as it was high. So far, Jeb has survived every attempt, but the power unit does not. SAS doesn't help, even if I add 1, 2, or 3 Small Reaction Wheel units (the Juno's alternator produces plenty of power to run these reaction wheels). If I set power below 20% or so, the power unit doesn't flip, the whole shebang just plummets to the tarmac (with pretty much the same end result). The originator of the stock parafoil craft didn't seem to have this problem, but then his craft was probably several times the weight of my 585 kg (without reaction wheels) contraption. My question is this: What kept the power from flipping the original parafoil trike, yet allowed it to fly at 200+ m/s?

Worth remembering that SAS Target hold is only available with three-star or better pilots, or equivalent probe core. In Sandbox, you'll have this, likely in Science unless you chose pilot experience in difficulty settings. If you're trying to learn to dock in a Career game (as is often recommended for new players to start playing, to avoid "part overload"), you won't have this option yet (docking contracts come up as soon as you unlock docking clamps, and the Jr. size comes up before you've got the hardware for Mun and Minmus landings that would generate two-star pilots, if you're anywhere close to unlocking the tech tree evenly). You will, even from the beginning, have the and markers for the target -- but you can only "hold" on them using the basic "heading hold" SAS mode (available with at least one-star pilots -- maybe no-star, though not with the Stayputnik; if you're trying to dock with a Stayputnik, you're a whole different level of persistent/crazy).

I wondered if you'd show up, @Klapaucius. I still haven't gotten 1.4.3 installed, so Jeb can't open his parachute in the seat, but I've got a command seat on a Mk. 0 Fuel Fuselage with a small round intake and a Juno (and the paraphernalia needed to launch it), waiting to get upgraded. Probably manage that tomorrow. Then it's a question of how much I can throttle down the Juno -- and how long I'm willing to sit by the screen... @sevenperforce Add another 3200 tank and that Twin Boar can probably take Jeb to Duna or Eve, if a transfer window is open (certainly Kerbin escape) Still only three parts... Interesting side question -- since a three-part craft like @sevenperforce started can take you pretty nearly anywhere in Kerbin's system (though you may be unable to capture, never mind land, when you get there), shouldn't the scoring reflect the parts mass that Jeb leaves KSC with, rather than parts count?

Yep. Not KSP related, but back around 1980 (yes, when dinosaurs looked terrible on a movie screen because they were stop-motion animated instead of CGI), I took three tries to pass basic calculus in college -- the third time worked because, instead of teaching it as "you don't need to know what this is good for, just learn it," the professor did things like deriving the volume formula for a sphere by integrating the area of an infinite number of zero-thickness slices (or cylinders, I think he did it both ways), derived the formula I'd learned in high school for distance under constant acceleration by integrating the simple equation of motion with a time-variable speed substituted for the velocity, and so forth. All of a sudden it made sense -- because I could grasp it in a visual or physical way instead of having to treat it as "pure" mathematics.

I built a cheap replica of a Redstone -- three FL-T800 tanks, a Reliant, four fins with control surfaces -- and it had plenty of dV to get a Mk. 1 Command Pod into orbit (helps that Kerbin's orbital velocity is about 1/3 of Earth's). Given how much lighter that command-seat-in-a-cage ought to be than a Mk. 1, you might be able to do it with just two tanks and no fins, providing that deathtrap has a reaction wheel. That's a pretty cheap orbital launcher...

I bet there are a couple stock helicopters around that could land down there with ease. Nope, won't be me flying them.

Don't forget "Control from here". This will make the controls for any vessel react as if your pilot were inside the docking clamp. This also works for any part that offers the option on a right click (generally, it's command parts and docking parts); it's very handy for doing things like pushing a LEM when it's docked to your CSM (or vice versa, if you're playing the Acapello 13 mission scenario in Making History). You still have to remember to disable the rocket motor(s) pointed the wrong direction, but two vessels docked nose to nose need to agree on who's flying the setup... Dock a few dozen times, and it'll start to feel natural. I've seen Scott Manley (on video) launch from KSC and dock with a deorbiting craft -- less than ten minutes from engine start to get the docked pair back to a stable orbit (Pe above atmosphere). Scott's probably docked thousands of times, but he makes it look so easy...

Inside your saves folder, each individual folder contains a complete game save (the names are hints as to which they are: "My First Career" is the same name that displays on the "resume saved game" screen during game start), and those folders can be transferred intact from your old to your new installation folder -- just put them in the saves folder in the new install. Or you could do what I've done, originally to let me play the same game on my desktop machine, and on my laptop when I'm out and about: make the saves folder a shortcut to the real folder, which goes in your Dropbox. As long as the stuff inside looks like the original to the game, this works. The easiest way to set it up is just to move (drag) the individual saves to a folder in your Dropbox named "saves" (without the quotes, of course), then drag each one back while holding the (IIRC, I'm not a Windows user any more) ALT key to create a shortcut. I've done this since 1.3.1, and my current career save is accessible from my 1.3.1, 1.4.0, and 1.4.1 (with Making History) installs -- though of course the older version saves can't open craft files that contain DLC parts. I'll soon be setting up 1.4.3 (with corresponding MH version) the same way.

No reason the Kerbal couldn't Get Out And Push. If it works for a Mk. 1-3 Command Pod, it should work for that minimal craft...

If the object has been captured due to gravity assist from the Mun (and everywhere I type "Mun" you can substitute "Minmus", though its much lower gravity means it's less likely to capture objects in the first place), it might well have apoapsis near or even a bit inside the Mun's orbit -- this would seem to be a stable orbit, but in fact, such an orbit will always reenter the Mun's SOI at some point (depending on the orbital period, this time frame might be "next orbit" or "rather a long time"); that next encounter will change the object's orbit. If it doesn't impact the Mun, the Mun's gravity will either raise the apoapsis (with the likelihood of ejecting it from Kerbin's SOI) or lower it (but never so far it can't reenter the Mun's SOI -- I can't show you the math, but that's just the way it works). In either case, the periapsis may also change; this means the object may be lost in four ways: impact with the Mun, impact with Minmus due to Munar assist, ejection from Kerbin's SOI due to Munar assist, or impact with Kerbin due to Munar assist (slowing/lowering the orbit). Bottom line is, any such capture will be temporary. Note that the Earth has such a captured asteroid orbiting beyond the Moon, but because Earth runs under Principia instead of patched conics, the body in question actually occupies an Earth-resonant Solar orbit, never getting far from Earth, but not really orbiting the Earth, either. This body is estimated to have been in this kind of orbit for at least three hundred years, and is likely to remain so for some centuries to come -- but will eventually escape into an independent Solar orbit, like that from whence it came.

It's not terribly uncommon for an asteroid to show up in as "orbiting Kerbin". In most such cases, the rock will actually have an Ap outside Kerbin's SOI; rather than a stable orbit, it's on a very mildly hyperbolic trajectory, or might (even more rarely) be truly parabolic. It is also possible for an asteroid to get temporarily captured due to a Mun (or, less frequently, Minmus) encounter. These are temporary captures because the resulting orbit will always re-encounter the capturing body after some time, and generally either impact or get ejected again.

I agree -- no. However, it's also not possible, with current tech, to make an arc reactor (of any size), or a powered suit even as capable as the Mk. 1 (the one he built in the cave). And let's not forget the reactionless "repulsor" devices in hands and feet that let the suit fly, and the full-Turing AI (J.A.R.V.I.S. in the early suits, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. in the ones since Ultron). Let's hypothesize that Tony Stark has access to a source of an appropriate Californium alloy -- those could be bullet-size nuclear warheads with a yield similar to a 500 lb bomb. The suit uses multi-target laser designators and the tiny missiles fly toward their assigned code laser spot, explode on impact (presumably after passing a suitable "safe" time since launch, like making an artillery shell "bore safe"). Rumor has it that the Soviet Union actually fabricated some rounds of this type -- nuclear weapons delivered with a conventional rifle. Nothing physically impossible, but the combination of technologies (propulsion, guidance, target designation, warhead fabrication, etc.) doesn't yet exist. Ask again in twenty years...

^^ This. If you can't dock with the nav ball, you can't dock reliably. The only nav ball docking failures I've had in the past several attempts were trying to dock a Klaw on the pointy end of a nose cone (which, it turns out, the Klaw just won't do).

This is only available to three-star pilots (or equivalent hardware). In a career, you're generally near the top of the tech tree before you have this; in my current career, I have only three pilots with this rating, and they're all aboard the Duna flyby craft, Explorer VII, something like 120 days from their correction burn to set up their returning encounter with Kerbin.

This likely depends on what resin is used. Completely inert? Probably not. An internal coating of PTFE or similar fluorinated polymer could be applied after curing for oxygen service. Okay, I was incorrect -- still, it was the outside of the COPV that caused the problem, not the inside.

Okay. I'm currently running 1.4.1, so Jeb can't deploy his parachute while still in the Command Seat, but I've got a vessel built that should permit that once I upgrade. Really simple -- except for getting Jeb into the Command Seat on the ground. Small Circular Intake, Mk. 0 Fuel Fuselage, Juno, Command Seat on top; all this hung off a radial decoupler on an Oscar B on the nose of a Mk .1 Inline Cockpit; a Launch Clamp supports the whole thing a couple meters off the runway. Jeb climbs out on top of the cockpit, walks to the front, and boards the seat; hit F5 so you can just F9 when you want to start again. Pictures coming when I have time to install 1.4.3 and the corresponding Making History so i can actually fly this thing.