XLjedi

From that pic... dunno if that's landing gear though. Why would it be extended during this stage of the mission? Maybe it's something that allows you to launch an aerodynamic rocket and then deploy in space to spread out thrust or something? It would be cool to have something like this where either gear or landing pads, as well as engines, solar arrays, etc. could be mounted to in order to "fan-out" once in space. Edit: I did see another pic and that is definitely a large landing gear.

The other thing that really seems to be coming across to me in these prelim screenshots and gameplay footage: They definitely have a more robust system for coloring the individual parts. Looks like they may have adopted something similar to how ships in Homeworld can be colored. Like each part has maybe a Primary, Secondary, Tertiary pattern that can be assigned whatever color you want. ...and maybe the part variant would allow for different patterns of tri-color? I do like the idea of color-coding my ships for various functions or classes.

@coyotesfrontier@MechBFP No, there is a certain cuteness to the parts... and the kerbals have a consistency with them. These parts have a different look. Almost like the kerbals should be evicted and replaced by something like the Space Engineers.

The parts look great... but they seem to be losing their "Kerbalness" quality. I don't know if that's good or bad yet.

Orbital intercepts are the most difficult thing you can do in a spacecraft and a LOT of "How To's" on the topic have a very hard time sticking to a clear explanation of the stock navball and how it should be used. In this video I explain how to intercept a craft in orbit and I also share a few details related to the navball that most videos/tutorials skip over. ...and I manage to do it all with the purely stock navball. As a result, I don't really have any need for docking mods.

Alright, so it took me far longer than I care to admit to figure this out. ...maybe I never figured it out and someone told me how to do it. :-D As with all things, once you know the trick, it does seem painfully obvious. I felt a little dumbstruck when it was shown to me, so I figured it might be worthwhile to post a "How To" for everyone. Given a Kerbin day is 6 hours... Every 3 hours the KSC is in the perfect launch window to fly your craft directly into a Minmus inclined orbit. So at any given time, you are no more than a few hours worth of game time acceleration away from a Minmus launch window. Knowing this, there is no reason for me to ever do a secondary burn to adjust my orbital plane to align to Minmus, which obviously speeds along my Minmus missions and saves me fuel. This quick video shows you exactly how to do it!

It's up to you if you'd like to do the challenge progressively and build the hangar as you go. I have to say though, if you don't use em much anymore, they must not be that "Pro" bro. Better go fix em up! ;-D

I would suspect most on this forum would vote: "never" It's more the players who would never see this thread that would possibly download and use the craft. So I expect a very skewed result (will check after I post this). Most of the craft I download are purely to show the author's that I appreciate their work. So, I kinda vote for the designs I admire by downloading them and giving a like or +1 or whatever. Anything I can do to encourage them to continue sharing their work. I also download holiday/decorative/seasonal stuff: Angel tree-topper, a pumpkin, some sort of giant statue, etc... Those are just fun and give me a chuckle. I once hosted a challenge that actually required you to complete the challenge with at least 3 craft that you did NOT create. That was interesting I thought; but not many completed it. The one time I ever downloaded a craft for anything close to my own use was... I needed to reverse engineer the combination of parts/equipment needed to perform ISRU ops, before I knew anything about it. IMO, the craft aesthetics were terrible (LOL) but picking the half-dozen parts I needed out of the heap gave me the insight I needed to equip my craft. Aside from the nearly identical mission parameters, you'd have no idea the craft had anything in common. If I were going to attempt a mission to a specific place, I might look for a craft that fits the mission profile just to see what combination of fuel/weight/engines was needed. Those can be very difficult to locate though. Typically, the craft are not documented or arranged in any searchable way by mission criteria. Bench-marking maybe on occasion too... If I fly a craft and like how it handles, I do take a few extra minutes to decipher what exactly makes it fly the way it does. The designers seem to appreciate the feedback when I tell them specifically why I was impressed with their flight model. Any criticisms, I try to qualify as very minor nits in an otherwise awesome design. I would not have downloaded it had I not thought it was impressive. They seem to like that feedback too. I have a few designs on KerbalX that I currently don't actually like how they fly. ...but I'm also pretty sure I already know why. Someday, someone might give one a spin and suggest something to improve it that I hadn't actually considered. If I get to update one of those craft, it makes me happy. (Edit: yeah, results are pretty much inline with my expectations)

As others, I use the same action groups on all my craft. BTW, mine are right and perfect; yours are all just... Very very wrong! ;-D As others, I can't leave junk in orbit. I redesigned my rocket launch vehicle because the second stage had enough fuel to make it all the way to orbit. Had to cut back on fuel so it just fell into the sea. I always disable the cockpit/cabin lights from the "U" key (can't stand that, destroys my pilots night vision!) I make the landing gear lights turn on/off automatically when pressing "G" key (so that means I turn gear lights ON with initial engine staging at launch) I deploy/retract flaps and so forth with the "G" key as well (I have 2 modes of flight: Clean and Takeoff/Landing, and that's pretty much it) As a result of the last bullet, I have begun staging the initial flight configuration for takeoff/landing too (I love to see the lights come on and flaps moving when I stage the engine ON) I only recover my aircraft and space planes in front of the SPH door/walkway by that little sidewalk nearer to the tower I only use red light in space for cargo bays (again, need to preserve my night vision while traversing the dark side) Must be able to enter/exit the craft without retracting the landing gear as a cheat Memorial: if a kerbal dies, I name the next unsponsored station or relay after them (helps me get over the personal guilt and not revert back to a save from 3 missions ago) Sponsors: I name relays and stations after the contract corporate sponsor. I take particular pride in the orbital installations that share 2 or 3 sponsor names! I would accept this approach if you documented the net cost and time required to complete the mission and also adjusted your costs via the cheat menu accordingly. For me, if I can document the average net cost of a given mission (maybe over 3 missions), I can then convert that to a unit cost for fuel delivery. Then I can just use a cheat to increase a station commodity and decrease my credit balance. To me, that just adds an element to the game that should already exist. The ability to create my own specific resupply mission scripts and automate them based on a proven track record.

@Geonovast Ah yes, agreed... but the lack of decent landing gear options does force me (reluctantly) a times to have to clip some of the retractable gear more than I would otherwise want to.

Glad you mentioned it though... I updated the PDF rules "Mods" section to include the clarification. You may not have noticed it... but there's a "ReadMe" clicky under the graphic in the first post on the thread. It includes 4 pages of instructions, goals, things to consider and so forth.

Any mods that change the parts, modify the tech tree, skew science or contract payouts... those would kinda put your PS craft into their own category. I can't really benchmark what you've done against anyone else so, I think I have to vote no.

@Okhin Yes, you got! You can have as many PSC's as you like. Merging two of them, or attaching a PS subassembly in the hangar is allowed. You're just not allowed to add a part in-between (like a decoupler). So it forces you (for instance) to create booster subassemblies and/or launch vehicles that already have the decouplers where they need to be. I consider autostruts to be "Pit Tuning" so you should not be limited if you want to create a booster subassembly, attach 8 of them to your rocket and autostrut them for stability. For me personally, I favor a spaceplane career. So I only have one or two rocket launch vehicles that I need before transitioning over to spaceplanes. So in my case, I only have a few PSC launch vehicle rockets that already include the boosters. There is no hard limit on the number of PS crafts allowed. You are simply given the objective to "minimize" the number as best you can. What I find particularly interesting with this challenge is the tech tree analysis I did to figure out which specific node technologies are best served by adding the part with subassemblies. For instance, there are Mk2 spaceplanes in my hangar that I can unlock the tech on much earlier in my career simply because I removed that Mk2 autopilot part from the design. As a result, I've determined there is no reason to pay credits to unlock that part (and several others). Advanced avionics can be added to any craft later if you build it into a subassembly. This added an avionics upgrade element to my career gameplay for every previously launched vehicle and station that (prior to me playing the challenge) did not exist for me. I began designing PSC craft using that tiny docking port as a future mount location for my PS avionics subassembly to be added later once unlocked. I may have a few different comms subassemblies that I can install/upgrade as I go as well. You may like to assemble your missions with 10-15 PS subassemblies just in the launch vehicle. I kinda prefer to build PS launch vehicles that include all the boosters for various stages and then put together a few subassemblies for the payload. It's your choice.

Just accept a contract or two. You should be able to pick 2 of the first few that are offered and have about 6000 to work with at start.

Build your craft with non-science parts already installed. You are only allowed to add science parts or a part that gains "Oh Sciencey!" due to a part test mission. So you will need to think carefully about what types of probes and station parts you create as Pro-Stock Subassemblies to attach to your stations. I'm guessing most people will play a shadow career where they are designing and testing the craft as they go. Then adding them to a pro-stock hangar that they are confident could meet the challenge. That's how I'm working on it. When I max-out the tech tree in my shadow career, I will take my pro-stock craft to a new career and see how quickly I can unlock the tree. For me, it is becoming a bit of a sprint to see how efficiently science labs can be launched in the Kerbin SOI. Others may have a different approach or choose to reach beyond Minmus. You can show them if you want... I will probably post a few here and there as I go. I view it as a fun challenge for anyone who is starting a new career. It adds a bit of color to the early game where you are just trying to unlock the tree. I really wanted a science jet for instance that could fly missions as soon as the basic "Aircraft" tech node was unlocked and before the runway or SPH was upgraded. Now I have the Harbinger in my Pro-Stock hangar for that purpose: I also created a "Pro-Stock Challenge" hangar on KerbalX where I am cross-referencing the craft I posted online that I use in the challenge. So you can create your own hangar over there and point us to it if you like.

+++ Bugfixes * Fix non-motorized robotic parts being free moving. Appreciate it, thanks.

[snip] I do agree that it won't be "MMO" in terms of 1000's orbiting Kerbin at the same time. I guess I'm more thinking in terms of private or public hosted servers. In which case I see tighter reins on the modding. My point was related to MP and how it gets implemented having an impact on modding. There have been some contradictory statements made by the devs (vs T2 execs), so I'm curious to see how that unfolds. Maybe MP doesn't even start until you leave the Kerbin SOI? If I played Skyrim?

@Incarnation of Chaos My expectation is max speed will be achieved at the half-way point between origin and destination. My first test with the new engine will likely be sandbox unlimited fuel accel into the abyss and see what happens. Then I'll put 10 engines on there and do it again... Then I will start playing the game.

I don't see literal MMO working either... can't have 1000's in orbit around Kerbin at the same time.

Which of those is the "Late Game Holy Grail Cat 4 Screaming White Death Engine" ? (as if I'm the only one who will install like 24 of these on my star destroyer) From what I saw, and the types of orbits contemplated... speed is simply a function of distance. The further away a planet is, the faster you go. How (if) they adjust the curve as it approaches C will be interesting to see.

I believe you didn't think they would have engines anywhere near the speed of light either, correct? My guess is based purely on what I see T2 do as a business.

Ummm… no... it would be piggybacking on every other title that T2 currently has online.

@Incarnation of Chaos I'm speculating a bit... but from the investor chats, on the business side... Strauss would have a lot of splainin' to do if this franchise launched a public MP server without a profit motive. I'm betting on unmodded MMO, but they are about to open the floor at PAX East... so maybe we learn something new today?

That would assume that the MP is going to be a system where small groups of 2-5 can queue themselves for a matchmaker universe. The problem is two-fold. First, it requires Take-2 or PD would actually be willing to acknowledge the work(s) of some modders and put checkboxes and such out there for a compatible match-making type MP system. Based on what I've seen and heard however... that's just not the Take 2 business model. I suspect, if they have public servers, the format will be more of an MMO universe where folks can come and go. Along with some recurring payment options... most likely in the form of: paid content/mission updates 2 or 3x a year, possibly offer a "Season Pass" option. I wouldn't rule out some form of virtual currency either. This would all fall inline with the Take2 playbook. (I listen to their earnings calls.) So, your craft may be denied entry into the MMO universe (if that's the route they go) based on the modifications that KJR makes to the underlying structure of your craft file to "weld" the parts together. I think mods are going to be allowed, but very possibly limited to solo career play.

Don't really care what ML couldn't get to work... They work great on the craft that I build. Maybe go point Matt to my stuff. LOL If I paid attention to what most of the wanna-be armchair aerospace engineers on youtube said... I would not have built the majority of my craft. I can name at least 3 off the top of my head that speak with authority on their webcasts but my reaction to what they say half the time is... That's a bunch of bull @$%!? LOL I'm glad I tuned into them later rather than sooner.