theflyingfish

The main reason I want the bug fixed is because long range artillery just won't exist if all ballistic weapons are capped at 5 kilometers. I want to be able to shell KSP from the Abandoned Island, dang it! As far as lasers go, I'm not really sure I want them included in the mod at all. In my opinion, their accuracy and instant, unavoidable damage makes for really uninteresting gameplay. They're not really fun to use, not really fun to fight against, and they have the potential to be really unbalanced. They're always going to be either so weak that using them is pointless, or so strong that you can stack a bunch of them around an airbase and make it impenetrable. They're already my go-to choice for missile/air defense, and do the job way better than a Goalkeeper can. Also, @BahamutoD; are you planning to add "drag" to ballistic weapons? By that, I mean make it so that as bullets fly through the air they slow down and their trajectory steepens? I think it could be useful for capping the ranges of the lighter weapons, as something like a .50 cal will rapidly slow down and lose energy past 2km, making it only useful for short-range engagements.

I think I may have found a couple bugs. Read the description for details, but basically, even though the changelog for v0.9.6 says that ballistic weapons take their maximum distance from a variable in the part.cfg, my testing has shown that all bullets from all guns despawn 5,000 meters from where they were fired no matter what the variable or physics range is set to. (I set MaxEffectiveRange, MaxTargetingRange, and the physics range to 20,000m, but with no effect.) Additionally, the Abrams seems to be shooting off when aimed using the targeting pod. It shoots high, and goes left or right depending on where the vehicle is turned.

It should try to continue the "near-far" acronym theme. How about... Hydro Enhancement Research Experiment - HERE Technology Helping Enable Realistic Engineering - THERE Calculated Lies Optimize Simple Experiments (or Calculating Lawyers Offer Silly Explanations) - CLOSE

Just in case others wanted to know. ;-) KSP 0.90 with FAR 14.4 is pretty much unusable with the control surface issue.

Just tried it, 0.90 broke the center of lift indicator and control surfaces. Control surfaces just don't work, period. They don't move, no matter what you set them to. And the CoL seems to be permanently sitting on the SPH floor. As far as I could tell, however, the aerodynamics themselves seems to be working fine, although I could barely get a plane off the ground without control surfaces.

Man that C7 page is a throwback... The C7 aircraft parts pack was great. After Harvester added some rudimentary code for aerodynamic "winglets", C7 used it to create aircraft in KSP. Harv didn't plan on putting planes in KSP, but the mod was so popular and worked so well that C7 was made a developer and his mod parts integrated in the 0.15 "Spaceplane Update", which also added the SPH and IVA's. Unfortunately, the winglet code has remained virtually the same ever since it was added (I think around 0.10).

There was also a modder who was hired as a dev, but then never appeared in any dev blogs, disappeared from the forums, and is always listed as "developer on leave"... *cough* ClairaLyrae *cough*

You can change how many posts are displayed on your page at once... To me, this thread is 49 pages long. You don't have to hit the "next page" button as many times. Saves me a bunch of time when reading threads.

Pilot: *hiccup* Copilot: "Frank, you okay?" Pilot: "Yeah, just had a minor hiccup." Copilot: "Oh, I hate it when that happens." Later... Pilot: *burp* Copilot: "EJECT EJECT EJECT." I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.

Fix KSP's Aerodyna-oh wait ferram4 did that already. Ummmm, ballistic trajectory to KSC2?

What you're looking for is an oft-requested feature called tweakables. (chorus sings "Hallelujah " in background.) Basically, you can modify the performance or beginning state of parts in the VAB, like the amount of fuel in fuel tanks, whether landing gear starts stowed or deployed, the color of your parts, whether an engine has thrust vectoring or not, etc. etc. It's been requested dozens of times since KSP was first released. It's in the "Upcoming Features" list, but SQUAD never seems to get around to it.

I think he's kinda taking a hands-off approach on this mod. It's only been updated a few times, mostly just update compatibility stuff. I don't think he'll go through the trouble to update it just to make a few different models, or change the fire rate, or the tracer colors. Basically, you get what you get. (And you don't get upset)

I don't think KSP's physics engine is robust enough for movable hinges. Not enough stiffness. Try using the Damned Robotics (or whatever it's called) mod. All of the hinges are really "bouncy", and there are too many bugs/graphical glitches.

One of the things that I feel SQUAD should be focusing more on is development and refinement of gameplay. I know that Harv came out a few updates ago to talk about "development asymptotes", using them as reason to put gameplay development on the backburner while Career mode is worked on. But while Career mode is supposedly being worked on, KSP's gameplay has become very stale for me. I have come to think that Squad moved from gameplay development before it was really finished. This is illustrated by the modding situation that has developed around KSP for me. Every time the game is updated, I have to spend time updating and reinstalling mods that I use to make the game playable for me. They're not parts packs, they're plugins that fix some aspects of KSP that I believe are broken/could be improved. Some mods, like the Docking HUD and Navball Enhancer, should be stock. There is absolutely no reason why these mods couldn't be integrated into the base game, and they help improve some of the more bare-bones aspects of KSP. Another mod that I believe should be made stock, or at least certain parts of it, is Ferram Aerospace. It addresses some of the basic problems with stock drag, like how leaving the ends of your rocket flat, without nosecones, is more efficient than rounding them off aerodynamically; like how a cylindrical stack of six fuel tanks has the drag of six fuel tanks rather than the drag of just one, i.e. parts at the front of your craft don't block the drag of parts directly behind them; like how spacecraft come screaming in on re-entry at thousands of m/s, only to suddenly stop at 7,000 meters because the atmosphere suddenly turns to maple syrup. There are additional problems with the physics system, like how little stiffness there is between connections. While it may be funny to have your rocket jiggle back and forth like a pe-piece of spaghetti it becomes much more frustrating when your aircraft keeps rolling to the left because of a bizarre bug involving connection strength and the order you laid your parts down! While there are many, many more problems I could whine about, I suspect most people skipped the wall of text above. So my basic gripe is this: SQUAD moved on from Gameplay development to work on Career mode, which I think is a bad move because; 1, There are many more basic bugs to fix involving basic gameplay elements, as well as multiple small gameplay improvements (*cough* DOCKING HUD *cough*), that could drastically improve the quality of the game; and 2, because Career mode elements appear to be wasting massive amounts of Squad's time and money while the gameplay withers in Career Mode's shadow. P.S: What happened to IVA? I was really excited when it came out in .15, but right now it's one of the most under utilized features of the game. Not only do a few cockpits still lack IVA, but it has no other purpose but to provide a cool first-person view. It needs more functionality, e.g. more instruments, more things to click that do cool stuff, cameras that you can place on your craft that can provide a live view of the cool stuff happening, etc, etc. Also, what happened to ClairaLyrae? She was apparently hired a few updates back, but has never appeared in any KSP Weekly's, dev blog updates, random posts, etc. and is always listed as "developer on leave"? I was excited at seeing some of her parts pack make it in but all we've gotten are the cylindrical tanks and a few adapters...

@ferram:I'm sorry. I feel bad for making all these requests... But one thing that as always irked me is the high connection strength that all parts in KSP have. It takes one of the limiting factors of aircraft design (maximum g-force) and blows it wide open. If I build a craft correctly, I can reach 20 g using only stock, more if I use pWings (because of how it overestimates connection force to allow for Error.) But in order to decrease the breaking strength, you also decrease the connection stiffness, right? (Exacerbating spaghetti craft and the "always rolls left" bugs.) Is there a workaround for this? Can we go plead with Harvester to increase the stiffness of part-part connections? I just miss the days when my aircraft would spontaneously disassemble if I took a hard turn above Mach 1... *note: I rarely, if ever, use struts.

Oh, I get it now. Haha, that's a good one. Next time make sure the audience knows you're talking about ammo, though. We all thought it was an accidental post from the Off-Topic forums.

From the FORUM RULES: Rules Addendum: 16MAY2012 "Release Date" Creating posts or threads that contain nothing but 'When is the next release coming?' is prohibited.

With FAR, gravity turns should be much shallower than stock, beginning almost right off the pad. A good rule of thumb is that you want to be turned toward horizontal about 5 degrees every four kilometers. So if you're at 28 kilometers, you should be at about 55 degrees of pitch. Halfway up (to 70 km) you should be at 45 degrees. At 70 km, flat. Keep in mind that these values are for FAR only. Stock has a much thicker atmosphere lower down.

Two things; First, does anyone know where I could get a mod with half-size jet engines and fuel tanks? If I try to make an aircraft with the engines mounted underwing, in pods, using the huge stock one meter nacelles or fuel tanks looks really goofy. I don't want to download B9 (the massive number of extra parts annoys me), just want a simple half-size parts pack. Alternatively, if someone knows how to use the scaling factor to create the correct parts, that would be great. Second, @ferram4, would it be possible to make CoL and CoM indicators appear in-flight? When I'm trying to re-enter my spaceplane, it's annoying to have to guess where my CoL is in relation to my CoM. If there was an indicator that helped me shift the CoM in preparation for re-entry, that would be incredible. it would make re-usable spaceplanes with heatshields much more viable. (and fun)

I have grown so used to FAR that I cannot play KSP without it. Everything makes sense with FAR. I actually have to think about my aircraft design! And re-entry is MUCH more realistic with FAR installed. I hate how in stock KSP the higher altitudes have no air resistance, but your craft suddenly "hits a brick wall" once it gets below 10,000 m. With FAR there is much less resistance at low altitudes, so your craft carries a lot more speed into the lower altitudes. You have to be careful with your re-entry profile or else the pod will be going too fast when the parachute deploys, tearing your ship apart (giving drogue chutes a purpose!) There are various small things, too, like the raycast shielding of parts not exposed to the airstream, useful nosecones, etc. etc. It just makes KSP a much more nuanced game, and in my opinion makes spaceplanes much more effective.

I remember that the original was taken off Youtube for an M83 copyright violation. Has that been resolved?

I never said anything about Falcon 9 going SSTO. I know that Falcon 9 is two-stage, and I know that the Grasshopper testbed is testing reusable, autolanding stages. I was just pointing out that the rocket design and testing regimen are very similar to the DC-X, which was a moderately successful testing program, and may indicate the future for SpaceX after the Falcon series. If SpaceX manages to accomplish this autolanding feat, then they will have lots of experience building and handling VTVL rockets. Building a DC-X derivative would be a sensible next step.

Yes, but I think that the ultimate goal of the project is to build the spiritual successor to the DC-X experimental VTVL SSTO. Launched like a rocket, the conical DC-X was designed to re-enter facing forwards, then flip around and land the same way it took off. It was revolutionary because the testing program focused on operations rather than technology, preferring rapid-fire test flights in order to test the feasibility of it's quick-turnaround design. McDonnell Douglas managed to get the turnaround down to only 26 hours, compared to the Shuttle's multiple month turnaround. Unfortunately, funding cuts grounded the program before the craft went above 3,000 meters, which is still relatively impressive given the cost of the program. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_DC-X The design of Grasshopper and the way SpaceX is testing it bear many similarities to the DC-X program.

So, basically, how many different ways can you use an orange tank + 4 LV-T30's as the first stage.

Don't scare me like that, Harv. For a second I thought KSP was going Free-to-Play.