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Well, 1.4 is confirmed and I really hope it will include actual parts. Also, the making history expansion will include plenty of new parts. What parts do I want? One more nuclear and one more ion engine. Both are fun concepts of engines but we need more variety. For the nuclear engine - a 2.5m large nuclear engine that overheats a lot faster than the Nerv and has slightly less Isp (500-700 instead of 800) but is at least 5 times more powerful. Bigger fuel tanks and bigger engines to go with them. They don't have to be crazy insanely big - I would be fine if they just added 5m tanks, engines and other parts as a direct size upgrade to the 3.75m ones. Also, to go with the new 5m sized parts, we'll need Mk 4 aeroplane parts.

I haven't played much KSP and I'm sure there will be better moments later on, but so far my most magical moment is probably the first time I got into orbit. It took me ages of trial and error and several failed designs - but eventually I did it and I was so happy (even if my first successful orbiter design was four times more expensive than it needed to be). Just the feeling that a ship that you made completely from scratch without any assistance actually made it to space... Another might be when I saw Kerbin almost perfectly eclipsing Kerbol while I was on an escape trajectory from the Mun, heading back to Kerbin. That was kind of awe-inspiring. EDIT: Now that you mention it, I was very happy when I completed my very first rescue mission (which was on the surface of the Mun). It wasn't a contract though - I was rescuing my own kerbonaut Valentina, who I had stranded on the Mun after one of many failed Mun missions. I think that's what made it even more special. I've still got Jeb stranded in a very tricky inclined orbit around the Mun with an almost 45 degree inclination :P

I feel your pain. Like I said previously, I play KSP and other games on an 4 year old Toshiba laptop with an i5 processor. Now this is actually my OLD laptop - I could use my Surface Pro 4 which was meant to be an "upgrade" from my previous laptop but it has a worse processor (Intel Core m3, 1.51GHz). I've also started to experience super funky graphics problems that prevent me playing any games on it that are more demanding than Undertale (I used to be able to play other games, they just had bad FPS). Note to self: make sure your parents don't buy your laptop for you next time. The Surface Pro 4 isn't really a bad laptop, it's just the bad CPU and graphics that make it bad. At least I can use it for homework/procrastination, while I play games on the other laptop.

Go to the KSP Wiki article on Dres. It says that Dres is meant to be a Ceres analog. I mean, Dres does have rough terrain, a few craters and high contrast. But for a planet literally surrounded in asteroids, I would expect it to have more craters and mountains.

Saturn is definitely on the top of my list. A retrograde moon like Triton would also be cool, as previously stated. Also, I think a Charon analog would be nice - a moon orbiting Eeloo that is only a little smaller than the planet. It would be even better if Eeloo and this Charon analog formed a binary system.

Same with me! That game is pretty addictive - although I haven't played it in a few weeks. Anyways, that's a little off topic

Yep, I also have an approximately 4-year-old i5 laptop and I've got basically the same framerate - pretty much green clock up to 100 parts and mild lag from 100-150(which goes away as long as I play KSP while my laptop is charging), but it depends on other factors as well. How long to circularise an orbit? I'd probably go with 10 minutes. Getting to orbit doesn't take that long, and I would say you need tons of mods and/or a pretty bad computer to experience lag at 30 parts, or at least lag at 30 parts that is severe enough to make getting to orbit a few minutes longer than it should.

That same bug happened with me.

I know that, even though you can see other spacecraft from up to 750km away, they are still on rails. But how much of a framerate impact should I expect this to have on my game? Otherwise, it sounds like a great mod.

Can't you just put three sattelites into LKO in the exact same orbit without bothering with geostationary orbits? There are so many communication stations on Kerbin's surface that, even though the satellites will be constantly moving along their orbit, at least one should always have connection to Kerbin.

So, I was planning a Mun mission. This mission consisted of a large rocket with a Mk II lander can carrying a payload - a little Mun lander - into Munar orbit. The lander had a docking port attached to the top of it. Basically, the plan was (quite a lengthy list, I know): Get into Munar orbit Rescue Jeb, who is stranded in orbit of the Mun due to a failed Mun mission Complete a contract (test Small Hardpoint in orbit of the Mun) Get into low Munar orbit Transfer Jeb to the lander Detatch the lander Complete the second contract (test Small Landing Gear on a suborbital trajectory over the Mun) Land on the surface of the Mun near Val, who got stranded on the Mun when her lander tipped over Rescue Val Get heaps of science Get back into Munar orbit and rendezvous with the rocket Dock with the rocket (completing contract number 3 - rendezvous and dock two vessels in orbit of the Mun) Transfer all science data to an experiment storage unit on the main rocket, which is encased in a service bay next to the lander can Transfer Jeb and Val over to the main rocket Undock Get back to Kerbin and complete the fourth contract (transmit or recover science data from the surface of the Mun) But then a lot of things went wrong. Fail 1: There was no space for Jeb and Val on the ship. I had filled the lander can with other kerbonauts. Fail 2: Apparently, to complete the contract for the Small Hardpoint, it actually has to decouple something. I had just slapped it on the ship with nothing attached to it. Fail 3: Due to a staging error, the landing gear was decoupled before I was able to test it. Fail 4: Apparently to qualify for docking two spacecraft in orbit of the Mun, the spacecraft have to come from different missions. At least I completed one contract and got a bunch of science. But I'll have to plan a second mission to do the rest.

That sounds like me . I'm not that good at KSP and haven't played it for long, I haven't gone to any planets other than Kerbin yet. But I currently have a rocket that is meant to transport a medium/large-sized payload into Munar or Minmus orbit (I'm pretty sure it works for both), and it literally consists of four stacks of fuel tanks that are a little larger than one orange tank with Skipper engines on the bottom surrounding an orange tank with a Poodle engine.

How long has the driving part of this mission taken so far in real life? I haven't done any forum challenges before and I thought that the Minmus Elkano challenge would be a good place to start.

Seeing as this thread has been revived... Oh really?

I would add a tidally-locked planet orbiting Kerbol. It would have a large gravity with a radius larger than Kerbin by a little bit, and have a very high but relatively thin atmosphere (around 120km high), making it hard to land on and take off from. Also it would be cool if it orbited Kerbol in the opposite direction to the other planets. The side facing the sun would be a volcanic rocky wasteland with lakes of lava that damage your craft and craggy, dark mountains as well as generally rough terrain. The dark side of the planet would be flat and completely covered in ice. In the middle would be a kind-of liveable desert area, and then a strip of ocean in between the desert and the ice cap. As well as this, I would add a ringed gas giant with three moons. One moon would have a very high inclination, almost polar orbit. However, it would be rich in fuel making it a good spot for a fuel station. One moon would have a very small, tenuous atmosphere and it would be covered in all sorts of awesome terrain, perfect for flying around in spaceplanes (although the atmosphere would be so thin that there would be no point in bringing air-breathing engines). It would also have a huge mountain that goes above the atmosphere. The final moon would orbit EXTREMELY close to the gas giant at periapsis and super far out at apoapsis (basically extremely high eccentricity) and would resemble a captured asteroid. That should make for some cool views from the surface of the moon. Finally, I would add randomly-generated comets orbiting Kerbol. That would be all in terms of new celestial bodies. As for modifications I would make to existing bodies... Laythe: Poles. Also, some awesome, fluffy clouds. Kerbin: Clouds would be nice here as well. Eve: Also clouds. Very thick, pink-coloured clouds that completely obscure Kerbol almost all the time (although the light would still be there). Basically, clouds. LOTS OF CLOUDS. I know mods do this fantastically, but I would like to see clouds in the stock game. Dres should have more craters. I mean, it's surrounded by asteroids and has no atmosphere. Of course it should have more craters. Not too many, but more. The terrain should be more bumpy and irregular. Not steep ridges/mountains but more shallow, rocky, bumpy terrain. Duna should have dust storms that block out solar panels, reduce visibility and disrupt communication signals. That would be cool. I would also give Eeloo a very small, almost completely unnoticeable atmosphere, just to make it more realistic. Also, I liked a few of the suggestions @Ultimate Steve had, specifically the ideas of more dramatic terrain on Pol, crystals on Minmus and slippery terrain on Vall.

Yeah! Good job for getting thread of the month! You really deserved it with such a captivating video.

Yep. Also I had no idea about the correlation between Bob and Bill from KSP and their real world (reversed) counterparts, but now I can't get it out of my head.

I did all this yesterday. I was going to post it yesterday, but I didn't have enough time. I also ALWAYS forget to take screenshots. I'll try to take some screenshots of the vehicles later and put them in this post. After 5-10 failed Mun missions, I finally managed to plant a flag on the Mun and return to Kerbin. It seems like asparagus staging solved all my fuel problems Then I took the same craft to Minmus and back successfully (on my first try!), and I had about three times more leftover fuel than I had at the end of the Mun mission. I also somehow generated 500 science from that one Minmus mission... Then I made a pretty cool mini rover with my newly unlocked rover wheels. It has a top speed of around 11 m/s unpowered on Kerbin, but if you crank the Spark engine up to full throttle it gets past 100 m/s. And today I modified my Mun lander to be able to transport a payload up into orbit. I then used it to launch my very first communications satellite into LKO. So, I guess I've done quite a lot recently.

That sounds like a really good idea.

Almost addictive? I think there's just one thing wrong with that phrase.

Yeah, I agree. KSP is, in the end, an open-ended sandbox game. I don't think career mode should have an "ending". But it would be nice to have an in-game achievements system for every career mode game. That way, some players have something to strive for - completing every achievement. It could be made into a "Hall of Fame" building in the KSC that displays a bunch of trophies, each representing an achievement. For example: "Land on the Mun" "Orbit Laythe" "Circumnavigate Kerbin" "Capture 10 asteroids" "Reach a speed of 1000 m/s on land" "Reach an altitude of 10,000 petametres above Kerbol" (OK, that's a little too much) It wouldn't be a proper ending, it would just be a way for players to visualise all the achievements they've made and give players actual goals.

I've already posted this on the "What did you do in KSP today" thread but I thought I should re-post part of it here. Last week I made my first trip to the Mun. It was manned because I hadn't researched probes yet. The entire journey to the Mun went just fine and I entered Kerbin SOI and de-orbited without any problems. However, when I separated my final stage and prepared for landing, I encountered a problem. For some reason the decoupler was clipping into the heat shield. I didn't know it at the time, but I had accidentally put two heat shields on top of each other instead of one. So I jettisoned the heat shield and hoped for the best. However, instead of getting rid of the first heat shield I stupidly got rid of the second heat shield, which the first one was attached to. Jeb blew up in the atmosphere.

Hey, just wondering - Would Sarnus from OPM count for this challenge?

Yeah, I definitely support a horizon hold on the SAS.

Yesterday (not today) I made my first semi-successful trip to the Mun. It was manned (I hadn't researched Basic Science yet) and I got it into orbit. I had a contract that asked my to fly by the Mun, gather scientific data and return to Kerbin. Unfortunately, I hadn't brought ANY science equipment so I jut took a crew report while in orbit and prepared to return. I made it back to Kerbin OK and de-orbited without any problems. However, when I separated my final stage and prepared for landing, I encountered a problem. For some reason the decoupler was clipping into the heat shield. I didn't know it at the time, but I had accidentally put two heat shields on top of each other instead of one. So I jettisoned the heat shield and hoped for the best. However, instead of getting rid of the first heat shield I stupidly got rid of the second heat shield, which the first one was attached to. Jeb blew up in the atmosphere. But his sacrifice did not go in vain*! Now at least I know that my Mun lander can make it to the Mun. All I need to do is attach an antenna and some science equipment, as well as get rid of the second heat shield, and I should be able to land on the Mun! *Jeb respawned two hours later so I guess it wasn't a sacrifice