Incarnation of Chaos

Alright; i'll try that thx!

I know this isn't the intended use case but is this compatible with a stock sized system? Because i experience planes flipping into the air upon loading a craft for no explainable reason along with issues with wheels not colliding with the runway at all when they look like they should. The changes you made seem like it should make the former impossible and the latter much harder; which would make developing aircraft far more easy.

The only SSTO's iv'e ever flown were accidental xD; normally a small payload on top of a overkill launcher because the cost is negligible after recovering it and a smaller launcher would only save me a few grand. And then i find i have like 2K Dv after circularizing and haven't even popped the first stage off. Unintentional SSTO should be a meme template xD

Which is why my current head canon leans more towards there being another noxious gas that makes up a significant portion of the atmosphere; perhaps created by photodissociation of compounds in the water or something similar. That being said it actually would be possible to have different thrust curves for laythe wouldn't it? Just a PITA to implement.

Just because there's oxygen doesn't mean it's sufficient for breathing; if we assume kerbals need 20% oxygen like humans then if Laythe was 15-12% it could be problematic. There's also the fact that laythe is smaller; meaning atmospheric pressure is lower overall. Meaning that the partial pressure of oxygen would be lower also; requiring higher percentages to get the same amount of oxygen in a given volume. This also isn't including the possibility of another gas in the atmosphere that's high enough to make it toxic (ammonia?CO?)

Doesn't RSS tweak the engines to be more in-line with the scaled system? Stock engines wouldn't cut it in a 10X scaled system.

Fair enough then.

I kinda alternate between traditional rockets and planes; i don't really have a solid preference. But as of now iv'e been making quite a few rockets; since i'm assembling my first interplanetary mothership.

Note i don't want the RAPIER it's self made more powerful; that would the job of a entirely new part. But i would like to move it down one node; because by the time you get it you're launching 3.75/2.5M rockets and can make them fully reusable. Payload fractions aren't important; i can build a fully reusable rocket that's larger in a tenth of the time it takes to fine-tune an SSTO and get the same payload to orbit and the same reusablity. And 900 ton rockets don't really mean anything to me at this point; i was launching 2-300 ton stacks of asparagus to the moon and minmus in my current career save after only a week or 2 (The entire stack weighed about 300 tons; what made it to the mun was around 30-60 tons). And i frequently exceed the megaton range now ; fuel is silly cheap compared to engines/crew and reuse means essentially i'm only paying fuel costs. That being said i find your arguement in favor of the Panther interesting; pushing whiplashes to Mach 1 wastes a lot of fuel before hitting the efficiency curve where they're actually doing work. Panthers would start out decent and only get better before flaming out; i may be running some tests fairly soon because of you xD.

Don't mistake me i wouldn't mind for it to be possible to make a proper flying boat in the first place without too much hassle (Where the fuselage is actually boat-shaped in the bottom half) and then have retractable pontoons for stabilzation on the water; it would end up looking something like the PBY catalina. The pontoons on the Catalina retract onto the wingtips; which would be ideal but they could be made with a fairly generic attachment point so they can be used for fixed/underslung mounts also. So i like the idea of modular fuselage with a boat shape and higher crash tolerances, in the standard sizes; 1.25, 1.75, 2.5, 3.75M. Along with modular pontoons in those same standard sizes; along with some matching cockpits. This would preserve the utility of the parts like i want; so solid suggestion. And the airbags i just really wanted some clarification since "Balloons" can describe anything from a party balloon to a non-rigid airship. But i wouldn't mind some bouncy abort systems lel.

Since the issue here is physical proximity; have you considered just rebinding Z? It wouldn't accomplish everything you want but would save you the headache in the meantime; though i feel like you would have already done this.

Tbh i was really sad when i realized in Stock KSP that landing skids seemed to be neglected entirely; though i suppose i could make something with structural parts resembling a landing skid but it wouldn't be retractable like a gear. (At least in 1.6.1 which i'm currently on) Pontoons i don't have much use for since water in FAR seems to be practically a halo-like kill box that will wreck practically anything it touches even gently touching it once or twice. Inflatable balloons would be cool for some limited rover recreations but tbh i don't seem them having much use outside of that (And if you're wanting to use them as lifters then that's an entire other class of vehicles in my mind) Now water in stock isn't as lethal, but still no slouch when it comes to causing RUD. And balloons have limited usage; so retractable landing skids seem like really the only thing that would be beneficial for stock (Mind you i'm not against implmenting any of these). But i also feel like outside of very general items (Fuel tanks, Landing Gear etc.) anything more specialized would be better served by mods. That's my 2 cents.

Anything weird with your staging order? Like a decoupler before an engine? This would make the game think you're going to pop the engine off before igniting it; also have you actually activated and throttled up the engine at all? Sometimes it won't show you a burn time unless that engine has been used.

I just found my next Module Manager patch; i'm guessing i would need to restrict it to Fuel Tanks, Cargo Bays, Wings (not sure?), science experiments and add some logic to prevent it from ever being the root part. But even just fuel tanks would reduce the load immensely, it's exceptionally rare that the bulk of the part count is engines/wheels/gears. The question isn't "Can it be improved"; given unlimited time and funding you bet they could crank out something resembling a proper fluid-dynamic simulator that would make universities blush. But that's not what you're asking; the question you want to know is "Given the current game; is there low-hanging fruit to be had". Which several posters above have already described fairly interesting fixes that shouldn't take much time to implement (Chasing bugs resulting from them would likely take longer). But as far as how it uses memory overall; programs allocate the memory they "Need" according to what's specified. The reason i say "Need" in quotation marks is because the majority of programs today allocate much more memory than is actually required at the time; this is so the program remains smooth and has time to allocate more memory when more is demanded (This is an EXTREMELY simplifed explaination btw). So what does all of this mean in english? If KSP is only asking for 4-5 GB than that's not only all the memory it needs; it's a pretty hefty pile over what it actually would need at that moment. So while i'm sure there's stuff they could do to enhance it's use of memory; that's not really an issue on your system or many others. The physics is a completely different matter; they can optimize it further to make it much smoother than it is currently but without changing how they actually handle physics (Which would likely break quite a few things) it cannot be multithreaded. So they're stuck in a rut; and i don't see how they could get out of it without a hard break. This in my mind would be the actual purpose of a KSP 2.0; a clean slate to allow that hard break and get a sturdy foundation setup for the future. But for the most part; KSP runs pretty well in my opinion and i frequently launch ships with part counts > 200. And to be honest; very few games do what KSP does. No other game i know of gives you a pile of parts, then tells you to wack it into something pointy and see what happens. Everything past the VAB is pretty much handled via physics; which while not entirely accurate still comes damn close to real life. This isn't me saying KSP should be excused for it's flaws; just me saying the scope of what KSP does makes it inherently difficult to account for every potential interaction and situation. Which means i doubt the code could ever be perfectly efficient; as that would limit the possibilities for the player at some point.

Honestly it's pretty interesting; the reliant and swivel are very obviously balanced against each other. Their descriptions straight up compare and contrast the features and what the lack/presence of them means for the user; this makes sense from a game design standpoint especially since these are the first real engines a KSP player will use. What doesn't is how this is all abandoned in the entirety of the rest of the tech tree; instead having each part seemingly independent of each other and hardly much balancing against other engines. This isn't a bad thing; just a very curious approach to me in terms of game design.

The best version of any software is the version that supports the features you want; look at your modlist and see which ones are supported for 1.6.1/1.7; then ask yourself if that specific mod is worth running a older version. You'll be shocked how many mods you can trim when you really question why they're installed.

tbh a big thank you to the modding community here in general; iv'e had yet to see another community so willing to answer questions, deal with newbie mistakes and write comprehensive documention for their tools of the trade. The latter i can only really say exists in most beth games; but the communities of modders there aren't even 10% as nice for some reason so you're left to learn most things on your own. But let's take a crack at names here; let's start with thanking @Nertea for making my atomic dreams possible (Also those fkn plumes on the LV-N's are a sight to behold) A massive fistbump to @dkavolis for maintaining FAR and to @linuxgurugamer for that Mouse Aim mod; both of which allow me to continue getting myself in hilarious situations with supermanuverable fighters at Hypersonic speeds. Along with @linuxgurugamer again for Hangar Extension which is a downright neccessity to use parts larger than 3.75M. Then there's @EmbersArc for the incredible KRE; and @NecroBones for SpaceY heavy lifters. But everyone who works on mods, makes textures, creates these models and has any hand in the incredible mods we use on the daily deserves a round of applause.

It was during my first successful mun mission, jeb had landed successfully but i had staggered the launches so that return rocket was a few hours away. Insertion burn went well; and began my decent. What i failed to realize was that there was a crater rim that intersected my orbital plane about 4-5000km away from my landing site. I tried burning prograde to raise myself above the rim but it didn't work; valentina smacked into the rim in excess of 900m/s resulting in a complete loss of craft and the pilot.

Indeed; with large spaceplanes especially it makes me wonder if they're better off using traditional rocket engines after a certain point. Once you're using 13+ RAPIER engines which are far from the lightest or most efficient, how much mass are you really saving? Especially since you end up needing additional whiplash engines for atmospheric flight eventually anyway; a RAPIER Sr. could be larger and even more efficient because of "Improvements" made using data from the previous engines if that was desired. I wouldn't mind the RAPIER sent to a lower node at all; it just feels more suited as the final product of all Hypersonics development rather than a true endgame part.

Iv'e had it detach and destroy the capsule during a 6 m/s impact; so this is actually why i try to ditch it well before hitting the ground.

Well of course; because then it's a job. And worse since you don't get paid for doing it! And also just the fact that you have to have a geninue interest in this stuff to keep content coming; you have to be the kind of person who wakes up at 4AM and goes "I KNOW WHAT I NEED TO DO X IN KSP" and spends the next 2-3 nights iterating upon it until finally it works. And then that same enthusism flows into the final work; captivating the audience as well. You don't get that by phoning it in.

I'm honestly trying to understand how you could get this slow of an encounter; iv'e only sent a single probe to the Jool System but it only took about ~3 years after final manuevering. It was basically a slightly longer Duna Mission; then again i did a hohmann transfer when Kerbin and Jool were at the right phase angle. Then corrected further out two times (Once for inclination and then another prograde burn to bring it down from 6 yrs to 3.) The majority of my transfers are within the 2-3 year range; but iv'e had total mission times >6yrs after doing multiple transfers.

tbh i'm not against any of these; if people want to make content there's nothing stopping them.

Personally i think the main issue with the rapier is not it's performance; with a pre-cooler and inlet cones 2X rapier can push me to >Mach 4 and 25K before flaming out (This is with FAR being used though). The main issue i find is that it's the only engine of it's kind, on a endgame node and ends up being more of a curiosity than much else. Rather than buffing the existing RAPIER i would like to see dedicated spaceplane engines expanded, with 1.875m, 2.5m and 3.75m parts. And before everyone says it; i'm more than aware mods for this exist (They're awesome and i have them downloaded). Me personally; since i already use mods i focus on reusable launchers rather than SSTO's.

We don't have a flight sim model at all lul; the way stock KSP computes drag/lift is practically fantasy. And it's not like the "Old" model just couldn't become a toggle in difficulty settings; for those who would rather stick with it.