jimmymcgoochie

KSP 2 isn’t even close to being out yet, so speculating about a sequel to the sequel won’t really serve any purpose. Black holes are nasty places to be- huge gravitational forces that can cause all sorts of issues when you get close, massive radiation from the accretion disk as matter gets pulled in, plus they won’t be much use for solar panels because they are by definition pulling light in rather than putting it out. Also, no aliens. Fragments of an ancient alien civilisation, maybe; actual aliens, no.

Turns out NFX does things to antennas that are incompatible with the way Sigma Rescale multiplies antenna power and also aren't affected by the stock settings, meaning that if I add the antenna feeds system from NFX all comms parts default to their original ranges and are underpowered for the rescaled system. So I wrote a patch that can boost the range of both feedable antennae and signal reflectors to match the buff that Sigma Dimensions adds to normal antennae. It actually seems to work- so far!

Have you tried updating your graphics drivers? The last time I saw errors like that was due to an outdated graphics driver, updating it solved the issue.

AAARG(r)- Boring science scraping ahead. Did some missions to get some science, along with some course corrections for the Pasiphae probes and Lysithea crew landers. Most interesting was Pasiphae 3 flying past Fury at silly speeds, but unfortunately no signal to send that juicy data back home again . A bit of roving around Rhode and both orbital surveys and infrared telescopy for Rhode and Lua pushed the science total up further, but still some way short of unlocking key Endurance components: This also raises an important issue- if a simple probe can't send data back from a few planets over, how are the interstellar missions meant to send their data back from the next star over? This may require some chunky super-sized relays from Extended Antenna Progression (powerful, but large and heavy) or using the signal reflector stuff from NFExploration; so far I've only used a few fuel tanks from NFX and skipped the antenna feed bit entirely, but there's no reason why I can't use the whole thing. Full album with all the boring details: https://imgur.com/a/qjeeNht Next up- interplanetary probes that might actually be able to send science back! And if not, new tech unlocks (and/or full NFX installation) to make it work.

I'm having some trouble with this mod and CKAN- I've added the BE dev repo to CKAN to get the latest versions, but the most recent version seems to have made CKAN think that it conflicts with ModularFlightIntegrator and won't install MFI with Kopernicus BE, but when I try to update to BE release 46 it complains because MFI is a dependency and isn't there. The 'relationships' tab says it requires ModuleManager 2.8.0 or later and conflicts with Kopernicus and MFI.

Here's my 0.02 (insert local currency unit here): MechJeb- so many useful features in one handy place, even if you have to unlock them through the tech tree and sometimes does really weird stuff (55km/s burn for a LKO rendezvous!?); GravityTurn- I dislike the complexity of MechJeb's ascent autopilot and GravityTurn does a great job of just chucking rockets into orbit with some simple configurable stuff, plus it can learn from mistakes when it launches too low and burns up (keep the initial turn angle below 12!), and it can even do circularisation burns via MechJeb once out of the atmosphere; StageRecovery- because why wouldn't you want to stick parachutes on your launch rockets and recover the dropped stages for sizeable refunds? Only applies in career, but it's a big boost to early progress or if you turn the funds income down to be able to get a significant fraction of the dry cost back with each launch; Kerbal Alarm Clock- as long as you set the alarms right, you'll never miss another node again and that's just the start of its utility; KIS and KAS- I admit I wasn't really sold on the idea the first time I tried it, but I've come around to it because being able to break out a spanner and (de/)construct stuff in the field is a really useful trick; SimpleLogistics- if you have Breaking Ground, delete the deployable science (and deployable batteries if you have that mod) configs as they will break 1.10, but after that it's a great little mod that allows local resource sharing on the ground without having to do complicated docking/grappling plus you can refuel a craft in seconds with a few simple clicks, dodging fuel transfer issues completely; SCANsat- yes, there are parts in this one, but you can get science by parking probes in orbit and leaving them for a while plus the maps it generates are very useful for picking out landing sites or biome/anomaly hunting; Bon Voyage- if you use rovers but hate driving them for hours to get places, just slap a Bon Voyage controller on it (the RoveMate probe core gets one built in!) and let it drive in the background while you do something more interesting somewhere else; Where Can I Go- it tells you in the VAB/SPH editors exactly how far you can go, based on average delta-V requirements for various transfers, features compatibility with a few different planet packs and also works in orbit; Astrogator- tells you time to the next transfer window, delta-V required, burn time and can even plot the nodes for you and time warp to the window (I think that needs KAC), plus it can target tracked asteroids/comets and works in pretty much any solar system you throw at it- modded, rescaled or even both! If you have the DLCs then look at Missing History (plugs a lot of gaps in the 1.875m parts lineup) and Deployable Batteries (make your Breaking Ground deployed science stuff work in the dark) too, but both of those include new parts so might not be what you want. I think that should be enough for now...

If you're going down the mod route, there are a few more options open to you to make long-range communications practical: Level 4 Tracking Station- I believe there's a variant of OPM that includes a further upgrade to the tracking station which boosts its range even further; Extended Antenna Progression- while they just look like bigger 88-88 antennas, they function as increasingly powerful relays- the biggest have ranges into the light years and their power consumption when transmitting is very low for their power, but they're very big and very heavy; Near Future Exploration and its signal reflection system- combining a fairly small transmitter part with a big signal reflector can drastically improve its range, sometimes by a few terametres (billions of km!) without adding a huge amount of weight. They're big but look great, and NFX ties in nicely with the other Near Future mods as well as Restock- hardly surprising as they're all made by the same person so share the same art style- plus it contains other useful probe-related parts. Or just crank up the DSN and antenna power in the settings for your save, it's not really cheating if you're using a larger system like OPM

AAARG(r)- a big bag of missions. Jeb was sent up on Lysithea 2 to fly to Scaythe, just in case something doesn't work with Lysithea 1's trip to Hydron. This mission had to be launched twice because of a catastrophic RUD during the first attempt, but Jeb was fine and the pod was bolted to a new rocket before he could figure out how to disengage the child lock on the hatch. A few science transmissions and continued roving around Rhode produced more science, which unlocked more nodes: A rescue mission was sent out to Ash to recover the crew of Ganymede 8, only for Ganymede 9 to end up in the same situation with not enough fuel to get home and faceplanting immediately upon landing. The lack of fuel was partly due to lugging three SRB powered impactor rockets to Ash, which comprehensively failed to generate any seismic science whatsoever . A conveniently timed asteroid arrived in Rhode's SOI so the grabbers were unlocked and a mission was sent to grab it. Ganymede 8 was reassembled by the crew and all the fuel from Ganymede 9 was siphoned off to make 8 able to get home with a big haul of science: More nodes unlocked: After a couple of successful aerobraking passes, Ananke 1 had a close call when the asteroid overheated and Luner hit the abort button, causing the pod to decouple and pull 88g which destroyed every part apart from the pod and its parachute in a weird but welcome fluke. Luner and the samples he took from the asteroid were recovered safely, but still represent a net loss after the tech node unlock is considered: Progress continues towards unlocking all the components for the Endurance, the most expensive of which are the base and science components and the propulsion systems. With several thousand science points needed, those interplanetary probes better send back some serious science! Moar pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/IpW1VRa I went through a lot of game time today but all things considered I'm feeling pretty confident about hitting all the milestones quickly and more importantly in the right order. Next up- interplanetary arrivals.

I don't think the atmowhatsit- forget it, I'm calling it the AFSV- will work when in contact with water, but you can get seismic data from water biomes if you manage to touch the sea floor. Put a seismometer on a probe core, add an ore tank to the bottom and fill it with ore (better to do this with a small drill if you're trying it not on Kerbin, ore is heavy!); that should sink to the bottom, get the seismic readings then dump the ore to make it float to the surface again, retrieve and repeat if necessary.

I’ve seen a few different ideas around the forums about Kerbal biology (Kerbiology?) including that they reproduce by spores, hence the grey cloud that gets released when they *ahem* lithobrake a bit too enthusiastically, or that they can survive on photosynthesis alone but will atrophy mentally without eating (brain food taken to an extreme). But if you’re talking Kerbiology, you have to mention @KSK’s theory that Kerbals are in a symbiotic relationship with semi-sapient contact-telepathic trees capable of large-scale biogeoengineering, and the entire space program is just a means to start an interplanetary tree-planting initiative.

Maybe it's the 3.5x rescale, but there seem to be two biomes missing from Lua- Oceanic Crater and Polar Highlands show up in the SCANsat biome key but I can't find either of them on the maps. I was also rather disappointed when I drove a rover into the lava on Ash and nothing happened... I had the same issue as @Acim when I updated Parallax today, but going back to v1.0.1 fixed everything again.

The only reason to actually bring back a science jr is because you're desperate for the funds, otherwise stick a pair of science lunchboxes experiment return boxes on the sides of your capsule and bring a scientist with you: the two boxes and your crew pod can hold three separate copies of each experiment and the scientist can EVA to both grab the results and store them, and reset the experiment. Bung a probe core on top of the capsule so it can still use SAS and you'll have a much easier time of it. I always favour a one-stage Mun land/return ship because docking is a bit of a faff and the delta-V requirements aren't that high for the Terrier to manage it all. I usually go for an overbuilt second stage that manages everything from completing the Kerbin orbit insertion to doing most of the Mun landing burn before running out of fuel, which requires a larger launch stage but means the lander can be lighter or carry a heavier payload without running out of fuel.

How big? Well, the stock planets will be the same sizes and in the same places as the original, but consider this: the Kerbol system is 1/10th scale; a light year is about 95 trillion km; the nearest star to the Sun is about 4.5 light years away and there are about 20 stars within a 10 light year radius. To make a 'realistic' interstellar journey in Kerbal scale, I would expect distances of between 20 and 100 trillion km between Kerbol and other stars. How many stars? I would expect several new stars, maybe 2-4 to offer multiple destinations and each with its own solar system. Any less and it's boring, any more and they have to make many more planets and moons to fill them up, which would take time to make them interesting.

Why would you want to limit KSP2 to the constraints KSP has now, when it's a brand new game and can make use of the most up to date software and hardware to make it much bigger and better than the original?

Delete the mod folders from KSP/GameData- keep Squad (and SquadExpansion if you have the DLCs) but delete all the folders for the mods you don't want and leave those that you do.

AAARG(r)- Data dump incoming! Well, if you're only allowed to post updates on Saturdays it will inevitably lead to a big pile of an update as I cram nearly a week of gameplay into one post. First and foremost, another important milestone completed- first Kerbals on Armstrong as Ganymede 6 touches down; I forgot to get a screenshot right away with the game clock in it, so I'll just have to go with the first image with the clock and say Y1, D9, 00:48 as the landing time. This was followed a little while later by Ganymede 7 which landed less than a kilometre away, bringing the science part of the deployed science array with it (glitchy deployed solar panel info box wouldn't go away): Now on to new and bigger things- the Pasiphae probes, destined for several different planets and their moons: The basic design was the same each time, with varying numbers of solar panels depending on how far out the destination was. Pasiphae 2 also had a tiny atmospheric probe/lander to chuck at Hydrus, but otherwise they were all the same. More science means more unlocks: These new fuel tanks will be put to good use for the second wave of Pasiphae launches, especially Pasiphae 4 which aims to do what Pasiphae 3 could not and make orbit of Fury; Pasiphae 3 was the amateur mistake of 'just hurl it straight at the innermost planet without waiting for a transfer window, what could go wrong?' and will reach Fury at such a blistering speed that it'll get a gravity slingshot most of the way out to Rock's orbit, needing only a small course correction of under 200m/s to get an intercept. Oops... Ganymede 6 and 7 returned with MOAR SCIENCE! Which in turn unlocked moar science nodes: Then Ganymede 8 blasted off for Ash, the outermost moon with the lakes of lava. Bob and Julbo clearly don't appreciate Val's flying technique: After one of the Pasiphae probes catches a (planned) slingshot from Ash more science was returned: The first pieces of the Endurance were unlocked, along with other useful structural stuff: Second-gen Pasiphae launches followed, featuring small drop tanks on the upper stages and more delta-V than the first lot: There are screenshots of each Pasiphae probe in the tracking station included in the Imgur album, but I won't spam them here- long story short, probes are going to orbit Fury, Hydrus, Hydron, Scaythe, Scindo and Rock (plus one that's going to fly by both Fury and Rock but orbit neither) Then came another big launch- Lysithea 1, the first crewed interplanetary ship carrying Bill and a small autonomous rover to Hydron and hopefully carrying Bill back again! The first probe landed on Ash, though there were a lot of weird graphics glitches going on and it didn't go quite according to plan: It turns out that Ash has a 99 day rotation period so scanning will take a long time ; in the meantime, Ganymede 8 also landed on Ash, again with a glitchy black square of terrain underneath it: That delta-V reading is a lie, there's less than 800m/s of fuel left... And then it fell over so they're stuck there for good. I'm planning to send a rover out that they can drive around in and get science until I can be bothered to send a rescue mission. They don't seem to mind though: Then I launched Carme 1 (a rover, obviously!) towards Ash, but things went a bit, well... The second launch went fine though and Carme 2 is now hurtling towards Ash where it will give Ganymede 8's crew something to do until they get rescued. One more node unlocked, not particularly useful right now but it's a requirement for the Ranger and Lander later on: Jeb was sent out in the prototype Carme rover to add a seismometer to the Rhode deployed science cluster, then drive around KSC getting additional science, before he got bored and did a bit of drifting. Good science returns though: That seismic sensor might not be that useful, but there are a few massive space rocks currently on collision courses with Rhode so they might just work for that. All the albums: https://imgur.com/a/5WYvc67 https://imgur.com/a/3KWPtvm https://imgur.com/a/KhATs6Z https://imgur.com/a/06SdEUa Milestones: First Kerbals landed on Rhode's moon (not Lua)- Ganymede 6 at Y1, D9, 0:48.

Ground effect can be done in KSP- there’s the conveniently named KSP ground effect mod which I have found to make landings much easier, and I think FAR does some ground effect too. No reason why that can’t be included in KSP2 as a stock feature. Hydroplaning I can live without as I don’t make (m)any boats or seaplanes.

Real time is irrelevant here, it’s game time that counts. Unlike in the JNSQ race where I spammed my way through everything and everyone else gave up, this time I’m going a lot slower (still only on Y1, D30) because of the science requirements to unlock the best parts. Prepare for an onslaught of posts tomorrow- and not just from me (mostly from me though )

Most likely yes- after all, that's what happens every time the game updates. It should automatically add any new settings options when you run the new version.

Backing up KSP really is as simple as copying the entire KSP directory (as you have correctly identified) and pasting it somewhere else. This is a particularly good idea if you got KSP from Steam and are using mods- Steam will pick up new game updates and apply them but this could break your mods, so if you're modding KSP then definitely don't use the one that Steam has control over! Backing up a specific save can also be done by going into KSP/saves, grabbing the folder with the name of your save game and just copying that somewhere else- to another copy of KSP, to a backup drive or zipped folder etc. but doesn't copy the several gigabytes of game files (even more with a high mod count).

@GuessingEveryDay What exactly does a 'solar probe' have to do? It would be impossible to get a probe close enough to either star to actually start orbiting it.

@krikvaal As others have pointed out above, you're orbiting Kerbin when the contract wants you to orbit the Mun. You have the correct apoapsis, periapsis and inclination but orbiting the wrong celestial body. Look at the Mun in the map or tracking station and you should see an orbit line in a distinctive colour- often orange, yellow or purple- with the same inclination and orbital heights as the contract is asking for. You need to actually match that orbital line pretty closely as there are other parameters to an orbit (argument of periapsis, longitude of ascending node etc.) which usually aren't spelt out in the contract but which you have to meet in order to complete it. There is a bit of wiggle room so as long as you're matching the contracted orbit within a few % you should be fine, and remember the 10 second stability check.

There is no such thing as a ‘completed’ career- just because you’ve upgraded every building and unlocked every tech tree node doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to do- land on every planet/moon and come back, build bases and stations, add more planets, use a new tech tree, add new solar systems and colonise them, etc. etc. Completing the KSC upgrades and tech tree isn’t the end of a career, but the beginning...

The logs say you have an ‘attempt to access invalid address’ error. This error is sometimes caused by antivirus software blocking access to something the game needs, so try changing your antivirus settings to let KSP do its thing unhindered. It may also be caused by running out of RAM. EDIT: Ironically enough, I just had the same crash happen to me, but in KSP 1.10.1 and a very different set of mods.

Looks familiar, I believe it’s something to do with autostruts- when the vessel is reloaded, the autostruts suddenly recalculate their targets and things can get ugly very quickly- as in “entire space stations breaking in half with random explosions and parts magically teleported to the South Pole at the same altitude but with 0 velocity” type ugly. If you’re docking things together, disable all autostruts before docking and that seems to reduce the likelihood of this happening.