paul_c

PLEASE read the Wikipedia page on the rocket equation, or something like that, to learn why this isn't the case.

The NVidia 3070 and 3080 are a decent upgrade on previous models, if you could actually buy them at anywhere near MSP - but since you can't, its somewhat irrelevant. The 3060 seems not to have done so well in reviews and is only a bit better than a 2060. So at its MSP price point, its a bit marginal. I built a PC back in September and I had planned to buy a "stopgap" secondhand graphics card to tide me over, then go for the 3060 or 3070 around the start of the year - but with the way the market's gone, I'm sticking with my 2060 for the meantime. In reality, I made a bit of a booboo and bought what I thought was a decent monitor, but its max refresh is 75Hz, so I don't need to worry about frame rates above 75! I could have probably been okay with a 1660 or 1650. But I could always buy a better monitor later.

Ironically, it won't have much of a difference anyway because AMD can't physically increase their production that much - these things are apparently very complicated to make and its not just a case of making more of them. And Intel does a lot of trade with the system integrators and big companies like Lenovo, Dell, HP etc already, who want a consistent supply of CPUs. So its market share is quite steady. Even then, the 'ultimate performance' of a CPU only really shows an effect in limited areas of the market - gaming and content generation/editing. The vast majority of home/office PCs are absolutely fine with a low performance CPU. For example I have a 3600X (3rd generation Ryzen (Zen2), 7nm) and 2060 graphics card; while I built a PC for my Dad with 3200G (2nd generation Ryzen (Zen+), 12nm, integrated graphics) and there is no real-world difference for internet browsing or MS Office use. But fire up a demanding game and the difference reveals itself. Also with AMD not offering a budget CPU model in their latest generation, or anything with integrated graphics, there is a wide gap in the market there, which Intel will no doubt fill. The tables have turned - AMD is now the expensive, high-performance CPU while Intel is better for budget/low end - but that's not such a disasterous thing anyway.

Just seen a 11900K review....didn't go too well for it:

Lost comms and can't see it due to fog, would easily be solved by not flying it in the fog. It seemed a weird move to go ahead in that weather. For example, if it had nailed the landing, there would be little or no footage to bolster confidence in the public eye. And if it had done something else unusual, less data to figure out what happened. "Engines didn't relight" is handy to know at this stage but it would be interesting WHY they didn't relight, and the route to solve that issue/those issues.

You're using mods? I've found that yes, in theory, you can build a "big"* ship which reaches LKO, then the main burn to do the leaving of the Kerbin orbit and any deep space manoeuvres is a very low TWR. But in practice, you want a bit more of a TWR 1) so the "leaving Kerbin orbit" burn CAN be done more/less at the Pe, in 2 or 3 orbits at the most, with decent control on the direction and 2) so the deep space burns aren't 20+ mins, simply for sanity/boredom purposes. Playing entirely stock, I've found the ideal engine is always selectable - although I might select the wrong one then be stuck with it on a trip! In any of your mods is there a more powerful Xenon engine, so you aren't blighted with this ultra-low TWR/ultra-long burn time issue?

I've not even seen any proposed performance/specs for Intel 12th gen. Their 11th gen is only just launching now and Intel have been famous for obfuscating their CPU performance, by selectively choosing which benchmark to show the results for; or declaring that "benchmarks are no longer representative". So the best way is an independent review.......here's some summaries from those: Waste of Sand: Intel Core i7-11700K CPU Review & Benchmarks Intel's Core i-11700K Just Sucks! The i7-11700K is...Disappointing... Intel's 11th Gen CPUs Are A BIG Disappointment and You Probably Shouldn't Buy One Intel's "New" i9-11900K Details....Don't get too excited I appreciate this is for 11th gen not 12th gen. What massive change does 12th gen bring?

Its not real life though - its all scaled differently to make it easier as a game to play. In KSP, LKO orbital speed is ~2300m/s. In real life, to low orbit the Earth needs an orbital speed of ~7800m/s

I know, but you don't technically set the "inclination" at the launch. What you DO set, is the LAN (unless its an equatorial orbit, of course). You set the inclination of the resulting orbit, if you reach orbit, indirectly by flying the relevant heading which results in that inclination. Most launches are started vertically straight up, only after the start of a gravity turn is the inclination/heading defined. There is more of an argument for initially flying East irrespective of the desired resulting inclination, due to safety range issues (rocket will explode over the sea) then once on its way, changing heading.

I don't think you mean inclination - I think the more appropriate term is "angle of elevation" or perhaps "heading". Inclination is to do with the orbit.

Nobody (I hope) just sits there and uses the operating system. Pretty much everyone using a computer, uses an application of some kind or another. If its available across all platforms, great, you have a choice of platforms. If its only available on one or two, that somewhat dictates what you will be running it or, or missing out on that app. Games.....I am sure there are some for Linux but its widely recognised that Windows has the widest range of games, so I'm sure anyone who is into them will at some point or another find one that doesn't run on anything except Windows; or the venn diagram results in Windows only. That was (and is) the case for me, for desktop PC use. I've tried Linux desktops before but because I'm so used to Windows, I am often left wondering "how do you do this in Linux" when I'd know from experience, how to do it in Windows. I am more proficient in Linux command line stuff than Windows command prompt; or Powershell but I could probably learn how to do it in Powershell/command prompt - the "limit" isn't the system, but my (lack of) knowledge on how to make it do what I want.

You want to keep the science lab "topped up" with as much data as possible, because it maximises the rate of processing (turning data into science). 5 science points are earned per unit of data and its "full of science" at 500, so you'll be transmitting 500 science which needs a good bunch of electricity to do too.

You don't need to worry about the weight of fuel, as such. The two things - that you have to carry all that fuel, and that a big flamey bunch of hot gas comes out the nozzle at really high velocity - effectively cancel each other out. The important parameter is ISP and its units are seconds, ie there is no kg in there because they cancelled out. ISP is a function of fuel type and engine design - the higher the better.

There's a lot to take in in previous replies, but to make things simple, the only two things you need to worry about are: deltaV TWR Forget about aiming for a specific weight, or thrust, or amount of fuel, or using a particular engine etc (they're wrapped up in the above anyway). For Mun landings, when I did them I'd always budget on: 3000m/s left in LKO, to be able to 1) get to the Mun 2) be captured in its orbit (retrograde burn) 3) adjust to a low Mun orbit for landing 4) land 5) take off. If you've never landed on the Mun, make the first mission a "land only", ie don't worry about the extra fuel needed for a subsequent take off and orbit. This will simplify things a lot - no heatshield/decoupler/parachute(s) needed.

You would need to have (run) 2 or 3 instances of the experiment to use it for lab/transmit/recovery. Its different to recovering the same experiment multiple times for a small amount extra.

To earn points, it needs to be sent to the Science Lab while in the same biome/situation as it was gathered. It makes sense to do both, or all 3 - process in lab, transmit, recover. The points earned from processing in a lab are additional and separate to those for transmit/recovery. If you have a science lab I'll assume you also have a scientist, so you can reset the Science Jr and Goo. Then its a case of running the experiment, lab/transmit/keep, (reset and) repeat.

I've never used autostruts - doesn't seem kosher when there's normal manual struts - even they do a little bit of magic when they magically detach from decoupled stages!

The technique I've used is to split it over 2 (or more) orbits, the first being a "steering" burn where you focus on accuracy of ArgPe rather than getting as much deltaV as possible. Of course, doing burns over 2+ orbits means that you need to plan ahead on the direction (ArgPe) required, some time in advance of the final orbit/burn that reaches the destination. Because the more eccentric an orbit, the less the burning not-at-Pe influences the ArgPe (assuming we are starting from a circular orbit) it means that if you burned at T-1min to T+1min of the instantaneous ideal position, you'd be a little off. So you need to fudge this in and burn eg T-1min to T+1m15s the first orbit. In fact, after T you can come off the throttle, wait a bit, then burn again to 'push' it round. Or come off the throttle and not apply any after T, just wait for the next orbit, if 'pushing' it round is going in the wrong direction. After the first burn, which should be small enough so the losses from not burning at Pe aren't too great, but big enough to make it quite eccentric, it becomes easier to do subsequent burns at eg T-2mins to T+2m10s or thereabouts. Its a nice feeling once you have a handle of both the amount and when to burn, to 'drive' or 'steer' the orbit to the new one quite precisely.

Desktop gaming PC: Windows Web/database server: Linux Mobile phone: Android Casual internet browsing laptop: hmmmmm.......Windows too.... The last one, there is a strong case for Chrome OS, especially if its a cheap, low power computer. HOWEVER I personally own a laptop with an 8th gen i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, 512MB SSD so it doesn't have performance concerns. And with it being Windows too, it can do everything the desktop PC can (except play games which need decent graphics performance) so issues like running Reaper on the desktop then something else on the laptop; or even just Excel/Word documents are easily overcome because I can run the same version of the same program, rather than having to use "something else" then worry about 100% file compatability. If your desktop PC's main use was more creative than gaming (or you didn't have one at all, maybe just a laptop) then there is a good case for Apple (and then a case for the mobile phone being Apple too) but Windows has pretty much caught up in creative/content generation jobs like video editing, Photoshop, web design, etc. The only real justification for having an Apple might be if you needed to develop Mac/iOS apps, for which a development environment sits best on a Mac. But even then....you could use cloud-based services to do that?

Its an interesting question, and one to which I don't know the answer! I'll have a guess of my thoughts, and happy to be corrected by those more knowledgeable: Burning prograde (ie towards the horizon) raises the Ap. If its at the Pe, then it doesn't raise the Pe and ALL the energy goes towards raising the Ap - the most efficient way to do it - which is well understood. However, case A, burning prograde NOT at the Pe, raises the Ap and also raises the Pe a bit. Case B could be thought of as 2 components: mostly prograde, with a bit of radial in/out too. I'd have thought that this is even less efficient, 1) because the prograde component is less - and still "not at the Pe"; and 2) because the radial in is followed by a radial out later. I suspect the reason the manoeuvre node points you here, is that when you set up the desired orbit/escape, it had an unchanging Pe so the radial in/out component is included to prevent what would have been a purely prograde burn, also affecting the Pe due to its not being done exactly at the right time/place. I know that in case B, the radial in/out would also contribute to the raising of the Ap in some way, but it would be an inefficient way. Better to have no radial at all, ie pure prograde burn even if its not at the Pe.

You need to upgrade a building/facility to enable them, I can't remember which one(s) though.

Is it? They've always worked fine for me The contract literally says "activate the engine through the staging sequence", I don't know why you'd assume "run test" would work instead. I've always done it with activating through the staging sequence, to fulfil the test. I don't know why you think "run test" would work - it doesn't for me, and the contract even says to activate it through the staging sequence. As per my previous answer above, you can activate the engine NOT using the staging sequence if you want to have it burn beforehand, then "activate through staging sequence" to fulfil the test/contract, sometimes this means you reach the altitude with the same part, sometimes its just too high and you'll need another stage too.

Would you believe my luck.....a Swiss Army knife!

Might they do a discount for KSP1 owners but it won't be much?

The Jazz tune "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing" ISN'T in swingtime - its 4/4.