paul_c

In the VAB it shows TWR and delta V as standard anyway - what are these saying?

Any comparisons are somewhat moot for these reasons: 1. It is a single player game - is one style better/worse than..........what are you comparing with? 2. Timewarp. Some contracts/missions take a long time, but become trivial if you timewarp thru them. Anyway, notwithstanding the above, I look at it this way: reward vs investment. Initially, the reward was money, then science/reputation, but also its important you keep it fun and interesting in your own mind. So, if contracts seem dull for a bit, go build a huge rocket, go somewhere far away, do fun stuff. Investment is interesting because there's (at least) 3 aspects: time, money, reusability. Pax flights you can't really re-use the vehicle but you can design one style of rocket (more or less) then use it again for another contract. Similarly, Tundra and Kolniya orbits are always going to have very similar deltaV requirement (different only if its a 63.4deg or 116.6deg inclination needed) and there is a limited range of scientific kit they ask for. So the design can be reused many times over (I have 16 Tundra orbit satellites around Kerbin and counting). Some rockets also you can re-use for additional contracts and money/science/rep. Any "change the orbit" (and mapping asteroids is effectively "change the orbit of a satellite" - once you have a Sentinel scanner or 2 launched and in solar orbit somewhere) counts, so does "science from orbit of....." if you put a thermometer/etc on it.

I am not getting it. The "S" in KSP is "space" - and liquid-only engines don't work there.

I see this too, and just assume its due to the difference between two points on the vehicle (for example, centre of root part/controller and centre of mass makes sense) and when its rotated using the reaction wheel, these 2 parts have a relative velocity. When we're dealing with very slender intercepts which are set by very slender amounts one way or another, its going to show up as a change in the intercept values. If you move a craft then "let it settle down again" they go stable again after a few seconds. It seems fair enough and realistic enough - if you're aiming for such a slender intercept in real life, tiny things are going to upset it so a correction burn later on may well be needed to keep you on track.

Does the mission profile need landing legs used; then all engines later? Or will they have done the highest-thrust element of the flight before the landing/takeoff? I am thinking, perhaps if 4-6 outer engines are no longer needed, they are staged/ejected, then that makes space for some kind of retractable leg to be deployed.

The issue I've found is that if/when doing "mine xxx units of Ore and deliver it to Kerbin (orbit), you set off the equipment with a detachable ore tank but if you have another, it fills them evenly and you can't transfer it (well, I can't.....I am sure it ought to be possible though). So if my mining rig already there has say 2000U ore storage and I need to send 500 back, I need to mine it all until the tanks are full. And if I do a fuel generation too (the retriever would land with a bit of fuel and empty ore tanks; then fill up with fuel for the return trip and ore) of course, it uses up the ore in all the tanks so they will need to refill. Getting the rig so that it doesn't stop in darkness and just time warping with everything on, is good though !

Its definitely worth doing a calculation to determine how much battery power you need, then it can be left running continuously and won't shut down in the night. Also, obvs, you'll need solar power or similar to charge those batteries up again. The requirement for battery will be determined by the length of day - so its different for Mun, Minmus, Duna etc.

I got 1.11 whether I wanted it or not - Steam seems to have updated it automatically. I have not downloaded (to my knowledge) any DLC, except what comes as standard with the stock install.

Was it ever planned that you can climb a flag? If they are now all falling over, I am guessing you can't climb them any more....

I'm in... Is there a standardised way we're going to join it up? Obvs a docking port connector, but what height above ground? And I'll assume horizontal.

So you've modified a file to alter how many concurrent assignments it generates?

PV=nRT is an approximation. A gas is, by definition, a state of matter which expands to fill the available volume, hence why it exerts a pressure. I am sure solids are compressible too - to an extent....

Yes and no. If this is a copy/paste of an exam question, then it should never have been presented as such - the use of the term "metal compound" is misleading, since mixtures of different metals aren't compounds but are ALLOYS. A metal compound suggests another element, in a chemical reaction, to produce a compound. An alloy isn't a chemical reaction, its a physical structure. So strictly, no, because we would need to know the other element(s) making up the compound. But I think you meant metal alloy - then its yes (approximately). Its not possible exactly because you would need to know the detail of the crystalline structure down to the atomic level, to know the true range of values of distance to adjacent/nearest atoms (I think that's what you meant when you said "distance between molecules") (and.........there would be a range of values, not just one single value, because of the nature of the crystalline structure). And to be pedantic.....the structure consists of metal IONS (or atoms) not molecules because a molecule is 2 or more atoms joined by a chemical bond (by definition).

Its as much to do with making the judgement, is it better to delay a launch and what do you do with the time it buys you; or manage a bunch of deferred issues in a live environment? I've been involved with software launches where the commercial pressure to launch was so great, it did with loads of bugs, and the inevitable trouble they caused. And also a few where the decision-makers were able to keep their cool, and delayed it until pretty much all the known issues were resolved and a lot of the desirable extras were added in also - resulting in a very smooth and trouble-free user experience. I think KSP and Cyberpunk are quite far apart in the way they've been managed (fortunately). And today's announcement that Cyberpunk is getting pulled off of Sony has meant I'll put my hard-earned cash somewhere else, no matter how good the game looks in reviews etc....

I've not run the numbers so I'll trust you on that one. I go off of a "hunch"; and I'd say you strategy is definitely in the right direction. I do the same (but on a smaller scale) - I do 4x tourists at a time and might expand to 8. I've done 4x satellite launches at a time; and satellites on top of tourist trips. The most I did at once was 6, but the design wasn't a 100% success and a muddled docking connector failed to detach....I had to make it home with a weirdly imbalanced rocket which needed the throttle applying in 2-3 second bursts followed by a few seconds to restabilise! So nowadays I'm cautious about doing too much. Also, my contracts never seem to be generated that neatly so its rare to have 4 or more of a similar enough kind to combine. I imagine I'll carry on like that for another couple of weeks (or months), then maybe go back and restart a career mode with "Ironman" restrictions like, no quicksaves, no reverts, never killing a Kerbal, having to flight test everything before being "himan-rated" etc

There's 4 options - 1. You're stuck with the location you landed it in 2. Take off the whole Starship and land it again somewhere else 3. A sub-module detaches and flies there 4. A sub-module has wheels and drives there I suppose there is the 5th option, that its transportable by being manually lifted up...but I doubt it would be light enough, even on Moon's 1/6 gravity, to do that. I am going to guess, they'll have a pipe back to Starship - makes more sense than flying/driving the whole module back to unload. Option 1 makes a lot of sense if they can send a "scout" to survey the suitability of the area. Especially since its down to geology etc and is much more involved than a scanner in KSP! I think they'd get it more/less right, because it has to be somewhere, so just make it land there. They can do precision landings and have been since the early Apollo missions.

The point I was making is, 'critical' for a game is basically down to commercial success (and keeping out of the news headlines). Apparently the creators of Cyberpunk have lost quite a considerable amount. I used to work in effluent treatment plant (designing), where the criteria was often "CATNIP" - Cheapest Available Technology Not Incurring Prosecution.

You could ask, what's critical, in a game? Compared to MANY other areas, for example TSB's core banking system; ABS module in a car; the control software of a life support machine or an airplane, that critical needs to be taken in context, that's why we see bugs. The cost-reward ratio is clearly not that great, compared to the other cases (where putting aside a real safety risk, there is a regulatory risk eg banking systems, non-approval of an airplane system etc etc) Also, we tend to remember the exceptional - everyone remembers TSB's banking computer system upgrade fiasco, but nobody remembers Bank of America's system 2 upgrade which generally went smoothly. Or Airbus' first A320 which crashed at an airshow, or the 737MAX problems. At the end of the day, its about management and adequate oversight so that the risk-reward is balanced, the thing meets expectations and is generally positively received by its customers without attracting headlines for the wrong reasons.

Just heard on the main news that Sony have pulled Cyberpunk from the Playstation store (and are doing no quibble refunds), due to the number of bugs/glitches. Clearly, something went wrong with the development, testing and release of Cyberpunk, much more so than is usual for "normal" releases of games (I think we all accept that a v1.0.0 of something might have a few issues which reveal themselves with much wider usage by customers etc, and it normally takes a few weeks/months to iron them out). I am still convinced that its possible to write software mostly bug-free, and release it on time and on budget. Its just that there are some companies who are better than others at it.

The approach would be quite simple - maximise the science/money/reputation per unit time taken. For example, with an expendable rocket launch you'd need to look at the pay vs the rocket cost to work out the net profit you'd make. And the time to "design" it - if its a new design, then that might be 30-60 mins in the VAB. If you did it before (and it performed well, and you saved it) then a small tweak then a launch is 5 minutes. Similarly, tourist flights - if you have a good design for a returning, pax carrying rocket, then a lot of time can be saved because the criteria aren't going to vary massively for different contracts. And of course, if you can combine 2+ contracts into one launch, then time and money can be saved there. The "test at launch site" or "test splashed down" are good because you can recover pretty much 100% of the hardware for money (so long as it doesn't blow up....)

Aaaah makes sense now. To clarify: * Letting an unselected contract "time out" and disappear from the board - no penalty * Declining that unselected contract, so a better one may appear - 1 point penalty * Failing the contract, either by eg killing the tourist or running out of time doing it - penalty as detailed on contract I'm not 100% sure where declining a selected contract fits in there - do you get the -1 or the possibly higher penalty as detailed? Anyway....I've now achieved my aim, of getting 90% reputation. Yay! A while ago I turned the corner both with science (now about 25000 and pretty much all the tech tree unlocked) and money (about 45 million)

Anywhere on it - which is handy. For Minmus, I either combined them with rescue missions or hoovering up a bit more science; or a nice easy equatorial landing on one of the ice lakes.

8-10 is good. I have a sense that its difficult to 100% "line up the ducks" and get similar contracts together, for example I have only seen max 4 "tourist trip" style contracts at any one time; and some of them want to go to Mun or Minmus (or both) so its one launch per moon (and any who just want (sub)orbital around Kerbin get a free bonus). Similarly, Mun or Minmus satellites are only ever 2-3 at most (sometimes I sit a small satellite on top of 4 tourists). I sense its actually quicker to have a pre-designed rocket ready-to-go with minimal mods to fulfil 3-4 than building a "special" for putting together say 5+ contracts. I don't know for sure though. Similarly, after a while combining launches for Kerbin sats I now prefer one launch per satellite. I am not sure what is the best strategy for maximising reputation - clearly, declining or failing too many contracts is bad...but do I let the ones I don't want to do, time out, or explicitly decline them to see another (ie maximise the ones I want to do and do them?) Money and science are now no longer an issue, I've played it too many hours now!!!

I'll start saving up now......

I'm new too but it seems any sniff of exploration, and the career mode contracts will start coming in for it. For example, you have a wild night, build an enormous rocket and randomly fire it towards Jool ONCE, and then tourists start appearing asking to go to Jool AND RETURN!!! I think there's a knack of doing easier contracts and simultaneously using their suggestions to guide you towards a bit more exploration. I rather enjoy refining and making as efficient as possible, the easier contracts. For example there will always be a flow of Kerbin tundra and Kerbin Kolniya orbit satellites. They are always going to be similar; so I've made one design with a rocket underneath that I know drives nicely and does the job. Also I've gotten good at fulfilling 2, 3 or 4 contracts with a single launch - thus, improving my time management and hopefully rate of progress.