Scarecrow71

In a lot of the tutorials and videos I've seen, people are able to zoom in on target bodies and see where maneuvers are taking them. They are then able to edit nodes while zoomed in on the target body, which allows them to very carefully refine their line of travel; this helps people with orbiting and gravity assists and such. How is this done? When I set a celestial body as the target and try to create a node and zoom in, I am not getting the benefit of seeing the lines in the same way I see in the videos. I have to constantly guess at how close I am to the body (I know I can hover over the encounter points and see Ap/Pe/An/Dn and such). But to get a close-up visual of where I'm headed? Can't do it. What am I missing? What key binding am I not remembering here to allow me to see this?

For those of us that don't know what an inertial guidance device is: That's the technical definition from Wikipedia (the link to the article is below). I guess my first, and probably only, question on this is: What is MechJeb missing that doesn't cover this? Inertial navigation system - Wikipedia

Banned for being mostly harmless.

I always try to budget more than I need, primarily because I am not perfect. Heck, even the computer gets it wrong. But thank you for the answer! I thought that was the case, but I needed to just be sure!

I'm going to be heading to Dres soon (yes, it DOES exist), and I'm trying to build a craft to land on the surface of it. I can see on the dV map that low Dres orbit is 12km, and it takes 430 m/s of dV to land from that point. As a point of clarification, my question: Does this also mean that I would need 430 m/s of dV to get back to low Dres orbit? I'm assuming it does, but as I've never tried to planet hop in this game before, I want to make sure before I spend all that time only to have to revert. KSP Delta-V Planner (loicviennois.com)

2382: You walk into a jam session with The Cult. The play Fire Woman, and you leave.

Yeah, I may have to do that. I've never docked before, and I know there's a pretty steep learning curve with that. So I am gonna practice and do the in-game tutorial, while trying every design trick I can muster.

That movie was made in Jersey. Bada-Bing Bada-Boom Fuhgeddaboutit Bimbino Twin Craters

A mob movie is made there. Bada-bing Bimbino Twin Hills

Just checking in to say that I am still working on this. I'm having a bit of difficulty with designing a rocket right now; I've got a lander and transfer stage, but designing something to get off Kerbin is posing issues. I really don't want to have to pick up docking ports, but I might have to in order to get access to better tanks and engines. Sans that, anybody have any advice?

Muhammad Ali shows up. Pre-grilled Free Bavarian Bears Thrilla in Manilla Hill

To be honest, I don't even use the Atmospheric Autopilot, so it's not breaking me if I have to uninstall it. I'm not even sure why I have it installed, to be honest. Assuming it only impacts low-altitude flight (flight under 70km, after which point we'd be in orbit), I haven't even used it as I'm not flying planes just yet. I copied over my install into a second location so I could run both Kerpollo and Caveman at the same time without having to install/uninstall MJ every time I fire up KSP; I simply was not aware that this was game- or challenge-breaking to the point that it isn't allowed. I do see the red notice that mods that affect gameplay aren't allowed, but seeing as KER and MJ are explicitly called out, I guess I just assumed that everything else I had was cool. I'll go ahead and uninstall it just to be on the safe side; no harm, no foul. I'm not using it anyhow, so it's not like it's a major deal. But if this invalidates this entry I guess I can start over?

Well, I never learned how to parallel park. Seriously. I never learned. In fact, when I took my driver's test all those years ago, the instructor was getting ready to make me parallel park...but no spaces were available. He looked at me and said "Well, you've missed only 1 point so far, and this is the last thing, so...fudge it. You're good. Let's head inside and get your picture taken." Yep, didn't have to do it. So I never learned.

So I'm taking on multiple challenges at once, both this one and Kerpollo. Which means I end up flipping between them to do stuff. And today it's Caveman day. This career keeps giving me these gimme contracts. Test LV-909 “Terrier” Liquid Fuel Engine at the Launch Site, and Test LY-10 Small Landing Gear at the Launch Site. That’s an easy 2 science points that I can’t pass up. But now, it’s on to bigger and better science points. Need to farm all the science out of the KSC that I can, using this little doohickey: I’m basically rolling around the KSC with Bob on board so I can hit all the distinctive areas in 1 run: Administration Building, Astronaut Complex, Mission Control, R&D, SPH, Tracking Station, and the VAB. Netted myself 141.3 science, with which I was able to unlock General Construction and Advanced Construction. Only 9 nodes to go, which means I need another 810 (90 x 9) science points to finish off the challenge. Where to get that tasty science from, though. Have to look through the contracts and see what I’ve got there. And a check there shows I’ve got a contract to do a fly-by of the Mun. So it looks like it’s time to send Jeb towards the Mun and gather some science. I’m gonna need ~4000 m/s of dV in order to do this (3400 to get into orbit, and at least another 600 to do a fly-by). And without maneuver nodes and other such nonsense, I get to eyeball this. Yay me! Here’s ship on the launchpad: I know that the dV for stage 3 will go up as I ascend, so this ship should get me to the Mun and back. Not a landing, but just a fly-by for those tasty science points. And away we go. Orbit achieved: And near the Mun: And back in Kerbin’s SOI: Now, in the Kerpollo challenge, one of the statements made is to take pictures like you're on vacation. So I took this one: If you zoom in on the Mun there, that crater looks like the front of the Death Star. At least, it does to me. So no, that’s no Mun; that’s a space station. Anyhow, back to the ground game: Yeah, I forgot to take the shot of Jeb in the water before recovering the vessel, so the shot of the Mission Summary will have to do at this point. Took me 9 aerobraking rotations to get back on the surface; it’s kind of hard to slow down when you’re out of fuel. Although, I’d really only count 8 of them; the last one I barely got back out of the atmosphere. And by barely, I mean the Ap ended up being just over 70km. Anyhow, I netted 122 science points on this run, which allows me to unlock Electrics. The tech tree now looks like so, after all the science gathering and spending today: So I've now got 8 nodes to go. At 90 science points per, that's another 720 science points to go. But I now have probe cores, which mean I can now go get science in space with the SC-9001, and then do a fly-by of Minmus. I will save almost a full ton of weight by using the OKTO, which will really help. I might also have to create a plane to fly around Kerbin and see about hitting the Desert Launch Site...and maybe do some of those survey contracts. But, for now, the above is where I stand!

King of the Hill?

I will assume that a variation of everything I'm about to say has already been said. But, you know, I'm gonna say it anyway. Scientists are the most important Kerbals in the game. You can either bring multiple copies of science gadgets, or you can let Bob collect and store all the data. You'll save weight on those unneeded copies, which will give you more dab in the long run. This, however, means... ...Always bring a pilot on trips outside Kerbin's SOI unless you use MJ for maneuver planning. Only pilots can create nodes without line of sight to the KSC. MechJeb is by far the greatest mod there is. Yes, you can land manually. But why? Let the computer do the heavy lifting. The single-most important thing I learned: there is no wrong way to play this game. If you do something that gives you enjoyment, it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. You do you.

Slightly, but not entirely, related question. Have the devs indicated how they are even going to handle interstellar travel? Will it be a simple "fling yourself in this direction and hope for the best", or are they going to use future tech stuff like jump gates or hyperspace? Black holes/wormholes?

I'm working on Mohollo right now without docking ports. I've got the lander/return vehicle at 7000ish dV, but ran out of time to finish the whole thing. I figure if I can pull off Moho with no ports, then I can get Dres and maybe Eeloo. Trying so hard to not have to dock.

I was a member of another site dedicated to gaming, and that site had a forum lounge game called "Guess that Video Game". Someone would post an image of a game, and the first person to guess what the game was would post the next game, and so on. Ok, so shortly after 1.8.1 came out, someone posted a few shots in that thread from KSP. The ine that caught my attention was the shot of the VAB, with a ship in construction. When someone finally named the game, I went out and Googled it. Haven't looked back since

Say? No, I'd sing: