colmo

This might be the place to ask - is there any chance of any of these stories getting published in an easily-read format, say epub or PDF? Tbh, I'd pay money for a printed compilation - I'm sure many of the authors would appreciated a few $ for their efforts.

Can't wait to get some playtime with the latest KK and KS. Are there any screenshots of Kampus out there to whet my appetite some more?

Credit to Roverdude, a lesser human couldn't have persuaded them. The man is a human dynamo. Where does he get the time and energy?

They're too far apart. Planes can only reliably launch under AI about 6km from the object in focus, irrespective of physics range beyond that - more than that, and bad things happen to them. I have plans for a Top Gun AI arena - two sites 10km apart in the desert or plains, or across a sea, with a launch site halfway between from which to launch two rockets with weapon managers, one for each team. These will trip radar systems placed at each site, and alert the planes they are teamed with. They will scramble and head towards the rockets, which will be destroyed, staged below 25% original mass, or run out of power, at which point the inbound planes lose interest in the rockets and engage each other. I've been so busy I haven't even touched my KSP PC in weeks, however.

Skylake hardware is seriously overpriced right now, to such an extent that Haswell-E has received a rush of attention by people looking for value.

Just caught up with the last update. No, can't volunteer, haven't even had time to fire up my PC in weeks. The operational buildings sound fantastic - the possibilities... Other things functional buildings could do: - Warehouses + storage silos for resource storage (modders could add non-stock resources such as RocketParts, Karbonite, Uranium, whatever) - resource conversion e.g. refineries, factories, power stations, part recycling plants. This dovetails with EPL and ISRU (stock and mod), but doesn't need them. Transfer of the resources to and from the buildings could use the existing fuel tank transfer system.

Nope, its landing gear parts Dice in his infinite wisdom bundled in his ICE mod. It uses Klaw-ish code to attach to other parts, ideally the deck of a carrier.

Apology accepted. I didn't care about losing, it was the way it went against the original vision of the concept, which was as a design contest, modelled on the real world, rather than the limits of the KSP aero. I have posted a concept of a no-holds barred version that does the latter (now that we have mod nukes, it could be hilarious...). A Wacky Races if you will. My Death Zeppelin will rule you all...

A year or two ago, the main runway was tricky enough to land on. Now, we can build balanced VTOLs with airbrakes. If you can't stick a landing, its your fault, not the runway's. Fengist, carry on marching to your own drum. As you say, it's your own vision that gets you out of bed in the morning, no-one else's. Oh, quick Q - what's to become of Dice's 'docking' landing gear? It's bundled in his ICE pack rather than Boat Parts. I suggested he use Klaw code to get around the issue of parking one craft on top of another - this does not end well on reload. Ideally, a mod that adds that capability to any gear would be perfect. It's not integral to the vision of this pack, I know, it's something for other modders to tackle. One alternative might be a dockable deck plate/helipad. E.g. objects in contact with (I.e. landed on) the helipad dock with it. I suspect there might be all sorts of issues with it though. P.S. win a tour of the RRS Discovery! http://www.nerc.ac.uk/latest/events/list/rrs-discovery-tours/

There is a way to shut off the engines using the normal AI behaviour. Designing VTOLs isn't easy for exactly the reason it needs to be balanced in both modes. The challenge is why it's fun to make them. If you see my discussion thread, I've proposed a VTOL Top Gun AI variant to pit VTOLs against each other.

No sepratrons needed, jet engines work. Sadly, the nerf the Wheesley engine got made VTOLs non-viable - it lacks the thrust to lift anything much, and a turbofan won't fit in the mk2 cargo bay without falling foul of our clipping rules.

Re: Kerbal militarisation, I only took an interest when AI got involved. Once BDA AI works on surface vehicles too, it could be fascinating to see the permutations. As Boat Parts will not be developed any further (aside from a few aesthetic touches, which will be appreciated), it might be worth seeing if someone wants to do a mod extension for it? I could try a new deck - it is, after all, a flattened cuboid, how hard can that be to model? There's a number of new advances in the game (e.g. cargo bays, ISRU, EPL, allista's Hangar mod, IR, KIS) which could extend what modular parts could be added to it. I'd like to make a completely self-sufficient floating exploration base.

Are there any planets with non-spherical oceans to simulate tides? Could it rotate at the same rate as the moon 'causing' it.

More succinct version of my post a few pages back:

Yes! Baddum-tish! Can engines be made non-air driven by aggressively curtailing their performance curves, such that their thrust hits zero as soon as they reach >0m altitude? Looking forward to this a lot - I've wondering what a carrier with a civilian Maritime texture theme will look like. And if that untidy broken stuff (there for a damange mod that never was) on the underside of the landing deck can be removed, that'd be great. Dice had a destroyer hull quite a while ago (>1 year), even showed it off on YouTube. Will that finally see light of day?

Great! The Firespitter / Boat Parts sea launch system was rather hairy...

Don't forget to factor in board price. I missed out on an OCUK socket 2011 bundle and getting a reasonably priced board since has proven difficult. This goes for socket 1151 as well. Socket 1150, having been around longer, has the best deals. Amazon Warehouse is a useful source for quality used items like motherboards.

At last, more helicopter parts! Will the rotor base attach blades, and thus use in-game physics to generate lift and change collective (harder to do, but much more fun!), or produce a thrust vector, like other present rotors do?

A small request to Baha - as there is a test to determine damage (75% mass loss and AI stops attacking), could the same test be used to A) create an action group trigger? trigger the Abort action group? The purpose is to bind the action group trigger to Abort, so the pilot can bail out, deploy pod chutes or whatever. If Vanguard mod has a trigger of it's own, A isn't needed, just bind it to Abort.

I'm remembering the times I took my variant of the Boat Parts carrier for a long voyage across the ocean. In time warp, docked planes would be adversely affected by time warp airflow and flopped through the deck at odd angles. Now that cargo bays effectively shield parts stowed within, it's feasible to make storage bays to stash planes for long trips, and avoid time warp flopping. It wouldn't work with individual parts made into a cargo bay, as Boat Parts does, it needs to be unified parts which surround the storage area, if I understand the new aero correctly. It might work underwater too, sub carriers! If you're willing to countenance a dependency, allista's Hangar mod avoid all of this by storing and unloading whole craft, but no-one has made their own parts using his code yet. The Hangar parts are unwieldy to use in carriers or subs.

I wouldn't fret too much about an arrestor system. When Infinite Dice made his, we didn't have much in the way or airbrakes or VTOL without mods. Now, it's trivial - even regular control surfaces can be setup for airbraking, the trick is to deploy them so one set offsets the pitch imparted by another set. There's always a repackageable chute for emergencies. I'm still a bit grumpy that the basic engine got nerfed so hard it doesn't have sufficient thrust to be a VTOL engine stowed in a Mk2 cargo bay. I'm hoping the little 0.625m jets PorkJet previewed for next release can do the job.

I'm very supportive of a civilian approach to this pack. I've said before I like exploration and research style vehicles - they're not shiny, expensive vessels, they're very utilitarian. I had the pleasure of a day on this research vessel operating out of Southampton: https://goo.gl/photos/3HbKgDJb47EFD5X86 The Callista is a small boat, under 20m long (over 20m and they need a pilot, £!), but the ultimate is something like the RRS Discovery. http://noc.ac.uk/research-at-sea/ships/rrs-discovery There's a thread elsewhere about a mod idea to collect rock, liquid and gas samples using KIS. It never got anywhere, but a CTD device off a KAS winch would be a bread and butter oceanographic science experiment. http://noc.ac.uk/research-at-sea/nmfss/nmep/ctd

I remember when PorkJet was a rookie modder. Fengist has made similar strides, there's no reason at all he won't reach a similar standard given enough time. Love that sub btw. That's what a leisure cruiser sub would look like...if they existed. Does it dovetail with Mk3 parts?

Good stuff. Baha is working on auto-linking radars, so that may enhance teamwork in future 2v2 events. Alas, work and a power failure in my home have put paid to my participation in this one. Good luck - if you tag your videos with #TopGunAI on YouTube, I can easily add them to the playlist.