MidwestB

Hello! Reading these updates the last few weeks has been great. Really appreciating the insights. The changing orbits and shifting trajectories on SOI changes are the things keeping me from purchasing the game currently. I don't mind if science is way later, I just want to go see places like Dres' rings or Vall's ice canyons. Been playing KSP1 since 0.16, when there was just Kerbin, the Mun and not much else! Last week it was mentioned that the orbit changes are due to an aggregation of wobbles. Do the devs have a tool to see the forces, or acceleration of a craft in orbit? Can they see these values for a craft while it's orbiting? It seems like analyzing these values would help get to the cause for orbits changing/how the wobbliness is causing it. What direction is a force acting to cause the orbit to change? Is it a drag, normal, or anti-normal force? Is it random or oscillating? Is it stronger in one direction, and if so why? Is there a way to help figure it out better? I'm tempted to get the game to try helping look into it more/experiment with it. It seems like a really interesting problem to solve and I hope there is a write up about it once it's cracked!

Every new version I plan on landing and returning from every body. Started it once with Moho and made it, then got to Eve and got stuck, so now I start with Eve. I've never made it and stop playing shortly after each release and wait for the next.

So the old chase cam is still in? That is great news. I'm at least three hours out from opening the game myself and can't wait!

I have been looking forward to stock resources for a long time since I don't care to use mods. I love building interplanetary ships in orbit, but fueling them around Kerbin is a pain. I'm thinking building around the Mun, sending a large ship out that'll be mostly empty by the time it gets there, refuel on the Mun and then go up and fuel the construction will be awesome. I'll just have to find a way to make it cost effective...

99% certain it'll be be female kerbals with "Project V" being named for Valentina Tereshkova

I just did a few cotracts for stations in orbit around Kerbin and ran into a problem. Searching the board, I found this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/105623-Ideas-for-making-the-station-outpost-contracts-better But I don't think it matches with what I would like to suggest. The contracts only seem to require that batteries, antennae and docking ports be launched new, which could be done with a small shuttle, as long as the complete station has something else stipulated in the contract, such as a science lab or cupola, which doesn't need to be launched new. The problem is when you dock the newly launched equipment with a preexisting station, the parts are marked as old. Here's an example of what I did to figure this out: I did a contract, got a station up and then took another contract that was for the same station, plus a science lab. The first module had space for 5 kerbals and all the equipment (it didn't need a science lab and didn't have one) while the second module had the same equipment and a science lab, but only had space for 2 kerbals instead of five. Launching the second module, the objectives for the newly launched power, antenna and docking port along with a science lab were completed. When the module docked with the first, the room for 5 kerbals objective also became completed, but the one for launching the new equipment became unchecked. I had to do another launch to dock a 3 man pod onto the second module and undock from the first module to get the contract completed. If there's a way to tell that a module docked to a station was launched after a contract was accepted, I think it would make it possible to keep using a same station to dock to and maybe result in contracts requiring more components on a station since you could already have some in orbit.

Hmm, adding all the biomes and the fact that destructible buildings in .25 are supposed to be ground work for something that may be in .26 as well? Sounds like a lot of fun

Everyone's talking about this surprise feature, but I'm really excited for this update. I'm interested to see how the strategies work out (my science returns take a hit as I concentrate on contracts), improved navball so I don't have to do the occasional flail through space to find the proper node, reworked Mk. 1 parts and new SP+ parts! (I don't use mods, but SP+ is very pretty). On top of all this cool stuff, we get an optional bonus of destructible buildings (My funds fear for the safety of the launchpad, I feel it will need to be repaired quite a bit) Even though the official release date is SOONâ„¢, it kinda sounds like .25 will be out next week and I'm stoked!

I love building ships in orbit, even developed a portable asparagus platform that fuel tanks could be docked to so the entire thing didn't have to be sent in one piece. Got to Moho and back first try a few versions ago, but fuel was scarce on the return trip...

I saw this too. It doesn't look as over the top as people are making it out to be. There's the delta-V map for the Kerbol system on the board, with biome names and what I'm guessing are ships at the top right and bottom left of that board. Then there's a picture of a completed tech tree on the tablet that's probably from the wiki. The most obsessed thing I see is the binder with tabs for maps and planet stats for each body which I think is a pretty good idea, actually. Overall neat, but not really anything to freak out over.

Starting out, I must have been making rockets that were more expensive than what I was earning and my funds got too low to build what I wanted for some missions. Had to do some simpler things to earn back enough. Got up to 500k Roots by the time I stopped playing 5 hours after starting though.

Awesome, thanks!

Hello, I'm working my way through part testing contracts and the notes for the contracts says to activate the parts through staging. I saw on one of the pre-release videos that it was possible to right click a part in flight and click a "Test Part" button, but it's not there now. I understand anything can change before release and this feature could have been removed, but I was wondering if anyone has some input on this. Otherwise I gotta get a Rockomax SRB up to 3.7km and 280m/s before lighting it

I think it was said you get 100% funds back for parts recovered from the runway. If you're able to land there, "launch" a truck on the runway, refuel and then recover it, you should get all your funds back minus the fuel used. It would be nice to just have a button that refuels it for you though,.

It's actually the same engine used right now, but this update would allow it to support multithreading, which is doesn't currently. With multithreading, the physics calculations the game performs can be performed concurrently on separate threads rather than all on the same one. Bottoms line, launching large ships, and times when you're coming in to dock with a large station should become much smoother. At least, that's been my understanding. x64 support is nice, but I don't run mods and haven't run into any memory issues yet. I *have* run into poor performance with large crafts and reading up on it has always led me to the answer that it's the physics engine/processor being a bottle neck because of the lack of multithreading. (I'm WAY more excited for this physx update than the x64 support!)

Physx gaining multithreading support is one of the things I'm most looking forward to because of its possible use in KSP. Squad has made no confirmation that they will be incorporating Unity 5 when it comes out, but man, I really hope they do!

Pet peeve of mine is how engines and decouplers can't be stacked together in the VAB and how sometimes placing 6 engines or decouplers will be added as a group of 4 and a group of 2. Just makes it a pain to move them all between stages. It seems like this has been a thing since when I got the game at least in .16.

I've definitely been browsing the forums more than playing. It just takes so much less time to read a mission than performing one. I haven't played much since .22 when I was going to try to land on each body and return starting from Moho and working my way out. Did Moho, but got stuck at Eve, and the time it takes me to test a ship on Kerbin to the point I think it'll work on Eve, then send it to Eve only to have it not work is very discouraging. I try it again every once in a while, but not like I used to and I like to build my own ships without using someone else's.

I got one, but didn't get pics. Coming in to dock with a space station, I had an empty stage of two stacked orange tanks with a Mainsail on the bottom. At about 700m away, I decoupled them, but they were pointing towards the station. I figured that I'm usually off slightly at that distance, but I ended up following the tanks in and they smashed into the station. It wasn't even a clipped solar panel, but just about dead on, broke apart mostly everything and sent it all spinning. I reloaded a quick save from when I got into orbit and did it right this time, making sure to eject the tanks angled to the station. They probably missed by a hundred meters or so the second time.

So can the lab carry infinite experiments, EVA reports, crew reports and everything? Also, do you need to use kerbals on EVA to transfer data, or can it be transferred between docked ships like fuel? EDIT: Apologies, I found my answers here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62211-Is-the-processing-lab-actually-any-use-at-all%21/page2

Was messing around trying to make a SSTO that could go dock with a small thing I had in orbit and wasn't really getting anywhere. On my sixth or seventh redesign, I put on a single linear RCS thruster on the belly just in case. The plane ended up making it into orbit and I was able to rendezvous and dock. It was my first time docking and I was very surprised I made it, especially with the unbalanced RCS.

Hello, I'm wondering if there's a reason for the new chat? The words cover up the parts in the VAB, it can't be moved and "`" has to be pressed for every sentence. Sometimes, when BackQuote is pressed to chat, typing doesn't work and the text box has to be clicked. This has led to some minor and major heart attacks for me as sometimes it won't register my keystrokes for ships and other times it will, causing me to stage multiple times or accidentally turn on my throttle. Also, the !help and !getcraft commands no longer seem to work with this new chat and were very useful for me and the people I've played with. I understand making the chat moveable is a goal for 0.1.4, but having to hit a key every time a message is sent to send another is kind of a pain. I don't really see what was wrong with the old chat to warrant this change other than it was opaque which could be hidden anyway if moving it wouldn't work in the first place.

It will be released when it's ready. If you've been watching the past few days, it's reached 100% and near 100% a few times before more bugs are added. The due date has also been pushed a few times. I love this mod and am excited for the latest release, but things can always pop up so I wouldn't say it's done until it's released.

It sounds like people want career mode without having to unlock all the parts and that seems pretty lame. To me, the sandbox will be a good place to test ship designs that you can use in career and just do the science in career. Not being able to see little messages in one game mode when you can see them in another really are not anything to get worked up about.

Multi-port docking is very tricky to get to work. You have to come in perfectly for all the ports to dock together otherwise only a couple might. I guess the trick for it is to take it slow and steady and really make sure you're lined up as you come in. Also, rather than using girders, you could use the tri or quad adapters and put ports on those, then you wouldn't have to worry about the girders flexing and causing the ports to move slightly out of alignment.