UmbralRaptor

Isp varies linearly with pressure (while the pressure is below 1 atm), so you can look at it as: Isp(pressure) = Isp(vacuum) - pressure * change_in_Isp eg: for an LV-N at sea level on Laythe: Isp = 800 - 0.8*580 = 336 (ads capi3101 got) Pressure with respect to altitude is a bit more complicated, as it falls off exponentially: P(altitude) = P(datum)*exp(-altitude/scale_height) Datum pressures and scale heights are available on the wiki. Note that once you're a few scale heights above the 1 atm line, you're essentially at vacuum pressures.

For a single stage, ÃŽâ€V == 9.82*Isp*ln(wet_mass/dry_mass) Given the limited advantages of adding more fuel, extra stages help a great deal. Once a stage is vaguely near its "ideal" (no payload) mass ratio, scaling it up further has little effect (not much growth in the raw mass ratio, and it has a sub-linear effect on ÃŽâ€V). But depending on other details, it's possible that the booster represent a minimal fraction of the rocket's overall mass. Pictures may help. In the case of the LV-T30, I suspect it's the difference in effective Isp of the stages -- the LV-T30's is ~40-50% better! (and depending on booster count, the TWR difference may not be an issue) (The 9.82 is only in KSP. For a real rocket you'd use 9.8 - 9.81 as the conversion factor, depending on assumptions.)

Unable to confirm. It seems to work in both Firefox and Chrome on my XP box. In the mean time, may I suggest a dedicated client (irssi, Chatzilla, xchat, etc) for IRCing?

If you know your speed at any given altitude (well, radial distance), you can find it at any other via conservation of energy: E = v²/2 - µ/r If you know at least some orbital parameters, you can mess around with the Vis-viva equation

0 usually equals 0. (The small gear bay is massless, and therefore by the rules of stock aerodynamics dragless)

1) The hard part is getting them into the water, but this is doable in stock. Parachutes or rover wheels are often involved. 2) Firespitter is I think the most common mod choice 3) How in depth do you want? Braeunig is a good general resource, as is wikipedia (you want the rocket equation*, Kepler's Laws, and the Vis-Viva equation in particular. For textbooks, I'm partial to Fundamentals of Astrodynamics * note that for KSP purposes, g0 is 9.82 m/s²(!)

The kerbalpedia/status/contract figures for atmospheres are oversimplifications that are wrong in some situations. Note that they've actually been wrong since kerbalpedia (the info panel) was implemented, but we haven't cared until contracts came along. [table=width: 450, class: grid] [tr] [td]Body[/td] [td]Contract Minimum Orbit[/td] [td]Stable Minimum Orbit[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Kerbin[/td] [td]70 km[/td] [td]69.078 km[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Eve[/td] [td]90 km[/td] [td]96.709 km[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Duna[/td] [td]50 km[/td] [td]41.447 km[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Laythe[/td] [td]50 km[/td] [td]55.262 km[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Jool[/td] [td]200 km[/td] [td]138.155 km[/td] [/tr] [/table]

Unfortunately, my one-liners about KSP are slowly becoming less relevant. That said:

I don't have FAR installed... how would a QBE + FL-T100 + 48-7S do? (This should be of roughly equivalent mass and have significantly higher ÃŽâ€V) The O-10's lack of mass is weird/should be fixed, but is comparatively minor. I know -- check the contributors. >_> Also the LV-1 (though not the LV-1R). That said, I'd sort of prefer an oxidizer bar for rocket engines...

Pics of the craft please? I'm fairly sure you'd need to use the FL-R1 (2.5 m) RCS tank to get anything to escape Kerbin. Of course, you can do much the same with careful design with other engines. I'd look into the KR-2L in particular... The O-10 engines have "PhysicsSignificance = 1" in their part.cfg for some reason, giving them effectively infinite TWR. This makes them far more powerful than they "should" be, although in practice Isp and mass ratio limits minimize the balance issue. Compare the payload fractions and cost per tonne to LKO for carrier rockets built around the O-10 with more conventional designs.

0.18.3? No. In principle, sufficiently old parts packs work with 0.7.3 - 0.13.3 (if you can find copies), but... why? As opposed to...?

Pics of craft? Mods? Standard flight procedures? There are many things that could be causing this.

Depends on mission design details. If getting back is sufficiently hard (eg: anything from the lower parts of Eve or Jool), transmitting may be the best option, especially if current technologies and funds are limited. Also note that a few kinds of science (crew and EVA reports) get 100% transmission rates.

It means that only 30% gets sent back to KSC to be used to unlock parts. The other 70% is still available, but you need to physically return it to Kerbin (and then recover whatever is storing it). Or to put it another way, the science system is forgiving. (ditto contracts, as you can fulfill the science ones by transmitting 0 value observations)

In 0.14.2 with the then new terrain.

The intake air gauge measures air stored at a given point in a single frame, rather than the amount taken in. I would suggest right clicking on the intakes and/or engines for additional info. edit: I'm pretty sure that you can't block intakes with stock aerodynamics, and I don't see any FAR instrumentation.

More easier than harder. While money is potentially an issue, it's quite possible to never run into limits with it. Contracts in career mode also give more opportunities to acquire science, making the tech tree easier to complete. Science and sandbox modes have no changes (beyond the general ones, see below) from 0.23.5. The general changes to the game as a rule make things easier. Aside from the LFB, all of the engine changes were buffs, so your favorite design(s) will perform bit better. The new O-10 and Vernor can only provide more options. The tech tree itself has seen minor reorganization. Most of the nodes requiring 2 prerequisites now only needing 1, and total science requirement to unlock slightly lowered. Best of all, it's now possible to get roll control with gimbaling engines!

None of the above per se. I'm subscribed to several RSS feeds for the various updates, though I keep on running into posts on the forums, reddit, twitter, etc...

They happen about every 141,114 s (A bit over 39 hours, or 6.5 Kerbin days, or 1.6 earth days). If you're at a point on Kerbin's equator, you can expect to spend something like 0.25% of the time with Kerbol at least partially eclipsed. (It would be more, but night happens) Or more simply, all the time.

It looks like all of the (very draggy) intake area is ahead of the center of mass. Moving it back (most likely with ugly hacks involving radial intakes or cubic octagonal struts) may help. Especially if the yawing is also an issue at highish speeds at low altitudes.

Looks mostly reasonable (though 4350 m/s to get to LKO would require a *perfect* ascent.) Alright, how? I get 798 m/s for munar escape from 5500 m. Maybe knock off another 9-10 m/s including the rotation. But you need ~50 m/s more to get back to Kerbin's atmosphere...

Hm. Looks like some US suits went down to 0.3 atm. Various Sokol derivatives were supposed to be at 0.4 atm, but could operate at 0.27 atm in an emergency. It's still a pressurized environment, so it should up the boiling point and solubility a bit. Not enough pressure to avoid gasses (ie: nitrogen) coming out of solution in the short term in either the 0 atm or 0.2 atm case, but for 0 atm, it would at least keep blood from vaporizing and leaking out. Of course, the lack of oxygen and possibly getting an aneurism from the gas coming out of solution (like you said) is rather unhealthy. I'm not sure I would call dissolved gasses coming out of solution boiling.

This. The exact AND nodes have changed over time, and as of 0.24.2, the only AND nodes are for ion and nuclear engines.

I'm going to write it off as another noob who didn't understand and/or read the rules.

It has everything to do with keeping your blood from boiling, though decompression sickness is still an issue. Your circulatory system pressurizes your blood to a bit above the ambient environment simply by pumping it through your body. (moreso with fighting gravity). It's pretty iffy at vacuum levels, but there are additional problems there... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armstrong_limit