Vanamonde

Neomorph, now F2 hides the magenta icons on other objects even if you have F4 turned on. Actually, I liked it the previous way, with F2 and F4 being separate toggles which didn't affect each other. Sometimes it's handy to turn off the HUD and scan the sky for your rendezvous target's icon.

That is a good first step, and a lot harder than one might think.

Incidentally, can the guy get out of that capsule with the batteries over the door?

I don't think Squad dislikes us enough to make Eve the sole source of a necessary resource. Either way, remember that a big part of the difficulty of Eve right now is not getting off of it, but hauling TO it everything you need to get OFF of it again. If you have the parts and materials on-hand, it's no great feat to build a 13,000dV (or whatever the exact figure is) launch vehicle.

Launch windows never actually end; they just become less efficient the further you are from the ideal moment. You can fly from any point to any other point at any time, provided you have enough dV, so launch windows are actually nothing more than the least-fuel-expensive moments to go somewhere.

The patcher hasn't worked for a while. Just get a fresh download of the new version.

This the second thread in recent days complaining about how much other people on the forum appreciate the game's developers. Well, I DO appreciate them. If you want to accuse me of defending the developers, that's exactly what I'm doing. The guys at Squad know they could be making a great deal more money if they cranked out yet another mindless shoot-'em-up, and while doing so, they could use established and tested code to avoid bugs. Instead, they are making the game they themselves wanted to play when they were kids, and because it's not the same old programming problems, they will encounter whole new bugs to deal with. THEY ARE WORKING HARDER FOR LESS MONEY, in order to make A LABOR OF LOVE, rather than just another lame-brained action game. And what about those bugs? Does Squad ignore them? No, a few days after every major update, we get a patch that fixes several bugs. Does it fix the bug you find most objectionable? Maybe not, but they can't fix them all at once. So where is the basis for these complaints that Squad is becoming lazy and complacent? Are they ignoring player complaints? There are HUNDREDS of player complaints, so they couldn't individually address them all if they had ten times their current staff (which is what, 12? 13?). They deal with some and postpone addressing others, as resources and priorities allow. Now imagine that you're one of the guys at Squad and you're hoping people enjoy the game you're making, so you check the forum and find that you're being accused of arrogance, laziness, incompetence, and there are often insinuations that you are actually trying to trick and ripoff the players of your game. Would you go back to KSP, fired up with enthusiasm to make it even better? You're darned right I'm going to defend these guys, because they're doing something worth defending. And guys, I will say this again, the fact that other players disagree with you is not censorship, and it doesn't mean you're being oppressed. (Star-ratings on threads as a sign that the game may be doomed? Seriously?) There are two entire sub-fora devoted to reporting problems with the game and getting help with them, and other players will try to help in the how-to section. Everybody is free to point out problems with the game at any time. However, you may run afoul of other posters and moderators if, instead of reporting a problem, you just complain that "This update sucks and Squad should be ashamed!" That isn't helpful, and may earn you a scolding, as it should. Please, just accept that other players may be happier with the game than you are, and stop seeing yourself as an oppressed victim of tyranny.

I don't seem to be having any serious problems, but my analog throttle slider on my joystick has been responding sporadically since I moved to 20.1. I had a plane crash because I couldn't throttle up in time to avoid flying into a cliff. Has anybody else noticed that?

The reason they don't plan to include an autopilot is that you won't need one. In the full game they intend to make, Kerbals will gain experience by flying and eventually be able to perform missions themselves while you are elsewhere. So your pilots will be your autopilots. That's also why they've said SAS and ASAS are stopgap measures; kerbals will take over the job of stabilizing the ship as well. Come to think of it, this might explain why manned capsules have so much more control torque than probes. I wonder if that will represent not just the capacities of the part, but the fact that the capsules assume a pilot will be at the controls as well?

That is a cool little thing, Astrobug. I am going to steal that fuel-on-top idea the next time I need to build a small lander.

Although the failure ratings listed in the VAB info CLAIMS the cubic strut is stronger, I have had problems with them failing or simply falling off. But I swear by the small hardpoints, which never seem to fail. In fact, they are often the only intact parts left after a crash. I love those little things. And while it is possible to stitch struts directly across abutting pieces of the same diameter, placing them is kind of a pain, and god help you if you ever decide to move them, because the little terminus nubs can be partially or entirely submerged within the fuselage pieces, where they are almost impossible to grab again. So I'm not saying Anglave is wrong, but I do advise differently. (No offense, I hope.)

Yes, three-fold symmetry means that along one axis there is twice as much mass on one side as on the other side of that axis, and it seems to make the other axis misbehave as well. It's better to mount things in pairs or put the odd piece in the center. As for the thrusters, if they are not also mounted in pairs at right angles to each other, some will be trying to help by firing at goofy angles, causing all kinds of mayhem.

That means your thrusters are not placed symmetrically around the center of mass. In the VAB, temporarily remove the lower stages and turn on the COM marker so that you can adjust the thruster placement around it.

My big projects are frustrating me, so I took a break to see if I could land a plane on each of the unimproved islands southeast of KSC.

Those big struts are fairly massive. Small hardpoints will do the same job for a fraction of the weight.

Tripod27, how are you using the strut? Could we see a pic of the underside of your rover? By the way, with mine it's always the front wheels that do the weirdness.

I'm not seeing your pictures. Are you using a link from a free service like Imgur.com?

They don't always go the same direction. I don't know how the direction IS chosen, but I had a guy place two, and they were pointing different directions.

I don't see any SAS modules in that pic, and engines at the fore of a ship is very prone to instability and lack of control. Fix those two things and your problem will diminish or go away. Oh, and the engine above the rover strut my be close enough that the exhaust is cancelling itself out, leaving you with only 2 working engines that are not symmetrical around the centerline.

Rover suspensions:

This is my main reason as well. Look around the forum at all the posts that say something like, "Help! I installed Mod X and now my Kerbals have no faces!" or, "Why are all my engines thrusting 135 left from their axis? I only have 29 mods installed!" and, "I'm sticking with the previous version of KSP until the mods are updated." Who needs the headaches? I just want to sit down and be able to play a game that works.

I've been playing for a year and still keep thinking of new things to try.

ThomasCZ, that's actually a pretty good moon base.