haltux

Even if you want to use a single launch, I strongly suggest you to use a separate lander which, once its mission is over, go back to its orbiter before going back home. On the Mun, it is not really helpful (going back to Kerbin from Mun orbit being very cheap), but from other planets it helps a lot. Anyway, after having spent quite some time playing KSP, I think orbital assembling is both more fun and more satisfying. Massive rockets (required for single launch interplanetary return missions) are ugly, unstable, painfull to manoeuvre and put your PC on its knees.

When you want your Kerbal to take a walk just after a Mun landing and you realize your radial parachute is blocking the door.

Yes, correct, unless KSP wiki is wrong. That's explicitely stated here: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/SAS In my opinion, it's a pity. There is not any kind of rational behind this, neither from the physical point of view, nor from the gameplay point of view. It means that the only way to efficiently rotate a rocket without RCS is to put Kerbals in it :-(

I was sending an additional module to my Munar base, based on a Cupola module and a hitchhiker, with a minimalistic rocket. Fortunately, only 1 Kerbal was on board. The beginning of the trip was fine, but my delta-V calculation were wrong , and I ran out of fuel close to my destination. 5000 m over the Mun surface, 100 m/s, no thrust. After some seconds of panic, I decide to abandon the ship. EVA, ladder release, RCS on. Then I ignite a long, constant burn up to reduce my vertical velocity, only interrupted by some lateral burn to adjust my trajectory. After some tens of seconds of flight, I land with null speed straight in the middle of my base, surrounded by a jubilant crowd of Kerbals acclaiming me (ok that last point could be slightly exaggerated). That was actually not the most difficult thing I did. But clearly it was the most epic.

On Eve, I would suggest to try using a MK25 parachute. It is semi-deployed high and it does provide a very significant drag (4). My assumption (honestly, I have not actually tried it on Eve) is that with the thickness of Eve's atmosphere it should kill your horizontal velocity very quickly at a reasonably high altitude. So you try to fly not too high (but no need to be very low either) over your target, and you open a MK25 a bit before reaching it. Another option is to kill horizontal velocity with thrust, but of course it is a waste of fuel.

Seriously? OK, let's check Wikipedia. Piracy: "Piracy is typically an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea" Abandonware: "Abandonware is a product, typically a software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no product support is available". No match, sorry.

Why not Gilly? It is the easiest trip if you wish to return to Kerbin. Much more likely than silly choices like Eeloo.

A space elevator is geostationary. 36000 km average. Otherwise it falls. Unless it is rigid enough and then it is called a tower.

All this "proof" thing is a bit weird, but I guess the point is to show off with nice postcards:

Some advices: - Put your base on the equator. Much simpler. - Use the map and manoeuvre nodes as much as possible. The idea is to flight exactly above your target, at low altitude. So the point where your trajectory disappear in the planet should be just "after" your target. Don't aim exactly your target or it will be too "short" when you do the final break. - When getting closer check that you go in the right direction with your marker. Prograde marker should be in the same vertical plan than target marker. It prooves that you are in the right direction. You can also use external view and see whether your target "slides" on the left or the right. - Even close to your target, check the map often. Your displayed trajectory is helpful with a precision under a kilometer. - When you are almost vertical (depending of your engine power) to your target at low altitude, thrust retrograd to kill your horizontal speed. Final approach, if you wish to land less than a hundred meter of your target, is the most tricky part, especially because of the lack of satisfying view for the job. Honestly, the best advice is to quicksave and train. It helps a lot to have Advanced SAS. Stay perfectly vertical most of the time and control your vertical speed. To change your horizontal direction, release ASAS, lean a bit, burn quickly, go back vertical and lock ASAS again. Some people use RCS to translate, I guess it is convenient, but never tried it. Extensively use your prograde marker, and speed indicator.

Use docking ports, there is no other approaches for now. At least with stock parts.

I know Newton. I said it was unsignificant. You are taking an extreme case in which, yes, it would make a difference. But practically in KSP you have two medium size spaceships connected with a two meters wide iron dock and with all engines off you can break it only with the power of your electric powered CMG. This is completely ridiculous. And why 10 cm wide struts are way more robust than 2 meters wide docks? Mystery... Better no bending at all (honestly who would care?) than a bending model that exagerate the effect one million times. Each time I show KSP I have the same comment: "why on earth does everything bend and wobble?". It really kills the immersion.

I disagree. In terms of rendering, you can always degrade quality/nb of polygons when required / when objects are too far (just like it is currently done with planet surface). This is not straightforward but this is always doable. Even simpler: you could decide the level of details for objects in the settings (currently you decide the quality of polygon rendering, but not, as far as I know, the number of polygons per objects). Of course it would require some work. In terms of physics, I think the whole squad approach is wrong from the beginning. We don't need this ridicoulous robber rockets/stations. A rocket, or a station, should be one single rigid object. We would not have spinning with no reason, we would not have unexplainable wobbling. And of course, it would make the whole physics of the game much simpler. As I said in a previous thread which was immediatly locked, significantly bending an object in space by applying a force at some point makes no sense. I think Squad made this choice of a spring model for objects joints to have fun with rocket dismantling, but at the end of the day we pay a too high price for that.

Yes, frame rate impacts physics, because the position of each body is recomputed at each frame, so the lower the frame rate is, the more each objects move between each computation, making the complete model less precise. That can lead to various problems like more wobbling. For the same reason you get a warning about the fact that physical warp impacts rocket behaviour.

About the main topic, that is most anticipated feature, I would vote for space stations that do not wobble nor spin. More generally, I think bug solving is a higher priority than additional features. Decent drag model and reentry heat would be nice too.

That's not so clear. Background flight are using a simplified model. No thrust, no drag, no rocket mechanics, and of course no rendering. With the patch conic approximation, their position is straightforward to compute and can be computed at any point in time, on demand (so you can update their position whenever you need/want). The only thing that could bloat the system is trajectory drawing on the map, but with a good filtering system it could be solved. It does not sound technically too complex to handle hunderds, maybe thousands objects.

I wish I would like Ion engine but I hate them. I don't understand how you are supposed to power them. They would probably be a bit more usefull if there were intermediate solar panels: bigger than the standard one and smaller than the XLs, way to big for probes.

Sure. I think "vertical asent" should be unerstood as "prograde ascent", that is going prograde once you leave the atmosphere. Practically, prograde ascent is very close to vertical both on earth and kerbin. No you don't. If you reach the escape velocity (which is 11 km/s at the surface of earth and decreases with altitude), you never come back to earth even if you switch off engines. You escape earth forever, assuming you are not orbiting another body which brings you back to earth at some point. That's the definition of escape velocity.

About the main topic of the thread, I wish Kerbal should require more inhabitable space when travel gets longer. A small capsule should be ok for the mun, but much bigger (and heavier) modules with advanced life support should be required for interplanetary missions. More generally, more science / life support modules for space station and spaceship, and the ability to move Kerbals from one module to another inside the ship. Another feature I wish would be advanced life management for Kerbals, associated to hibernation mode so that stranded Kerbal could still wait forever until someone fetch them.

Sorry to disappoint you but Europa might have liquid oceans, but deep under the ice :-( Europa is "just" an ice ball without (significant) atmosphere. Just like Vall.

No, sorry to insist but no. I just don't want people to get the wrong ideas after this thread. What you say is perfectly true when the goal is to orbit. But here the goal is to reach escape velocity. There is no evidence that orbiting helps in terms of fuel consumption to reach escape velocity. It somehow makes sense to do that because you need less thrust on upper stage and so you can have smaller engines. But that is a side question. At the simple, purely physical question: give a 1 stage rocket, what is the best way to escape with the least possible fuel consumption, the answer is not "orbiting as low as possible". The answer is, I believe, "go vertical in the atmosphere and then prograde", which is almost a vertical ascent on Kerbin. I think the best approach now would be to go to some actual science forum and find some guy who would do the math for us. Well at some point you reach escape velocity, and you do never fall back. That's the whole point of the thread.

I switched to Steam as I found that convenient, but if I had to pay it now, I think I would rather pay Squad directly, I guess they make more money that way.

Actually, rings and asteroid belts are planned. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/16723-UNOFFICIAL-FANMADE-0-17-Discussion-Thread-2?p=235429&viewfull=1#post235429 I have to say I am rather surprised as well. I wonder how they will manage that.

That was my point, thanks to express it in a more formal, clear way. So it will make a (small) difference in KSP, confirmed by previous experiment, and no difference at all in real life, where engine weight is unsignificant.

Sorry but I am not convinced. Gravity assist by another planet is a completely different story. As nicely explained in this web page, gravity assist is based on the fact that the planet that assists you is moving. It is just like if you hold a car in rollerblades to accelerate for free. Except that the car is a planet, and the hold is a gravity hold. Using Kerbin gravity to help you escape from Kerbin does not work that way. I am not too convinced either by the other posts (no offense). I'll make my own experiments, and I would also be very glad to hear a physically sound explanation.