Neomatt

Got the whole orange crew today. Bigger than I expected.

It's the Sun actually. Also, I'm pretty sure the Sun's SOI has no limit (you only quit it when you enter another SOI), so: - passing into interstellar space: if you mean escaping the Solar System, yep, it can be done. - I actually forgot if solar panels work less, more or the same depending of the distance (I think they work less if you're really close to the sun). All in all, you should have less light if you're really far, so less energy. Don't see it going to zero though.

I wouldn't be against a "special edition" of the game box in physical form, via a Kickstarter or something. Especially if it contains a few goodies: a KSP soundtrack (not sure how Kevin MacLeod feels about this), all the versions from 0.8 to the current one/last one (yep, probably should be done after release or something) on a special KSP USB key, a concept art booklet, etc. If it's something like 50 bucks for production costs, I'm sure some fans will like having a boxed copy. I know I would display it somewhere at my place.

Okay, so in this case, it's the Rocket Equation (from Tsiokovsky): deltaV = Isp of your rocket x 9.8m/s² x ln (mass at the beginning/mass at the end).

A few points: - delta-V is (simplified) thrust over mass in a period of time (integrals, aaaah, I forgot those). And no, more engines but same fuel means shorter burns with a higher deltaV. It (in its most simple form) doesn't include the gravitional pull, so you have to "remove" it from the thrust in the equation. - when to add another engine? Depends on a lot of criteria: ISP of the engine, its weight, how you stage those (asparagus is a prime example of this: your rocket as-is, or your rocket + some fuel + some engines, then as-is: you keep the deltaV for the central part after staging, but have a different one for the whole). So, no easy answer. I also think you're thinking of the TWR (thrust-to-weight ratio), which also varies over time (supposing your rocket is going up ).

That's pretty much my opinion. Also, I'm sure resources are being worked on in parallel of all that, it's just that it's a monstrous task, and only doing one thing can get tiresome. And a tired dev doesn't do a good job. Actually, one of my expected features is not resources, but the aerodynamic update; really curious to see what will happen on that front (but it's probably for 0.23, if not more).

Lite-Black on reddit also posted his Jeb: http://imgur.com/gallery/YqCQpJb/new I ordered all 3 shortly afterwards. They look so beautiful. edit: and SkunkMonkey just posted his Bill: http://imgur.com/a/LeaX8#0

Yeah, glass is heavy, very heavy. In "From the Earth to the Moon", they explained in the episode when they designed the LM that the astronauts were supposed to sit during landing, with huge glass bays to see where they land. To reduce weight drastically, the standing position + mini-window was found as good and saved a lot of weight.

Apart from the scales, N-body problem, and some oddities like Minmus, KSP is rather good at physics approximations. Maybe if you go into non-Newtonian physics (relativity, etc), that's where some inconsistencies are visible.

Jebediah "laughing at danger" Kerman. The orange crew is my favourite (and the one I don't want stranded. Well, they're on Eve now), but Jeb is the crazy cherry on top of the scared sundae.

I have to admit, lights do bring flair to a launch.

That's my only fear. When real-life pictures of the models are out, and it looks good, I'll probably bite and buy the crew. But looking at the model in Shapeways... ehhhhh, hope it isn't low-quality.

Don't forget that the mod-loading mechanism changed in this update (it was in one of C7's blogs). Good for testing/developing a mod (you don't have to reload the whole game to reload your mod part), bad if a mod does a lot of stuff at loading/startup (probably SubAssembly's case).

We get it, you'd gladly wait a few weeks more to have a more stable version. Well, don't update till then. 0.18 and 0.19 both had smaller patches done in the following weeks, only focused on bug-fixing. You want to wait for 0.20.1. You can disable auto-update on Steam, you can keep your old folder on the DRM-free version.

That's pretty much the whole issue right here. Every code delivery everywhere is pretty much a compromise between release dates and quality. If SQUAD released nightly builds, people would yell that the game is unplayable, since saves would not be compatible, functionalities would break instantly, and things explode for no reason. And of course, no useful bug reports (or triplicated ones like "IT EXPLODED FIX IT"). If they decided to release only pure. clean, 3-times-tested-all-configurations builds, you'd wait 4 months for a release at least, with no functionalities developed in the meantime (since the devs would do debugging full-time). Also, those are not "gamebreaking". Game-breaking means that the game does not run. At all. A flag exploding is small potatoes. And slowdown/explosions are mostly tracked to not-fully-compatible mods (SubAssembly).

Responded to your message, you can use my stuff as it was yours. But yeah, it's not pretty per se, and there's some issues with the C4-pack. The TNT worked fine on 0.17 though (even better, as it seems that explosions now "follow" the ship )

Pretty much this for me as well. He's the idealist, the "let's just go already!" force in the KSC, when Wernher, Gene and the boys in the cockpit are using caution. He understands that true rocket science demands sacrifice, and will take his share of the burden eagerly.

I think NASA uses metric, the same as any scientific organization in the USA. NASA's subcontractor (Lockheed Martin), however, used imperial for the Climate Orbiter, thus causing the mishap. But yeah, the rest of the world will continue to make "forty rods to the hogshead" jokes until you guys go metric.

To correct your trajectory vertically, use N/180° as vectors on the navball before being near Duna. Or you can correct it in orbit if you like: just do your North/South burns when you're at the equator, North if your orbit gets you below the equator, South if... you get the idea. For entry on Duna, since the atmosphere is not dense, you'll need a bit of 3 things: 1) parachutes. Definitely a safe, fuel-efficient way to slow down, with 2 caveats: max speed when they deploy (your craft must hold up), and how much they brake. 2) aerobraking. If you're coming from far away and real fast, you can lower your ship in the atmosphere; you'll see the trajectory take an orbit. Don't go too low, or you'll just end up landing. 3) powered descent. That's only on Duna right now: since the atmosphere is less dense than Kerbin, Eve, Laythe or Jool, your ship may still be going too fast before and after each deployment (aaaah, seeing the side parachutes "go up" at 200m from the ground...). You can do it with a slow burn, only to help the 2 other things. My target velocities are 1000m/s when the parachute is opening, but not fully deployed, 100m/s when it's fully deploying, and 5m/s when I'm touching ground. Anyway, parachutes are a given if you're trying a planet/moon with an atmosphere.

That's what I like about it: you could get the same result by keeping a spreadsheet or calculator around you, and putting a protractor on the screen, but it's much nicer to have the values displayed (and still make all the burns/corrections by yourself). I also use the map to be sure I'm not missing widely; if my apoapsis is on the planet's orbit (both viewed from the top and the side; you don't want to come in too low or too high), that's a very good indicator that I'm getting closer for the final, mid-course corrections. And thanks, I tried to explain the best I could. Glad you landed once; I'm still trying to do a return trip here.

Sorry, I meant: if your navball is pointing at 90°, and you reached the minimum distance, try N/180° or normal/antinormal (the ones at the "top and bottom"). To test/affine those, I use RCS with H and N: H is "going in that direction", N is "going reverse". You can also use IJKL to try if translations are improving or not the distance. And instead of using all my RCS fuel to go "forward", if H works, I cut off the RCS and thrust slowly (with one finger on X to cut everything when I reach the minimum). Usually, if the target is not on my current trajectory (i.e. still on Kerbin's SOI while I'm going to Jool), I can reach about 5 or 10 Gm to the body. Then, I time-warp to the middle/two-thirds of the "road", and do the final corrections until intercept (and maybe a bit more to get a low periapsis, but you have to correct again once in the system, so you can just wait). If you missed Duna with the old plug-in, it means you're close but still out of the SOI. What you can try is to go at half the trajectory and do corrections in North/180° (to line up the trajectory with the orbit), or normal/antinormal (to move the center of your ellipsis). It's much better to get the new plug-in however, since you know from a small push if you're going the right way or not.

Well, it's definitely not the same thing. Minecraft physics: "walk in a straight line on the perfectly flat terrain. And if you meet a block, you can't walk in it. It can get laggy." KSP physics: "simulate as realistically as possible a space ship composed of dozens of parts, flying at around 10km/s, with a set trajectory in an immense universe. It can get laggy." Also, it bears repeating, but the devs are dependant on Unity and PhysX for performance; until Unity supports good multi-threading (and their version of PhysX does as well), only small performance upgrades are possible. And no, they won't change the engine. It's so much work that we will all have upgraded our computers when they would be done.

Ooooooooooh, shiny! Can't wait to see it fully textured! Also: are the 2 side engines "rotatable"? I could see this make a take-off using some sort of VTOL, like in the show (and use the main, nuclear pulse engine for main burns outside of atmosphere). However, this may need some sort of plug-in coding magic (at least to control the two side ones, and a big damn hero button for the full burn).

Well, since then, the Closest Approach was added, so a new step is added: 4) check that distance when it's displayed. If it goes up after reaching a minimum, stop moving, try another axis, rinse and repeat until intercept. You want to stay in the ballpark (<5 Gm) if you're not on the main trajectory (for example, if you're still in Kerbin's SOI for a trip to Duna), and then do corrections with RCS in mid-flight.

Woah, I didn't realise I was 10+ years older than a lot of people here.