eljaydub

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/entry.php/108-0-17-Status-Update-1

They upped the thrust rating on the mainsail engines, so consumption will go up. I haven't noticed any marked difference (other than the fuel bug being gone).

Planets, interplanetary engines, a gorgeous new sky, etc.

Wow, our Duna landers look about identical. Great minds think alike, I guess. I went with the 2-ship solution so mine only had to make it back to Duna orbit to rendezvous.

When I managed to get .17 downloaded, I wanted to see if my old Munar lander would still work, so I burned into orbit and started my transfer, when my cat distracted me. The next thing i know, I'm on a trajectory that takes me into a Kerbol orbit relatively close to Eve's. So I mess around with I for awhile, wait about an hour for Eve to catch up (there really needs to be another notch on the time warp), make an insertion burn, and eventually drop the capsule on the surface. Protip: if you're just putting a capsule and a chute on Eve, don't trigger the chute until you're under 1000 m/s. Attached: Original craft, munar lander stage in Eve orbit, and capsule on Eve.

I did in my accidental flight to Eve.

Where are you in Iowa? I live in Ames.

oooh purdy.

Not in .17 slated for a later update.

I've seen my insertion/descent stage glitch through the munar surface, slingshot back, and launch out of the ground about 100m from my lander.

Space Kraken: the malevolent force in the game that causes bugs, and rends your ships to pieces at extreme speeds/ altitudes.

And it looks like the sky upgrade is in full swing.

I"m really liking C7's capsule instrument panel, and really excited for whatever the large spaceplane cockpit turns out to be.

With the new flight planning and more phases on the patched conics, an Ares-1 style insertion would be a TON easier than it would be right now. And extremely efficient. I would just have to leave a quarter of the kerbs on kobos.

That's what I was thinking. Usually makes for absurdly gentle Kerbin landings. Or just slap a few dozen SAS modules to the bottom of the lander and go for old school ablative lithobraking. ...Or just go for Eve.

That's exactly why there's SOIs. They didn't want the engine to deal with the n-body problem for performance reasons. I can only imagine how it would try to deal with binary or trinary stars. My best guess is that it would make the space kraken look like nothing. Space Cthulu?

Welp. Back to the drawing board. Or just spend several hours aerobraking.

Gotcha. Communicating these sorts of things without hand gestures is HARD. I wonder if the atmo indicator will get a makeover to display thicker than normal atmospheres?

I would pay like crazy for physical merch though. Who doesn't want a Jebediah Kerman bobblehead? My cubicle demands it.

Stumbleupon, I think right after the first release.

A better illustration is that there has to be an equal opposing force to the one holding the craft aloft. One that would exert a downward force on the surrounding atmosphere. So in a denser atmosphere like Eve, you would have to move less atmosphere to generate the same amount of force required for level flight.

I've only heard the distant rumble of possible FTL in the FAR future of development. Side note: a radiation damage/ shielding system would be a neat mod.

If the tether was thicker nanotubes would work. But at ~1foot thick, I think it would fail as well, but I'm not sure. ...but I think we're off topic. I just hope the desert planet has a thick enough atmosphere to be able to glide a fully loaded SSTO spaceplane to the surface. Or arrest its fall enough to deploy parachutes that won't just tear off.

"Kerbal" is also an adjective that means shoddily constructed and gloriously overpowered.

I think I'll use the two-craft solution to get there and back, but I might use one of the more radical old-school lander designs- ablative lithobraking. Just strap a few dozen SAS modules to the bottom of your "lander" to cushion the impact.