Col_Jessep

Wait, I thought the idea of government agencies was to spend all their budget and then some? ;P

I part-clip and airhog. Nothing makes me happier than having every fuel line, battery, light, RTG and strut hidden away. Sometimes I even clip fuel tanks inside each other because I don't like the RCS tanks much. My favorite stock plane has no visible control surfaces and 48 RAM air intakes. I can get it into orbit with a nudge of RCS... =3

This is a very good point! Losing a mission to a giant explosion can be fun. At least you get to see some fireworks. Even better if you can save the pilots(s)! Running out of fuel is just obnoxious. Either you have to launch a tedious rescue mission or you just terminate the flight. There was a time when most of the community flew their rockets just by the seat of their pants but those days are gone. I think the majority of players enjoy planning complex, interesting missions. Many enjoy increasing the difficulty with mods but want to have more essential information about their vehicles at the same time. Withholding crucial information like delta-v arbitrarily doesn't make any sense to me. Every engine specifies exactly how much thrust it has, Isp, mass... We can even tweak how much fuel is pumped into fuel tanks but giving us specific information on how much delta-v results from those documented values is supposed to be a bad thing? This seems inconsistent to me. It's certainly no fun!

A stock delta-v readout would be very welcome, especially now that several parts have 'fake mass' in the VAB/SPH. I don't enjoy guessing my way to other celestial bodies.

Yup, that would be rare indeed. I had an asteroid turn from near miss to impactor due to rounding errors though.

Good point but if you go for 'transmit one, bring one back' you still don't need the lab... =D I think the lab weights the same as 7 sets of bays/goo. You need to bring at least two Kerbals, it's large and 2.5m diameter which makes impossible to build a small vehicle. Not to mention you will be doing a lot of rendezvous and docking, waiting for the experiments to be cleaned and analyzed, pumping fuel around, refilling RCS... It's not worth the effort imo. I have played RSS with FAR, DRE, KW and stock career and had no such issues. Re-entry into Kerbin's atmo is a no problem since you can put all the science in your capsule and there are no other planets with biomes and an atmosphere. I assume nobody who plays with FAR and DRE builds 'goofy ass' ships to begin with... Besides, I'm commenting on stock balance. I don't see how FAR and DRE play into this.

As long as the processing lab is only useful for transmissions it will stay mostly useless. Yes, you can construct fringe cases where it is useful but that is because you designed the mission around the lab to make it useful. You are better off bringing several sets of science bays/goos on a small lander and returning the experiments. Transmitting anything but crew or EVA reports is usually a sign of bad mission design. The only cases I can think of where returning 100% is not preferable are Eve and Jool descends. You always want a Kerbal for reports and surface samples and if you want to return him to Kerbin (I always do) the science can hitchhike for free anyway. I quite like the science lab due to it's aesthetics, it is one of the nicer looking stock parts, but I haven't used it even once since it was introduced.

Ah, that explains why one of my planes suddenly pulls to one side again. I used the small batteries to balance it out. Thanks!

Wait, are these changes recent like for the batteries? Is this a new thing in 23.5? Did they have mass in previous versions?

We have some wings, jet engines and landing gear. Awesome! It's flying time! Let me present the Chimera: Kerbal Kats is calling her Chimera because she is part plane and part rocket. She takes off horizontally like a plane, turns into a rocket in the upper atmosphere and the cockpit and science bays land on parachutes. Once in orbit you have roughly 4000m/s delta-v to play with. The Chimera's purpose is to intercept an asteroid for science and to return to Kerbin safely. She can however fly just like a plane for a while. I hope you can use her, Don. Flight profile: Take off, fly almost straight up (70° up), stage at 20km height (transforms the Chimera into a rocket) and reach orbit as with a regular rocket. Special features: The Chimera features a lot of lights so we can see something on Youtube. Please use them Don! DOWNLOAD

I hope you will forgive me if I didn't read all 9 pages before posting. IMO there are ways to 'balance' these new parts: • You have to pay for parts once career gets the next big update. Depending on how much they cost that cluster of orange tanks with Mainsails might look rather attractive again... • Fuel lines don't connect to the new parts, fuel crossfeed capable parts don't work for them. The rocket engine only burns the fuel in 'its' tank. If this is still not good enough for you I suggest you install Real Solar System and FAR. I think every true KSP fan should experience at least once how different a launch to LEO is compared to LKO. It is fun! Also possible with 500% less lag now!

Ages to master? Powered landing on worlds with high gravity. (Hello Tylo!) But there is one thing I dread even more: Having to land near a target on a world with an atmosphere! Can't do it. Without F5/F9 it pure luck if I manage to land on the same continent. The only way to land near KSC is to basically waste 1.5-2km/s on reentry. That's why I like SSTOs so much. Only good way for me to get back to KSC reliably for me....

He is! I think it started with a flood and the plan to save two dogs and his family in a small boat... Good luck with RSS, Whackjob! You are probably the first person to install RSS without FAR though... xD

I find it kind of surprising that the winners get basically nothing, especially when you consider how easy it would be to find something more substantial. There would be gift codes for KSP on Steam, free Kerbalizer, Shapeways figurine, printed coffee mugs... A small Indie studio I have alpha tested stuff for even had their artists create a special cosmetic item for the winners of a fan-organized tournament. (Not exactly cheap if you have to create 4 versions, several LODs and QA the stuff with every new patch.) I'm sure that Squad might be able to afford a bit more than somebody spending 3 minutes in a text editor as Thank You for fans who probably spend several hours on creating free content for KSP? Well, I won't be participating anyway. Just some food for thought.

I don't even start KSP up before KER, FAR, KAC and Docking Alignment Indicator are updated/working. Those mods have become an essential part of the game for me and I would not enjoy playing KSP without them. There are a lot of other mods (Precise Node, Enhanced Navball, Kethane, KAS, Clouds and City Lights, KW, B9, RSS, IVA views... that I enjoy a lot. I can go a while without them if necessary though.

Have you tried shorter legs to decrease the momentum you have to overcome and more legs?

Don't forget to disable fuel crossfeed every time you switch to another ship or go back to KSC, too. IIRC KSP doesn't keep it disabled.

I think Squad would be able to sell KSP for $40 if they would overhaul the graphics of default parts. TBH, the beautiful new VAB, SPH, R&D... collide with the 'junky' aesthetics of the rocket parts. Even the parts in themselves are not consistent. Just compare the materials bay, science lab and Mk1 cockpit to the 'old oil barrel' design of the 2.5m tanks or the Mk1 capsule. Mods like B9, KW Rocketry, Kethane... are actually more consistent with the aesthetics of the KSC buildings.

When I bought it it were 'donations', IIRC. Anything more than $7 would get you a playable copy.

Just an idea: Have you guys tried combining an infiniglider design with the Kraken drive? That way you can go really fast in atmo as well? Kudos fro breaking the physics engine in a new and hilarious way!

Maneuver nodes! They close, they disappear completely, they can't be added after an SOI change, they jump one orbit ahead and burn time predictions are worse that the weather forecast in the 80s. It would also be easy to force 1x warp on every SOI change to keep errors to a minimum. Basically implement Precise Node and Kerbal Alarm Clock.

Nathan Kerman. His EVA experience is immense and he isn't afraid of putting his life on the line for kerbalkind. It's all on tape, too: =3

You might be surprised. For the alpha of Planetary Annihilation we did a survey amongst the Kickstarter backers and it turned out that only one percent of them were still running 32-bit Windows. Now if you look at the Steam Hardware Survey you will see higher values but as it turns out many of those 32-bit systems were actually not the gaming PCs but some older PCs used for internet browsing and stuff. 32-bit windows is dying out faster than most endangered animals. Thank Ceiling Cat!

That was some valuable info, thanks! I spend a bit of time on my version for cat lovers and it works pretty well now. Half of the suggested names should be cat related. Everybody who wants to try it: Champagne Bottle - Cat Edition. Use at your own risk, no warranties provided, feel free to edit and distribute. By downloading the files you agree to being kind to our fluffy feline overlords and not feeling offended by cat related words. =3 Install by extracting the .txt files in the zip into the Champagne mod folder. Careful, this will overwrite the original word list from the mod! Backup your files first!

Very useful mod! I'm so tired of docking in the dark, trying to right-click that docking port I cannot see. In RSS nights are a lot longer and it seems to be darker in general so this is helping a lot. Thanks! Good thing you have a light-weight version too. Got to look after every kilo in RSS... xD