RoboRay

The only ones I know of that don't are based on real-world designs, like FASA Gemini. It has excellent forward visibility through the two tiny windows because it duplicates the real cockpit, which was engineered to offer the pilot excellent visibility. As a pilot, I wish more more mod-makers would prioritize IVA-usability at the top of their design criteria, as it is in the real-world. Instead, it's usually an afterthought that doesn't get much attention until the shape of the cockpit model has already been settled, at which point it's too late. Visibility has to be designed in from the beginning, not worked out at the end.

In honor of Apollo 11... Mission album: http://imgur.com/a/MV859#0

I filmed this last year, and it's a J-class Apollo mission (15, 16 and 17), but...

Here's my latest mission, my first Mun landing in 0.24, showing the lander launched below the command pod, covered in fairings. If you use Procedural Fairings, you can make them as wide as they need to be. Note that making them huge is going to impact the aerodynamics of the rocket, however.

More aerodynamic shapes should offer better performance. The problem is definitely the ridiculously overpowered nature of jet engines in KSP. If you want things to behave more realistically, switch NEAR to FAR and add AJE/KIDS and DRE.

I made a semi-Apollo-style Mun landing... the first of this new 0.24 career:

There is no need to have "heard that"... just try a stock decoupler in x64. The lack of ejection force should be obvious.

Hence the " [PART, 0.24]" in the subject line.

Hopefully, we'll know soon, but both options sound a little crazy to me. I don't remember which video I watched that talked about the difference between expirations and deadlines... I've watched so many.

That's a very efficient kind of design. Take a big fuel tank and put a ring of small probes around the edge, all with their engines pointed in the same direction. Use fuel from the tank to get to the destination, then start dropping off probes at each world you visit. You're losing engines over time but you're pushing less mass as well. In the end, you just drop the near-empty tank onto the last world, or leave it in orbit for eventual salvage and reuse. Or maybe as your shared interplanetary comm relay if you're running RemoteTech.

The extra fuel you burned getting it out there (and now back) won't be recoverable.

There are two kinds of timeline for a contract ending... "Expires" is when it's no longer available to accept. When you do accept it, you're given a "deadline" for completing it. I'm not sure which one you're seeing.

Lithobraking would appear to be your only option. It would probably mass more than the fuel you don't want to waste, and it would definitely cost a lot more. You'd end up burning as much fuel as you save just hauling it out there. And don't forget that "equal and opposite reaction" business... you'll be propelling your ship when you fire it.

Yeah, it would, which is why they tried it. I've never seen the film of the first test with an actual astronaut suited up, swinging and spinning around on the thing trying to climb it, but I'm told it was hilarious.

It's not completely off-base. The early Apollo LM design featured a knotted rope dropped from the EVA hatch. "Look Ma! A rocket-ship with no ladder!" No paradox at all.

I really hope they do. It's possible to make transfers at less-opportune times, but it's more challenging to build and loft a vessel that can do it. A quickly-expiring contract that offers a big payout for managing to accomplish a transfer outside the Hohmann window would be very interesting. Note that a non-Hohmann transfer is also going to get you there faster. There are good reasons to use other than the minimum-energy option.

Based on the low value of SRBs and tanks (and the much lower value of empty ones), I'm fairly certain that the percentage losses on the cost of the apparatus to soft-land them is going to approach a break-even proposition for recovery. The LF engines might be worth recovering... but they're probably also the most likely things to break on landing. And I bet dollars to donuts that Squad has increased their fragility with 0.24. I hadn't even considered the extra fuel costs to lift your recovery apparatus, but that's going to impact things as well. I predict that after a day or two of screwing around, people are going to realize that they're not saving enough money trying to salvage every single part to make it worthwhile. Recover stuff for the challenge, if you want, but not to help your budget.

Come on, folks... the proper name for that large body of water east of KSC is Booster Bay!

Is this the real life?

Not really. It just depends on how many periapsis kicks you're willing to make. And, by extension, how patient you are. And, how well you planned your transfer window.

The optimal number of engines to maximize fuel efficiency is always "one". Two is often worth doing, as you're doubling your TWR for a modest increase in mass. Four can be reasonable on extremely massive ships, for another doubling of TWR. Beyond that, especially if you're having to add support structures to mount the engines, you begin to approach the point where adding engines offers little value. It can even become counterproductive, if taken to extremes.

LOL, I'll accept it.

It's not quite that simple... you also have to wait for Kerbin's rotation to bring KSC into the plane of the target's orbit. But with a planetary rotation rate equal to the six-hour life-support capability, you should have at least one and possibly two reasonable opportunities even for a target in polar orbit. Assuming 30-minute orbits, as a worst-case scenario, your launch point won't be more than 30 degrees out from the target's orbital plane and should average about 15 degrees. That's doable.

It really comes down to this... if a mod creates problems for an aspect of the stock game, it's the mod-maker's responsibility to adapt, not the game-maker's.

You can't really play KSP without building vehicles.