RoboRay

Kubuntu, of course.

"Specimen" doesn't have to be a living creature. If it did, my doctor wouldn't ask me to bring one in when I have an appointment. Any kind of sample-returns (mineral, atmospheric, biological, etc.) will likely call for one of those containers.

That sounds fairly reasonable, from the limited lifting area available. KSP being a game and all, erring on the side of "slightly unrealistic but usable" is probably better than erring on the side of "very realistic but unusable."

You can get pretty close by simply launching as KSC nears the proper ejection angle due to Kerbin's rotation. Get your Ap high enough to have some time to work with and set up a maneuver node to guide you through the rest of the transfer burn.

Removing "Octagonal" from the name of a part that is in no way octagonal would be nice, too. And while you're at it, change "strut" to "truss" in the name for consistency with all the other truss parts. Struts in KSP are completely different from trusses, including this particular part.

If someone is telling you to rendezvous "by matching orbits perfectly"... stop listening to them. But yeah, you figured it out. You don't rendezvous by matching orbits, you match orbits by rendezvousing. It doesn't matter how different your orbits are as you approach the target, so long as you have enough thrust to match velocities at the closest point of approach. The perfectly matched orbit results automatically from matching velocities close to the target.

You can compensate for imbalanced radial payloads by having the lighter one further out, away from the center of mass. So, big payloads on short arms and small payloads on long arms.

Actually, craft veering off to the side is caused about 99% of the time by landing gear being installed at an angle. They need to be attached straight up and down.

It's always worked as an undo command for me, for over a year.

The wing module looks nice. How much lift are you getting? It shouldn't be enough for real flight, I know, just enough for a controlled steep gliding descent. Mainly wondering what kind of sink rate you had at minimum controllable speed.

How about a rocket-delivered airship/rover pair? . . Full mission album:

... I'll try to give a relevant answer and say "I don't there are any."

A half-sphere (the "top" half where the windows are, I presume?) would be really interesting if there were a couple of options for the "bottom" half. A half-sphere crew module with several windows, a half-sphere cargo bay with opening doors across the "front" that slide "back" and around the sides, etc. Even just using a half-shere fuel tank and a thin motor on the bottom with landing legs around it would make for an interesting lander.

I don't think there's any force feedback support in KSP, but the stick itself should work fine. I use an old Sidewinder Precision 2 with KSP, since the method KSP uses for reading controllers isn't compatible with my newer Logitech G940. Here's my control configuration: http://i.imgur.com/3HeP8br.jpg

You don't need MechJeb to tell you your craft mass... it's in the craft info panel on the Map screen.

I honestly don't think I would use any of the HUD "guidance" features (the beauty of the DPAI is it's already got everything without any need to look around at other stuff), but if port selection is allowed through the gauge there certainly is a need to indicate which one you've selected. Is it possible to activate the green "highlight" that appears when you mouse over parts on the view screen? That's subtle, but should be effective.

I thought that's how everyone docked. But yes, that is a great and simple explanation of how to to use the instruments to guide your maneuvering. Note that docking with the NavBall-alone works the same way, except you don't have orientation information... Assuming you are already aligned to the target orientation (using the Normal-axis, preferably), position your yellow prograde mark in relation to the pink target marker exactly the way you are positioning it to the green crosshairs using this mod. The crosshairs in DPAI are redundant, really, but extremely useful in practice because it allows you to focus your attention on a single instrument rather than scanning back and forth across several.

That spherical command pod is gorgeous. I'd love to see a matching crew pod with side windows.

It's not a movie, but HBO's mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon."

I'd rather keep the NavBall orientation real, in respect to my orbit. I do care about my direction of motion and orientation to the planet during the approach to a docking target, so I can maneuver into docking position on the Normal axis of my orbit. If you orient the NavBall itself to the target, you lose the ability to easily identify your orbit Normal, which complicates docking (unless you like dealing with apparent rotation of the target).

[Forget it... stupid forum "upgrade" now ignores paragraph structure and lumps everything into a wall of text.]

Or all of the above. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsCI5T7z4pY I've since improved the design with a less energetic decoupler.

I do happen to have some aerial and ground-level imagery of that island, especially the western peninsula area mentioned, in my Airship+Rover exploration system mission to Laythe... The airship module provides long-range transportation and serves as a base of operations while landed, with the rover allowing easier access to explore local areas around the landing zones. Both are electrically powered, for long-duration missions.

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Probably perfecting what I call the Reverse-Skycrane method of delivering heavy payloads with pinpoint accuracy... such as the nuclear powerplant for my Great Bay Research Station on Laythe shown here: