RoboRay

OK, I'm playing the stock Career mode (with SMURFF) since RO isn't available yet and the "rescue kerbal" missions keep spawning target craft in the upper atmosphere. I can edit the save to bump them 100 km higher each time, but is there a way I can set the contract system to spawn them higher by default? RVE clouds are mostly underground by default. You'll want to raise them up higher, unless you only want to see clouds down in the low-low spots.

I'm so determined to find the High Over Earth biome that I'll go all the way to the Moon if I have to! (Ok, really, I've got a lunar flyby contract, so I may as well grab some High Earth science on the way.) And I goofed and forgot to wait for my launch window so I'd be aligned with the lunar orbital plane. We'll call this a full-up test of the new launch vehicle. Very successful. Great job guys! Let's try it again tonight... I finally found High Over Earth at 40,000 km up. I didn't get much closer to the Moon than that (pericynthion was 30,000 km), but I had a good free-return trajectory with an 80 km perigee dropping me right back into the atmosphere, so I took it. The entry angle was too shallow, though, so I had to skip around for a second pass... ...which meant that the data canister ended up coming down in the middle of the Amazon rain forest instead of out in the Atlantic. It's OK, though... I sent Bob in to retrieve it. I'm sure he'll be fine.

I ran out of money and had to take some tourist charters to fund my next few missions...

Bob went looking for the High Over Earth biome. It's not at 4000 km, so he boosted to 8000 km... Then he tried 12,000 km... And still didn't get to it! Oh, well... Fire the retros and come home.

There's a really great mod for helping dock base modules together... http://spacedock.info/mod/838/Flexible Docking It gives you docking ports on extendable flexible tubes, so when the docking ports on the ends get close to another docking port, the magnetic attraction pulls them together even if the tubes have to bend and realign. That's the test rig... Here's how I delivered the modules: http://imgur.com/a/tcyOU They are unfortunately buried way down in this multi-mod thread, so they can be hard to find on the forums here:

Fantastic. That reads like something swiped from Red Mars. I actually started reading through your mission stuff a couple of days ago.

Actually, there was a good mod IVA for the old Mk3 cockpit. The narrow windows weren't great, but that was to match the exterior model. There's no reason a redesign of the cockpit couldn't just use one of the stock Mk2 IVAs.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that ugly old models and textures be brought back... sheesh! It's about the form-factor itself, which would nicely fill the gap between the rather undersized (for 1.25m payloads) Mk2 line and the current Mk3 line.

I'm finding that one of the most compelling aspects is simply knowing the actual names of the features I'm looking at. In my sandbox testing, I dropped a probe on Mars to check RVE cloud height settings and saw they default mostly below ground, with clouds mainly visible down in Valles Marineris... But it was freaking Valles Marineris! I was like, "Oh, that's Pavonis Mons I'm passing over, and OH that's Noctis Labyrinthus, AND THERE'S CANDOR CHASMA!"

It's the 8K textures for RSS, with RVE for atmospheric effects. RO isn't available for KSP 1.2.2 yet... I'm using SMURFF with stock parts, along with Procedural Parts, SXT and RLA, mainly. I'll probably try a RO game next Career.

I got tired of the huge LEO communication gaps in RSS, so I put up four omni relays in 2.5 hour orbits (about 2900 km up)... just high enough that they can see each other over the horizon. This provides good coverage to ground-level up to about latitude 45. So, I can launch unmanned stuff now without having to deal with ground comm sites going under the horizon.

I think there's still a place for the old Mk3 and really wish somebody would bring back the form-factor as an expansion to the Mk2 parts. You can technically fit a 1.25m payload in the Mk2 cargo bay, but it's very constraining. The old Mk3 cross section allowed for a much roomer cargo bay for 1.25m parts that actually gave you room to put landing legs and stuff on the outside without poking through the cargo bay.

It is, but some people need external rewards and the console makers cater to them.

When else would we be checking it? If I'm home, I can actually play!

Might I suggest additional windows for the greenhouse?

With Sandbox testing out of the way, I started my RSS Career with a suborbital hop in a rocketplane... I had to ditch in the Atlantic off Bermuda, due to the lack of wheels.

RVE clouds work great! Follow the installation steps in this video (not my video, BTW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAE8TOf_Lrc

If you listen to anything Marketing says, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

This mod is one of the "Top Ten Should Be Stock" mods.

Continuing my LEO mission, planned for four orbits: Crossing the west coast of Africa and into the night. Back in daylight, passing over Hawaii. And Baja. Mississippi delta and Mobile Bay. Florida and the Bahamas. The Antilles. Hawaii again. Gulf of Venezuela and Lake Maracaibo. Guam. (I think.) Hawaii is barely in sight on the third orbit. Panama. The Philippines. Hawaii coming closer again. My next pass will be right down the line of the islands... that will be my landing target. Deorbit burn and retro jettison over Madagascar. Gulf of Thailand. Hainan Island. Taiwan. Okinawa under the clouds as reentry begins. Midway Island... reentry is right on course. French Frigate Shoals. Kauai peeks over the horizon as the capsule drops right on target. Splashdown will be just east of French Frigate Shoals in the north-west Hawaiian Islands.

Real Solar System has been released for KSP 1.2.2, so I'm putting away my 6.4x Kerbin game and taking on the real-deal. Here are the highlights from my first launch to orbit: Launching from Florida Gravity turn was a little off... circularizing will take me past apogee. Not bad for a first try! 216 km x 210 km orbit.

Those ring shadows are gorgeous! You can call them rough if you want, but they certainly look plausible. More than that, they look natural.

We have a place that has all the mods in the same spot... this forum.

Ironically, I prioritize sky/water/ground appearance low because your mods are so good!

KScale64, but I had to reduce the terrain rescaling because it puts most of Kerbin's landmass up at like 10 km altitude... which is higher than the clouds after I fixed them, because Sigma Dimensions was also rescaling the cloud layer heights above the surface and putting them nearly in space. It's a tradeoff, either way. It would take planetary terrains actually designed for the larger scale to not run into these kinds of problems. 6.4x rescale would be brutal without SMURFF and Procedural Parts (with the KScale64 MM script that allows longer lengths at your tech level).