Tiron

Yeah it's also got a note at the bottom...

Except it doesn't have an Umlaut at all most of the time... In game, no Umlaut. Wiki, no Umlaut. I know I've seen it that way before, I just can't recall if I ever have in anything official...

Well I can't be held accountable for your missing all the important bits, some of which supported your own position, because you stopped reading.

I think the OP had an unmanned craft with an empty command pod on it, put a kerbal inside, and couldn't extend the solar panels. I think they require that there be power available to extend them without going on EVA or something, I'll check it. Edit: Okay, In testing, I have found that: Bob inside a Cupola is able to deploy solar panels while the batteries are empty. Bob standing next to the solar panel on EVA is able to deploy it. Bob in a hitchhiker is not able to deploy it, because a hitchhiker is not a command pod. So the only way I'm able to duplicate the OP's situation is by being inside a crewtank with no control abilities, trying to deploy it without going outside, while the probe core is dead due to lack of power. Even then, going on EVA would allow the panels to be deployed.

If you're talking about your orbit getting jittery, it'll do that just by getting one that's exceptionally circular, which is caused by small rounding errors in the ancient physics system Unity uses. The same issue that caused the Space Kraken bug before they changed it to have your craft as the center of the universe, in essence, so that the difference in rounding errors for individual parts on your ship wouldn't get big enough to cause mysterious forces. "I never thought to think of space as the thing that was moving!" <-basically what they meant when they said that they 'offloaded velocity to the universe'.

Actually, the point is, most people don't examine parts after they place them. Having the opportunity to do so is irrelevant, especially since it's frankly, a needless bit of extra time and work in the middle of building stuff. Given the way the camera works in the VAB, actually looking at the port might not be the easiest thing to do: If it's very high up in the VAB, or very low, the camera rotation limits are going to get in your way. The sides of it are easy to see. But seriously, why are you arguing about this? It's a 5 second texture change I could do myself if I wanted to. Edit: As soon as I find the textures but... Well I got looking at it, and I just noticed, there IS a very slight shaping difference. It in fact does still have the 'lip' that the two smaller ports have, it's just...really tiny. You CAN use it to tell if a port's connected the right way or not from the side though, if you look closely enough. Edit2: I'll also just add that there IS a mod around here called 'subassembly loader' that allows you load and attach an entire preassembled section. That same functionality is also on Squad's 'Planned Features' list, if you hadn't noticed...

Yeah but most people don't place a part, then stop to look at it. They grab the next part and place it. If you do that and end up pretty far along before it occurs to you to check it, you end up having to partially disassemble your rocket to check it. Unless the undo function actually decides to reconnect everything properly, which is very much of a crapshoot ('going back two steps instead of one' aside, which you can work around, I've had trouble lately with it not reconnecting struts), you could end up having to do a LOT of work to reconnect everything. Arrow on the side means you can check it without disassembling anything. Doesn't really help if it turns out to be wrong, but it means you don't have to risk undoing half your assembly just to look at the port.

I didn't click any of them, because the thing I want isn't on the list. The rover suspension problems constantly sending me tumbling down hills is really limiting my gameplay at the moment, because almost all of what I want to do at the moment really needs the use of rovers to get around. And when I try to do it anyway, I end up having to quicksave and reload constantly, because a bad terrain segment sent me tumbling down a hill and broke the wheels off the rover. I'm almost not playing as it is because of this, so nothing much else matters to me until that gets fixed.

I generally only crash if I alt-tab out of it, since I play fullscreen and it doesn't like being alt-tabbed out of if it's fullscreen... I don't really use very many mods though.

Errr, well if you know how to read it, yeah... I'd start with checking the 'crash signature' listing in the error window Windows Pops up. It'll have the crash type (usually APPCRASH but BEX isn't uncommon), and a hex code that identifies it more specifically. It'll also list the specific file that caused the crash. This can help in determining what exactly happened. Sometimes, anyway.

You can, in fact, construct ships with docking ports placed between two parts. If you look, they have TWO attachment node balls, one on either side (which is why it's easy to place them backwards), just so you CAN attach things to them in the VAB/SPH. The right click menu even gains a 'decouple' option if they're attached to something that isn't another docking port. On my old station lifters I used to use a docking port in lieu of a decoupler, to save weight. They have serious problems when used this way though, clipping through whatever they're attached to while you're under power. Which you can fix with a few struts. They also don't have any decouple force, and can't be decoupled by staging, so there's some pretty serious limitations even without the clipping problem. This does have its uses, however. Actually, one of the best uses for docking ports in the VAB is multidocking: You can only connect one port (the 'primary') in the VAB, but if you leave the secondaries lined up and facing each other, they'll automatically multidock when you load in on the pad. This is the only way to build 'circular' structures in the VAB.

It can use up to 4 GB of RAM if you're on a 64 bit OS. The '3 GB' thing is a limitation from 32 bit versions of windows caused by Microsoft mostly disabling PAE (except for the parts they HAD to use for Data Execution Prevention). Basically, on 32 bit windows, the total amount of RAM you're allowed to use is limited to 4GB minus your Video RAM, because your Video RAM is included in the 4GB limit, which is why people that would configure their system to go past 3GB (the default limit on 32 bit XP was 2gb, but it was possible to go higher with the right flags set) would vary. Some people could get 3.75 GB, some 3.5... Some only 3. Because their Vidcards had 256MB, 512MB, and 1024MB(1GB) respectively of onboard RAM. There ARE other types of memory that can pulled out of the limit as well, but rarer and usually much smaller than the vidram, at least on consumer machines. On '64 bit' this isn't a problem, because Microsoft allows '64 bit' OSes to use memory addresses larger than 32 bit. KSP is still a 32 bit program, however (the 64 bit builds apparently come out very unstable due to some problem with Unity). But if you're on a 64 bit version of windows with more than 4GB of RAM, WoW64 (Windows on Windows 64, the Windows component that runs 32 bit programs on 64 bit systems) gives it access to the full 4GB, but only if the program has the 'Large Address Aware' flag set. Otherwise it only gets 2GB. KSP has the LAA flag set, so it gets up to 4GB. Crashes can be caused by all sorts of things, but one thing I notice in particular is that KSP really, really doesn't handle being minimized while running fullscreen very well at all. It causes all SORTS of problems.

The part that gets me, does it actually officially have the Umlaut or not? It only seems to pop up once in awhile, and much of the time (including in game), it doesn't have it. So I usually just rhyme it with 'Sun', in part because it sounds sillier, but mostly because, well, that's what it looks like in the vast majority of sources. But I do the 'Munar' thing too, rhyming it with 'Lunar' because, well... So I'm inconsistent!

The launch clamps have generators built in that produce 1.0 power per second. If you're not using clamps, you don't get ground power. From what I can see, I think he put a kerbal inside the dead ship's pod and then couldn't extend the panels. Which really does kinda make sense...having to go on EVA to do it is a pain, though. My personal solution is to always put an OX-STAT or two somewhere as a 'keepalive' measure. They don't need to be deployed or undeployed, and only 'break' if they physically hit something. Although last I checked they'd fix themselves if you reloaded the scene...

Yeah but then you have to look at the 'port' side of it. What if you've got it in the middle of a stack? What they're saying is it needs like, arrows on the side or something.

You could always make the 'landing' part free...if you're brave enough.

Basically, is the game 'Done' or not. Alpha is an unfinished software product, with major, core features incomplete or missing because they're still being developed. A Beta is, more or less 'done' (it may have some placeholders for certain things), but still needs testing to check functionality, look for bugs, in the case of games check difficulty and balance, etc. The key point is what's going on with the development: Are major features still being developed and added? It's an Alpha. Is all the major stuff done and most of what's left is just refinement of what's already there? Beta. Although note that sometimes features will get dropped to move it along to 'Beta' faster, and similarly Betas will sometimes more or less get issued as release products, because the managers are tired of not making any money off it. Edit: Usually Alpha testing is done in-house, yes, for the simple reason that, well, it's not finished yet. KSP is an exception due to it being an Indie Game: They're basically selling the game at a discount, with access to the Alpha versions, in order to finance the game. This means it's a lot more polished than is the norm for an Alpha.

Grats2u! Easier to land on, harder to get to.

I've been known to think of it in terms of the FL-400 (there didn't used to be a -200, let alone the brand new -100), or the X200-16, or the X200-32 (the -16 also didn't used to exist, let alone the -8... which holds the exact same amount of fuel as the FL-T800, btw). And there's actually a very good reason to use fewer larger tanks rather than a bunch of smaller ones, other than partcount and wobbling: the game models the weight of a part more or less as if it were spread evenly throughout the part. This includes fuel weight, even as it's decreasing. If you use two FL-T400s, it'll drain the top one first, shifting the center of mass of that part of the stack downwards. If you use a single FL-T800, the center of mass stays in the center of the tank. You'll still get CoM shifting relative to the rest of your rocket, of course, but locally it's much improved. On smaller rockets in particular it'd have more of an effect (the Kerbal-X could probably benefit from this if it had a -64 and a -32 instead of three -32s.)

Well after looking up the stats on a J-2X the other day, I declared that I wanted one...and the friend I was talking to suggested modding it into the game. Just to illustrate, it produces 1307 KN of thrust (a tad over twice a Skipper's thrust, 193 KN less than a Mainsail), has a vacuum Isp of 448 seconds (Higher than the LV-909's 400 seconds), and weighs 2.47 metric tons (just a tad less than the Poodle's 2.5 tons), giving it a TWR of 55.04 (The mainsail's is 25.5, and an EMPTY RT-10 SRB's is still only 51). It has a diameter of 3 meters, but I'm pretty sure that's the diameter of the bell, and you could probably easily mount it on our "2.5 m" size 2 nodes. Oh and it's gimbled, too. It looks more or less like an LV-T30 or T45, so you could easily scale one of those up to size 2 and just give it the stats with just a .cfg file edit. With notepad. I'm pretty sure that WOULD be cheating, though...

This is so not true it makes me want to laugh, frankly. The 4GB RAM limitation is correct, but mostly only because it's imposed by windows. That said, for most programs 4GB is a *lot*, even for an unoptimized one like KSP. Unless you're running a LOT of equally unoptimized mods, it should be plenty. The 'can only run on a single core' thing is NOT a 32 bit limitation, it is in fact a Unity Engine limitation. Imposed in part because they haven't bothered to add multithreading support and in part because they use an ancient version of PhysX that doesn't support multithreading either. The former MIGHT be curable now with a Unity add-on called 'Loom', but I doubt it'd help us any because our real problem is the PHYSICS not being multithreaded, which Loom can't do anything about I'm pretty sure. My experience is that periodic 'Hitching' during a flight is generally caused by...alt tabbing out of the full screen game. KSP really doesn't handle it very well, with it frequently resulting in either or both of short duration, periodic freezes or parts of the font going corrupt causing unreadable...well everything with text on it. Restarting the game cures it.

Yes, you can, but it won't automatically flip back on, which can be a little problematic if you're in the middle of a burn. Or spinning (The button is attached to the tank's right click menu, which follows the tank!) And Gess, that's the expected behavior for Liquidfuel and Oxidizer, because the fuel flow algorithm always uses fuel from the 'furthest' connected tank first. I'm almost certain it's never done that for RCS stock, and pretty sure it doesn't now. Just for you I'm going to reinstall right quickly and verify that. I do know it used to go outside-in and then I'm pretty sure it went bottom to top, but I forget. I only recall the 'uses everything equally' bit starting in 0.19. Edit: On a completely stock, fresh reinstall it still uses RCS from all tanks equally. The nasty part about that is that it doesn't make allowances for different sized tanks, either, so all your small ones get used up first... Edit2: Oh, and if it's using fuel from a tank you don't want it to, disabling flow from the tanks you don't want used is the best option. Just make sure you turn it back on when you separate the vehicle it's on or you'll wonder why your RCS doesn't work.

It used to go outside-in, but they changed it at some point because uh... I even uninstalled all my mods just to make sure mechjeb wasn't doing something (I doubt the others would've, but I decided to play it safe since I was already copying my installation out). It seems to use them all equally, and I'd seen that behavior as far back as, oh, 0.19 or so on my never completed fueling stations.

Depends what else you put on it. Remember that Hitchhikers are not a command module and can't be used to steer from! Also, the entire GAME is scaled down (Kerbin has about 1/10th the radius of Earth, for example), so yeah. I can provide some helpful skylab related facts though: The main 'workshop' area was built inside an unused S-IVB stage. Von Braun wanted to use an S-II and send it up as a 'Wet Workshop' (used as a fuel tank on the way up, then turned into a station once in orbit), but there weren't, at the time, supposed to be any Saturn Vs available after the moon missions were done (there ended up actually being three, because of cancelled missions), so they had to use the S-IVB instead, because it could be sent up on a Saturn I (Luckily, it was also the Third stage of the Saturn V as well as the Second stage of the Saturn I. The newly freed Saturn Vs meant they could send it up without using it as a fuel tank on the way.) The dimensions of an S-IVB according to the wiki are 17.8m long, 6.6m diameter (The 'large' Size 2 parts only have a diameter that's nominally 2.5m, so there's necessarily going to be some scaling). Oh, and another funfact to throw in for ya. The big, prominent telescope they attached to it was built on a heavily modified Lunar Module! Edit: Ooo, found a good picture:

The only thing that's keeping me away at all is the fact that my rover has even more problems not getting tumbled down a hill than it did. Something about the new terrain made the old 'Terrain imprecision makes rovers unstable' bug a much bigger problem. Seems like I hit ground segments with that problem more often, and they seem bigger too. Makes it hard to drive much of anywhere. And the only thing worse than Hitler is Stalin.