Eric S

Tweakables will be the ability to fine tune parts in the VAB. So setting starting positions for animated parts (ladders, landing gear, etc), setting fuel types and amounts for fuel tanks (tanks will still have upper limits, but if you want to launch with an empty tank, you can), turning off engine gimballing, etc.

Well, I hit 23.84t on an escape trajectory. Need to work on the gravity turn :-)

I can't speak for Linux, but that still works fine in Windows, so I think it's a bug, just not sure at which end.

I don't know if this is a restriction with Unity or just how they do their part trees within KSP, but I'm pretty sure that the reason has nothing to do with staging. Basically, it has to do with how to organize the parts from the computer's point of view. A tree is a very simple to implement and well understood data structure, but it's strictly a one-to-many data organization. To allow many-to-many, which is what would be necessary to get around this, you'd have to use something more complex than a tree, which could seriously complicate part traversal and a few other things. For example, with a tree, if you have one part failure in a craft, you now have two craft, unless nothing was attached to the part that failed. With a many-to-many structure, you may or may not have two craft, and separating the two craft into two separate data structures may be harder. Basically, if the restriction comes from Unity, there's not much they can do about it beyond special-case stuff like struts, and if the restriction comes from their own code, they can change it, but it's probably not as easy a change as you'd think.

Agreed, I was trying to explain why reverting has the limits that it does. Not having those limits would cause problems.

Not quite true. It had no torque of its own, but it would use the torque from command/probe parts. It would not use torque from SAS parts. I think that's because adding SAS to all the probe parts happened in 0.21.1 which they had pressure to release, so they didn't take the time to sort out all the issues. At this time, there's only one way to have a controllable craft that doesn't already have SAS, and that's the external seat. There is no ASAS any more from the point of view of the game engine, just a few parts that call themselves ASAS.

I use it some of the time, but not always, depends on what I'm doing and my mood.

Odd, I definitely found 0.21.1 SAS fighting me less than 0.21.0's SAS. Are you talking spaceplanes or rockets, and what size?

Seconded (ok, thirded). As for being able to revert a flight, the issue is that reverting a flight is basically doing a quickload. If you start a flight, then start another flight, then revert the first flight, the second flight never happened as well, and I'm sure we'd hear from users that lost a spacestation or other important flight because of this.

It's applied from the vehicle's CoM, so position doesn't matter. Not sure about orientation, but I suspect that that is done to match the orientation of the part you're controlling the ship from.

I think you're thinking career mode is something it isn't, but I could be wrong. Career mode isn't like a campaign where you have to do A, then B, then C. There will be parts that can't be used and missions that can't be accepted until certain milestones are reached, and there will be rewards for doing certain missions, but other than that, it's basically sandbox with a budget and possibly a few other concerns. Yes, there will be things that are easier to do in sandbox mode because you don't have to worry about the budget, but that's about the extent of it.

Well, I just took a very basic mun lander that I built to test the 0.21 SAS and put it into orbit under 0.21.1, and it definitely felt better during the gravity turn. It was still drifting back towards vertical when I'd release the "d' key, but not as far as it was under 0.21. Not once did I have to toggle SAS off and back on to get it to lock onto something at least close to the heading I wanted, and even the small adjustments to precisely target a prograde/retrograde/maneuver marker felt easier to do. The roll was clamped better too, though it still existed. I definitely approve of the change of adding SAS to the probe parts, and while there's still a few things that look out of place, I'm sure that will all shake out by the time 0.22 comes out.

It works fine for me. Then again, it was the first addon that I reinstalled. There are other addons that cause problems in the VAB (Editor Tools has been updated, but prior to the update, caused various wonkiness, for example).

There's a flight computer in the command capsule. Only one flight computer is needed per craft, so that's not the issue. If the craft had a probe part instead of a capsule part, then you'd be right.

Actually, the 2.5m remote guidance unit has more torque than the rest of the probe parts now, by a large margin (1.5 torque, compared to 0.3 for most, and 0.2 for the low profile octo and stayputnik). However, I still don't consider that a reasonable balance. Yes it weighs more than the other probes, and it should since it has more reaction wheels. But the Mk1 lander can has twice the torque AND a flight computer AND life support (ok, so life support costs nothing at this time, but you get the point) AND living space for a kerbal, and it fits all of that in a part with only 20% more mass. The 1.25m part masses the same as the other probe parts, so it having the same torque makes sense.

Since a quad and a linear thruster have the same thrust, ISP, mass and same drag, I don't see a reason to favor the linear thruster based on those stats. As for part count, since it takes more linear thrusters to achieve equal maneuverability in most cases, I think that goes to the quad as well. On the other hand, the linear thruster has a higher crash rating and is easier to mount if you want a lot of RCS thrust in one particular direction. The only other reason I can think of to use a linear thruster is if you want a ship that CANNOT use RCS to rotate.

Be aware that unlike command pods, probe cores don't have a flight computer. If you don't have a flight computer, then turning on SAS does nothing but kill most of your manual control.

Well, the cupola went from being the strongest rotPower command pod by a large margin to being barely stronger than the Mk2 lander-can, and the command flywheels aren't as powerful as the old rotPower stuff was (even the mk1-2 went from 20 rotPower to 12.5 torque). So if 1 rotPower=1 torque, you'll need to add (30-9)/3 = 7 reaction wheel parts to get the same command authority.

My 0.21 experiences so far, on a fresh stock install and very basic rockets that I threw together in the VAB specifically for testing: 1) Flying a manned ship isn't bad, but can be a little frustrating. It makes no attempt to stop a roll and the only way to get it to lock onto the heading I want is to turn SAS off and back on. Otherwise, it likes to drift back towards the previous heading, even if my last steering correction is much closer to the current heading. The command authority from the pod is definitely weaker than 0.21. 2) Flying a probe with an ASAS part also isn't bad, though a little more frustrating due to the weaker reaction wheels. 3) Flying a probe without an ASAS part is nothing short of a micromanaging nightmare. Since probe cores don't have the "SAS-equipped" tag in the VAB, that's understandable, except that turning on SAS definitely does something, just nothing helpful. It feels like "utrafine" controls, where even in a 2 ton ship, you have to hold keys for several seconds to see any change in movement. It will not, however, stop a very slow tumble even in vacuum, so it's not acting like the pre-0.22 SAS, it's just seriously reducing command authority. It feels like all it's doing is fighting my commands, but not anything else. I kind of have to question the "ASAS built into capsules but not probes" decision, especially given that probes don't even have the pre-0.22 SAS functionality any more. This means that either we micromanage the launch, or we consider a part with a flight computer mandatory. I launched probes without ASAS in prior builds, and while SAS wasn't as helpful as ASAS, I could do it, but there's no way I'm doing it again in 0.21. The weaker control wheels are completely understandable, and the 2.5m probe core finally has enough rotational authority that adding an unmanned capsule for more rotPower is no longer a given. I also have to question the fact that the 1.25m ASAS (now named Inline Advanced Stabilizer) got a reaction wheel but the 2.5m ASAS didn't. Since the flight computer is redundant on a craft with a capsule, the part will only get used on probe craft, and any probe flying a 2.5m stack is probably going to need more torque than a probe flying a 1.25m stack. This also means that if we want to add stock reaction wheels to a 2.5m craft stack, we have to add the 1.25m reaction wheel or a command pod. Overall, I'm not sure that changing the way ASAS worked at the same time as reducing the rotational power of capsules/probe pods and removing SAS functionality from probe cores was a good idea. We're looking at two or three changes on almost every rocket, so it's hard to say which parts of which changes are the most negative. Other notes: The PDD-12 Cupola Module no longer outclasses even the Mk1-2 Command Pod, it's now barely more powerful than the Mk2 Lander-can.

EJ was livestreaming last night and had to use subassembly manager, and it seemed at least mostly functional, if not completely.

If you're making the wings longer not because you need more lift but because you need more room to mount air intakes, you might be air hogging. This also applies if you're thinking that the craft classifications should include "flying air intake."

I like it, even if I am bad at those hops :-)

I've heard, but not confirmed, that MechJeb takes into account the fact that some parts, while having a mass in the VAB, have no mass on the launchpad, and KER doesn't take that into effect. Landing gear and some of the struts come to mind.

No, that's where the food is. The emergency snacks are in the cabinet labeled "Not Food" because you don't want hungry kerbals finding your snacks. So you put them someplace else and deceptively label them.

Already there, that would be the black dot in the lower right corner.