Kenobi McCormick

I haven't done anything quite yet. But I have about 5200 science or so to get. I'm thinking I go for it in one lump sum in the Jool system somewhere. or perhaps Eeloo. I know I can gather enough at those locations using the craft that brought 4200 back from Dres if I take it somewhere with a higher science mult, and that means going farther out than Dres. To do this i'm going to be reaching for some modified hotrod ion engines, technology I haven't had in my space program since 0.19. Or perhaps way closer in? Anyone know if Moho's science mult is equal to Joolian moons?

I hope not. Unlike buttons turn communities into toxic cesspits and stifle discussion in favor of circlejerking. It's a large part of why Reddit is so infamous about having a hivemind.

Mmm, maybe. If it needs a plugin I don't know when, or even if, I'll get around to it. Part.cfg is easymode, making a mesh that KSP accepts is something I can do. I did dabble with this once, back in the twighlight hours of 0.17, and got something working ingame: http://i.imgur.com/nk2EI.jpg I'm honestly not a fan of rocker-bogie suspension. I might dabble with it but it's pretty low on the list. First priority is torsion bar tracks, below that double wishbone independent suspension. Second wave of parts, possibly. I don't want to give myself too steep a learning curve and end up killing the project before it gets off the ground, so the first release is gonna be pretty basic in all. Chassis parts and other such things that really only need a mesh, texture and part.cfg at first. Once I've gotten a hang of making parts with those I'll tackle things like hitches. FWIW I would dearly love to have a few hitches myself, bumper and fifth wheel alike, so it is something I will explore as I learn more. Definitely down the road. Post 1.1 for sure, possibly 1.2 depending on how long it takes me to learn how to make such parts/work the Unity editor. I am a huge fan of tracked vehicles, actually, so I was planning on at least one tank hull designed for the long tracks from the Kerbal Foundries mod. Making my own would likely require the KF plugin at minimum, is something I've considered. Wouldn't mind just ripping the tracks off a T-34/85 and equalizing the diameters of the drive and idler sprockets to remove handedness(The drive is much larger than the idler, would look funky with mirror symmetry on). But those are gonna be in the future, and likely break in 1.1 as they do rely on the wheel module that's going to drastically change. Yes, yes. Not sure if I should design them to be the actual bodywork, like you'd find on a side-by-side ATV, or for them to be embedded within a shell made of those flimsy geometric panels. Maybe. A plugin would be required, I think...and, hell, I may not worry about trying to ensure they're only used to keep rovers pinned down. I like seeing the creative ways people abuse parts to do things they were never intended to do. I eagerly await 1.1 mostly for this. This, and 64bit Windows. Mmhm. I was thinking you'd only really be able to build a basic little manned runabout that could drive around on the surface of Kerbin. I'm not overly concerned with making it too easy to do rover science offworld because the parts necessary to get a car onto another orbital body come late enough in the tree to negate the issue. Haha, yeah, my editor is cluttered to hell and back with all the mods I've got in. Dumping these parts into the vanilla categories would be easy on my end and a nightmare on the player's. I wonder if I could do sub-tabs... I didn't send anything into space pretty much since the game skipped to 0.90. By then most of my playtime was spent bombing around KSC in rovers. Or sometimes building tanks to shoot at things with. KV-2 turret is fun :3 Dress up parts are certainly a possibility. Part of the goal of this project is to make it possible to make cars. I'm tired of aircraft fuselages with wheels strapped on. I want to send Jeb a muscle car, and I want to make that muscle car easy to build and give it a practical purpose(hence the science stuff in the trunk). Suffice it to say the powerplants aren't gonna look very NASA-esque. More 'Smallblock chevy with a generator on the back'. Functionally they'll be fuel cells but they'll look...and perhaps sound if I can wrap my head around plugins...like engines.

Ever since the addition of stock rover wheels I've been longing for a set of structural and power parts oriented towards making rovers easier to build and more practical. Better than slapping wheels/tank tracks/whatever to aircraft fuselages and steel plates, basically. It's simple enough to make such items, within...if only just...my skillset. So I'm going to attempt it. What I want to know before I get Blender and Unity set up is: 1: What sort of parts does the community want in such a pack? My personal wishlist: Chassis plates in varying sizes Geometric panels of varying sizes and shapes to make bodywork out of(Very lightweight, not very substantial) Headlights Taillights Powerplants Fuel tanks Solar panels Science modules KIS/KAS storage modules A MJ unit Crash structures to keep kerbals safe and sound Cabins with a useable IVA, perhaps also open topped ones designed around the command seat Decouplers and docking ports 2: Should I attempt to include matching wheels for it? My idea is not to make a pre-fabbed rover like so many other mods along this line, more something that you can use to make your rover. That being said it might not be a bad idea to toss some wheels into the mix as well. 3: Tech tree integration. Given that we figured out how to put four wheels, a power system and basic forward-back-left-right controls on something before we figured out how to make a working liquid fuelled rocket engine, I'm thinking they should be VERY early in the tech tree. One of the first nodes unlocked, in fact, at least for enough parts to build cars with. Ya'll's thoughts? 4: I'm thinking they should get their own tab in the editor. Agree y/n? If there's anything I didn't mention that you feel should be, feel free to add it in!

Someone remind me to download this in six hours when i get home from work. I am a gearhead and do a LOT of stuff with rovers. Space cars, really. Having them deform in a crash will be amazeballs.

You can't really balance a nuclear pulse drive against 'realism' and still fly it. Orion never flew. The hazards inherent in firing off a chain of nukes were simply too big for project contiuation. The closest it ever got to flight was a scale model using C4 as propellant.

Play within your processor's limits and abuse the ARM parts. I have yet to need asparagus staging to put any payload into LKO that my CPU could handle at a reasonable framerate, hell my lifters can put more parts up there than that by a large margin.

Works for my amphibian, but not the helo. I may or may not have used the hatch on the crew cabin as an alignment and mounting point for the main rotor. I also for means of balance clipped the capsule in nice and tight. I can post screenies in the eve, at work right now.

I'm loving these parts, too. Even built a helicopter using the pod and the crew cabin! Problems I have encountered: * The hatch on the capsule is in a very awkward, nearly useless, position. It seems I cannot get kerbals out of that thing without either A: jettisoning the pod entirely, B: Putting it on side-mounted rails somehow, C: installing a mod that lets me shift kerbs around within a vessel. I feel being able to exit via hinged windscreen would be a good idea. * The small radial impellors won't even start up. The big one works fine. * The saddle ballast tanks are awkward to place. * Nothing seems to be willing to surfattach. * Most of the dashboard is just grey nothingness. I'm assuming it's spots for RPM, which I don't have fitted to this install of KSP, would be nice to see some placeholders there for non-RPM users though. Clipboards, snack boxes, stuff like that.

It is my opinion that the player should be able to fire any engine in any configuration. Player freedom should trump anything else, use cases, history, whatever. If I, the engineer designing and pilot flying, the rocket in my VAB want an engine to fire while the game considers it stowed it should fire when commanded. And if that ends up in problems? My own damn fault for designing and/or flying the vehicle improperly. I sort of do this all the time. When I fire a new stage I have the decoupler and the engine in the same staging event, mostly because I don't want half-second coast phases in the middle of my ascent. I honestly think having this safety mechanic coded into the game goes against the very fiber of the game's being, that being 'give the player a solar system, a bunch of parts and a way to combine the whole lot, then let them do whatever the hell they want to'. We disabled a lot of VAB clipping checks that previously prevented players from placing parts in potentially non-ideal ways in the name of player freedom, so let's get rid of this for the same reason. It shouldn't matter if there's a real life historical use case for firing an engine while stowed. If that's what the player wants to do the game should allow the player to do that. tags should still work if you drop that onto imgur rather than trying to hotlink a google search redirect.

Ignore mileage. It is a meaningless stat. A car with 320,000 miles on it can run as well as the day it was made, and a car with 45,000 miles on it can burn more oil than gas while knocking harder than a pack of door-to-door salesmen on crunch week. I have an old Ford pickup that proves this point handily. It has 320K on it, yet it runs juuuuuuuust fine. Ok, not the best on NVH and cosmetically it's so bad they'd have to restore it a bit to use it in a Mad Max movie, but dammit if I get in it, turn the key, and let the clutch out it goes! I turn the wheel, it steers! I hit the middle pedal, it stops! And it doesn't stall or die out at lights! Passes emissions, even. Look instead at maintenance history, as a well maintained car will last for decades, and just listen to the car itself. The car will tell you if it's still healthy or not. And if it is, coupled with a good maintenance history, ignore what the odo says. It depends on what car you buy. I can't sit here and tell you 'oh, this car will last for years, this one won't', because when you're buying cars this old the owner's maintenance habits play such a huge role in longevity. I can steer you towards vehicles that tend towards durability and longevity, but even with them you have to make sure it hasn't been abused, neglected, or both. I will say that if you choose wisely you can get more use out of a $500USD car than most people get out of brand new ones. My parents bought me an '85 Ford F150 with ~200K miles on it for that back when I was in high school and I have since put 120,000 miles on it. My dad's a former mechanic that's worked on everything from economy cars to C-130s and F-4 Phantoms, so he knows his way around an engine, and he made sure they chose a vehicle that still had some life left in it. That looks to be in fine shape. You really have to be scraping the bottom of the price range to get cars that look bad. But, even then, cosmetic damage is not an indicator of mechanical health. My old Ford looks like something you'd see the Brotherhood of Steel hauling power armor suits around Post Apocalyptia in. There isn't a panel on it that isn't dented, there's some body rust over the LR wheel and on the hood, and the only clearcoat left on it is in the door jambs. The interior is faded and cracking, the dash flops around like a fish in a boat when hitting bumps, half the gauges don't work properly, of the emblems it shipped with only the blue oval in the grille and the painted FORD on the tailgate remain in place, the steering wheel lost its center pad yonks ago. Pedal pads on brake, clutch fell off not too long after I bought it. But, again, that thing runs just fine. Cosmetically it's a wreck, mechanically I trust it more than I trust some brand new cars. As for what car to buy...ahh, car selection in Tennessee and car selection in the Czech Repub are wildly different. If you lived in the US I could name some vehicle years and ranges to choose from where, provided you gave 'em a good lookover, you'd have good success rates. But I somehow doubt you'll be able to find a '76-'96 F-150 or Silverado kickin' about over there. What I can tell you, though: * Timing belts are popular on the types of cars available to you, and when they break they like to omnomnom cylinder heads, valves, and pistons. So make sure this has been changed regularly, and continue to do so. If you cannot find an accurate record of the last time it was changed plan on having it changed as soon as you take delivery of the car. * All the usual preventative maintenance checks. Bad maintenance is the number one cause of people thinking high mileage = bad car. People don't take the best care of their cars, they wear out prematurely, there ya go. * Make sure the clutch works properly. Cable op clutches are notorious for stretched cables, these can feel like slipping clutches(And in fact cause slipping clutches). Hydraulic clutches can leak, had this happen on my F150 at one point. Mechanical clutches get linkage wear, and then of course the clutch itself is also to be looked at. Shift cables should also be checked, as they're the leading cause for floppy shifters in manual trans FWD cars. * If you're pondering something with an automatic, do the following test. 1: Put it in D. 2: Stand on the brakes as if panic stopping. 3: Give it a fair bit of throttle with your right foot. The engine should rev up to somewhere between 1400 and 1750RPM, then hold steady. The car shouldn't move, but it should feel like it wants to, and there should be no clunks. Slowly let off the gas, select reverse, repeat the same test. If there's a problem with the torque converter or the first/reverse planetaries/clutches you will discover it here, and if you do walk away as that stuff is EXPENSIVE to fix. Clunking would indicate worn motor mounts, worn halfshafts, etc. * Inspect the tire tread more closely than just 'it has tread y/n'. The tire tread will speak volumes as to the health of the suspension system. If they're wearing evenly, or if the only abnormal wear is under/over inflation, the suspension isn't gonna be badly worn. You can also glean a glimpse into the driving style of the previous owner if you know how to read the tires properly, as tire wear is affected by how aggressively the car is driven, how heavily loaded it is, etc. * With the engine OFF, but the key on, try to steer the car. Does the wheel move more than 5-6 degrees before you feel heavy resistance? If yes, steer clear, the steering rack is FUBAR. * Fire it up, try the above again. Does the power steering have any odd hard spots in it, does the assist feel like it's working properly? * Bring a long, metal object. Crowbar, long screwdriver, long extension, something about arm's length. With the engine running, touch one end to the engine in various places and the other to your ear. There should be a very quiet tick in the top of the head where the tappets are, more quiet ticks from the fuel injectors on the intake ports, from the firing cycles on the exhaust ports. Everywhere else should be quiet. * Never buy a car without test driving it. Some issues only crop up when it's going, like rear brakes that don't work, some overheating issues, on-throttle misfires, etc. Listen to the car, watch the gauges.

Oh my. I love that truck cab. It's in an entirely different league compared to the rest of the mod, hell, it's IMO good enough to be a stock part provided there's a matching IVA.

Old School Turrets I think. That's what it's named in /GameData anyway. Adds a few WW2 tank turrets and if I remember right it said in the mod description that a version of BDA newer than 0.9 breaks it.

No. War Thunder Ground Forces and building plenty of plastic model tanks. We have enough tank turrets already, between this and the other mod that adds them. What we don't have is good tank guns that will work for a casemate vehicle. We have that 105mm howitzer but AFAIK that's the only one.

I can't update BDArmory without breaking another mod.

Am I the only one having trouble finding any of these parts in the VAB? The only one that shows up for me is the bomb mount. Coincidentally enough it's also the only part.cfg that has a category defined. The guns, ammo, bombs? They're all 'Category = none' and I can't find a single one.

Oooh. More boomsticks! My suggestion for more weapons to focus on...tank guns. Not necessarily tank turrets, just tank guns, mounted on a carriage that lets some elevation and traverse but not 360 degree coverage. 75mm to 152mm would be good.

The companies that made the models did the measurin'. I can relay those numbers, though. They're widely accepted to be highly accurate models! All tank guns need to have some sort of recoil system or they'll destroy the turret ring and trunnions. Even the fairly weak F-34 76.2mm cannon in the T-34/76 turret and ZiS-5 76.2mm gun in the KV-1 turret you've made have enough kick to make life impossible on the crew and destroy turret bearings in short order.

Oooh. Pretty sweeeeeet. Gonna go try to soup these up a bit with some aftermarket racing wheels and see how much fun they can be!

Late reply I know, but all of them seem a bit on the big side. The T-34/76's turret is the worst offender, though, it's bigger than the KV-1 turret. If'n you need measurements or photos lemme know, I have...hmm, Panther, T-34/76 and Tiger I in 1/35th plastic on my desk. Speaking of, I held the turret from my Tiger I model up to my screen while your preview screenshot was up. It's pretty much bang on!

I'm absolutely loving the cabin, but I'm going to echo some other points people have brought up. We need flatbeds and service bays for these things. Something like that. Also, I'm happy to report this thing is almost designed for those tracks. They fit it better than the wheels that came with it!

Tailgating Veyron drivers in a semi truck. Ahhh, progress.

I 'spose so, but I imagine most people have at least a 360 pad or something lying around. I used to use one myself, nowadays I use a Dual-Shock 3.

Am I the only one that doesn't particularly like how narrow the steering swing is on most rover wheels? Even the KF stuff, I've found, leaves turning radii far too wide. I usually edit the .cfg to put the low speed swing at between 30 and 35 degrees.

Can I use this to get Shapeways to print me a 1/35th scale model of my rovers and such? 'Tis pretty much the only thing I'd use it for, and I run far too many mods for the service Squad set up where you just send dosh and .craft and get a painted 3d model(AFAIK that's stock only).