LameLefty

... Or, I Really Take This Game Too Seriously Sometimes So I'm sending out my first crewed orbital missions to other planets at this point in my Career save. I'm taking my time, not spamming every last point out of every transmission and what not. I've unlocked 2.5m components, the Skipper but not yet the Mainsail, docking clamps and junior sized clamps ... In other words, I'm well enough along in the Tech Tree but not fully finished. I've sent a probe to flyby Moho, got one on the way to Eeloo but it'll be a year or so, game time, before it gets there. Sent one probe that made a distant flyby of Jool with another one (better aimed and with more dV!) that should orbit. I sent out my first crewed flight to Eve since I had a window coming up quickly and I seriously considered equipping it with chutes and planetary science instruments like the seismometer and barometer and just landing it. Of course I have no hope of getting those guys back soon, if at all. I have never even tried to do so in Career, let alone in a limited-parts context like this. But I kept thinking of those great EVA reports, crew reports, etc. Even with transmission losses, it would be a lot of Science!â„¢ In the end, I just couldn't do it. I launched a lander probe, docked it to the nose of my orbital ship and sent the combined stack off to Eve instead. I'm doing the same thing for Duna. I know this is a completely fictional game with little green guys as stand-ins for people, but I really hate the idea of stranding them in the game. I can't decide if this makes me a good person, a lousy KSP player, or just someone who over-anthropomorphizes too much.

Until we get a much more realistic atmospheric drag model, don't count on seeing fairings in the stock game. In the meantime, KW Rocketry's are great, and Procedural Fairings are even better if all you want are the fairings.

Um, do what? Doesn't that just make the kerbal let go of the ladder? And when on the ground, jump?

I want to see that performance boost that Mu's video talked about a few weeks ago (and mentioned once again in the current KSP Weekly). After that, it's gravy. Tweaks for problematic things like the floppy new shock absorbing legs, etc. As for new stuff - more biomes on different planets, more Science flavor text, allowing Science point accumulation in Sandbox just for role-playing and fun. At some point, probably after 0.23, allowing Science points to unlock enhancements to parts (more thrust or ISP boosts for engines, lower mass for parts, better efficiency for solar panels and RTGs, whatever). I think adding economics to the game, along with resources, is going to be a major undertaking and will probably require a lot of balancing. Those are probably at least several versions away.

A fast low altitude probe flyby of Moho, with just the Science Jr. and Goo canister, netted me almost 650 science points tonight, even accounting for all the transmission losses. That's the most I've gotten from any single mission to date in Career Mode, but I've yet to land crew or even a probe outside the Kerbin system itself.

Download the .zip file. Extract it. Drill down to the Kethane folder and drop that into your /Kerbal Space Program/GameData folder. Done.

This is an interesting question. What I've always done (and admittedly I could be doing it wrong - I'm not huge on long-distance interplanetary travel), is start my burn a little under half the burn duration ahead of time, while pointing dead at the maneuver marker, and burn until the residual velocity is as close to 0 as I can reasonably get it, tweaking course the whole time to keep the marker centered. In other words, for a 2 minute burn, aim and the marker and start at about T - 60 seconds, burning until T + 60. I would like to hear what some of the more experienced interplanetary navigation experts have to say.

I know. I studied all of this years ago, when detailed info first began trickling out. For that matter, I was studying aerospace engineering when "Kremlinology" was still a relevant term (seemingly replaced these days by "SpaceX-ology," lol! ). Also, as you noted above and I stated out in passing, the lack of engine control technology really hurt the N-1 program. It should be realized that the NK-33 is not simply a 40+ year old engine shipped over to the U.S. and integrated into Orbital's rocket. Rather, they are pretty much disassembled, inspected and rebuilt, and equipped with a thoroughly modern digital engine controller and health monitoring system. This is what the N-1 needed but 40+ years ago wasn't available.

It works fine in Sandbox. If you want to use them in Career, you'll have to either wait until Kommitz updates it, or simply edit the part .cfg files to add them to the Tech Tree node of your choice.

I bolded the part that's relevant. 30 engines isn't the key - it's 30 engines with the notoriously-poor Soviet quality control system, combined with the lack of an efficient engine control system to handle all 30 at once. I have no doubt SpaceX is going to do just fine with the F9H and its 27 engines (plus 1 on the second stage). But the number of engines, all by itself, isn't the issue.

After staging, 3 of 9 engines are ignited and run for a short period to kill most of the velocity and allow a controlled re-entry of the first stage. One engine is re-ignited a second time very shortly before touchdown to perform a "suicide burn" and landing. SpaceX attempted this on their recent mission, shooting for a test "water landing" downrange, during the first launch of the F9 v1.1. Apparently the stage developed a roll during final approach, prior to igniting the center engine the second time. The roll exceeded the attitude control system's ability to control it. The center engine was able to be restarted but flamed out due to centrifuging of the fuel in the tanks. Musk thinks they'll be able to overcome this with some tweaks and once landing legs are installed on the stage (which will essentially act as fins to help control roll).

Join the L2 portion of the site. There's more info there (including indications that cross-feed isn't even being actively worked on at this time, other than preliminary designs and possibly scarring of the cores for future plumbing/components). SpaceX has a LOT on their plate right now - F9H with cross feed is pretty far down the list.

I like the Skipper quite a bit. I find that a 2.5m core with a central Skipper and 4 radially mounted Mark 55's gives pretty good first stage performance. Use 3 of them with cross-feed or four in an asparagus arrangement and you get very impressive lift. Since I haven't yet unlocked the Mainsail, this design has become my default medium to heavy lifter in my Career save. Trivia: before the Skipper was added, wasn't there a more or less equivalent called the Atlas in one of the major mod packs? I seem to remember that from the 0.19 days.

Nits: It was specifically proposed for the D4H a long time ago, during the design phase, but no customers needed enough lift to justify the development cost or risk. For that matter, other than NSA and DoD payloads, nothing needs even the payload that the stock D4H provides without cross-feed. Don't count on the first version of the Falcon 9 Heavy to utilize it either, although SpaceX needs the extra performance for a number of reasons - first, Musk wants to be able to recover and re-use his cores; that eats into performance. If cross-feed can eventually be made to work, he'll use it to buy back the perfomance reserves required to recover the cores. Second, SpaceX still lacks a high-ISP upper stage engine; the Merlin 1D Vac has excellent performance for kerolox but still comes nowhere close to the efficiency of a hydrolox stage. That doesn't matter much for LEO payloads but it kills performance to GTO and beyond (planetary missions and Musk's eventual Mars dreams).

And in fact, this mod does seem to work fine in 0.22 (although I haven't tested it very thoroughly). I used it to swap out crew on the pad since I had forgotten to do so before leaving the VAB.

Drogue chutes and struts are the answer unless you have the fuel/mass budget for a powered landing.

I'm sorry but the understated way you phrased it ... that's Kerbal comedy gold there, Comrade.

Science 1 was the name of my first mission, using the aptly-named Rocket Mk. 1.

I've only done one docking in 0.22 since I unlocked docking clamps in career mode, but it seemed to work fine.

Put me in that list. Say what you want about Steam but ... I bought HL-2 through Steam over 10 years ago. When Steam became available for OS X, I was able to log into that account for the first time in 5 or 7 years, re-verify everything, then download OS X versions of games I'd had on my old PC years ago. Also, and to the point, while the Squad servers were being hammered senseless last week, I had the download completed and ready to play within 2 or 3 minutes of opening up the Steam app.

Learn 2 grammar. kthxbai And while you're at it, some university-level mathematics and physics might help your critical reasoning skills when it comes to pie-in-the-sky, non-Newtonian theoretical concept papers floating around on the 'net.

A Münar flyby got me nearly 300 science. Then go land on the Mün or Minmus. Expose the Goo to the environment, do a couple EVA reports (once or twice en route, once on the surface). Expose the Science Jr. materials bay to the dust on the Mün. Do an EVA on the surface, take a surface sample. Transmit a few reports back on the Science bay. Etc. I got 400+ points on each of those.

Having invented the miracle of solar panels but not yet uncovered the mysteries of landing legs, the Program determined to land on Minmus anyway.

Awesome little update! Although I've got other mods installed and available in Career Mode, these little lights are the only ones I'm using currently. I like the double-flash mode a lot, by the way. Thank you for the update!

Sleeping off a bender in the Astro Complex after a science gathering free-return mission around the Mun. Due to an error by Mission Control, his trajectory back to Kerbin caused him to hit in excess of 9 g's during entry. Also, having not yet invented landing legs, the Science Jr. Bay exploded when the craft touched down, losing most of the science collected. He's been drowning his sorrows in the lounge waiting for his next chance to fly.