Brotoro

I giggled.

Did you even READ what I wrote? I said "black hole encased in a force field". This is the 'engineered planet' theory involving the Magratheans (who easily manipulate such things as black holes and white holes). I certainly did not suggest a naked singularity living inside a planet, so all your arguments against this are pointless. Or I suggested some other super dense form of matter (be it quark matter, pion condensate, neutronium... Take your pick from whatever many names such material has appeared under in speculative physics and science fiction). But, my other point is, since it's deep inside the planets, we need not be concerned with the details of what it is... Just take it as a given and go from there. Also, I'm not sure how saying it's just scaled down by 1/11 solves ANYTHING. We know that the devs have given us a diminutive planetary system, but that doesn't explain how such a thing can exist with our laws of physics in play, since you still have to explain the densities somehow. One can't just reduce the distances and keep everything else the same...you would not get the behavior we observe in the game. It's not the SIZE of the magnetospheres that is of concern here, it is the STRENGTH of the fields, since this is what feeds into the intensity of the radiation belts (which is why we care). Does that get reduced by 1/11 along with 'everything'? Or is the magnetic field generated by these much smaller planets supposed to be as strong as what is produced by a much larger planet like Jupiter (and if one contends that something the size of Venus is somehow making a magnetic field of such enormous strength, I want to know what unknown physics is being invoked to make it so). Again, I never said they were in our same universe. I SAID that I would prefer it if they were (rather than in a universe with different fundamental constants) simply because this would leave open the possibility of kerbals eventually being able to visit our solar system. But that would be much harder to do if they inhabit a universe with very different physical constants.

What was the reason for cancelling?

Part 20 is not the end... but I did rush to get Part 20 out quickly because of the cliff hanger of Part 19. I have been making new stuff and sending it out to Laythe... but it takes a while: Launch. Dock. Launch. Dock. Launch. Dock. Transfer burn. Targeting burn. All stuff I've done before, so I haven't been in a big rush to do it again. Also, as the end of semester approaches I have a lot more stuff to do other than play KSP.

Multiple medium asteroids would be more devastating than a single large asteroid of equivalent mass (for the same reason that multiple lower-yield nuclear warheads are more devastating than a single warhead of the same total yield).

Yes, since landing legs are "broken" as far as Eve is concerned, one might as well go with landing on wheels and then use the driving-up-a-mountain method. Congratulations one escaping Eve (and reaching all other bodies). Have some kerbal snacks.

éuQ¿ …...

Not all SSTOs have wings (most of mine don't). The reusability is important, especially if you need to have vehicles that can ferry passengers up and down from a base on a distant moon/planet… you don't want to have to use a whole new vehicle for each trip because you have thrown away some parts needed to make the trip.

My most recent Apollo… The Saturn V work-alike: After the transposition and docking maneuver: Ascent stage liftoff from Mün: Lunar orbit rendezvous: A link to the full mission is in my signature.

Do you have a source for where the devs claim that "EVERYTHING" is scaled down by 1/11? Certainly the distances and planet sizes of the Kerbol system were made small… but did the devs tell us that the radiation belts have the same strength as much larger planets, only smaller in size? I have seen lots of people ASSUME this, but I have not seen a definitive statement by the debs to this effect. I, on the other hand, just go with what the game actually TELLS us, and work from there with the laws of Physics as I know them. We KNOW the distances. We know the masses from the orbital dynamics. We can deduce other things from there using Physics. I try to do so without introducing any more violations of Physics-as-we-know-it than is necessary. For example, one thing we CAN'T get around, based on the hard data presented in the game, is that most of the bodies in the Kerbol system have an extremely high density, although the stuff we deal with on their surfaces does not appear to be made from unusual matter (judging from the densities we can calculate for them based on sizes and masses of the objects). The simplest explanation around this problem is to assume that there is some very dense form of matter in the cores of these bodies (be it black holes enclosed in force fields, some exotic quark matter, or whatever. Since it's deep inside the planets, the details of this stuff need not concern us). Given the existence of these super dense cores, we can explain the rest of the system, including the observed fact that Kerbol works as a star, without needing any other violations of known Physics. With all this in mind, there is no reason to expect an object with the size and mass of Venus to have an intense magnetic field like Jupiter (unless you want to make things increasingly unphysical by adding in some additional violation of Physics to get such a field). Note: There are some people who want to explain away the observed planetary densities by changing the gravitational constant...but I'm not one of them. Not only is it just as extreme a change as imaging some super-dense state of matter inside the cores of the planets, it would also have far-reaching implications for the whole universe. Could you even get a universe anything like ours to exist with a much larger gravitational constant? Or would it immediately collapse after it's Big Bang? Would it be possible to make stars that could create heavy elements and return them to the interstellar medium for the later making of earth-like objects...or would they all just collapse into black holes, taking their lovely heavier elements with them? And does changing the gravitational constant mean that fundamental constants of the universe are going to have to "give" in consequence? Altering these constants in even tiny amounts could make chemistry and life as we know it impossible. It makes my head hurt. But the main reason I don't want to change the gravitational constant is that I hope in some future expansion module for the game, our plucky little kerbals will discover a nice wormhole that will allow them to explore a system of eight amazingly large planets, the third one of which is inhabited by nearly two-meter-tall giants. So I'd rather not mess with the fundamental constants of physics to keep that option open.

I don't think I posted a BirdDog craft file since version 1 (during development…not even the version sent to Laythe). The craft file link here is the most recent version (BirdDog3), AND it has the modified version of the GasStation that is designed to sit on girders at the correct height for refueling after the landing legs are retracted. That version of the GasStation was designed for the mushy legs of version 0.22 which (along with ground clipping of the legs in 0.22) made the old version not work. (This version of the GasStation has not been used on Laythe…only tested on Kerbin. In my continuing game I am still using the old GasStations and the config file for the old landing gear…which solves the mushiness problem, but which still have problems with ground-clipping of the legs in version 0.22.) Below: The modified version of the GasStation being tested at KSC.

0.17, shortly before the 0.18 update came out... So I've been playing almost one year now.

Why in the world would Laythe have cryovolcanism? It's not a low-temperature world. And if the devs make the environment around Laythe and other near Joolian moons intensely radioactive, I simply would not go there with my kerbals at all (assuming kerbals were susceptible to radiation), and KSP would become a much less interesting game.

Build more nuclear power plants. Avert potential climatological disaster. Easy.

I want my kerbals to be able to run hoses between landed ships for refueling. I want to refine propellant from planetary subsurface/sea/atmosphere resources. I want Magic Boulder back. Oh...And build Romfarer's docking camera into game, since they hired him and all.

The ship that I used to experiment with using inflatable heat shields was stable because of its CG location...but I wasn't using FAR, so that might make a difference. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/29334

I might do that. I've been impressed with how cool these clouds look in some YouTube videos I've seen. And, after all, with the excess number of ions in the atmospheres after the recent magnetic storms, a sudden appearance of clouds might not shock my kerbals too much.

Doing a quicksave/reload will put your re-packed parachutes back in the staging sequence.

Your momma emits radiation.

OK… another color change that was too subtle for me to notice.

Ah! OK…I could easily miss the color change from white to cyan as well. I guess colorblindness is more of a hindrance when playing KSP than I realized. Back when I was a kid, I didn't even aspire to being an astronaut because of my colorblindness.

Ah… And TimMartland informs me that there is also a yellow color chute icon for partially deployed chutes (I would never notice the difference between yellow and that bright green, which looks yellow to me). Is there an indication when you have activated the chutes but they haven't yet deployed? Say, if you open them in space before reentry?

Ah…well, you see, I'd never notice the difference between yellow and that bright green (which looks yellow to me). Is there an indication when you have activated the chutes but they haven't yet deployed? Say, if you open them in space before reentry?

I learned some things about re-packed parachutes today. I was having trouble using repacked parachutes on a ship that needed to do multiple hops. After repacking the chutes, they would often cause weird explosions when I tried to later deploy then with action group keys. They would NOT explode under the same circumstances if deployed with a right-click (although that was impractical because the unbalanced deployment caused my ship to tumble violently), and they never exploded when deployed the first time (non-repacked) even when deployed using action groups. Along with this was the annoyance that the repacked chutes could not be deployed from the staging sequence (even if moved around into new stages). Anyway, after a bunch of experimenting, I found out the following things: The parachute icons change color, indicating something about their status (which may have been more obvious to you non-colorblind people than it was to me): 1) The first color (white) shows that the parachute is ready to be deployed. 2) The second color (green, I guess…I can tell from the RGB of the pixels, and from having seen a few greens in my day) shows that the parachute is out and operating. 3) The third color (red, I'll bet) shows that the parachute has been disconnected (this shows after landing). 4) The fourth color is the odd one… a darker green… and its what you see after repacking your chutes. Chutes displaying this color will not deploy in the staging sequence, and these are the chutes that have been causing weird explosions when I deploy them with action group keys. BUT, HERE IS THE FUN PART (and the reason I had some difficulty in getting the exploding effect to repeat): …IF you do a quicksave and then reload the save, these darker green chutes turn white again! AND they work in the staging sequence. So apparently I just have to remember to quick save/reload after packing chutes before I attempt to use them. I'm not sure what the darker green color is supposed to represent (I presume it wasn't meant to indicate "amusing exploding mode active!").

After a bunch of experimenting, I found out the following things: The parachute icons change color, indicating something about their status (which may have been more obvious to you non-colorblind people): The first color (white) shows that the parachute is ready to be deployed. The second color (green, I guess…I can tell from the RGB of the pixels, and from having seen a few greens in my day) shows that the parachute is out and operating. The third color (red, I'll bet) shows that the parachute has been disconnected (this shows after landing). The fourth color is the odd one… a darker green… and its what you see after repacking your chutes. Chutes displaying this color will not deploy in the staging sequence, and these are the chutes that have been causing weird explosions when I deploy them with action group keys. BUT…(and the reason I had some difficulty in getting the exploding effect to repeat) …IF you do a quicksave and then reload the save, these darker green chutes turn white again! AND they work in the staging sequence. So apparently I just have to remember to quick save/reload after packing chutes before I attempt to use them. I'm not sure what the darker green color is supposed to represent (I presume it wasn't meant to indicate "amusing exploding mode active!").