magnemoe

It has to match speed with it and then move toward it. No you don't want a too close intercept, high chance you have dust around it.

Yes, think its a 1/1000 chance of dying of something else than disease every year if you are 30-40 year old, younger people are involved in more accidents and violence. It might be pretty simple to expand living age some, harder then you get past 150 year, it might take enough changes to make you an new species,

Played around with plane SSTO a bit now and their main bonus is very low fuel use, downside is that they are pretty inflexible. If you want to expand capacities you have to redesign it, not enough to do the moar boosters thing. However it might also be me having problems building a large spaceplane

Reusing the interplanetary motherships also save you the launch costs of new ones, Landers and fuel is lighter. This will be more relevant with contracts as you will be doing multiple trips.

Well he did not know about the button on part for do test, he had problems doing a burn in orbit, perhaps for the same reason. Did not remember the parachute test he got credit for during return from the test flight. I see it as far more probably that he did not know or forgot to toggle derbies on in tracking station, or that the did not have derbies who separated out. This typically happens under failed landings or splashdowns of ships, launchpad fails also give lots of derbies but can be reverted. Parts without any braking tend to be totally destroyed, so if you drop the service module / upper stage at 1 km you don't get any part of it. if you keep it atacthed to pod and land at 15 m/s you lose some parts and other breaks away if radially connected. .

If you have anything on the launchpad it will be automatically recovered then you launch a new ship in the current game, don't think it even ask you if its just launch clamps. Unless verified I believe derbies can be refunded if recovered the same way science can. Yes another way is just to make launch clamp cheap.

Yes, the only thing I have dropped on launch who had survived is rocket boosters for spaceplanes. 8-12 seperatrons on a grinder segment, decopler and parachute. They survives as they are dropped at very low attitude, You can not recover trashcans boosters from rockets as they will be dropped over a kilometer up and you will be 2.5 up before they reach ground. You might be able to recover larger stuff dropped from planes if dropped just after liftoff. the other option is to go very high, if you do the last 5-800 m/s with upper stage you should be able to switch back to first stage. Finally you have the option to recover transfer stages, something who take you out to Mun just require a small nudge to return, however it might be smarter to just use a droptank for the lander engine here or use an reusable tug you refill.

Yes, however just adding biomes for Duna would make it an more interesting target and make more complex missions more relevant.

The vernier is designed to move huge ships or asteroids around. If your ship is heavier than 500 ton a ton extra for control is nothing you probably save the weight by not having to carry all the monoprop, it however can be used together with monoprop where you use the 8 monoprop truster blocks for rotating and correcting trust errors from vernier, the verniers will do most of the directional movement. I agree, its nice for adjusting satellite orbits, however if you need more than 3-4 oscar tanks you are better off using a 48-7S as it will give more dV. The 48-7S wins at two oscar but its heavier and you often want the tanks to mount equipment on.

nice and ansver the question about minimum length from engine to asteroid as in 4 grinder segments is more than enough. Liked the plane a lot too.

How practical is vertical takeoff and plane landing shuttle style? Main benefit is that its easier to land at the spaceport for the 98% recovery bonus.

Yes, you will also be limited by an lack of part just as in current career mode. One interesting part will be that you would want to get extra science too, so if you have a land on Minmus landing you will want to do multiple biomes with it to get more science. Trip is paid, you however expand the mission for the science.

However an rocket SSTO uses twice a much fuel and is pretty dependent on endgame science. Plane ssto don't use much fuel but is harder to use and even harder to scale up.

Currently most expensive parts is rapier is 5900 25x4 is 5900 ion engines is 5700 who is pretty expensive for a so small part. ground support pylons (launching clamps) is 5000 however they can always be recovered at 98% the lab is 4000

Yes, you can also use the BZ-52 docking port looking like thing for the same and its designed for that. I use the cubic octagonal struts a lot for getting light stuff away from the core. Very practical for stuff like probe rover wheels, solar panels and so on, current price is low.

How long does it have to be? This is only relevant for the D and E class as the C and smaller can be handled easier. I found that putting the engines close to the front helps then pushing, it will make the error in angle smaller.

Yes, that is one part of KSP who is pretty realistic, do not land high structures on water. now the stage is probably not watertight however the tanks are and I guess its closed at the bottom too to protect the rocket from blowback during liftoff.

Q-10 is nice for docking tugs, that is a small craft designed to move parts around for docking, like this. The vernor is nice for masvice ships like the station in the background and then redirecting astroids, here you often need sideway trust to as you is a few degree off center of mass. The Q-10 can be used for getting pods away from launhers during about and then braking before landing, downside as I see it is no separate fuel, not a huge issue during takeoff but a problem then doing abort during landing.

Probe rovers are nice to look at various locations like artifacts and geographical features. I once landed them on the poles almost all bodies in Kerbin, Duna and Eve has a an mountain peek at the poles, Eve north pole is very dramatic with an knife edge ridge up to the pole. Tylo has mountains too, Moho south pole is flat, Laythe, Eeloo, Val and Ike has flat poles, Minus has a crack in the surface layer.

Remember an Eve lander with the same problem, worse since gravity on Eve is higher, luckily I was in a hill so taking off and going to 5 meter and down had the rover roll out of way. At least for bodies with atmosphere I found it was smarter do deorbit the rover independently.

They are doing soft landings so its pretty much the same as the real recovery mission. Yes, however the previous test telemetry told the rocket went into hover mode over water however rocket tipping over and the huge waves broke it up. An landing on ground would be easier to monitor

This only affect stuff flying in the atmosphere and it 2.5 km from the craft you control, probe or not does not matter, even stuff who splash down stays. As other says, put goo containers on a fuel tank below a pod, splash down at 5 m/s tank will be destroyed but not engine or goo containers who can be recovered and give science.

Build my second spaceplane who works. Its role is to take lots of kerbals and light cargo into orbit.

Hopefully TAC and other either add relevant life support to kerbal or simply put them in hibernation. kerbals in low orbit around kerbin can still be rescued. For kerbals at other bodies one simple solution exist: say a kerbal is stranded on Ike, send a ship with free room for a kerbal, put it in orbit around Ike then accept the mission. I do not think the kerbal / ship spawns untill you accept the mission.

On Minmus yes, on Mun even small hops are expensive and the primary sample area with the canyon east of the crater is pretty rugged making landing hard, you will also have to send a kerbal first to find the biomes unless you have a list of coordinates.