NeoMorph

Can anyone remind me what was the name of the mod that allowed inter-ship transfer of your kerbals? i.e. move them from the main ship into a lander WITHOUT going EVA? DOH... just remembered... Crew Manifest.

In the early days my LKO looked like a Kessler Syndrome had happened. These days though I plan to make sure that all my boosters fall short or if they make orbit I have enough thrust to make them de-orbit (rear facing thrusters).

Yeah, that's a good fix. I use it a lot on my outer boosters that feed the main tank. If I leave all three engines gimballing the thing just shakes itself to bits (yeah, I use MechJeb to orbit because I make a LOT of designs and repeating manual launches to contact is frustrating). The fix is to put the outer engines on an action group. I select toggle gimbal and assign it to group 8 every time. Then I have to hit the 8 button twice (stupid bug with KSP) before launch... if I forget to do it I can just toggle them off mid launch that way as well. I have to say that my rockets seem WAY more resistant to the dreaded spin now. I can now get my payload to orbit without it spinning at all with KJR (with ZERO struts as well). Top marks Ferram.

Got to say ferram... I go away for a couple of months and someone works out how to make my ships keep shaking apart boosting to orbit... That's me now stuck to the PC for hours on end again lol. Thanks dude. This is something that has been needed since version 0.1

Who is this "Billy"? When I first heard about the fact they have canned resources I was first disheartened too... but the number of community mods that already support resources I thought "Meh... No real loss!" which is probably why they canned it. No use remaking the wheel after all. For those who don't want resources they just don't download the mod... for those wanting resources they just add Kethane and Intersteller or whatever.

Just get a locking toggle switch. You have to pull them before flipping. It's what most flight capable craft use. In that picture I posted above you can see there there is an indentation in both up and down positions so it can be locked in either. There are a lot of different varieties. The one I use for abort is usually only used during launch so I have one that is locked for the off (up) position, is moved to the middle position to arm it and then can be pushed down to trigger the abort (it's momentary). Model number for that is a Rotax 13533/1... that is if you can find one. Took a while to locate what I was looking for.

You obviously misread what I put... I was 100% saying that "moar boosters" wasn't the way to go. I use aerobraking all the time. I try to pare my rockets down as much as possible. Oh and the things you need to look at below orbit is thrust-to-weight ratios while once you are outside orbit you need to look at delta-V. Noobies can look at an engine with a crappy thrust to weight and dismiss it too easiliy where in actual fact it can rock in orbit (just look at the nuclear rocket for example). It can be crap for lifting to orbit but once out of the gravity well it kicks ass... It's even good for Mun ops. I use that engine on all my Mun tugs because I never run out of fuel lol.

For those who want to really go overboard there are some switch guards from Shuttle that you can buy on ebay... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Repro-Space-Shuttle-Toggle-Switch-Guards-/180691383314?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item2a120bb412 Darned expensive... even D rings are expensive for what they are. Makes more sense to buy some nylon rod, a die (to make the thread) and a hot air gun and make your own. That way you can make the D as rounded as you need without leaving too much thread exposed (yeah, it's something I thought about for my build). Keep it up Mulbin and maybe I'll finish a working plan for my real life nav ball (one that doesn't have friction probs). I know what's wrong with it but I need to get my CNC machine to finish the support disk for the motors (cutting it by hand is just too inaccurate). Regarding switches... look out for old aerospace switches in auctions. I have a ton of old switches I have collected for my sim builds now... Like these... Yup... having locking toggle switches for various things such as... I don't know... staging maybe (hint, hint) actually saves a lot of missions heh. Edit: PS - look at the date on that switch... Right year for sure... Oh yeah, forgot one thing... Mulbin, get in touch with Rich from Telemachus. That mod is great for linking hardware to KSP. Tell him I recommended his mod (and he's great to work with).

I think you have beat the game if you go at least one mission without going "Oh crap!" at least once... or at least with your choice of swearword. KSP - The Art of the Unexpected Booboo!

Has anyone ever built a rocket, got it built perfectly and then you add the launch stabilisers and go to launch it... only when you light the touch paper and the rockets fire and you find that YOUR LAUNCH STABILISERS ARE LINKED TO STAGE 1 INSTEAD OF THE MAIN LAUNCH STAGE??? Arrrgg... my fault... my fault. Back to the assembly building (good job I don't work for NASA). Seriously... I forget EVERY darn time to set the stabilisers to release when the main engines fire. It's only a few seconds to go back to the assembly building and move them to the right stage but man, does it make me grind my teeth in frustration. It's ultimately my fault but oh, I wish they defaulted to the last stage you have in your stack instead of getting dumped into the stage they are linked to. Funniest incident was when all the stabilisers but one (which was attached about 2/3 the way up the stack) were set up right and when the engines fired the whole rocket started spinning around the one anchor... would have turned into a huge Catherine Wheel except everything blew up rather spectacularly on the third turn... Not seen it happen like that since but have had plenty launches that I had to abort because the stabilisers were attached in random seeming stages.

"Why is my rocket bending in the middle?" - just before phantom force folded my rocket in two and it then exploded. "This is going to be a perfect landing" - just before I accidentally nudge the abort button and Jebidiah gets ejected with a capsule and a parachute... ON THE MUN. "Why is my craft not responding?" - as the probe flies off into the aether and then I realise I forgot to add the solar panels.

Yeah... that's the only problem with building it in LEGO... err... I mean basic KSP parts. I've tried to search for an ISS mod for KSP but can't find anything because of the stupid search engine (SQUAD really need to do something about it because of the amount of dross in the Spaceport means you can never find what you want).

Chris Hadfield posted it on his Twitter account which is where I found it...

Getting that first rocket to have enough thrust to weight ratio ends up with new players adding more fuel tanks because they are thinking they are just running out of fuel (I know I did). Sometimes doing the opposite of what you THINK you need to do works wonders in this game. Hey, it's not rocket science... oh... hold on... it is! lol. Trick to getting your first orbit is to reduce the weight of your orbit vehicle. (I've also found that a 3:2:1 with fuel tank sizes (stages) for my Mun rockets works every time). But your first orbit means getting rid of as much weight as possible (and yeah this means sometimes having less fuel in your rocket gives you more fuel to get you to orbit - sounds completely wrong but believe me, it works as the rocket doesn't have to push all that heavy fuel to orbit) and sure enough just copy something like the Gemini rocket and not a fat Saturn V and you will orbit no problemo. The big problems I find is having enough fuel to push a manned ship interplanetary with enough to return (and yeah, I am STILL a noob where interplanetary single rockets are concerned as I don't like making silly ADDMOARBOOSTERS rocket designs - I like mine to look real). kBob... you will have great fun with this now you are in orbit... and what you don't realise is that you are learning about REAL space science too. I can't praise this game/sim enough. My only criticism is the fact that the space stations I build end up going boom after I add too much stuff and turn it into 1 frame per fortnight update rates lol.

Not exactly sure where this should ultimately be put in the forums but for those who want to try an build a duplicate ISS as they put the real one together this video is pure gold. I just wonder how many hours it actually took to assemble it in real time with the glacial speed that real space ops is done.

Ummm... OP is a liiiiiiitle bit late on the Asteroids coming soon... http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/20-asteroids-from-fasa-2/

So if they find a mineral that makes the Kerbal astronauts weak will we have to call it Hryptonite?

Just think about what you have learned... it is that which is making it easier, not the patches.

Just have a look in the history of Freespace. Look for John Hanton.... That's me. Been knocking around the space gaming modding community for a few years heh (although my brain is truly fried these days). The encryption on the game files was pretty simple... 8 bytes of data was just compressed into 7 bytes by only using 7 bits in each byte. So that the second byte of info started in bit 8 of the first byte and then the first 6 bits of byte 2 and so on until byte 7 when it made 8 bytes of data. Once the data was unpacked the game files were simple to mess with. I just loved expanding on the basic game even though FRED (the in game editor) made mission creation a breeze. Still think they should have made Freespace 3... and 4 and 5 and 6...

Heh... Gotcha! I tend to hibernate when the weather gets bad... but now I've got (semi) used to it I'm coming out of my cave again. I had to pack in playing because I was getting serious butt cramp from sitting too long lol. Darned Jeb rescue missions (I've just left Jeb in another out-of-fuel situation in a test lander just above the surface of the Mun AGAIN!). I try something out and instead of just reverting back to a save game I HAVE to go out and do a rescue mission. I love the old Apollo 13 vibe that "dead-is-dead" plays give you... but they do give you a few "EEEEEK!" instances. Only saved Jeb this time because I used the RCS to push him into an orbit after the ascent went pear shaped and I lost the main tank and engine after colliding with the drop tank. Jeb always springs for the top class Rescue-Me-Tron radio package thank god.

Docking is the first main hurdle in KSP and gets most people screaming "WHAT THE *BLLLLLEEEEEP* IS GOING ON NOW?". I could never figure out that my relative velocity was easily figured out by selecting the target you want to rendezvous with and then clicking above the nav ball until it shows "Target". It will then show the relative speed between your craft and the target. Then it was easy to follow Scott Manley's tutorial regarding docking. This is from 0.18 but is pretty much the same now...

I had a circular space station and had a spent tank almost thread the needle through the centre... I said almost because I had a crew shuttle clip it and then it all went pear shaped and my nice space station ended up turning into a Kessler Syndrome situation. Was pretty epic though even though it wrecked my station... shame about the time wastage (I was playing at "zero backups/dead is dead" and was trying to make the station in real time). I made the mistake of premature staging when the engines of the previous stage hadn't fully shut down (was only on a smidge) so it was slowly building speed up and following my space station segment. If it hadn't clipped that darn shuttle... oh well.

Exactly. It's rare to get the trolls here. Perhaps they are worried about not knowing about thrust to weight ratios and are scared of all us space nerds hehe. The only thing bad I can think about Squad is that they have released a game that is the equivalent of digital crack cocaine. Start playing a session of KSP and suddenly the day's vanished. I have to set alarms to remind me to eat hehe.

I just hate the fact that the current nav ball is planetary based (brown for ground, orange for sky) and that the node target indicator can be hidden on the other side of the ball. Deflection needles like the ones on an Apollo/Orbiter style ball let you know which way you have to turn to reach the node making it way more accurate. Once I get my new CNC rig bought and setup I will be able to make the model for you guys to see what I am talking about. Unfortunately there have been a few setback in my personal life that has held me back... but only a few more weeks to go.

... the damned game is just incredible. Add a few mods and it becomes AWESOME. Most games give you the game and then there are a few community mods that expand on it slightly. I remember modding an old game called Freespace back in the day and it was well... amazing to do so (especially as the game files were encrypted). We managed to add new parts to the game, new ships etc... but in comparison to KSP it is like a 5 year old kid with a toy compared with NASA. KSP's community expansions to a game that isn't even finished is just freaking awesome. I get tired of the game, go away for a few weeks and come back and there are a whole lot of new stuff available FOR FREE. Compare it to something like Call of Duty DLC where we have to pay silly amounts of money just to get a couple of maps. Yup... KSP is the game that never ends. Thank god Squad have supported modding from the get go.