Specialist290

My own list of favorites: Guns: Probably the M16, mainly because it and the M4 carbine are the only combat weapons I've ever actually fired (and the folding stock on the M4 is a bit useless when they don't let you actually adjust it, so you might as well get the solid-stock M16 anyway). Aircraft: Overall, the A-10 Thunderbolt II / "Warthog." In part because it's ugly-cute* in airplane form, and in part because it is a giant explosive-throwing Gatling cannon given wings and a cockpit (and is also incredibly durable). I'm also rather fond of the F-5 Tiger and its descendants, as well as older planes like the P-38 Lightning, the Supermarine Spitfire, the Il-2 Shturmovik, and the Albatros and SPAD series from World War One (in part because Red Baron was the first combat flight sim I ever played). * Warning: TV Tropes. May ruin your life and any plans you had for the afternoon.

Welcome to the forums! Putting a lander on the Mun is definitely quite the thrill. I still remember the first time I landed on the Mun with my own lander; it's one of those moments that sticks with you. If you need any help accomplishing even more ambitious goals, feel free to take a look at some of the tutorials and other player resources available in the Drawing Board (link in my sig). The people who frequently post in the How To thread are also more than willing to answer any questions you may have as well. Since you have a video series, you might want to post a thread promoting it over in "Live from Mission Control" under the Fan Works section. In general, feel free to look around and post in any conversation that interests you. Happy la-- Wait, you stole my sign-off! Oh well, happy landings anyway!

It would be quite nice to have them as part of the base game, yes. Until then, one of the written tutorials in the Drawing Board actually has a trainer ship designed to be used along with it, so you could practice with that one if you're having trouble.

Welcome to the forums! Since you're a relatively new player, I'd highly recommend that you have a look at some of the tutorials and other player guides listed in the Drawing Board (link in my sig). Many of them have been written specifically with people who are new to KSP in mind. You can also ask questions in the How To forums if you ever get stuck anywhere, or if you just want to learn more about how the whole "rocket science" thing works. Happy landings!

Welcome to the forums! Sounds like a rescue mission is in order. For tips on better spacecraft design and piloting, I'd like to recommend that you take a look at some of the tutorials and other guides available in the Drawing Board (link in my sig). You could also possibly start a topic in the How To thread with a screenshot of your craft and the launch vehicle and see what kind of advice you get from some of our more experienced players, if you ever get stuck on that design specifically. We also have a Mission Reports section if you want to keep us updated on your progress as you play. In general, just feel free to step into any conversation that piques your curiosity. Happy landings!

Welcome to the forums! Since you seem to be a fairly new player, I'd like to recommend that you take a look at the Drawing Board (link in my sig), which contains a number of tutorials and other useful player aids, some of which have been made specifically for people new to KSP. Feel free to ask questions in the How To section if you ever get stuck anywhere as well. Happy landings!

Welcome to the forums! Your ASAS works to try to keep your rocket locked into whatever heading you have it at whenever you activate it. Sometimes, for larger rockets, the adjustments it makes to stay on course produce a torquing effect strong enough to overcome the rotational torque of the command pod. As for your question about Mun landers: It's actually quite easy in KSP to make a direct-ascent lander (take the whole craft with you, rather than a separate CSM and lander), but I'd still recommend learning to dock. It's one of the hardest things to master in the game, but it's absolutely worth it because it opens up so many other options. If you need help with docking or any other aspect of the game, take a look at the Drawing Board (link in my sig) or ask questions in the How To section of the forums. We'll try to get any of your issues as squared away as we can. Images in messages: Since you have a new account, they're disabled (along with a few other things) until you have a bare minimum of posts and have been verified as not being a troll, spammer, or bot by the moderation staff. It's nothing personal, just a safety precaution. Feel free to look around and jump into any conversation that interests you; you'll probably be vetted in no time. Happy landings!

Welcome to the forums! I have a feeling the clue to the answer to your question is in your custom user title Since you're a new player, I'd highly suggest that you check out the Drawing Board (link in my sig), which has a number of tutorials and other player aids. Feel free to also ask questions of some of our veteran players over in the How To section of the forums if you ever get stuck with anything in particular. Happy landings!

No problem! That's exactly what it's there for.

It seems to be working now. Sometimes you have the option to not let it show when adding new posts; it probably defaults to not showing it for new accounts, which might explain why it doesn't appear on your first posts.

In English, whenever something goes spectacularly wrong in such a fashion that it's probably better just to start all over again with something entirely new, we have the saying that you're going "back to the drawing board" to come up with a new plan. Don't know if Dutch has anything similar, although we also have another expression along the lines of "back to square one" which means basically the same thing. In other words, it's one of those odd quirks of the English language

Nicely done! I might have to take a crack at submitting a craft myself, whenever you're open to submissions.

The simplest explanation is probably that the shroud is generated as part of the engine, not part of the decoupler.

Welcome to the forums! You may want to show off some of your best designs over in the Spacecraft Exchange, or take a look at others' work there and offer your skills. You may also want to share some of your accumulated wisdom answering questions from new players over in the How To section of the forums. (Don't feel afraid to ask your own if you need to, of course.) Above all, feel free to jump right into any topic that interests you. Happy landings!

Welcome to the forums! Sounds like quite the broad collection of skills you have there. I'd like to invite you to take a look at the Drawing Board (link in my sig). It's mainly intended for new players, but you might still find some of the information available to be useful, particularly for your first interplanetary mission. Feel free to ask questions in the How To section of the forums as well. Since you seem to be the creative sort, I'd also recommend that you take a look in the Fan Works section and offer your opinions on other people's work, or maybe even contribute some of your own if you're interested. Happy landings!

Welcome to the forums! Feel free to share some of your wisdom with other, newer players over in the How To forums; you may even consider writing a tutorial for the Drawing Board as well. (I'd highly recommend taking a look at it yourself; even if you're already pretty experienced, there's some player aids other players have made available to take a lot of the guesswork out of the more complicated aspects of the game.) Also, you might want to share some of your most notable accomplishments over in the Mission Reports section, if you're the storytelling sort. Above all, feel free to have a look around and participate in any conversation that interests you. Happy landings!

Welcome to the forums! Know that your Kerbalnaut did not die in vain. His sacrifice will hopefully pave the way for many future successes. Since you're a new player, I'd highly recommend that you take a look at the Drawing Board (link in my sig). It has a number of tutorials, player aids, and other resources that can help you figure out how this whole "rocket science" thing works. The people in the How To section will also be more than willing to listen to any concerns you may have about the game. Happy landings!

Welcome to the forums! If you ever get stuck anywhere or just want to learn more about how the game works, take a look in the Drawing Board (link in my sig), which has tons of useful tutorials and other resources. Don't be afraid to ask questions in the How To section, either. Since you're doing a video series, you can create a topic to promote it over in the "Live from Mission Control" subforum as well, if you want. Above all, feel free to jump into any conversation that interests you. Happy landings!

On topic: In another dimension, which one of the three would most likely be the main contestant representing Valhalla in a hypothetical Kerbovision Song Contest? Yes, I know I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel with these questions, but it's hard to stay on-topic without constantly asking for progress reports otherwise.

But will they make the trains run on time?

For multistage rockets, you need to calculate each stage individually, counting the unused stages on top as part of the payload. Then you add up the totals for all your stages to get the grand total for the whole rocket. For asparagus staging in particular, you treat each set of boosters as its own stage and only count the fuel in the tanks being emptied during that stage. As I usually do, I'm going to refer you to the Atomic Rockets page on the subject, which does a wonderful job of explaining things.

Steven Mading's plan also has the added advantage that it frees up an attachment node that you can use to place something else, like a docking port. That way, you can turn your craft into something like a reuseable payload hauler.

Huh. Well, I know not to touch that craft for the time being...

It can be done with creative use of one of the I-beam parts. You might have to still put a small fuel tank on for the radially-mounted engines to feed from, but then you can just use fuel lines to have the other engines pull fuel from the main fuel tank as well. Here's a screenshot of one of my own craft that's set up to work in such a way:

As for the specifics of the rocket equation itself, Atomic Rockets can break it down better than I ever could. To answer a few of the other concerns that might make things a bit easier to understand: 1. Ships "having" delta-v: You're correct; "delta-v" is basically short for "change in velocity." Rockets work by accelerating a volume of propellant out an opening at one end; because of Newton's Third Law of Motion, this exerts an equivalent force on the rocket in the opposite direction. The more efficient your engine is, the faster it can get the propellant moving, and thus the more your rocket will accelerate for every bit of fuel it uses. Imagine for a moment a rocket standing still in a featureless volume of space with no other forces acting upon it. Let's say that, for instance, this particular rocket has a delta-v rating of 1000 m/s. What that means is, if we burn all of it's fuel in one continuous burn, by the end of that burn the rocket will be moving in a straight line at a velocity of 1000 m/s. If we only burn half of that fuel, it'll be moving at 500 m/s; if we then turn it around and burn the other half of that fuel against our direction of travel, the rocket will come to a standstill again. In short, a rocket's "delta-v" represents how much you can change that rocket's velocity with a given fuel load. 2. "How do I know if my ship will even launch?": That's actually governed by another number entirely, known as your "thrust-to-weight ratio." Every rocket engine has a certain maximum thrust rating (though I think the game calls it "Power" in the VAB parts listings, which isn't an entirely accurate term). Again, a rocket engine exerts this thrust as a force pushing the rocket upward. At the same time, gravity exerts a force trying to pull your rocket downward ("weight"). The way to find your rocket's weight on the launchpad is to take its mass, then multiply by 9.8 m/s^2 (the value for surface gravity on Kerbin, identical to that for Earth) to find the total force exerted by gravity, then divide that into the total force exerted by your active engine's thrust. If that number is less than 1, then you are not going into space today. 3. Natural logarithms: If you take a number and raise it to a power with an exponent, you get a second number. Relative to that second number, the exponent is the logarithm, and the first number is the base. For example, the logarithm of 1000 using 10 as the base is 3, since 10^3 = 1000. Now, the natural logarithm of a given number uses a very special number called e (or Euler's number) as its base. Better minds than mine can tell you exactly how e is derived, but suffice it to say that it's a Very Important Number for a lot of different calculations, to the point that any good scientific calculator should already have a handy "LN" button you can press to get the natural logarithm of any number.