pvtnum11

Decided to tackle the new demo version with a Mun landing and return trip. I'd done it before, but since I finished building my desktop I figured I should record it and toss it up on Youtube. My two gripes with the current demo version is the lack of Ablative heat shield and the loss of the LV-909 Terrier engine. So in some ways, the demo version is harder than the current full release. So I guess that made it a nice challenge, since Mun landing and return trips in the full version are pretty much cake for me now. Shoutout to Anton Petrov of 'What Da Math' for inspiring me to get off my butt and attempt this. (a thousand pardons for the background child and coughing, I didn't edit the vid at all) 1.0 Demo round-trip Mun landing

Great Kraken, giver of Astrophysics, Celestial Mechanics and Mathematics, we hold these precepts to be noble, pure and true - that Mass divided by Thrust gives us the TWR, and that the TWR times the local gravity value gives us the Truth - if our brave Pilots can land our chariots of fire and worked metal onto the distant bodies that You have placed in the heavens for us to explore. The fool heeds not this precept and does not obey Your ordinances, which are inviolable and inmutable for all eternity (or until the Config is modified by Your hand). Great Kraken, grant us the ability to work the numbers and derive accurate data from the numbers. Give us the wisdom to forsee good engineering from shoddy work, and bless our works with skilled Pilots that can efficiently use our creations to improve Kerbal-kind's knowledge of Your heavens and the work of Your hands. Great Kraken, let not our path be led astray by bloated designs that affect our delta-v negatively, but quicken our minds to always build our creations light and nimble - for this is the simplest way to maximize delta-v, by keeping our payloads as light as we dare. But let us always strive to remember the safety of the brave crews that fly in our creations, and let us not send our fellow Kerbals to certain deaths. Great Kraken, we give You the praise for allowing us, Your humble servants, the opportunity to explore, catalog, obtain data and learn. We do these things in Your name. Akerb, and akerb.

Woe unto you, Son of Kerbal, for you have stirred up the anger of Kraken by committing the gravest of errors - NaN. For you have set it upon your heart to achieve a perfectly inclined orbit, when "pretty close" would have sufficed. Were you not pleased with 0.0 degrees? Pride shall be your undoing, that and the Crash shall come upon you and the entire universe, because you have done this great error and should not have done so. Kraken shall now deliver swift judgement to the Savefile and corrupt it, as it is tainted by NaN. Fear not, your essence and .config settings will be carried over to a new Savefile, and you shall, after a time, regain your position among the stars. But remember this thing, and repeat not the error of NaN, or you will be doomed to repeat this curse yet again.

Random blurb of text I dreamed up today: Holy Sacrament of the Delta-V "Know, Son of Kerbal, that this is true and tested, and blessed by the Kraken - Delta-V. You shall be diligent to learn the Sacrament. You shall do, and you shall understand." "Do this not, and your understanding of Rocketry will be dimmed, as if viewed through a marred glass. You shall be left adrift in the depths of space, the forsaken voids between SOI's, and you will be at the mercy of others." "Do this, and you will accomplish much. For who sets forth on a mission without first counting the cost? Only the fool. The fool says in his heart, "I have much booster, I can do this." The wise Engineer first considers Dry Mass and Wet Mass, then observes Specific Impulse. The Engineer applies the Natural Log, and achieves Truth - Delta-V. The Engineer is praised in KSC for exercising this great Sacrament, Administrators hold the Engineer in high regard and their name is listed in the Flight Manual for the Flight Crew to revere and trust in, for the Engineer has been wise to rightly divide the numbers and obtain a true and surefast performance figure." "Son of Kerbal, be as the Engineer."

I've made orbit with the original version. But I only stabbed 'record' well after the launch, and when I realized that I just maybe had pulled it off. https://youtu.be/n6puv3LW9QE

Yes, a 30-to-50 part increase would alleviate a bunch of problems, but would be sort of a band-aid. Not that I really mind the 30-part limit as it sits now, but I wouldn't mind seeing it resolved in a more sensible manner, either.

For fun, trap a Kerbal inside a bay while on EVA. If there's not enough room in the bay, they'll flop and twitch around, possibly leading to either broken parts or if you're really lucky, a Kraken summoning.

I think it needs an Alternator so it can generate electric power when running.

Maybe a different type of constraint for the VAB: You need Tier 2 VAB to play with 2.5-meter parts or any part that weighs more than a certain amount - say five tons a part. Y'know, overhead bridge crane weight handling limits or something. Tier 3 lets you use teh 3.75-meter parts and/or allows you to use any single part, regardless of mass.

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around how gravity turns are supposed to work now with the new aero - two to three minutes of nail-biting terror and wondering if I'm going to kill someone again. Only got about three years of bad habits to unlearn, amirite? Once out of atmo, everything is totally cool. I got better at making SSTO's after a bit, but they're still difficult and I prefer rockets mostly. SSTO's and spaceplanes are hella cool and those that make it look easy are hella cool as well.

Remember, this was purely in jest, and the overwhelming majority of these applied to me at one time. (some still do, lols)

I'm okay with it. It's pretty trivial to upgrade the VAB for that 255-part limit. No, I usually run into the 18-ton Launchpad limitation first, but the Pad is even easier to upgrade than the VAB. The new auto-compete contracts for certain records makes unlocking both VAB and the Pad almost a foregone conclusion after just a suborbital hop. It's a non-issue for my long-term plans.

Did a test stream using the Demo version. Managed to get to Mun and back. Filled the tech tree in no time (it's only something like five or six nodes total).

Definite top-ten. Maybe in the top five.

Note! This is purely for the sake of humor, and mostly built off *my* experiences early on in KSP. No offense intended. If you have examples to add, feel free, but NO MENTIONING ANY NAMES. Most of these can be fixed by some reading up on the forums, wiki articles, and just trial and error. You Might Be A Scrub In KSP If.... 1 Terms like Periapsis and Apoapsis confuse you. 2 You mix up Periapsis and Apoapsis on a regular basis. 3 You take the "Moar Boosters" thing literally. 4 Parachute deployment happens during launch quite often. 5 Half your part count is devoted to struts, because "Moar Struts" must be good advice. 6 Bigger = Better, right? 7 Units of speed and distance are frequently stated to be Imperial units, like feet, miles and so on. 8 Mun landings are nigh-impossible without heavy use of HUGE rocket parts, most of which are from mods. 9 The phrase "Rocket Equation" means nothing to you. 10 It doesn't matter if our spacecraft only draws a little bit of power for SAS usage, we need a TON of solar panels - they look good. 11 Career mode? Only if it's set to Easy and then tweaked to give me a huge amount of funds, rep and science to start. 12 Going to land on the Mun? Get into a 100km orbit (or was that 100 miles?) and then burn backwards until you stop. Fall all the way down for a landing - which usually needs a rescue mission. 13 You are in awe over folks that can pull off Mun landings without any mods at all. 14 You cannot fathom the act of pulling off a rendezvous or landing without Mechanical Jebediah. 15 The most complex rocket you made was specifically built to destroy the entire KSC facility in one launch, but you somehow can't manage a trip to Duna. 16 Spaceplanes and SSTO's run off of distilled witchcraft and arcane arts, and are to be avoided at all times. 17 Ooo, that makes a nice pic. (whips out cellphone) 18 "Guys, why can't my game run on [insert ten-year-old system here]?" 19 "Cool rocket, can I get the craft file?" 20 "Yeah, I've been to Duna once, so you could say that I'm somewhat of a KSP expert now." 21 "Check out my youtube vid that I recorded with a potato!" 22 (bonus) "Hey guys, check out this offer for some Raybans for 90% off!" Again, this is in jest and for a laugh. Most of these have applied to me at one time or another. Feel free to add your scrub-tastic noob moments below!