Crush

Before you got batteries you can add more Mk1 pods to your rockets. Looks stupid and is quite weight-inefficient, but each one allows you about one additional transmission per mission. When you man them, you can also return more soil samples per mission. Research Basic Rocketry (5 Sci), Survivability (15 Sci) and then Science Tech (45 Sci) to get the batteries (plus the important SC-9001 Science Junior experiment). This unlocks Electrics (90 Sci) with the static OX-stat solar panels. Electrics unlocks Advanced Electrics (160 Sci) which brings you the self-orienting solar arrays.

No, samples are bound to the command pod where the kerbonaut delivered them. That means when you end your sampling-EVAs in a command pod which you don't bring back to Kerbin in one piece, the samples are lost. You will also not receive the science bonus for recovering a craft "returning from the surface of Mun" and only the "returning from orbit of Mun" bonus from the command module. But note that by repeatedly taking samples and transmitting them home you can get exactly the same amount of science per sampled biome.

Sorry, but I did some spading today and found out that this is wrong. When an experiment is recovered after landing on Kerbin, its scientific value is reduced by 80% of its current value when it is performed again under the same conditions. When it is transmitted instead, this reduction is divided by the transmission efficiency. So an experiment with a value of 10 and a transmit value of 60% will lose 4.8 (10 * 0.8 * 0.6) science value when transmitted, which means it will yield 5.2 (10 - 4.8) science the next time it is performed. 10.0 experiment returned without transmitting: 10 Science. 10.0 experiment transmitted once at 60% and then returned: Science returned by transmitting: 10.0 * 0.6 = 6.0 now left: 5.2 Science Total science yield: 11.8 As you see, the transmission before returning gave you 1.8 additional science.

Currently, starting with probes would be a dead-end for the player, because the most profitable sources of science in the early game (crew reports, EVA reports, Kerbin soil samples) require crew. To make an unmanned early-game viable, probes would need more ways to collect science points. Maybe replace "crew report" with "flight telemetry report" for probes would be a start? Or move the scientific instruments like thermometer or gravimeter closer to the start?

I disagree that repeating an experiment shouldn't give any more results. Arguing from a simulationist standpoint: Repeating an experiment verifies that the results are not random but reproducible. When they are random, repeating the experiment multiple times is required to create a statistical analysis of the results. Also, there are different ways to perform an experiment. When you expose an experiment to space, it might matter how fast you open the doors or in what angle it faces the sun. In purely observational experiments like the mystery goo experiment, repetition might be equal to taking another look, but watching for different details this time before transmitting them. Or it could simulate the crew attempting to do different things with the goo containers like shaking them and reporting the results. Multiple recovery could also make sense when you rationalize that each experiment might be slightly different, although it uses the same part. Multiple goo containers could contain goo with different mixtures. Multiple science labs could contain different materials. Arguing from a gameist standpoint: Repeating experiments and transmitting the results isn't free. The energy requirements of sending something are quite substantial. It can be mitigated by solar panels, though. That recovering the same experiment multiple times requires additional work and skill from the player and is worth rewarding is obvious. But I do agree that transmitting shouldn't be able to completely remove the value of recovering. Maybe each experiment could have two pools of science points, one which is only depleted by recovering and one which is depleted by both recovering and transmitting.

When you transmit data, the experiment is reset. You need to repeat it to salvage more science on recovery (it will be less than you would have got when you returned the first one without transmitting it).

I will test it tonight (in about 6 hours) and report my findings on the wiki (knowledge is lost too quickly on the forum).

I am afraid that this is the case, as unintuitive as it seems. I already considered writing it as a bug report on the suggestions&feedback board.

In contrary to most other science stuff, crew reports have no penalty for transmitting them back instead of recovering them physically. That means you should take them frequently and transmit them home immediately (as long as you have the energy to spare). To transmit it, the craft needs an antenna. Keeping the report stored until recovery only makes sense when the craft has no antenna or not enough energy left to use it.

When they transfer analog instead of digital signals, a worse signal quality could lead to less meaningful results. The first picture from the far side of the moon wasn't that scientifically useful either because the bad analog transmision added lots of grain to it. Also, resending corrupted packages might be feasible when in low orbit, but when there are several hours of light-lag, waiting for the confirmation and resending is less trivial.

It was released yesterday, so it's new for everyone. Would you like to write one?

No, it's not a trademark issue, because trademarks are always registered for specific product groups. It doesn't matter what the product sounds like, it matters what the product is. According to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, the trademark "Telus Mobility" is registred for Wireless telecommunication services, namely communications by means of cellular telephone, mobile radio, digital cordless telephone, pager, satellite; interconnection services between cellular phones, mobile radios, digital cordless telephones, pagers, satellites and telecommunication networks, long distance telephone services, paging services, leasing of telecommunication equipment and services, wireless data transmission services, namely the transmission of data over a wireless telecommunication network, wireless telephone conferencing services, 411 information services, cellular network services, and operation of a business selling wireless apparatus, equipment, pagers, cellular telephone, mobile radio systems and equipment; operation of a business selling wireless telecommunication maintenance services, namely maintenance and repair of wireless apparatus, equipment, pagers, cellular telephone, mobile radio systems and equipment; and operation of a business selling wireless telecommunication services, namely communications by means of cellular telephone, mobile radio, digital cordless telephone, pager, satellite; interconnection services between cellular phones, mobile radios, digital cordless telephones, pagers, satellites, computer and telecommunication networks, long distance telephone services, paging services, operation of a business for the leasing of telecommunication equipment and services, namely wireless data transmission services, namely the transmission of data over a wireless telecommunications network, wireless telephone conferencing services, voice processing services, 411 information services, cellular network services, and telecommunication consulting services, namely, contract research and development with respect to telecommunications. Note that "Ladders" is absent from the list.

I think there already is a health-point mechanic in place. Note the "partX damaged by engine exhaust from engineY" messages in the mission log even when partX wasn't destroyed. Those messages would only make sense when there were a HP mechanic.

face -> palm Maybe put a big bold top-level entry called "play the tutorial" to the wiki? Seriously, you ignore the tutorial provided by the game and then you complain when the information contained in it isn't given to you?

When I do interplanetary missions I usually use drop-tanks (many small fuel-tanks which can be detached instead of one large one). You usually have quite large time-windows for burns on interplanetary missions, so you can take the time to check your tanks and drop those which are empty. My favorite design is one FL-T800 surrounded by six FL-T400 linked by fuel-ducts in three groups of two and connected by radial decouplers. The capacity is equal to one X200-32, but it is more mass-efficient to drop the empty tanks on the way.

When you screwed up and want to quickly load your last auto-save before it gets overwritten, hit ctrl-alt-delete and kill the KSP.exe task in the task manager.

Among physicists, but laymen usually measure weight in kg. So far, I haven't read a diet guide "Lose 100 Newton in 10 days".

Indeed. An object with a mass of 20kg which rests on earth surface at sea-level and at the equator also has a weight of 20kg. An object with the same mass of 20kg resting on on the moon has a weight of 3.3kg. Weight is the force an object applies to the ground. A platform stable enough to carry a weight of up to 10kg would be able to carry this object on the moon, but would be crushed by it on earth. But when it comes to moving an object (accelerating it), it's the mass which matters, not the weight. Accelerating a car with a mass of 1000kg to 10 m/s takes exactly the same amount of energy on moon and earth (when ignoring ground friction, which is relative to weight, and air-friction). A gun fired horizontally with a muzzle velocity of 300 m/s on earth will have the same muzzle velocity on the moon, even though the bullet weights less on the moon and will have the same destructive energy (speed² x mass) (again, ignoring air-friction).

The inclination doesn't really matter as long as the orbit is circular and both ships are on similar orbits. To get two ships on alligning orbits, you control the first ship, set the other as the target, and boost north/south on the ascending/descending node until both nodes have a value of +/- 0° (or even better: "NaN"). But keep in mind that a prograde equatorial orbit is the one you can reach with the least amount of fuel, so unless you have a good reason to do something different, you should always try to start your rockets on such an orbit.

Spending the rest of my life locked into a tin-can AND giving up all my privacy? Where do I sign?

But who would want that? For me, having miniatures which look the part was always an important part of the WH40k experience. The reason why GW has the "only use official miniatures" rule is clearly so they can push the bootlegs off the market, but I wouldn't have wanted to play against a lego army in a tournament either, as it would have really broken my immersion in the game. On the other hand, I wouldn't have anything against playing against an army which is in the style of the game, even when it came out of a 3d printer and not from Citadel. When the 3d printer and the models are good enough, you could even get your army through a superficial check by the judges. An alternative to Citadel miniatures would have been those model kits from other companies. Some world war I / world war II soldier figurines and tank models from a company like Revell would make good proxies for a WH40k imperial army, but Games Workshop intentionally selected a scale which is between that of most lines of model kits so that you can't do that.

I used to play WH40k about 15 years ago. I still have my Ork army, but unfortunately it's built after rules which are long obsolete. But I wonder if I should create a new army now that 3d printers are becomming affordable 3d printing could really kill the tabletop game, at least for Games Workshop. Why buy the miniatures from GW when you can just download the models and print your own army? Sure, offering models for original GW designs for download would be a copyright violation, but 1. enforcing this will be just as hard as enforcing distribution of movies and 2. they can't forbid people to make 3d models which have a similar look but are sufficiently different to not violate copyrights. But while Games Workshop might decide to discontinue their tabletop games when 3d printing becomes common, it could lead to a community of open tabletop wargamers who play with their own games and with their own 3d-printed miniatures, both licensed under share-alike licenses. That could become really exciting.

Fuel depots near Kerbin rarely make sense IMO. When you have a fuel depot, you need to send tankers to refuel it. Just sending the tankers to the ship you want to refuel is exactly the same amount of work. But it can make sense to park a fuel depot at another celestial body when you intend to use it multiple times during the same mission. You can, for example, park a fuel depot in orbit around Jool, and then explore the moons with a much smaller and thus more fuel-efficient craft which you refuel at that depot whenever it runs dry.

Bill: "Your proposed 2.3% oxidizer tax goes too far!" Jebediah: "Your proposed 2.3% oxidizer tax doesn't go far enough!"

No, it shouldn't, because sub-assemblies have been suggested about 675049367304867530 times by now.