DaveSteadman

1 - +1 for the 5-way RCS port suggestion. 2 - Longer service bays parts; launching satellites from 1m and 2.5m rockets, or just hiding more science/battery/RCS items from the parts count. 3 - Incorporating the fuel-swap mod on tanks would make it easier to balance some space-planes parts where we have to have oxidizer. 4 - Tweak-scale on non-functional (i.e. tanks or engines) parts. 5 - The space-plane fuel tanks having the same capacity as the 1m tanks sucks. Should they be at least a little higher? 6 - Seeing the current day/night in the VAB would be a nice continuity touch. 7 - Putting a basic ladder at the start of the career tech tree, so Kerbals can climb back into early vehicles. 8 - Tweakable landing gear height, so we can line up landed base elements. 9 - Is asking for a gravity-well overlay in the solar-system view too much?

Nice, thanks.

There's actually 6 structural intakes, and not much else underneath except two small ore tanks. The turbo-jets and rapiers are toggled with different hotkeys, as is the mode switch. I take off with just the jets, just to clear the ground under control, then flip on the rapiers and climb at 45degrees. I flip back and forth between tracking and the following the velocity-vector so the pitch slowly declines and I accelerate to around 1,000m/s as the atmosphere gets thin. When the air is thin enough that the rapiers get lower thrust than in closed-cycle mode, I flip them over and have some extra air to keep the turbo-jets going a bit longer. Above 40ish Km, I just keep it aiming down the velocity-vector and get a long shallow climb to orbit. The best I've done is around 800 fuel and 1000 oxygen left in a 90Km orbit, so I can raise it a bit, but its not going far!

Recently, I've been seeing if I can create a SSTA (Single Stage To Anywhere) using 4xRapier and 2xWhiplash. http://imgur.com/8yBVSQu For an SSTO plane encumbered with all the resource harvesting equipment, I can get this thing to a good 200Km orbit, but I need more ideas to get it landed and mining on Minimus.

Just a really minor consistency thing... but if we need to put the probe into a polar orbit to scan the surface, it would be nice if the resource texture shown on the map was polar as well. Thanks.

I tried launching SSTOs as I had done previously, getting to the edge of breathable air and accelerating. Its not working any more. But messing around, I've just found I can effortlessly launch a small SSTO: - 2 x Rapier engines with pre-coolers, 1 x Whiplash air breather - Take off, pull up, max throttle - A few parts break off as you overheat, but the engines are so overpowered that you can blast your way to a 200km orbit easier than ever.

That would answer it! Thanks.

Here I have my Moho-Explorer probe braking towards the inner solar system. The ion drive is running and I have the mouse over the periapsis, watching the ETA reduce: In the screenshot the ETA has a value of four hours. When it reduces to zero, the day will decrement and the hours values will goes back to a sub-five hour value. At no point does a value above 5 hours get reported. Is this a known thing? Thanks. *Edit* Mac, no mods, v0.25:

I believe the invention of the ladder predates the solid rocket booster, by maybe 10,000 years... A few parts would help pioneering Kerbals get a few more soil samples.

Having just looked up wikipedia: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospike_engine - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_engine "A vehicle with an aerospike engine uses 25–30% less fuel at low altitudes, where most missions have the greatest need for thrust." The aerospike engine certainly isn't a compelling alternative during normal launches. Maybe it should be ramped up a bit to match its real-world advantage. "The disadvantages of aerospikes seem to be extra weight for the spike" I have no problem with the engine weighing more than a normal rocket engine, its just a number in a config file. The images in the wiki-pages show spikes are often a solid chunk of material, which is arguably less fragile than a rocket exhaust covered in cooling pipes. ie, I'd like to see them stackable. Wikipedia has no mention of vectoring an aerospike.

Regarding the Push-Pipe being the current pipe. I just did a test to be sure... The current pipe I would call a Draw-Pipe, in that it draws required fuel from source to destination. 1 - It doesn't actively push fuel when the engines aren't running and 2 - the destination tank is never topped up. If its not full, then it just won't get any emptier. Now off to read that tutorial... thanks.

Hi, I'd like to suggest a revision of the pipes, making them more obvious in their function and useful in new areas: - Push-Pipe (Red): If there is any fuel in the source-tank and any fuel in the destination tank, a Push-Pipe will transfer it across. - Balance-Pipe (Green): If the percentage-full of the source-tank is greater than the percentage-full of the destination-tank, a Balance-Pipe will transfer it across. Push-Pipes will allow for more creative booster setups, with the builder having an obvious fuel flow pattern. Balance-Pipes will allow for larger sets of tanks to be used without the overhead of manually transferring to each one. Good for space stations and complex booster setups.

Squad should make this a tough mode to keep experienced players challenged.

Yeah, I only had final docking in mind. If the option had to be more generic, then toggling between a maximum up/down could help vertically re-connecting with a lifter/sky-crane to move modules around?

Hi, I'm trying to build a Mun base by docking rovers, experiments around the KSP aren't going well... Each rover has a different weight, which messes with the suspension and stops them docking. Can we please consider a Lock Suspension option which could make them all the same height. Cheer.

I'd vote for Collins and Gordon. The guys who landed on the moon get plenty of things named after them, the Apollo 11/12 Command Module guys deserve a shout too.

My rockets are rolling all over the place... the new ASAS sucks. I just landed my first space plane. Ever... the new ASAS rocks. Does the big reaction wheel have any torque? It has no text...the new ASAS sucks. RCS fuel usage is far more sensible... the new ASAS rocks. When will my rocket hold a heading? When I toggle the ASAS or cancel out a move? I don't get it...the new ASAS sucks.

I've just launched a big ship to Duna, and it sucks. Its stuck in a dumb orbit and spent 3 of 5 orange tanks of fuel to get there. Which has me thinking: What are the best places for space stations, specifically those for storing up fuel for subsequent stages? One in a low-ish 150km orbit is an easy option, but what about one outside Minimus, right on the edge of the planet's influence? Or am thinking about it wrong and should just go in a straight line from the launch pad? What have other people done? Cheers.

Deorbiting my first space station (all stock part, no mods):