Tw1

The altimeter uses the "Datum" hight- like sea level. But there is a radar altimeter that gives your exact height above the ground in the IVA view, if you want to try that way. The other option is a mod, but you want to play for longer at least before you start doing that kind of stuff. Maybe try adding lights to your lander? It helps. I still remember my first landing. I went the the Mun without even learning to get into orbit around Kerbin. The capsule underwent so many changes, and I still get it out from time to time, for the memories. Lost a leg and half the engines, so my little man was stuck there until I made my rescue rocket. But this had the advantage of leaving a permanent monument to Kerbal kind's first step into space. One small step for Kerman, one huge rocket ride for Kerbal kind!

Now's your chance! Use a skull like this: (from an old news post on the main kerbal site)

Tried transferring fuel from the lander stage to the transfer stage? If you burn at the right point in the orbit, you should be able to get home with one burn. Or,plot a burn so you'll have a Minmus escape in the opposite direction of Minmus's orbit. Increase it until the Kerbin periapsis disappears, don't worry about aiming for KSC, this is an emergency! RCS can be used to do the burn too, if needs be. Otherwise, you will have to send another up there, rendezvous, and EVA across. I like the name. Whermie. Make sure he gets anther chance some day!

I believe, that rather than anything to do with clones, a kerbal's disembodied spirit re-coalesces in the ground, at certain places on Kerbin, and the body re-awakens when the time is right. Which is quite frequent for some of them. Leave them on the ground, put them in a station, or send them interplanetary, that's the only way to stop them turning up.

I never realised.... I hope for a more powerful computer one day. Mine's not bad, but still...

Low Cog is essential. Keep the mass down low, and you will have less problems. Heavier vehicles are harder to flip as long as the follow those rules. You seem to have the basic idea, but one more rule you must keep in mind is positioning wheels around the CoG. Otherwise, your vehicle will be unbalanced, and tilt when accelerating or decelerating . I learnt this the hard way, building with the old cart mod. I tend to start my vehicles based on this principle, positioning parts accordingly. I also use the aircraft wheels to help the vehicle take impacts. I tend to make large to medium sized vehicles. ASAS can help, if you want it to keep pointing in the same direction. Also, if you haven't already, remap the rover wheel controls to IJKL, rather than WASD, and you won't get torque from the comand pod/ probe core interfering.

No idea about the economics, but it continues to inspire to this day. That's got to have had an economic effect for the world, not just the USA. Maybe the ability to claim territory would motivate some, but I'd rather we approached this as a world. We may avoid conflicts over patches of land on other planets if we cooperate, rather than compete. Also, I disagree about the ISS being a waste of money. They do a lot of things up there that help us find out about long-term stays in zero gravity, and many experiments, and it's just a little bit inspiring to see that dot pass overhead, and think: There's people up there.

Control from here does not move the kerbal. Is far as I know, it only changes which pod the navball is lined up with. I recommend transferring by EVA, or adding the crewmanifest mod.

Nice test. That heat shield looks more like real inflatable ones, more solid, will less gas on the inside to expand and risk popping. I just checked your inflatable toroidal heat shield thread, and saw your last post. Nicely done. But I agree, this kind of system has limited protection for the rest of the ship. If they did make closeable engine heat shields, we'd need some sort of side shielding as well, for longer designs and in case of imperfect reentry. And maybe covers over the landing legs. I don't use that mod either, but I was clearing debris around KSC with a sunbeam laser, and one on its own couldn't generate enough heat on its own to explode a panel of panels. It's supposed to heat things up something like 2000 degrees (C?). Not quite as much as reentry, but maybe they'll have potential if enough are used. I wonder if the game models heat conductivity.

I can think of a few reasons 1. Life support. If they add it to the game, putting your kerbal in a command pod will let him access the ship's life support things, like air and water recyclers, and will keep him (or maybe her) alive for a lot longer. 2. Radiation. You can have thicker shielding on a spaceship than you can on a spacesuit. Having the kerbal inside is going to be safer for long periods, even if they have great anti-radiation meds. 3. Reentry. As much as I love this pic, and the set it's from They would probably die once realistic heating is added. Plus there's other things, like the instrumentation that can be added to a ship, protection from micro-meteors, less chance of falling of... This has me wondering if they will give as a navball when controlling things from a set.

Idk, it seems a little simplistic just giving us cash for completed tasks. I hope it's a little more subtle than that. I'd prefer a more realistic way of getting support, like stating your aims, via mission planing, and then achieving them, more or less.

Awesome. (My first thought was "wow, it's like B9 aerospace" the second: "That's inside the thing I've got a Lego model of in my cupboard")

This is an awesome concept! I wonder if it would work using KSP parts. Don't see why not. (If I didn't have stuff to do once I get home, I'd get straight on to that.)

I know, but I want do it from Kerbin. The furthest I've seen done is a couple of Km. This is going to be quite a challenge should I actually attempt it. I'm thinking a couple of mainsails, pointing together from different angles...

Poodle engine powered BBQ! Like so:

That's the way to do it. I never bother with the large one any more. If I don't want it on my upper stage, I radially attach smaller ones to the fuel tanks.

I've managed to save a kerbal whose rocket partially blew up, and wasn't going to make orbit, by landing him with his jetpack. It's handy when you have a bit of a distance to cover, as it's faster than walking. Some of my taller things on the Mun don't have ladders all the way to the ground, as it would be to complex to design. The jet pack is used to get them up to the ladder. It also lets you fly up high to get a good look at your surrounds. You can use them to change the orbit of a kerbal, I didn't want to try and dock with the extremely laggy station, so I EVA'd Bob to a different orbit, and rendezvoused with him there. The trick is using the planet bellow you to aim yourself. Look for the terminator, or distinctive shapes like continents, and compare on the map view. With the EVA parachutes mod, you can return kerbals on a station to the ground without using any capsule. Now I need to build something massive that will fire them almost to orbit, so they can use that 520m/s to achieve orbit and get back up to the station again.

Some of them seem to re spawn sooner than others. I use them as my test pilots.

Select flag. It was mentioned in the comments. Sub assembly mod's button was there, so the makers of that will have to move it.

Good point, good point.

"Kerb", (as in the thing on the edge of the road.) And "Al" as in Aluminium.

"Intergalactic space nipples" He is an amusing guy.

Wouldn't mind a little more colour. Not enough gold on KSC's probes. Spacecraft are colours like white and silver to reduce heat absorption, I'm pretty sure.

The included ones make pretty good vehicles of many sizes,. Particularly the lander cans, but it would be good if they added a horizontal speed indicator. Also the plane cockpits. The one man lander can looks like this: It is very light, and pretty versatile. I use it in my big crane things.

The probe core will affect the way the rover drives. This is why it is often recommended you remap the rover controls to something other than WASD. Then, the center of mass is more important, unless you need to use the core's torque to help keep the rover stable.