Jean Deaux

I've found that if I copied over any of my craft files that had a locked part, NO ships would appear at all in my load menu.

345 hours according to my Steam report. I wonder if that's continuous hours played? Hmmmmm, back to space...

Same for me, get it centered and stable first seems to be the best performing option.

I'll admit I'm very suprised that there doesn't appear to be any Science points with locating the anomolies in the game. I would think that would be a rather significant gain to science to find one of these discoveries. Particularly now that automated navigation are not available early on or at all (like MJ or Mapsat). I've planted a flag and taken soil samples from such a site, with little or no gain in Science related to the anomoly.

I like the economy, but I'd like it in a way that doesn't simply end like the tech tree does. I like the idea of a job board that issued tasks to be completed (land here, take samples, leave a comsat in high orbit, etc) and completing provided the payout. Would also love to see two types of funding in career mode. Allow the player to select Government Branch or Private Sector development. If the space program was government funded, you would get steady (yet fixed) funding but would allow for a faster start as it would start you off with a higher budget than the Private Sector option. Missions would also be required to be achieved within a specified time line else face some sort of penalty or budget cut (not to be allowed to go below a specific amount). The Private Sector option basically starts out with a smaller budget (the paultry $4000 in your pocket) making startup harder, but successful missions have better payouts and you get to select which missions you wish to complete and ignore/refuse the rest. Too many failures and your business drops. Both could be linked with the tech tree, completing science missions alongside economic missions in order to accomodate the funding of both the science and the parts. Once the science is done, the job board still exists so that players don't suffer from the "what do I do now that I've done everything" syndrome. Players can use their saved earnings to run their own private/desired missions of explorations.

Here's some personal experience I hope may help. Parts don't hold together very well without struts. It's not so bad in a single stack, but if you branch out at all, the side torque of the lifting is going to shear away at your designs and ensuing explosions usually occur. Again, struts here help to re-enforce the the side torque and help keep the alignment of the side pieces from creating additional stresses. Staging can be tricky, be sure the engines are out of fuel and have shut completely down. If a firing engine becomes separated, it has none of the weight it was once carrying and will now travel faster than your ship coming up from behind and try to sneak in your back door. Again with this ensuing explosions tending to occur. Best to wait a second after it shuts down to stage than to try and stage at the exact moment the fuel expires. The higher up your core ship the expended engines are, the farther away from the core of the ship they will need to be. As your ship travels up and the staged engines fall down, you need to be sure that they don't hit one another. If your engines are on the top side of your ship, there's a lot of opportunity there for the two to meet. Put some space between them or use those little ejector engines to shoot those wasted engines farther and quickly away from your ship. Best of luck to you, pilot!

To expand upon the Kethane debate and add some of my own wishes... Why add kethane? Because Mods are not supported is the biggest argument I can offer. I would like to see a lot of the more popular (or best features of similar mods) become part of the core game. Many of the popular mods are beginning to wane in their support, ISAMapsat and Mechjeb for examples. The game takes long enough to play (I could spend 3 days tweaking a ship design and not get anywhere with it) and not get very much accomplished. Many of these mods provide tools and features intended to make the game more realistic and more enjoyable to play. I can tell you that without Mechjeb, I would not be sitting at my PC burning for a planet holding a heading for an hour, or even 16 hours if using an Ion Engine. Missing tools to aid in design (again much like MJ offers with the Delta V breakdown), where in the wide wide world of any planet would be a decent place to look for discoveries (like ISAMapsat), or the means to replenish supplies once you've made it to that far far away planet (Kethane baby!). They don't have to be that exact mod integration, but certainly some form that performs most or more of the same features we have come to appreciate and utilize. While these integration's of mods don't necessarily have to come in the short run, I would like to see them become part of the core game and therefore a supported feature. Tools/Features I would love to see implemented in the short run include... 1) An AGL indicator that works similarly to the speed indicator to automatically swap between the ASL and AGL altitude reading as you're ascending or descending and within a certain range of the terrain. (Ever land on the dark side with no way of telling how far above the ground you are?) Also allow for manual toggling as the speed indicator does. 2) Stable spaceplane maneuvering. Flying a plane is always in extreme moves with lots of jerkyness. There are no subtle ways to maneuver. Maybe even some "counterweight" pieces to aid in putting weight in areas of the plane to help keep it balanced. (I almost always need more weight in the front, give me a heavy nosecone). 3) Improve strength between in-line mated components. I feel that stacked parts should be considered welded or bolted together and should not require a boatload of struts used as nuts and bolts to hold two pieces together. It is ridiculous to have 5 parts to a ship and 50 struts to hold them all together. 4) Find and kill the space Kraken!!!! 5) MOAR PARTSIES PLEASE! ------------ Comments offered as experience feedback and not meant as food for trolls.

Welcome to the "I'll get it figured someday" crowd!

I suppose if you're trying to mimic the human route of development, but who says Kerbals developed winged flight first? But yah, it would make getting around for Kerbal science experiments a lot easier. Actually, getting wheels for a surface drive earlier on would greatly approve the science mobility as well. Wheels... wings... rockets!!! Sounds like a great name for a bar!

When I first started career mode I was flying through the points, snagging 80-200 points per mission. I hit a bug that kept causing the spaceplane hanger to lockup when I used it so I had to completely uninstall the game and re-install so I chose to start over with career mode and see how much faster I could blow through it. Oddly enough, I'm finding it harder to gain science now even though I'm visiting more places and doing more tests in a single trip than I had before, often yielding only 20-60 points per mission. So either my first round of science was bugged and giving me uber score or maybe my second attempt is bugged and giving me lower score. But at least my spaceplane hanger works again!

I can understand where he's coming from. There is a tremendous learning curve with this game and a majority of the tutorials on how things are done are out of game (you-tube, etc). While some fantastic tutorials have been added to the game, I think a walkthrough of your first rocket assembly for a successful launch would be a great help. Adding in basic tools to the assembly buildings (such as Delta V stats and how they relate to your build much like Mechjeb does) will help rid the new player of that "wtf am I doing" feeling. I think the majority of players still active spent weeks reading and you-tubing before they even got their first rocket into orbit, it's a special kind of player that puts in that kind of time. That said, the new players have got to remember, this game isn't finished yet! Don't come in saying "this game sucks cause it can't do this!". Still, hopefully we can learn lessons from the message between the lines of the rants and pull something positive from the experience.

Sleep? What's that?

I can validate that

Okay, what I should have said was "without a mod"...

I've been loving the new career mode. I've lost my Mechjeb in career mode but I've had a lot of fun re-doing things the old-fashion way (manually), it's like learning the game all over again. I do have some feedback about the game I wanted to share now that I'm back in manual mode, and of the update of course. The tech tree progress doesn't make a lot of sense as others have said, but who says Kerbal's have to develop along the same lines as real life has? I think it would be helpful to have a Science Mission list. Yes it's nice to find some results on your own, but generally the scientist will have some ideas of areas of interests they wish to study. (And would give a hint as to some science points the player may have not considered obtaining otherwise, particularly the noob player). Landing has been an exercise in save & repeats, something I'm finding myself really missing (again) is an AGL indicator for landing. I'd suggest having the altimeter indicator automatically swap between AGL and ASL just as the speed indicator automatically swaps between orbital, surface, and DTT speeds, or allow the user to click to change in the same fashion. Without Mechjeb, there's no tools for the player to see Delta V stats during their build, and true most new players aren't going to understand what that is. Still, it'd be great for such tools to become available as stock features of the game so players can have something other than blind luck getting their ship designs to reach their destinations. I think my original feedback got lost during the forum wipe last year, but I'd love to see the Astronauts learn piloting skills from the player. After a successful launch, I press a "teach" button or something and all aboard the vessel learn from the maneuver and can now "launch" a ship (A Kerbal version of Mechjeb). Same for landing, docking, etc. Trained Kerbals could teach untrained Kerbals if sent to classrooms to teach/learn/practice. Maybe even have skill levels affecting performance of maneuvers? Who knows, food for thought, debate among yourselves. I do hope that MJ is allowed again at some point in the career mode as I am finding the some aspects of the game becoming tedious and repetitive (like long burns) particularly bothersome.

I hear ya man! I TIRE of having to nut and bolt everything together using Struts!

There's a couple versions available, I prefer the Devbuild version you can find here. There's also a version from the Spaceport. I had some weird issues first installing the game as well, but if you install the Devbuild version, just copy everything starting at the folder "Innewerants Space Agency" and copy that into your "GameData" folder. It should work better for you now. Also, this mod is a CPU and GPU hog, if you have the map view open for ISAMapsat, you will notice a dramatic decrease in performance. Simply closing the window will help speed things up tremendously. Only open the ISAMap when you need to use it.

True, none of the flags are original works of art by myself, just some modifcations to existing images out there. That's the beauty of the web and public domain.

I started playing around with some custom flag designs for myself and come up with some really cool designs I think. Problem is I have so many I like I'm finding it hard to choose so I thought I'd see what the popular vote was among my top 4 favorites. Do you like Flag #1? Flag #2? Flag #3? Or Flag #4? Aargh, it didn't create the Poll, guess you'll have to type in your response.

Thanks Starwaster, your link appears to be the most useful in my case. I don't use any input devices other than my standard keyboard and mouse, don't even own a game pad. I do have a lot of struts (have to use them like nuts and bolts installed 12 inches on center in this game it seems. Guess I'll hope this "phantom" or "Kranken" beast gets captured or tamed soon.

I'm with you, absolutely hate the space planes for the same reason, waaaay too hard to control. I've found Lazers to be my Salvation when it comes to flight control, it flies smooth and makes maintaining your heading much less complicated. If they could work out the jerkiness of the control surfaces that would be awesome, I know hooking up the joystick did little to improve upon that aspect. I've been at this a while and am only just now getting one or two designs to actually fly, big or small. Only once have I actually made it to space, haven't been able to do it again with the same craft so clearly I have some learning to do. I'm feeling your pain, ranting right there with you. Good luck!

Did you find a resolution for this? I am finding that certain planets are causing ships in orbit to spin from just being in orbit for ships both large and small for me. Moho causes some slight spinning but the Mun is the worst so far. Would love to know if you've found a solution.

Here's a few of my favorite screenshots of landings I've accomplished. Running around on the Mun... My Big entrance to Gilly A trip to Moho with a small explorer Can you really call this a lander?

I'd love to have an integratted mapper just so I don't get the "Remove all your mods before reporting a bug" reminder.

Scott Manly to the rescue! You need to become familiar with this guy's tutorials.