Feldynn

No pictures handy but so far I've got "Doodcan Kerman" sitting in a can lander on Mun and in my testing pool I have "Sherman Kerman" eagerly awaiting deployment.

I'm not too keen on the wording of the poll options but I went went with "not really" because it's not keeping me away. To be honest I haven't even really noticed a great deal of difference, it might be a touch faster loading some scene and a touch slower loading others but generally it seems fine to me. The very first day after the patch it seemed quite slow / laggy at times, I made one small change to my graphics setting (I think I turned Anti-aliasing down from 8 to 4, or something else like that but I don't remember exactly what I changed) and it's been fine since then. The only vaguely annoying thing is the way the game seems to stop for a few seconds when switching SOIs (at least going from Kerbin to Mun, haven't been elsewhere since 0.21), not sure if that really counts as a "scene loading time" though, not that it's enough to keep me from playing anyway though. Might be more problematic for those that do long / further missions that cross multiple SOIs though I guess.

From a couple of days ago but it's the latest stuff I've done, landed the stock 2-part Lander thing in a canyon on Mun: And as an exercise in practicing landing at / near the same site I put together a 1-man Science / Comms station on Mun. First was my Stayputnik Lander Probe to do an initial site survey and act as a target marker, followed that with the rover / skycrane assembly and finally the main lander with Doodcan Kerman at the helm. I'm slowly getting better at landing though I'm not very precise (initial landings within 2-3km of the target site) so I had to do a couple of little hops with the rover and lander units to get them to where the probe was, hence the leg that fell off! Next time I'll use bigger legs .

I've watched Scott Manley's and a few other videos about rendezvousing I think I've got a basic understanding of what / how to do it but I have yet to actually try it, though I will have Jean Michel Jarre's "Rendez-vous" playing along in the background to give me inspiration when I do .

I've never used it for anything myself, though I do hear good things about many of the features / information it offers. I just haven't really gotten around to investigating mods all that much yet, in fact the only one I occasionally use is Procedural Fairings and that's only on certain rockets and if I actually remember I have it .

Regarding the above quote from earlier in the thread.. Not sure if Squad is aware or not but Steam is forcing a download of 6 files (3 in both the JetEngine and TurboFanEngine folders) when we "Verify local files", deleting them as per Harv's instruction quoted doesn't seem to cause any problems that I've seen (I think I posted earlier many pages ago that the removal of said files seemed to improve plane flight for me), but it does bring up the possibility that maybe there are other files coming down as part of the Steam download / file verification process that may incorrect.

Thanks C7 for the post a few pages back (and Harv for the one many pages ago)! I did a bit more testing with some rockets just now using the stock Kerbal X and a basic Mun-rocket of my own design, generally the new SAS seems to be working as intended but isn't using nearly as much of the available control force as it could (and should IMO). I did a few simple rotation type tests in a 100k orbit around Kerbin and it does slow rotation and wotnot just like in C7's test video a few weeks back with his space station (though I was using a rocket), but it's just a bit too sedate as it's not using enough of the torque / RCS thrust. When done manually I can rotate, turn and cancel out the movement pretty quickly but when left to SAS alone it seems almost to use only as little force as necessary to try to stabilize the craft, in a way I might liken it to an old /soft joystick that doesn't return to center as quickly as a brand new stiffer / tighter one does. Perhaps all that's needed (at least for rockets) is a simple increase in the initial amount of available thrust / torque / control force that SAS uses to stabilize the craft?

That's sort of what I mean when I say it seems vague and inconsistent, there are times where I've had it work pretty well and hold a relatively stable heading (as I mentioned, I found landing on Mun much easier with new SAS) but other times when it's vague and wanders off to it's own preferred heading despite repeated course corrections. It should keep the craft on a stable heading (unless there's a serious design flaw) though since it's designed to allow us freedom of control while it's engaged I just meant it wouldn't hold that heading in quite the same ferocious way the old ASAS did .

Above from a few pages back and below from more recently... Last night with 0.21 was my first ever flight in some stock space planes so I don't have anything to compare to but I like how the new system works with them. I checked after some initial test flights / crashes and found I had a number of empty folders as well as 3 files in both JetEngine and TurboFanEngine folders. Removing all of that seemed to make a small difference with space planes for the better, with the files some of the smaller ones (Aries 3A and Ravenspear Mk1 I think) were quite twitchy but were a bit less twitchy / more manageable without them. For me planes seemed pretty decent but I was only testing in a relatively low altitude area, I think you might be right about the new system simply not being aggressive enough at least for rockets. I did launch an old Mun rocket I copied over from the 0.18 demo, landed on the new moon, planted a flag and returned to Kerbin without too much of a problem (landing actually seemed a little easier with the new system!), but it did feel like I was having to constantly correct the heading during the flight much more so than I think perhaps I should have been. I understand that it's not going to be the same degree of "heading lock" that the old ASAS had but it did seem that the new system was perhaps a touch too loose or vague when it came to keeping a heading, maybe it is to do with my design because I didn't have RCS on anything I launched last night (electricity wasn't a problem though, watched that like a hawk)? The new system doesn't appear to have quite the same consistency as the old one, it seems to work better on some craft than others and differently again depending on the atmosphere /vacuum as well the amount of thrust

I think what I'm seeing with the new SAS system is a general inconsistency across different craft, it seems like there are differing limits to how effective it is based on the size of the craft, amount of torque and thrust. For the first time ever I tried a few of the stock space planes, the bigger Ravenspear ones seemed generally to be the least likely to throw a fit I think because they had a decent thrust / weight / torque ratio. I tried the Aries 3A too and while it was a little twitchy to begin with but wasn't too bad once I got used to it (again, first time flyer here), it's still got a reasonably thrust / weight / torque ratio but is obviously a lot lighter so it can be twitchy and was sticking to it's course like glue once I stopped messing with it. I did manage to send it into a SASsy spin cycle / face plant a couple of times but that was mostly me turning too hard. I think the worst plane I tried was the Raven Mk1, not a huge plane but it has 3 engines (two turbo and one basic I think) which just seemed like too much and would cause the SASsy flippage a lot while trying to turn. Shutting down the central engine seemed to help somewhat, it would still wig out on occasion but it was much easier to control with just the 2 engines running. Rockets are a bit different again but still show a similar kind of inconsistency, at certain stages they seem to hold course with SAS fairly well (I found landing on Mun MUCH easier with new SAS though it could have been a little more snappy about holding the course once I ceased control input) but at other times not so much and I'd find I was making far too many manual corrections. With the old ASAS it was a very singular system, if ON then you're on "this" heading and that's the end of it for the most part and if OFF then you drift / spin around freely until you do something, I actually like the way the new system works when you find something it works well in but it just doesn't seem to have the consistency across a multitude of craft that the old system had and I think that's what's causing a lot of the distress right now.

Started a new saved game, wandered around the new KSC in "view" mode and noticed some minor texture flickering with the new buildings(certain angles / distances while moving the camera around can cause the building object ground textures to clash with the ground itself, possibly due to cursor passover / selection while moving making it flicker). Copied over my craft files and launched a highly inefficient rocket with many boosters, it crashed due to being slightly off balance and ASAS not being as forgiving, made design better by adding more winglets and flew directly to a 110k Kerbin Orbit and lined up a Minmus encounter / fly by but never followed it through because the rocket was too ridiculous to be my first persistent 0.21 craft .

The couple of different rockets I fired off earlier seemed to work ok just with the same ASAS unit from 0.20, I did notice that it's not nearly as forgiving now as it used to when it comes to slightly unbalanced rockets. I think there will be a period of getting used to the new system, how it works with our rockets and probably some degree of design tweaks too to take into account the newly reduced torque of the command modules and wotnot. First impression was that it's ok, I managed to get into a 110k orbit of Kerbin with no more or less difficulty than I had before the update and set up a Minmus encounter / fly by. I'm going to play with it some more before I vote, though I don't care much for the wording / format of the two options, but I'm leaning towards "yes, it's better" right now.

I believe I brought one of the last 0.18 builds, I tried the demo on Steam back in early May then picked up whatever the Early Access project build was at the time. Pretty sure it was just before 0.19 but not by a great deal.

I think the mechanic of procedural crates is absolutely epic, visually it adds so much more texture and depth to the Mun especially from space and I can only imagine how amazing similar terrain generating techniques will make other planets / moons look. From a purely esthetic point of view regarding the Mun I wouldn't go as far as to say it's overkill exactly, just that it needs a little fine tuning to tone it done a touch. A few less craters here and there (or less in specific areas maybe) and as others have mentioned perhaps a little less uniformity if that's possible, a little adjustment and it'll be just about perfect I think.

I finally got my Comms Station lander thing to Mun though I discovered a slight defect in my design, didn't notice til I was coming in to land that the legs were slightly too short.. needless to say the engines fell off on landing. The flag apparently felt sorry for the engines and fell over too ..

For me there isn't an appropriate poll option, maybe yes I would by KSP2 but it would depend a lot on what the game was about / content / improvements over KSP1 and other such factors. I'd certainly be interested in finding out more about it though and give it the consideration I think it would deserve based on my enjoyment of KSP1, hypothetically speaking of course .

For some reason this reminds me of a TV commercial for insurance with the Despicable Me Minions (hopefully this can be viewed in other regions), sometimes I feel like I'm Flo and the minions are my Kerbals .. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Yxr7l534U We've been working on something very special.. soon the Mun, no.. the Solar System, will be ours!! Mwahahaha!! Mooohahaha? "Mwahahaha" Moohehehe Mwaaa!

For me what makes KSP great is a combination of smaller things that add up to make the whole package simply amazing. Things like the fairly realistic nerdy rocket science / physics, the unbridled freedom of expression in gameplay that I haven't experienced in such a way since David Braben's Elite franchise back in the day and a "Looney Tunes" style of comedy (I always find myself making Wile E. Coyote style blunders with rocket design, staging is wrong so things decouple in just the wrong order or upon ignition the rocket flips over and face plants into the launchpad type of thing ) and probably other things I'm not even aware of. Sure there are other games with the nerdy level of science, a good amount of freedom / depth or the wacky humour but Squad has done such a great job at combining them "just so" that it makes the game so very good .

The same thing we do after every update, Pinky. Try to take over the Mun! Err well actually that's probably 3rd or 4th on my list , probably the very first thing I'm going to do is explore the new KSC and marvel at how awesome it is (isn't Kerbin getting some texture upgrades too? In which case I'll probably do both surface and aerial reconnaissance of the KSC and surrounding area). Then it's off to check out the new parts / functions and throw some probes / satellites back into orbit and onwards to the Mun.

When you watch Smokey and the Bandit the night before, read a post on the Steam forum where someone says if they don't play KSP less their life may turn into a country song and your brain immediately spits out: Eve bound and down, loaded up space-truckin'. We're gonna do what they say can't be done! We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there We're Eve bound, just watch them Kerbals run! Keep your boosters on full power, no need to aerobrake! Let it all hang cause we've got a run to make. Kerbals are thirstin' out on Duna and there's beer somewhere on Eve, And we'll bring some back matter what it takes! Eve bound and down, loaded up space-truckin'. We're gonna do what they say can't be done! We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there We're Eve bound, just watch them Kerbals run! .. before you can stop your fingers from typing. Then you remember this thread and repost it here, I should probably be ashamed of myself .

It's not my "most played" game (that I still have / play) yet but I'm working on it . At least PC wise my most played game according to Steam is Dead Island coming in at 177 hours followed by Farming Simulator 2013 at 96 hours, 3 more then KSP coming in at just over 70 hours played but I've only had it a few months. It's definitely one of my two most played games right now, the other being Gran Turismo 5. Sadly KSP probably won't ever be my most played game of all time, that dubious honour is currently held by EverQuest which is well up in the thousands of hours range and possibly close to 10k hours given how long I played it for .

I went for "not happy but will keep playing", I'm happy enough with my purchase at this time of an "in progress" product (to be still in development and I think still alpha stage it's remarkably well developed and very stable for me) but I wouldn't be happy if development just stopped. I would keep playing though because, while I don't use any right now, KSP appeas to have a superb modding community that has produced some brilliant mods so there would still be some mileage in the game thanks to them .

I'm not going to vote because essentially none of the 3 options are appropriate to me. But for the sake of Science, I use all stock parts right now. I have absolutely no hate for mods at all though, I simply choose not to use them at the moment for a number of reasons, and I certainly don't play with skill.. in fact I'd say that I use only stock parts with a healthy degree of ineptitude . I have tried Procedural Fairings and will likely use that again at some point and there are some other parts / packs that I've seen on the Spaceport which I may get around to using eventually too.

Doing some more practice runs to Mun before 0.21 arrives, 2nd time I've sent this lander but for some reason it had a landing malfunction. Ironically it was what I thought was my best descent, nicely controlled, relatively smooth and quite sedate. I touched down around 8m/s I think and that's where it went a bit wrong... After that I undocked the buggy payload I was testing, figured it should tip over safely enough but I forgot to lock the brakes before I released the clamp and it tipped onto the wheels and proceeded to roll away down the hill. Insert 2x speed video chase scene with Benny Hill music as I tried to chase the stupid thing across the crater with a series of inept jetpack hops . I finally caught up with it and got it slowed down enough to board it before it rolled away again and took the RCS Mun Kart for a proper test run.. It was all going so well until I exceeded about 20m/s and broke the puny wheels .

Perhaps the easiest solution would be to have an option popup when starting a new Career Mode game that lets us select "Mods" or "No Mods" as a sub-game mode type, if you choose "mods" then it loads all your mods and if they're built correctly it integrates them into the progression structure accordingly (e.g. rocket part mods could be linked to certain levels of career progression so they become available when similar vanilla parts do), obviously if you choose "No Mods" then any mods would be disabled / hidden for that saved game instance. Given the choice I personally would choose "Career Mode: No Mods", at least for the first play through because I like plain old vanilla sometimes. Others like vanilla with sprinkles or fudge swirls and that's cool too, heck sometimes I like vanilla with fudge swirls and crunchy peanut bits in it but I digress (and now I'm getting the munchies!). I guess the point is having the ability to choose is a good thing.