lazarus1024

It has been awhile since I've made a rover to run missions with. About the only time I really use them these days is if I am building a processing/fueling base on the dirt. Need something to move fuel between the base and a lander. Beyond that, yeah, IMHO, if you have to go more than about 3-4km, it gets painfully boring. I do build rovers sometimes just to tool around an area of interest. Example, I'll sometimes put a lander down near the edge of a crater and some mountains on Mun/Duna. Then it is nice to be able to get around a little. Drive up to the top of a mountain, put a flag up there, drive back, etc. It would be nice if there was a cruise control option.

This, this, this. I don't do it as often as I should, but I DO do it periodically. It has saved my bacon a couple of times. Beyond that, I sometimes port between machines. Desktop, laptop or tablet and it is nice to be able to take my current save, play on that and reload it on my main machine (desktop). In a lot of ways, I am really looking forward to multi for this reason. Run it on my server and then I can (hopefully) have a persistent environment to run on any of my machines without tossing around the save files. That and so that my sons can start playing directly with me.

I used some of the 1x6 panels for the first time in 1.0.2. No option to retract them once I had them extended...are they totally non-retractable now? Or are they only retractable with an Engineer? What about the other panels? Are they non-retractable now as well?

Err, no, you cannot transfer the license. It is locked to the BIOS. Try to move it to a different machine, unless you are desoldering the BIOS to take it with you, Windows will not activate. Calling MS to explain they MIGHT allow the activation if you are swapping boards within a machine. They likely will not give you a telephone activation code if you are swapping across machines entirely.

Since KSP is currently a lot more focused on single thread performance...that isn't true at all. Also back to AMD versus Intel...yeah, you'll probably notice a big difference. My Laptop has roughly similar single thread performance to most of the newer AMD desktop processors. I can tell you I notice a BIG difference between my desktop and laptop with extremely low graphical settings (to ensure zero of the bottlenecks are the iGPU on my laptop). Yeah, my laptop will handle some fairly good sized ships, but my desktop is a beast in comparison. Which it should with a good 60% higher single thread performance. Yeah, I've limited the threads on my desktop so I can ensure the "quad core" part wasn't coming in to play (technically, my laptop had more threads because it is hyperthreaded and my desktop isn't). KSP relies heavily on single thread performance right now.

Depends on airflow. Granted, even with still air, you are probably convecting 80% of the heat from the radiator as convection and conduction in to the bits of the vehicle touching the radiator, but a measurable and reasonable amount is still being radiated (by my math, using .20 as the emissivity of heavily oxidized aluminum, about 200W). This would of course be at idle. Spray paint that thing black and you'd up that significantly to 900w or so. Of course you'd also reduce convection...which would be a bad thing, since that is the primary way it removed heat (since your radiator is probably dumping 10% of the energy produced by combustion, with only about 30% of it utilized as workable energy by the engine and the rest out the tailpipe or in to outer bits, like radiated/convected from the engine itself, the engine oil, pumping air, etc.). Engine cranking 150hp means it is probably dumping something like 9-10kw in to the coolant. That is a lot of heat to move. As everyone else mentioned, radiation is how they work. Which takes a great deal of surface area and/or a very high temperature. I haven't looked at cooling systems for space vehicles in AGES, but my guess is a lot of the manned ones use heat pumps to make this more efficient. If you are only trying to cool something like 80F coolant a few degrees, it is going to take a HUGE surface area, even in space. However, if you utilize a heat pump and can heat that coolant up to 200F on the hotside, you just doubled your radiative losses. Heat it up to 400F and you've nearly doubled it again. So what might have been a 10m^2 radiator, you can bump down to 5m^2 or even 2.5m^2. This is a big issue with generating and utilizing power in space. You have a 1000w electrical system in a space ship, you are going to need to radiate 1000w of heat. Give or take of course. The shell of the ship will radiate heat. Then again, in sunlight it'll absorb heat. In orbit, the balance is generally on losing more heat than gaining (because half your ship is in sunlight on the daylight side and at night the entire ship is radiating heat). At least from "room temperature". Hence why "shut down" space stations stablize at something like 0F or so. However, start generating electricity and using it on the station and you can quickly "bake" the ship if your radiators are not working. A few kw of power can seriously heat up a station if you cannot dump some of that heat. Space shuttle had radiators in the shuttle bay doors and the shuttle would orient itself so that the radiators were generally facing away from the sun to dump heat. If they bay doors failed for some reason, the shuttle would have limited time in orbit before it would have to return to Earth, because it would have no way to dump the dozens of kws of heat being generated.

I'd stay away from AMD, especially for KSP. With the transition to Unity 5, things may change a bit, but right now it is single threaded performance that means a bit more for KSP and AMD's single thread performance is abysmal in comparison to Intel. On multithreaded, well, things may be somewhat closer there. I can't really speak to whether KSP leverages a lot of integer or floating point calculations, but generally in most gaming comparisons, Intel has quite a lead when you include any discrete graphics card in to the mix. Honestly, KSP is pretty graphics light. I have a $100 Nvidia GTX750 and it runs KSP smoothly at 1080p and all of the nits turned up. Where I can get stumbling is truely massive ships. My i5-3570 running at 4GHz however can lift most of what is KSP pretty easily however. I can't say I've run a spaceplane with 150 parts in any circumstance, but multi hundred part rockets and space stations don't really cause issues for it. Frankly if on a budget, I'd look for something like an Intel i3-4330 processor with 8GB of RAM and something like an Nvidia GTX750 or 750ti to drive it (frankly AMD's current GPUs are also energy thristy without great performance and prices aren't super attractive either). Assembling it yourself you could probably put it all together for $550-650 depending on exact choices in case, SSD/HDD, power supply, etc. At a price point of $300, you aren't going to be able to assemble anything decent. Really $500 is the starting point for a "decent" gaming system. Obviously an uber awesome one is more like $2,000 but you can make a pretty respectably good one for $500-600.

This stuff kind of makes we wish we could tinker the autosave feature and have the ability to restore from X number of previous autosaves. I rarely feel the need to restore from my own muck-ups. Having 3 kids under 8, there are enough times I've run because of "insert liquid where it shouldn't be" and accidently didn't hit esc to pause, or had to parent, head turned and look back at my screen and...crunch. Well and I'll admit the occasional time I've invested tons of time in to something only to be 12km off a Mun landing with some impressive lander and realize...it is the night side...and Jeb forgot to pack his landing lights...opps. Please note, that last one I managed a guess work suicide burn and managed to touch down while only crushing my engine, but the lander survived and it had a seperate ascent stage. Manage to get back to my orbiter, dock, transfer the trickle of fuel I had left in the ascent stage and get back to kerbin with 1 unit of fuel left in my TMI/return stage. Cutting it a little close... I've had it where things didn't work out with night landings. I guess for me, I don't mind too much if it is pilot error, but when it is a straight up engineering boo-boo, I tend to revert. Or if I can't revert, restore a quick save...which I often fail to do often enough.

I don't think I've gotten within 5km before at such a distance, but I have gotten within something like 50km and tightened it up after that and gotten dock. As you found, you sometimes have to tweak several times on you way towards your meeting place. I doubt I've had the distance within 1,000km at anything over half an orbit away. Time warp to a quarter orbit, tweak a little. Time warp a little more, tweak a little more. Rinse and repeat. You kind of, sort of have to do the same thing with asteroid rendezvous (unless you get one within an SOI of something). Ignoring asteroids, I think I've done it 3 or 4 times over the years. Once to rescue a ship, once to try it and 1-2 times because I was building a space station orbiting between Duna and Kerbin. I only latched up 1 or 2 modules before I threw up my hands and said it was too much work.

Oh, and a space telescope. Whether it is a "legit" science part that can be used for science in different places, or one that is pure functional, I think it would be cool to be able to have a 1st person view out of it (with pan/tilt capability and maybe zoom too). Nothing extreme, but a 3-10x max zoom would be cool. Be neat to do things like look up at your space station in Mun orbit from your Mun base. Or try to spot Jool. That kind of thing.

Folding wings, so that you can do things like make a "sail plane" for Duna or Lathe (or Eve). Electrically powered prop engine for the above places too. A nuclear reactor at some point. Big, heavy, TONS of electricity. Heat sinks/radiators. Maybe a small fixed part as well as a bigger, more efficient, folding radiator part. Robot arm with a grasper at the end. Maybe in two sizes and strengths (1.5m and 2.5m "sizes"). Like one that can pick up .5t on Kerbal and one that can pick up 1.5t on Kerbal. Extendable/collapsable "accordian" type structual parts. So you can, for instance, mount an RTG and a high gain antenna on a probe core, stick it in a fairing and then in orbit, you can extend out the RTG and high gain away from the probe core. Or you can mount stuff in a plane/shuttle bay or equipment bay and then either use a grasper arm or accordian part to extend it out. I am VERY much looking forward to SQUAD doing the Unity 5 transition as well as the full audio pass. Maybe more than any other thing. So far I am LOVING 1.02. The game feels a lot more complete between the new aero, the new parts, re-entry heat, etc. Granted, I am also in the club where I wouldn't mind if re-entry heat were turned up a little, so that on normal difficulty you had to actually worry about it a little (IE needing heat shields, at least for "beyond Kerbal" re-entry type velocities). At higher difficulty settings you should need to worry about re-entry angle, not just if you have a heat shield or not. All of that said, two things I am hoping for eventually are multiplayer. That and hopefully either a release focused on "moar parts" or continuing the awesome itterating of parts. Both low level, mid level and high level parts. One of the other things I've noticed is that there could be some more rover parts. Maybe a "capsule" or two that are dedicated rover capsules (A la, "Mars rover" type stuff). Maybe a scientific instrument so that probes can take soil samples as a very high level part.

What is everyone doing with Duna? I am a ways away from going there, but that thought did just occur to me. Pre-1.02 back in .90, I had been setting them to 1,000 meters and things were good. What about now? Should I be going 2-3k? I rarely rely on parachutes on Duna to actually get all the way down, but I do tend to rely on them scrubbing a few hundred m/s of velocity as well as letting me float slowish to within a few dozen meters of the surface and then turn the engines back on. Great for making multiple hops. Parachutes, brief engine burst, land. Repack, take off, parachutes, brief engine burst, land again. Rinse and repeat.

My brother-in-law was fawning over it back awhile ago. 3 years ago now? I can't recall how long ago that was. I bought KSP back at .14 (it may have been .13.3). It is hard to remember that far back, but I think it was the first updated after the Mun was added that I bought it (or maybe it was the 2nd update after the Mun?). I've been active playing it all along from when I bought it. At worst there might have been a month or two where I didn't get any play time for personal reasons, but I'd guess I probably average at least 30hrs a month over the last 2 1/2 or 3 years now. Some weeks I might put in 20hrs in a week, others I just might not have the time to play at all. As it stands I don't think he plays it much anymore. As it stands KSP is pretty much the only game I ever play. It is a combination of being addictive enough along with being a father of 3 and a job that sucks up too much of my time as well as some other hobbies that are a time suck (home brewing beer, yeah, that sucks up a lot of time). I am super excited about possible Multiplayer, especially if it is multiplayer with personal server persistance (like Minecraft). Especially if it will be possible to do multi with Career mode at some point. My son is a huge KSP nut and my younger son plays a little here and there. I could probably even suck my brother-in-law back in at some point. To me the possibilities with multi are nearly endless, especially with resource gathering (I mine and refine fuel and then deliver it to my son's interplanetary ship as an example).

Eeloo. Never been there. Been everywhere else. Since 1.0/1.02, I have only just played a little. Mun is as far as I have gotten so far.

Sun shields and folding radiators that rotate away from the sun would be cool. Then maybe ramping up heat load so that Moho vicinity will cause a ship to slowly cook if you don't implement heat mitigation stuff I think would be very cool.

I wouldn't mind seeing some dedicated radiators too. You don't have to use them. Something fairly light, with low thermal mass, but high heat dissipation. Maybe something retractable (I want to say that Nova made a part like that a couple of years back that was a retractable radiator). So you can store it away in a bay and then open the bay and open some radiators before you light up a NERVA.

Either as late game/end game content or a future expansion pack, I would LOVE if SQUAD implemented "exo-kerbal system" content and ability. Even if we don't get "explore a galaxy", it would be whicked cool if another solar system was added at a good distance with maybe a drive technology or two to get there. Maybe a gate system. Build a gate on an orbit in the Kerbal system and one in the other system and then you can jump between them. Gotta slow boat it to the other solar system. Or you can build gates within the kerbal system. Set it up so it'll take a LOT to build a gate and take a lot of resources for the gate to operate as well as that "shipping the components to build the gate" mechanic and I think that could be a really cool very late game mechanic. Plus other solar system to explore. Maybe it can be a binary system. With a ringed planet. I mean, if I am getting requests in, I might as well make them grandiose. Also optional and difficulty adjustable life support would be real nice. Then we could also have cool modules like air tanks, air scrubbers, hydroponics that can infinitely support a kerbal, etc. Maybe the options could be off, easy (depletion 1/4 rate), normal (depletion 1/1), hard (depletion 2/1) and very hard (depletion 2/1 AND life support is used when not focused on the vessel).

If Ore were actually ice, all you'd need is electricity to melt it and then hydrolize it. Then you'd be 1:1 with rocket fuel/oxidizer and starting feed stock. Frankly I think calling it ore is silly, it should just be called ice.

If you look at it, just the command pod for Gemni was a fair amount larger, let alone the support module for Gemini.

Errrr, umm, probably not. It is most efficient the burn your fuel low in the gravity well to take advantage of the Oberth effect. You'd only burn at a low thrust constant rate for the duration of the mission, then flip and apply reverse thrust part way through if your only option was a low thrust engine or were limited by something else, like electrical generation (ion/VASMIR). It would be nice if the equation was tweaked slightly, or failing that give us another couple of options. Like a higher power/density RTG (maybe as a 1.5m size, but thin stack, 5-10e/sec) as a top option and maybe a nuke plant above all of those (but with a lot of mass, like 2-4t, 2.5m size but maybe producing something like 100 e/sec).

I would be all over flexible connectors. Could use something like the claw logic, but with docking ports. Or you could just use the claw.

Not entirely true. Straight on your back, an average human will tend to pass out after just 10-15s at g-forces in excess of about 12-15G*. Average I say. One in very good physical condition might up that to 30s or more. As for simple tasks, at 20G, heck no. One in excellent condition maybe. How much does your arm way...10-12lbs? Try lifting 200-240lbs with a single arm. Even most extremely fit individuals cannot do that. Simply moving a joystick with most of your arm's weight supported by a seat would be nearly impossible. At 10G or so, a very fit individual can do very basic tasks with great difficulty, but they can do them. At 4-6G an average person can do very basic tasks with great difficulty. At 20G even laying on your back you would quickly black out. Prolonged exposure to 20G would certainly cause brain damage/organ failure. Much above 20G would cause almost immediate injury. Doesn't matter the position you are in. *This is for a supine position. Sitting with the G-forces straight down through your body instead of from front to back or back to front would result in an average person without a G-suit passing out in just a few seconds. Even a well trained individual in excellent health wear a G-suit cannot withstand G-forces in the 12-15G range for more than a few seconds without passing out. Stunt/race planes can often and easily hit 12-16G, however, they are generally only manuevering at those forces for a very small number of seconds (often 5-10s). The rough limit of "prolonged exposure" to high G-forces is roughly 9-10G, if well trained, in good health and wearing a G-suit (which is why most top end fighters have a G-force limit of 9G when running more or less clean, because the pilot can withstand manuevering at 9G for 60-90s, but that is basically the limit). Note, the Mercury astronauts on their suborbital flights (the orbital re-entries were more gentle) hit, IIRC 15G max for only a few seconds during re-entry.

First person mode on EVA as an option?

It would be interesting at some point, as an option (or required?) if there are some resource you MUST extract elsewhere and return them so that you can use them. One of my thoughts is that the NERVA engines and RTGs required extracting nuclear material elsewhere and returning it. So maybe a NERVA requires .5t of "nuclear material" and an RTG requires .05t. Well, you get zero of it on Kerbin, so off you go to find some if you want to power NERVA rockets or RTGs. Maybe one of your first missions to the Mun is to grab half a ton of the stuff to return to KSC so that you can build your first NERVA to go off to Jool or something. Also gives more reason to make reusable ships, if you have to mine and return specialized resources to be able to make some of the parts. I wouldn't make this terribly complex with dozens of resources that you have to mine just so you can build X part, but I do think it would be fun if there were 1-3 resources you had to mine and return to Kerbin if you wanted to build a small number of "advanced" parts. Like NERVA, RTGs, maybe Xenon has to be mined and returned from elsewhere. Maybe there will be a more advanced propulsion system/power plant at some point, like actual fission reactor that also needs nuclear material returned (and maybe also uses it, in very tiny quantities, like 1% per month or something). Maybe "exotics", like "Rare Earth metals" is something you have to find, and that is what Xenon thrusters need to operate. Maybe it is also used in something advanced like a VASMIR. I don't think we'd want to go too overboard with it, but I do feel like it could be a fun game play mechanic if you keep it in check, but make it meaningful too.

Okay, awesome. I can't really view the SQUADcasts, so that is probably why I missed it. For me I love the potential the most for "go there and stay" missions. Sure, I love making big'um rockets and ships, but if I can make it a lot smaller, I'd love to do that too. A full jool system exploration is a lot easier if you can plunk down a mining and refining operation somewhere to refuel your ships with, especially for the return journey to KSC. Also, especially if asteroids now have extractable resources, it gives asteroid capture something meaningful. Tow a modest sized one back to Kerbal orbit for a refueling station instead of having to haul loads of fuel up to it from the surface. I mean, yes, it saves some money to refuel a station, to then fuel up/refuel a ship for a mission, but it is also a fair amount of extra hassle. Same with dropping off any extra fuel at a station on a return journey. You can skip those steps (within reason) if you can just haul an asteroid in to orbit and mine it there. For big missions, you can load up all your fuel in orbit then and skimp on your launcher for your ship, saving money. It also makes it much cheaper to refuel re-usable ships in orbit. If all I need to do for my reusable ship is to send a new lander/re-entry module up to it and attach it at the refueling station, then load up on fuel from the station that was mined from an asteroid, that is a LOT cheaper than having to send up a lander/re-entry module AND fuel. Both in time and in cost. - - - Updated - - - This. I also hope that it can be "complex". I am kind of hoping, at least in the long run, for more than simply "Oxygen" that is supplied from "Oxygen tanks" that can maybe be mined and refined somewhere. Hopefully there can be "upgrades", like "air recyclers" which use power in exchange for reducing oxygen use or something. Or hydro/aeroponics which can infinitely recycle "oxygen". And speaking of, it would be neat to have water/food as resources too at some point. However, I think each level of consumable life support should be togglable as an option (yes/no to air, water and food being required). Probably also be able to toggle a yes/no for is life support consumed if the current game focus is not on the ship (IE if not focused on the ship, no life support is consumed). Yes, this means you can cheat by switching focus away and then back once you've time warped somewhere. However, if you allow it to be toggled off entirely anyway, it isn't really cheating. It is a good way to keep from accidently killing all your kerbals in other ships if you forget about them.