Uberick

For me, it's fast approaching. In 4 weeks I've got 150 hours on it. In Skyrim and Civ I have about 550 hours each:) I could see this game holding my attention for the indefinite future if development goes as planned though!

I use this, or variants of this, for most of my landing missions. http://i.imgur.com/lkdqK7y.jpg' alt='lkdqK7y.jpg'> The structural wings allow you to use a nuke engine, and also expand the base of support to make it easy to land. I recommend their use even if you use a 909(also an excellent engine). I'd stay away from the radial engines, they have horrible ISP. Effectively, all you have to do it put a docking port on the CM, and then build a LM capable of landing and reattaining orbit, and put a docking port on that too. Flip the LM around and stick it on top of the CM, voila!

Yes, use the "[]" keys, they will switch you between anything in your local area that can be controlled. The "Control from here" button is used to set a docking port, or alternate command pod as the "primary" command pod. If you do this on a docking port, then the docking port will take over your nav ball, allowing you to line up targets with your docking port rather than your command pod. this is useful if you have a docking port placed on the back or your ship, the side, etc.

I'd recommend just quicksaving, and going on EVA. Practice just making a quick "inspection" of your vessel, and then try to get back into your command pod. Then escalate to floating far away, and trying to come back. If you want, you can get two vessels within a couple hundred meters of eachother, and instead of docking them, practice running an EVA'd kerbal back and forth. They have a TON of RCS, so you usually have alot of room for error. Worst case? Quickload and try again:)

I usually use the medium sized docking clamps, I find they grab on pretty easily, and hold even under medium thrust. Small clamps only clamp to other smalls, so I try to standardize medium clamps on all my designs so everything can dock with everything else. Large clamps are useful when docking large, full fuel tanks to space stations, or when docking parts of a spaceship being assembled in orbit that will undergo large amount of thrust compression or torque. If you're planning on practicing docking in LKO(Low Kerbal Orbit), I recommend a vessel like this: The docking port is located underneath the 1 man capsule, serving as a decoupler. When it has been launched into orbit, you can decouple the launcher stage(right click docking port)(you can put a probe on it to deorbit it, or just turn off persistent debris) and voila, you have a capsule with a parachute and a docking port! When docking, you can right click the docking port itself and click "Control from here" so that you can use it to line up your docking target on the navball. This particular design(200l of Monopropellant, and only 4 thrusters) has over 1000 Delta V just in the monopropellant stage, so you have plenty of fuel to rendezvous and to practice docking. (tip for docking. . . before using the translation controls, make sure that your vessel is oriented with "up"(In this case, the capsule door and window) pointing to your screen's "up", or your translation controls will be reversed, turned 90 degrees sideways, etc). Good luck docking, and welcome to Kerbal Space Program!

Yea, you don't actually need to fit anything to let a remote probe communicate back with Kerbin,(like a radio or anything.) all you have to do is put a probe core on your ship instead of a manned command pod. To make sure that it doesn't run out of power, either put on solar panels and batteries, or RTGs. RTGs will give it infinite power, but are heavy, while solar panels are lighter, but only generate power while in direct sunlight.(also, the power generated by solar panels diminishes as they get farther from the sun, so if you're visiting an outer planet you might need a couple extra.) Adding batteries can allow your probe to still remain controllable while on the dark side of a planet, if you have enough of them, but they also add weight. If you're going for a minimalist probe, you can skip batteries, and just time your maneuvers so that your probe doesn't have to do anything on the dark side of a planet.

Ive struggled with spaceplanes for a long time, and only this weekend actually managed to get one into orbit. Of course, It still cant land without refueling in lko, and I cant figure out how to land it horizontally, so it has to do a powered landing onto its tail. Even with the aerodynamics being weird I think it's fun to build one just to build it and see if it'll work. . . watching the sun crest over Kerbin as I finish my burn to establish orbit, all the while watching my fuel with fingers crossed, is an enthralling experience that I think defines the game.

Grats! One small step for Kerbal, one giant step for Kerbalkind! When I did my first moon landing, I didn't know there was a quicksave, I blew up like 3 rockets and had to do them all over:(

From my new spacestation as it was correcting its orbit.

I don't know how to make videos, but it seems there's two big ways to land a rover. . . the first is to come up with a clever skycrane(like the above), or make a rover that's capable of landing. . . This is an example of the latter. I put this on duna with a combination of chutes and a powered landing, and it has enough delta v to reattain orbit(it has to ramp off a hill to get airborne though) In regards to actually designing a rover, I highly recommend a wide wheelbase, nuclear generators for power(so you can drive on the night side, don't forget to put on lights!), and either a manned command pod or RCS so you can use the torque to right yourself if you get air and start to flip over. If you really want to be fancy, designing a rover that can take off and land on its own is pretty fun. . . the small radial engines usually give enough thrust to lift a rover, but the 909 is the best choice if you can find a place to fit it, since it has much better ISP than the radial engines. Being able to fly(or better yet, attain orbit) is good for exploring faster(planets are huge).

In regards to the ship in the original post, if you have trouble with the longer, final stage being wobbly in the early stages of liftoff, you can build a scaffolding around it to hold it in place. I launched this space station as a single piece by using I beams and struts to hold it in place. . . http://i.imgur.com/XdxhGd1.jpg' alt='XdxhGd1.jpg'>

Also, with fuel lines, try to place them on the bottommost tank, otherwise the tanks will feed from the bottom up, which will move your Center of Gravity towards the nose of the rocket, which can make it unstable when trying to perform your gravity turn. Sorry for my super run on sentence.

I would recommend moving your struts, such that they go from the top of one fuel tank, to the bottom of the adjacent fuel tank See this horrible pic (when looking from the outside of the rocket towards the center with it pointing up.) [] X [] [] X [] [] X [] Such as this: http://i.imgur.com/kNPSEFp.jpg' alt='kNPSEFp.jpg'>

I guess so, I would think that ramming fraglie spaceships into eachother at 10 mph wouldn't work in the real world:) Also, since they have to be lined up much more precisely, it's made me much better at adjusting my ships with RCS. I used to be able to come in at an angle(45~ degrees off center), but now I have to actually use the translation controls to come in straight. Much more fun I think:)

I've successfully docked the new large clamps, but they do seem to be much more difficult to get to "latch". With a normal docking port, I can usually come in at 5m/s at an angle and the mag-lock will sort things out, with the big ones, I have to come in perfectly aligned, at less than 1 m/s to get them to lock.

Send a lander that uses a probe or a 1 man capsule as the "root" part of the ship, and then put a three man capsule underneath(that way the three man capsule will be empty, so you can rescue stranded kerbals). If you use a nuke engine on it, landing next to your previous landung site is easier, because you can set your orbit so it passes low above the landing site(maybe 5km), and then just burn retrograde to kill all your speed so you can drop down right on top of it. With the nuke, you have enough delta v with 1 360l tank to make that burn, and then regain orbit with extra dV remaining. (This assumes apollo style mission with a landing module and separate command module in orbit)

I usually start prepping for a transfer by burning to almost escape velocity whn I have nukes, then make a final push in a series of burns. If you dont like waiting try more nukes on decouplers, so you can do one burn to escape, and then dump the extra engines when youre done so your return stage is lighter. Usually one nuke is plenty to push a reasonably sized return vessel.

I haven't tried a clean install without mods to see if that improves FPS. . . I'll give it a shot.

From early testing, I'm seeing large FPS improvements when launching ships with many parts. My big 800 part ship has gone from average of 3-4 FPS to 9-11 FPS, HUGE difference in flyability. I can finally carry out my EVE return mission! Thanks SQUAD! I hate to be the guy pining away for the next update after this one has just come out, but I REALLY look forward to future optimizations to make the game even smoother. I like the updates to the menus; parts are cool. The combination of flags, rover wheels and seats has led me to start a new mission to land a new manned rover on every planet Also, the new larger docking port should make big space stations and large tugs easier to build. All in all, this update seems like a series of solid improvements!

You can land/lift off of Duna with nukes, depends on how much your lander weighs though. . . My biggest Duna landers usually consist of one nuke engine, one 360l fuel tank, a command module and some RCS, and that lands/lifts off just fine. To find out, there are several mods that will give you your thrust to weight ratio on various planets, or you can compute your thrust to weight ratio yourself. The tricky part with using nukes for landers is that nukes are HUGE, so you have to mount the landing gear on struts or structural wings to get them to reach to the ground.

Thanks! Sorry for being so clueless, I think the excitement fried my brain or something:)

Hi all I see that the .20 update has been recently released. . . however, I cannot seem to find where to download and install the update. . . I realize this is probably just me missing something obvious, but would appreciate if someone could point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance!

I'm hoping for some performance improvements as my primary "want". Anytime I try to launch or dock anything remotely complicated(part count over 200ish) the game turns into a slideshow. . . which forces me to let mechjeb do things that I don't really want it to do. I heard that performance improvements of some type are coming out in .20, I just hope they're significant enough to solve the issues I'm having:)

If you're trying to build a SpaceX rocket, there's actually a KerbX mod that allows you to do just that. . . it's not as refined as KW Rocketry(my favorite mod aside from MechJeb), but it works pretty well.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of DLC. . . I much preferred the old days of proper "expansions" that cost 20$, but actually added 20$ worth of content, rather than a 5$ DLC that adds maybe 30 minutes of playtime. However, I actually like what SQUAD seems to be saying about their DLC. . . namely, that their DLC will introduce whole new mechanics to the game. Big, sweeping changes rather than small changes that modders can already provide. Their reasoning also seems sound. . . only the hardcore people are going to be using the more complicated features; and since the hardcore crowd is planning to spend 200+ hours on the game, they will be fine spending extra $ on DLC that allows greatly increased complexity. As an example, I would spend $ on DLC that allows realistic moon bases to be constructed and maintained, whereas my brother mostly plays this game to watch rockets blow up, and wouldn't spend a dime on it. I think that providing a core experience, and then adding DLC afterwards to cater to a more hardcore crowd is perfectly acceptable, and will allow the game to be released to the masses while still providing a unique hardcore experience that so many of us(myself included) love. P.S. If SQUAD had a donation box, where perhaps if you donate you get a special forum badge or something( or early access to beta builds, or dev blogs or something), I think many people would take advantage of it. I, personally, would take advantage of such a system. In the meantime I'll be buying KSP T-shirts and coffee mugs to try to help out. Keep it up SQUAD, make KSP the best it can be!