Scrogdog

I likey! What's the edit? A one part solution! Of course, unmanned flights (not probes) also only require one part; the remote control ring. Ta da! Hard to imagine one extra part throwing even new players in to a tizzy.

Right. The exact same situation that existed before the Apollo 1 fire. But knowledge of the door mechanism did not prevent them from realizing that it should open out, not in. That's the exact point I am making; there is no way that testing a basic part accounts for how those parts are put together. Again, that is THE reason that the phrase "back to the drawing board" exists! It has nothing to do with whether or not an individual part failed, but rather the entirely new engineering consideration of what happens when it is used with something else. And, SINCE that new combo MAY cost lives, why risk it? That's why there are test flights. I could have easily lost a Kerbal in the flight last night due to my human error. But it need not be so. I fix the things and save it, and when I'm pretty sure it's safe, THEN Kerbals fly! Instead it was a probe, the loss of which should still have an economic impact to my program. It will at some point, so I play as though it already does. Again, if you wish to play in this way, which avoids the consequence of failure, be my guest. To me, it's cheating. Why even play career?

Like I said, it's your game so play the way you like. To me, the use of the revert button invalidates the entire purpose of career mode, because then you take away the consequence of failure. Or, at least, the imagined future consequence.

No. To accomplish that, they would have had to also test every single part in every single combination that is possible. Again, we lost three astronauts to a design flaw in Apollo despite having flown capsules for years.

Because, admittedly, I play in a role play sense. For example, I expect this game to have the following elements eventually; economics, 'naut training, and realistic re-entry. So, I sort of play as if those things are in effect now, so that I don't adopt bad habits and/or need to change how I play (much) as new things come. So, for example, hitting revert avoids the economic penalty for failure, and also perhaps avoids a key death. Kerbal's do not respawn in my game. Further, the way I play, the only thing that can re-enter Kerbin's atmosphere is either a space plane/shuttle or a capsule with its heat shield exposed. No Science Jr's with legs surviving fiery re-entry and like that. It's your game, play it the way you want. And I'll do the same.

No kidding? I am not advocating a simulator. Gee, thanks for the hint. Easy. For the same reason that the phrase "back to the drawing board' exists. For the same reason that, even though we had experience in designing two other capsules, we lost three men to a design flaw in the Apollo capsule. For the same reason that the Dreamliner has problems. Further, even if Kerbals are perfect, the program manager at KSC is not. How many times have you forgotten a part or done something stupid? I have a bunch of times. Just last night I realized that my rocket had a control ring where I'd meant to place a stack separator. Whoops! Are you suggesting that in flipping CAREER mode that mistakes should have no consequence? Because that's all I'm saying. And if there is to be consequence, then test flights make sense in terms of what I said above, eventually in career mode trained and experienced Kerbals will be far more valuable than untrained ones.

To me, that's cheating. I also do not zap my debris from the Space Center. Just a play style thing, I'm perfectly ok with others doing it.

My point was based more on my earlier post about unmanned capsule launches. As I said, YOU might think that sub-orbitals pose no risks, with the advantage of perfect 20/20 hindsight, but as my earlier post shows; many test flights were performed before ever trying a manned sub-orbital. As Jumpster said, these were certainly NOT complex flights and only sought to test one little thing at a time at first. The first test of the Mercury capsule tested ONLY the launch escape system, for example. And while I agree that probes have bought us oodles more science that manned flight, they have not bought us much that has to DO with manned flight. In addition to that, if anything about human space flight can be criticized, it is that we still don't have much experience in the things that we'll need to know to truly live in space. Being aboard the ISS is not living in space, it is camping in space.

I thought that was fairly strange too, but now I justify it by saying that we are not learning anything new about KSC dirt or the launch pad. Rather, we are using our new equipment to see how it reacts with the known, so that we can better interpret what they tell us about the unknown. As a Star Trek fan, I can techno-babble anything.

That may be so, but even if Kerbal's have a callous regard for life, we know that 'naut training is coming. Here on Earth that was a lengthy and costly process; one would assume that is also the case on Kerbin regardless of other factors. In short, I would imagine that at some point in career mode conservation of highly trained and experienced Kerbalnauts will be an economic and practical matter.

I'm surprised that no one has bought up unmanned capsule launches. For example, the Mercury capsule was tested extensively over years and in many configurations before Shepard flew in May of '61. Then a few more before the orbital flights. If you ask me, this ability is more important than probes in terms of preparing for space flight. Little Joe 1 21 August 1959 Big Joe 1 9 September 1959 Little Joe 6 4 October 1959 Little Joe 1A 4 November 1959 Little Joe 2 4 December 1959 Little Joe 1B 21 January 1960 Mercury-Atlas 1 29 July 1960 Little Joe 5 8 November 1960 Mercury-Redstone 1 21 November 1960 Mercury-Redstone 1A 19 December 1960 Mercury-Redstone 2 31 January 1961 Mercury-Atlas 2 21 February 1961 Little Joe 5A 18 March 1961 Mercury-Redstone BD 24 March 1961 Mercury-Atlas 3 25 April 1961 Little Joe 5B 28 April 1961 (May–July, 1961: manned suborbital flights) Mercury-Atlas 4 13 September 1961 Mercury-Scout 1 1 November 1961 Mercury-Atlas 5 29 November 1961 (manned orbitals)

Just three little things. Science, math and engineering.

Eliminating unwanted/unneeded processes running in the background might help a bit.

Ah, right. Should have thought of that. I agree with Specialist290 that a lot of what some of us are doing might be considered a bit gamey. Such as an EVA during ascent, putting nothing but the pod on the pad and then doing an EVA and sample (how does one sample the metal grate I wonder, maybe we gather a few shavings, but strange that the contractor that built the thing knew nothing relevant about the material ), not to mention straight up and straight down sub-orbitals, etc. Also, I'm not sure what relevance Kerbin science has to my space program. I didn't know the properties of dirt at KSC or that of water before I got goo pods and took samples, but I'm ready for space flight? Once I get through the tree once, I'll likely restart and make the progression of research a bit more realistic and bound to the real goal of starting up a space program.

Not that big of a deal, in fact I plan that the 'naut cannot return to the pod when I start using Science Jr on sub-orbitals. It is simply that when you recover outside of the pod, all you recover is what the Kerbal has on him; such as an EVA report and sample. But then you just go to tracking and recover the pod from there. You still get everything.

Launch the command pod alone to get to the pad. Then do it again and walk off it to get KSC - not that far. Also, the runway will get you a different crew report and I think goo sample as well than either of the former. Wait until you get your first aircraft cockpit and launch it alone.

You don't want to stay at 45 degrees. Once you've banked and are stable, go to map mode and bring the angle more towards the horizon to increase speed and "fatten" the orbit. In that way you use your final stage to do most of the work and not the fuel in your command pod's service module.

One other tip, split your burn. In other words, if you have a 20 second burn, begin it when 10 seconds away from the node and end it 10 seconds past it. The further you are away from the node, the less efficient the burn. So, if it's a long one, try a series of timed "kicks" rather than one long burn.

You sure you applied the changes before you exited the screen?

Personally, no, but I'm not that great a pilot and don't do a lot of flying planes in the game. My advice would be to experiment and go with what works for you. I wrote a little walkthrough on how to get started with the Aeris 3A. To me the most important things are to observe how trim affects your profile and to enable fine control.

I agree! You should start with the stock Aeris 3A which is essentially a powered glider. Very hard to crash it. Just make sure that you use power and trim to help you maintain a flight profile as you align and descend (though you might find it useful to cut power altogether and glide in to start). I assume that you know that you don't want the nose wheel to touch down first. Once you land that plane, you'll get the idea. It will help you with landing the more difficult stuff.

Interesting comments. I took a couple of months off because I moved and also got promoted at work. This seems like a great time to return! Looking forward to flying .22 tonight and through the weekend! Even during Red Sox games!

Very fortunate! In my case I was about 8 years old when I became hooked. Around Gemini 8 or so. I went on to find out that my friend Gary's dad was also a NASA engineer! He gave us a list of Space Centers around the nation, there were a heck of a lot more back then, and told us to send a letter to each and request further information about the space program. And boy, did they! Didn't last forever though. Eventually the materials were no longer free and could only be obtained at a cost through the US Superintendent of Documents. But back in the day, young minds were stimulated. For free! Yes, Joe's picture was one of the things I got along with tech specs, mission docs, posters, photos, name it!

That would be Joe Kerwin, the very first pilot/scientist.

Hehe, and there's always the behind the scenes folks that you have to be careful of. For instance, it is generally considered true that forum participants of any game are only a small portion of those who actually play. In my case, I market to a male dominated profession (HVAC Contractors) which may mean some radio spots on "guy radio" (read "sports radio"), but we also must be careful as most of our customers happen to also be in full business partnership with their wives who are likely the ones running the show behind the scenes on quickbooks and such. We take it too far, and we alienate those VIPs!