AgentPaper

I don't think it really makes sense for radiation to play a really big design role in most missions. It's probably better to just assume that (basic) radiation protection is baked in to the existing parts, and thus their weights. One way to implement radiation would be to make it only a concern when you get really close to Kerbol, starting somewhere between the orbits of Eve and Moho. This would make Moho a more difficult (and thus potentially more rewarding) destination. Of course, this would still require adding some way of making radiation protection into an interesting game mechanic. If it's just an extra part you have to slap on, that doesn't really do much. If it used a lot of power, that might be more interesting. Perhaps something like a "magnetic field generator" that uses a bunch of power (requiring an extensive solar array even with the increased efficiency) to fend off the radiation. The amount of power required could increase based on how much radiation you were getting dosed with, and perhaps the part itself could degrade over time, so you have to be careful in how you plan your mission to ensure you have sufficient power, and aren't spending too long in the dangerous radiation. This would also make for a fairly interesting "Sun-Dive" mission profile, where you try to get a probe (or later, perhaps even a kerbal) into low Kerbol orbit, likely requiring late-game power generation and a very aggressive burn to get close enough before your shielding degrades fully. This could also be used elsewhere, for example by making one of Jool's moons slightly radioactive. It wouldn't be as harsh as getting to Moho, but your power generation options would also be more limited, so it would add some unique complications to the mission profile.

"It works great. Thanks"...

There already isn't much reason to recover craft.

I really love the new science system, but it definitely has some bugs to be worked out. Most of them are fairly minor, but the one that really sticks out for me is just the sheer amount of clicking involved. To get the full value out of an experiment, you need to transfer it anywhere from 50 to 500 times, depending on how much science it's worth. My suggestion is to make it so that experiments return 100% each time, just like crew reports, so you only need to generate and send them a few times, maybe a dozen at most for the really high-value ones. Of course, to keep things balanced, the amount of data that needs to be sent back for each experiment should be increased hugely as well, so that it takes roughly the same amount of time and electricity to make the transfer as before, just with far less clicking.

Right now, the various pods and control systems seem to be very poorly laid out. You have some control systems that give SAS, some that give Reaction Wheels, and some that do both. You have some pods that have SAS in automatically, and some that don't, without any seemingly logical reason as to why. To simplify things and make it all more transparent, I'd like to suggest the following two changes: 1) ALL command systems have SAS installed automatically. This goes for all the manned pods, the Remote Guidance systems, and yes, even the tiny little probe cores. They should also all have Reaction Wheels, but usually fairly weak ones. 2) ALL control systems are changed to be Reaction Wheel parts, and named as such. This way, you don't have to worry about whether or not you have SAS installed, since you are guaranteed to have it installed on every ship that is controllable. It also makes the control systems easier to understand, since they all do the same thing, just in different sizes. This should help clear up a lot of confusion about the new system, and also allow for cleaner and simpler rocket designs.

Just wanted to share a few compact solar arrays I made: First a small one designed to fit in a 2.5m expanded fairing: And a larger one for a 3.5m fairing: One thing I'd really like to see would be a telescoping cylinder that can extend to at least 2-3 times its compact length, but is less sturdy than the normal cylinder, as well as a 1.25m wide cylinder that extends about as far as the current one, and has fuel transfer and such enabled to allow you to make a sort of extending ship. Could also come in a 2.5m version if you're feeling generous.

On the other hand, I wouldn't mind seeing a more legitimate gliding challenge. Just disallow infiniglide, and limit engine power to a single RT-10 Solid Fuel Booster.

Well I mean, I guess I could spend 10 minutes moving this thing around if you want, but really, there's no way this thing is stopping any time soon:

Currently having a strange bug: Whenever I launch a ship with a Heavy Drill on it, the drill deploys automatically as soon as the ship loads, and I can't seem to re-pack them either. When I right-click on one of them, it just has a button for "Deploy Drill", which when I click on it, nothing happens.

Ok, here's the up-close pic as promised: I actually made a very minor alteration here compared to what I set the record with, in that I only have 1 wheel instead of 2. That doesn't really affect the performance much.

Ah, yes sorry I can upload a SPH shot later today, once I get back from work. MC is the mission control interface button. I have mods installed there, but none of them affect the flight performance and I didn't use any of the mod parts.

Perhaps there could be a limit on the ship's starting elevation?

They do have mass, though not much. I tried adding a few to reinforce the parts that break, but all it seems to have done is slow the ship down. It doesn't fall apart anymore, but I think that's more due to the much reduced G-forces and slower speeds rather than it actually being significantly more robust. Not sure why it slows down so much, must be some weird drag calculations.

And without it, anyone can glide, well, nowhere. Might I suggest a modification to the contest? First, ban infiniglide (you'll basically need to use the honor system, since even a seemingly normally-designed ship can pull it off), and second, score based on fuel used for a full circumnavigation. The less fuel, the higher the score. That way you encourage gliders, but allow propulsion enough to actually do the job.

Haha, yeah a separate category is frankly probably more than I deserve. I made this for another challenge and broke this one kinda on accident.

After a bit more tweaking (aka: MOAR FLAPS), I've improved my speed. I also submitted this to the machingbird challenge, now that it's broken all of the records there without breaking a sweat. Assuming they don't throw a kraken at me for not using jet engines. I'm not sure that you can go much faster than this. It's true that these things work better at lower altitude, but trying to go this fast at sea level causes this ship to fall to pieces instantly. I was only able to reach this speed by staying ~10km up, where the atmosphere is thin enough that I don't break into pieces. Unfortunately, if I go any higher than that, the flaps become useless pretty quickly.

Ok, not sure if this qualifies. Technically I think it does, since you don't actually say you need to use jet engines, but just that you can't use anything other than them. Which means that a ship that uses no engines should qualify: The max speed comes out to 2746m/s, which means I should be the first member of the Mach 8 club.

No clue, but getting there should be fairly easy. It can put itself into a sub-orbital trajectory and recover from orbital insertion already, so all you need is the ~3000m/s of delta-V to do all the in-space bits. With a total mass of .37t, it shouldn't take much of a rocket to reach that. Edit: Also, how is SAS or ASAS supposed to help with this? As far as I can tell, all it does is add unnecessary weight.

Well, if it's range you want, how about infinite range? This is what I call the Mach 5 Glider. Because it glides (there are no engines on there, and never were), and has a top speed of ~1730 m/s. Unfortunately if you try and go that fast, you'll almost certainly be kicked well out into space (after that my apoapsis was 191km), but with some discipline and patience you can easily circumvent Kerbin as much as you want. It's powered by a PB-NUK, so it can keep going forever even in total darkness. To thrust, all you need to do is quickly move the flaps up and down. The quicker you do so, the faster you go.

Does it count if you get into space after reaching your top speed? That's just over Mach 5. Immediately after this, I was too high up to control myself, and entered space with an apoapsis of 191km. Not a stable orbit, though it's probably possible. For the record, there are no, and never were any, engines on that. Taking off simply required retracting and re-extending the gear, and then flapping around until I got in the air. Edit: Here's a pic of the thing in orbit. You can see the craft itself here as well, rather than just a flaming ball of fire:

Re-made my solar flier, and it's now working better than ever. Unfortunately it was a bit spoiled when I learned that (after a...minor accident) that you don't actually need engines at all to fly these things due to the odd physics. Ah well. And I know that rover wheels are lighter, I just prefer landing gear for aesthetic reasons mostly. You only need two, anyways.

I tried adding a seat to mine, but for whatever reason the patch seems to have broken it, so now it shakes itself apart whenever a kerbal tries to fly it. Tried to fix it, but I'll probably end up needing to just build it again from scratch, which should hopefully resolve whatever issue there was.

You can actually do this in stock now with .20. Just launch your ship, go to the map view, and click on the little i on the right side of the screen.

This looks pretty slick, but two engines and rover wheels seems like overkill, so I designed this: Mass: 2.24 tons Parts: 64 I think this is about as small as it's possible to go and still be flyable. Once in the air, it flies like a dream, though you should make sure to use the precision controls. Be warned that it is very slow, but it is very stable, so you can easily pull stunts like barrel rolls and loops without any hassle. In fact, I would say that this is probably the perfect training plane for newer players, since it's basically impossible to crash unless you really try. I'd recommend trying it out. Here's the .craft file for anyone who wants to try it out. One tip: You need to be going at 20 m/s to lift off, which can take some time to reach normally, but for whatever reason you seem to accelerate a lot faster if you start pulling up as soon as you turn on the engine. Using that trick, you don't even need a long runway to take off