a2soup

To anyone who may find this in the future: The fix described above worked great, but it was actually unnecessary to set the experiment back up since it turns out that when a Kerbal picks up an experiment with 100% complete but untransmitted science, they hold that science just like any other science result and can take it back to Kerbin with them. They may even be able to transmit it after putting it in a commnet-connected craft, but I didn't test that unfortunately. I hope this helps someone out there, since I was unable to find any documentation of these mechanics anywhere online.

Wow, is there a bug report on that? Seems like an unintended behavior, given that spotty power and signal work up until it reaches 100%. At the least there should be a button in the context menu to attempt transmission or something. Anyways, looks like I have some commnet work to do before I reset it to try again. Thanks so much for your help!

So I deployed a small experiment station on the Mun in my first breaking ground career mode to fulfill a contract. Was working pretty great for a while. I checked in on it after a while, however, and found that it had apparently gotten disconnected from the control station, but only after collecting 100% science. The problem is that only 10% of this science ended up getting transmitted for some reason. What's up with that?! None of the modules seem to have moved around at all, and it is definitely still in range of the control station, which is still receiving power from the solar panel. Screenshot with context menus is at the link, it won't let me insert the image for some reason. How can I fix this, and how can I stop it from happening again? https://imgur.com/a/Nr1joPS EDIT: On second look, maybe the connection with the control station isn't lost, but it's not receiving power for some reason? I don't know, man.

So, seeing as Porkjet just announced his departure from Squad.... is this still happening? EDIT: I don't mean this in an angry or critical way. I was actually pretty ambivalent about this revamp. I'm just curious.

Just chiming in to say that I find the maps (especially biome maps) you've made so far incredibly useful and would love to see more. My top vote is for Eve next.

Performing and returning every possible experiment in a single stock parts launch has been my sole goal in KSP for the past year or two. I've probably sunk over 100 hours into it so far. I have started from scratch three times. In 0.25, I actually launched the mission and completed every experiment except for those on Kerbin (I posted about it when I completed everything except the Kerbin system). I had a couple of science planes that I am confident could have done all of the Kerbin experiments as well, but it would have taken a while. I never finished because by that point 0.90 had been out for a while. Since 0.90 added many more biomes, I felt that there was little point in spending hours finishing a mission that was no longer comprehensive. Currently, I have finished designing the space-only components for a 1.0 mission. They need a little testing and tweaking, but they are mostly done. I will start on the atmospheric components (the hard part) when Squad settles on an aero model. I worry that I won't be able to finish before 1.1, but hopefully not too much will be changed and the achievement will still be relevant. Is this a weird way to play KSP? Yes. Is it obsessive? Check. Is it the most fun I've ever had playing a game? ABSOLUTELY. I will report on any completionist easter eggs I encounter, but I don't think there will be any.

They are well worth it on larger ships if you use the pure LF airplane tanks. The LF/O rocket tanks with the oxidizer drained have too much dead weight for too little fuel to make the LV-N much use, as you discovered.

Isn't the L2 Atlas Low-Profile Engine from the B9 Aerospace mod...?

You're right, I did this research in the course of planning an extensive ion-powered mission, so I was overly focused on getting lots of power efficiently. The title should be something more like "Past Dres, solar panels are less efficient than RTGs" If you have some battery buffer and all you need is a little bit of power for a probe core and/or occasional reaction wheels, then two OX-4 panels are probably better than an RTG, even at Jool. They do not under any circumstances produce electricity more efficiently there, but they have a lower total weight, which is what matters if you only need a little electricity.

This misses the full situation. For missions inside of Dres's orbit, solar panels are better than RTGs. Also, fuel cells are often better than RTGs outside of Dres's orbit, depending on your ship and mission. Before 1.0, the best solution was almost always to cover everything in OX-STATs. Now, there are three different ways to generate power, each with significant and distinct optimal use situations. Electricity, which used to not take any consideration, is now something to be carefully planned. I call that an improvement whether you're a realist or game-ist.

Try hooking up the ion engines to fuel cells for electricity. You'll need to do some calculations about how much fuel to bring, but the fuel cells are actually remarkably efficient. I think that ion engines running on electricity from fuel cells end up having a higher effective Isp (counting LF/O consumed by the fuel cells) than nukes.

Gigantors at Jool generate ~4 electricity/second per ton, while RTGs generate 9.4 electricity/second per ton. Gigantors take up more mass that RTGs for a given electricity output, not just more space. So while they are still useful, they are not optimal. That said, they look awesome, especially on bases, so go ahead and use them

The 0.03 t weight difference between the RTG and small fuel cell represents the weight of LF/O required to generate 2400 electricity. So, very roughly, if you plan on using less than 2400 electricity on your mission, you are probably better off with the fuel cell. You will have to balance this with the ∆v lost to the fuel cell's LF/O, but that shouldn't be very much except on very small probes. Unless you are using ions (in which case your requirement for high electricity generation rate tips the scales towards fuel cells anyways), you will almost certainly use much less than 2400 electricity during your mission. Naturally, if you have a probe core, you will have to micromanage your batteries by shutting them all off (along with your fuel cell) when warping so that the probe doesn't suck power during warp. This point definitely stands. Unless you are an efficiency-squeezing, battery-micromanaging mass pedant (like me ) the RTG is probably the preferable choice for any mission with a probe core. Note: All of this discussion applies only to missions past Dres. Inside of Dres's orbit, solar panels are usually the best choice.

Solar panels were recently changed to scale power with the square of distance from Kerbol rather than linearly. I did some testing, and came up with the following electricity outputs for solar panels at each planet (all stats in electricity/second): OX-STAT Moho: ~1.5 Eve: 0.64 Kerbin: 0.33 Duna: 0.15 Dres: 0.03 Jool: 0.02 Eeloo: 0.01 OX-4L/W Moho: ~7.5 Eve: 2.99 Kerbin: 1.54 Duna: 0.70 Dres: 0.15 Jool: 0.08 Eeloo: 0.03 Gigantor Moho: ~110 Eve: 44.37 Kerbin: 22.90 Duna: 10.40 Dres: 2.30 Jool: 1.18 Eeloo: 0.41 Combined with previous stats I calculated here, one can calculate that solar panels are a strictly worse power source than RTGs anywhere past Dres, and they are about equal at Dres. As discussed in the other electricity stats thread, fuel cells are probably a better choice than RTGs most of the time, but that's a different question. EDIT: test conditions. I tested all the panels in a 500 km circular orbit around the planet. Sun exposure in all tests was between 0.97 and 1.00. For Moho, Dres, and Eeloo, I tested near the planet's apoapsis. At Moho, the numbers were changing pretty quickly (not sure why... heating maybe?), so I recorded a slightly conservative estimate.

Good point, let's not lose perspective here. As someone who's been around since 0.17, a 1.0-type release with loads of awesome features with some bugs is much better than a 0.19-type release, with few new features at all. 1.0 has expanded the game more than any other release. It was silly call a release with such big changes, which were bound to need tuning, the "complete" 1.0 version instead of another beta build (0.91) that would be released as 1.0 with the bugs worked out. But ultimately, the number doesn't matter to me. 1.0 is 0.91 to me, and it is undoubtedly the best release since 0.18 when you think of it that way.

Just chiming in to support keeping the KR-2L the way it is. This was a change I had hoped for since 0.23.5, when it was introduced (and was almost strictly better than the mainsail). I'm very pleased with the changes to every engine (now that the nuke overheating has been lowered), but changing the KR-2L and 48-7S was especially important. I could hardly have hoped for a better balance pass

It depends on distance to Kerbol and varies by the square of that distance rather than linearly, as was the case before. So they are stronger near Kerbol than they used to be and weaker far away (almost useless at Jool, instead of ~half power). Thanks so much for the math! So fuel cell ion propulsion is likely the optimal method for most outer solar system craft, especially given the 0.25 t of the ion engine vs. 3 t for the nuke. And I don't know how much they toned down the nuke heating, but that can only help the ion in the comparison. Of course, the use of the ion is usually limited by tech tree position and patience.

I'm not getting any ∆v at all for ion propulsion. KSP 1.0.2, KER 1.0.16.4.

With physicsless part mass now counting and solar panels getting a balance pass in 1.0.2, electricity generation is now a whole new ballgame. Let's compare the efficiencies of all the electricity generating parts. My main metric for efficiency will be est (electricity per second per ton), with mass a second metric. All panel efficiencies are given for Kerbin distance from the sun-- they drop off very quickly as you move outwards. OX-STAT panels: 70 est, 0.005 t OX-4L/W panels: 91.4 est, 0.0175 t (non-retractable) SP-L/W panels: 64 est, 0.025 t Gigantor panels: 81.3 est, 0.3 t RTG: 9.4 est, 0.08 t Fuel cell: 30 est (+0.125t LF/OX per 10,000 units electricity), 0.05 t Fuel cell array: 75 est (+0.125t LF/OX per 10,000 units electricity), 0.24 t So, what to make of this? Obviously, if retractability is not an issue, the OX-4L/W panels are going to be your best inner solar system electricity source for everything except the smallest probes, where the OX-STAT will be better because of its lower total weight. If you need retractability, and have a large-ish ship, go Gigantor. The outer solar system (where solar panels suck) is more difficult, and I will need to play and think more before making any definitive comments. I will say that the fuel cells can run an ion engine for ~19 minutes on 0.125 t of fuel, which is pretty darn good. Fuel cell ion propulsion might be feasible for small-medium ships, maybe even OP. Does anyone have the math skills to calculate ion engine Isp with the fuel cell LF/OX consumption counted as reaction mass? I reckon it's excellent. Fuel cells even work for probe missions, with a trick. On long-duration probe missions with a fuel cell, turn off the fuel cell and the fuel cell's internal battery before warping. The probe will drain the rest of the batteries during warp and the craft will die. When coming out of warp, turn to fuel cell's battery back on, use that power to activate the fuel cell and voila! You have power with no wasted LF/OX! The RTG seems a bit rubbish, especially given the fuel cell trick just outlined. The fuel cell requires so little LF/OX that only the smallest ships would benefit from trading it for the far lower est of the RTG. But the fact that the RTG weighs 60% more than the standard fuel cell makes it worse for small ships, not better. So is the RTG useless? I'm not sure. Perhaps there is a narrow range of conditions where using it is optimal, someone with more math skills than me can do the calculations. In any case, the RTG will always be the best choice when ease and convenience matter more than every last drop of efficiency, and that is an important role. So, what do I think of all this? I'm mostly really happy that OX-STAT spam is no longer the objectively correct answer to everything. My life will be harder, but it's the good sort of challenge. If I could change one thing, it would be to make the Gigantor's efficiency equal to that of the OX-4L/W panels. It's too awesome of a part to be relegated to the "retractable panels on a medium-to-large ship" role-- it should be the go-to for any sufficiently large inner system craft. All in all, I'm extremely happy with the changes What do you guys think?

Not sure the new parts and strategy fit the "quality of life" improvement label. These are suggested additions that, while they might be nice, do not make gameplay any more comfortable and intuitive. IMO, this list would be more focused (and therefore better) without them. That said, THANK YOU for including action group editing in flight. This the the #1 quality of life improvement for me right now, mainly because I haven't found a mod that does it well yet. I agree with all the others, but most of them already have good mods (not that they shouldn't be stock eventually, they should).

In the full 1.0 changelog, I find: and Does anyone know the mechanics of these new abilities? In particular, what Kerbal level is required for each, and how exactly does the drilling overdrive decrease safety? I find the scientist resetting of experiment modules particularly exciting!

Go to the Mun!

Fixed it in my original post, thanks!

Warp unlocker. This mod is part of my quality-of-life requirements-- I can't live without it anymore. It hasn't been updated since 0.23, but it still works in my 0.25 and I see no reason it shouldn't work in 0.90. It doesn't help speed up burns, but it rescales the time warp to get rid of the 5x and 50x (you don't miss them) and add 1,000,000x and 10,000,000x to the top end of the scale. Use these very high warps carefully-- for example, never go through an SOI transition at high warp. As an added plus, it removes the pesky altitude restrictions for time warp. Want to warp at 100,000x while only 10 km above the Mun? Go right ahead!

Still playing 0.25, landing repeatedly on Minmus as part of my long quest to perform every possible 0.25 experiment with a single launch. Have already finished the rest of the Kerbol system (which was really fun) and the Mun (God, that was boring). After Minmus, hopefully my two science planes will be able to cover all of Kerbin. This project has gone through several total overhauls and has been all that I've been doing in KSP for almost a year now, since I often don't have much time to play. Seeing it so close to completion is very exciting!