steve_v

Don't try to re-enter directly from Mun/Minimus return, get into a circular-ish <125KM Kerbin orbit first. Re-enter at a high (>40°) AoA for maximum drag in upper atmosphere. Allow plenty of room to decelerate. Abort early and skip off the atmo things get too hot. Watch your vertical speed like a hawk. The mk.1 cockpit kinda sucks in this regard. Light, but crispy.

Also, ROFL. Disorganised, possibly. Hidden, no.

Riiight. I said "Seriously, just launch KSP from a terminal / script." because it's easier / faster to test launch options this way, and since I don't know what desktop/version you are running, I can't tell you how to make a shortcut. If you want to go off the deep end over it, knock yourself out. Abuse? what "abuse". You are the one yelling and swearing here. If you want to have a rant, this is not the place. Apparently, I'm not the angry one here. Dude, I linked Wikipedia. I gave you concise information. If you don't know what to do with it, ask and I will attempt to explain. If you just want me to ignore you, by all means, call me names.

Launch KSP from a terminal: Open terminal emulator (konsole in KDE4), cd to KSP root directory (probably '~/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal Space Program' if installed via Steam), launch KSP with ./KSP.x86_64 <insert launch options, e.g. -force-gfx-direct here>. N.B. Save pain and use tab to auto-complete directory / file names. Suit yourself then. I was going to attempt to explain in laymans terms, but having read this edit I don't think I'll bother. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ask your package manager? Alternatively, 'Help' -> 'About KDE' in any KDE app (or at least it is in KDE4). Dunno, don't (won't) use Steam. Add to steam launch options or launch KSP from a terminal. Seriously, just launch KSP from a terminal / script. Once you have launch options that work, think about making it into a shortcut for whatever (by 'plasma' I assume you mean KDE5?) desktop you use. If it's the pulseaudio bug, KSP will crash at the loading screen. Simplest fix is to symlink /dev/null to libpulse-simple.so.0 in the KSP root directory. Err, didn't really answer the question, but ok. So no magic SysRq then? (Asking because rapid memory leaks can seem like a freeze untill the OOM killer does its thing). If the system isn't completely frozen, a SAK should get you a console (assuming your distro has it enabled, OFC). If it is a hard freeze, perhaps examine system logs and / or do some (non-ksp) stability testing? It may be hardware, or possibly even GPU driver issues (no problem here though, with nvidia 352.79).

Probably crashing your window manager, known (and unfixed) bug. What window manager / desktop are you running? Tried '-force-gfx-direct' and/or '-force-glcore'? More (maybe) in the linux thread. Dunno about this one though. I haven't encountered any freezing, but I've got plenty of CTDs. IME 1.1 is a bit of a shambles on GNU/Linux. In this 'freeze up', can you still magic SysRq / drop to console / ssh into the machine? If you leave it a while, does it OOM kill X eventually?

Not like that, those are (broken) links to files on your local machine. Upload your images to a file/image host of your choice (imgur / postimg etc), then use the "insert other media" button.

I think this has my interest more than KSP v1.2 TBH. Sounds very cool, can't wait to try some of this out.

Having become accustomed to the stability of KSP <1.1 on GNU/Linux (never crashed that I can recall, at least as far back as 0.25), The 1.1.x "update" was pretty disappointing. Can't say I've used that quit button much recently, "*** Error in `./KSP.x86_64': double free or corruption (out): <insert random address> ***" beats me to it every time. Reported bug, provided logs, stack traces etc., tested on another machine and another distro, yada yada. Nothing but "probably a game engine bug, can't fix". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 1.2 has not crashed... yet, so I perhaps the Unity version bump has sorted it. "It's your hardware"... yeah, sure, I'm obviously too dumb to think of that. Consider yourself suitably ignored, I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer.

Since 1.1, too many to count. Pre 1.1, never that I can recalL. Wow, this forum really sucks on mobile.

Likewise, that and realism. Huh, I thought that too... Then I played with stock aero in 1.2-pre. Holy-moly, this stock aerodynamics thing is ludicrously forgiving. I'm now thinking stock really doesn't need any analysis tools, as anything that looks even vaguely aircraft-ish will fly fine.

Indeed, there is a good reason for this. If your rear gear lifts off first, you will likely wheelbarrow, and balancing on a single nose gear for more than a second will almost certainly result in loss of control. This is also why taildraggers have two wheels at the front... they're the last to leave the runway.

Nah, lands easy, if a little bouncy. Just don't flare too hard. The camera angle makes it look like the mains are higher up than they really are, it sits almost level on the runway, just a smidge of nose-up. I doubt it would fly (or land) so well in FAR, finding stock aero ridiculously forgiving right now.

Rough enough "standard" tricycle landing gear placement: Note the main gear is the fulcrum of a lever (with canards, a class 2 lever, with normal elevators, class 1) keeping the rear wheels firmly on the ground as you pitch up to lift off.

Your problem is almost certainly landing gear placement... The combination of rear gear so far back and positive AoA on the runway is causing your rear wheels to lift off first, loosing friction. The slight inherent bank (nothing is perfect) then causes sideways drift. Move those gear to just behind the CoM and take off like a real plane does, pivoting on the main landing gear, nosewheel lifting off first. Accelerate, then rotate. You probably won't need a static nose up attitude on the runway that way either -> makes landing much easier.

Aw man, that's just cruel. Want. Now. That looks awesome.

Well, since I made it for the bug I now cannot reproduce... Here's me being silly on the takeoff roll. No slidey. Almost flippy, and some bouncy-bouncy on landing... but no slidey.

Well, flew a little (16 part, sorry) delta, 2 juno, trycycle gear craft. Couldn't make it spin out at all. Easy enough to make it flip with unwise steering input on the runway, but no sliding whatsoever. I did, on the other hand, discover a most disconcerting camera bug after crashing it into the VAB, which I am about to report...

Someone points out a flaw in the game. You inevitably turn up to complain about people complaining. Anything, you know, wheel related to add to the discussion of wheels? Constructive ideas on how to improve wheel physics perhaps? Small fixed gear perchance? I will admit I have not tried those. Building small fixed-gear craft now. Another random thought: You're not actually trying to take off from that tier 1 runway construction site are you? That's bound to end in disaster...

Not sure I agree, because: I don't, they seem much better to me. Sliding, yes. Unable to take off level sliding, no. And I didn't need a slide-rule, just a mk.1 eyeball. Didn't expect the thing to fly TBH, I'm used to FAR. What wind? KSP has no wind. The last craft I flew got up to a borderline absurd 186m/s on the runway, a little drifting to the left, but no sliding. I'm genuinely curious as to what you are doing so differently from me. Random thought, you have disabled steering on the rear gear, right?

So if I am to read between the lines, this statement + pointed not-answering of "Why not multiple raycasts" == "Too much work to fix properly"??

Well, I just flew 2 different SSTOs (mixture of small & medium retractable gear) to orbit and back, takeoff from the runway, landed on some random lumpy grass, no real problems. The gear still slide sideways more than they should IMO, but not exactly "Disney on ice" and quite manageable really. The demon possessed pogo stick effect on touchdown is also much reduced. Which gear are you using anyway? Takeoff speed? Craft Mass & gear layout? Pics? demo vid? proof? You know the old saying...

Allow me to quickly demonstrate why the current wheel system is rubbish... want to build an all-terrain vehicle? Out of luck, you will hang up un the first brick (or any rectangular object) you encounter. And no, it's not catching on the underside, wheels just can't handle rectangular obstacles. At all. Real moon rovers, for example, are specifically designed with wheels that can ride over small rocks and climb acute angles... maybe this is why terrain scatter is still not solid - those small stones would likely stop a KSP wheel dead.

True, I wasn't suggesting you switch to that particular package. My point was to show that round wheels that react to terrain in a realistic manner are quite possible, and to illustrate just how hard single-raycast wheels suck in comparison.

Workaround for driving on steep terrain and flying space-wheels, breaks upside-down operation. Still rather sub-optimal IMO. Again, why not several radial raycasts? Would this not potentially work for all situations? Edit: I'll just drop this here, 3D tyres, apparently. Certainly seem to behave better that the ones we have: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbaPUZDJpl8