ASnogarD

So even with fine control you didnt get the issue with the craft responding to a Q or E roll input with sudden movements ? It smoothly rolls until you stop inputting the roll command ? It doesnt jerk from position to position ? Must be my installation of KSP then because the rolls seem to jerk quiet a bit...even a tap on the keyboard makes it jerk. The problem you describe is already an issue because of the sudden jerking nature of the controls at the moment players need to do minute corrections which cause extra inputs anyways... unless you are so pro that you can roll to precisely the correct position you want each time you use the Q and E. My suggestion would minimize the need to constantly correct your movements and thus not changing headings all the time. I dont get why you are so against this idea, the second I tried a plane the rolling and controls were so obviously wrong I cant believe it got out of development phase... there is no way even the most generous critic can say the plane controls are anywhere near good enough, even for a simulation lite program. The planes rolls are too spasmodic, the rudder controls make the craft slide rather than change heading... only the pitch controls seem to do the job properly and even those are imprecise and spasmodic with or without fine controls. (NOTE: May sound harsh but I am only trying to improve the game with my suggestions, and I can tell you the plane controls are off, feels completely wrong and one of the reasons for that is the sudden and instant change in vectors when controls are applied. ) Acceleration / deceleration would eliminate the sudden stops, the sudden change to position, grant more analogue control to the craft... by tapping you could move in gentle increments and by holding down it would rapidly accelerate to large movements, and then rapidly but not instantly stop when you stopped pressing the button. I can only see improvement with this idea.

I did a quick test with the stock RavenSpear Mk 4, the fine control controls are equally jerky just not in such high increments... say instead of applying a value of 50 its simply set to 20. Acceleration and Deceleration would smooth out the jerky movement and let the plane look a lot smoother and... more plane like, I aint a pilot or physics expert here but I am pretty sure if planes were to roll like the ones in game do, the wings would simply rip off. It shouldnt be too hard to test out in a development build I would imagine.

The title is not very descriptive I know... What I mean by adding acceleration and deceleration is simply when you hit a control currently it seems to apply the controls vector at full power immediately ... if you are using Q and E to roll it spins way too fast and unrealistically, even fine controls is not quiet right. The issue I think is that ...say for example when I press Q to roll, a value of say 50 is added immediately to the roll amount variable so you can roll at 0 or 50... by using acceleration you could add a rapidly increasing scaling amount so it will go from say 0 - 3 - 6 - 12 - 24 - 50 as you hold down the roll key so it goes into its roll more gradually rather than the quick jerky movement we currently have. EDIT: Very important aspect I forgot to add, the controls must also apply the deceleration instead of going from whatever power it was applying to the vector to 0, or the controls will still be jerky as the roll will stop the second you let the control input go. It does take away some response from the control, that is true but it looks more fluid and looks more realistic, and as this isnt a twitch action game its better to have nice fluid movement over instant response in my humble opinion. It would also emulate somewhat the gradual acceleration of a joystick with analog input on our digital input keyboard. Its a personal peeve I have with the space plane controls and to a lesser degree the rocket controls (especially small rockets or just the manned capsules which flip flop around in a very odd manner in space), even pressing CapsLock (Which is a silly key to default to) for fine controls is still jerky just less obviously so.

From what I have 'seen' in videos , it seems you add a disk shaped ablative shield to the underside of your manned capsules (so I would assume the capsule is flagged as unshielded).

I am more convinced the structure connections are more stronger.... I built this module for my station, a RCS tug dock + mono prop reserve + 2 tugs (command seat controlled)... with the lifter the whole mess was 416 tonnes. The lifter has 2 x 4 symmetry struts (1 between outer tanks and center stack, the other set is between the outer stacks) and 2 set of 2 symmetry between the top capsule and payload and the 2nd stage and payload. Nothing failed, payload didnt wobble and the mess didnt spin too much... the older version would of had the engines at least falling off once and one of the stacks breaking off on the pad before I hit T. (not sure if this is a valid issue, but I did basically delete the whole KSP directory from Steam and re-install it when the auto recover caused my game to crash on the initial .21 update release.. currently running the .21.1 )

The other way to do this could possibly be to mount expeditions, set up home base, send in some flyers and rovers, send in temporary base camp ships with fuel to resupply the flyers and rovers away from the main home base, set up a fuel supply line ... make a mission out of it, instead of send probe and scan planet overnight, hey look I found the Easter eggs and now I am bored please put more content into the game Squad.

Doubt it, built the few I tried my usual style... inefficient with lots of fuel tanks and big engines, at least till it gets to the payload which is usually got more care put in it. The lifter I took my station up was a 5 stack affair (engine + fuel tanks = stack) , center stack with the 2nd stage and payload on top and 4 outer stacks, the 4 outer stacks had 2 x large grey tanks and 1 x orange tank (equaling 2 orange tanks of fuel) with a mainsail mounted with the extended radial mounts... pretty hefty and it used to pop off at the mounts or the engines would simply fall off... now it barely moves on the pad and flies pretty well (well SAS does fight me a bit but the new reaction wheels and pod torque seem to allow me to counter the spin effectively). Guess I'll have to see how if fares with the larger stuff I like to meddle with later.

I have put together a few rockets and sent up a Station with ol' Jeb chilling in a Cupola... I have barely been using struts with these craft, just a few logical ones to prevent swaying to reinforce the radial mounted connections, and the craft have yet to fail due to a structural link failure or fall off during flight or on the pad as previously they were prone to. I havent needed the 3 x symmetry struts from tank to tank or tank to engines and barely any to keep stacks together... my last lifter about 300 tonnes used 3 x 4 sets of struts. Just wishful thinking on my part or how has your experience been ?

I use it for the information it provides, and occasionally I will test various configurations of my craft with Mechjeb piloting to eliminate pilot variations. I do pilot my craft manually when I am playing and doing missions, I like having the Vessel Info page up to keep track of the crafts weight and overall TWR and the Delta V status page while building craft, and Orbiting information when launching... havent messed with the other stuff as yet. I wouldnt give a toss if others liked to let the app do all the work, or dont touch the thing with a 10 ft pole... its each players choice, not a case of 'cheating' in my humble opinion.

You guys seriously crying because you lost Jeb / Bill / Bob ? If you are that attached to those guys , dont put them in any craft... with the new feature to hire and lose Kerbals comes the great ability to pick and choose which ones go into your death crates, or failing that you can simply start another save. Complaining about losing a few Kerbals in sandbox mode in a game that is still in development is rather inane to be honest, especially since at this time you could of not done more than 1 days worth of playing at the most.

Hmm, just built a craft quick, one of my silly tri engine types with orange tanks and mainsails, 3 man craft with 3 nuke engines on the payload... pretty hefty little thing... about in the range of 200 tonnes at a guess (including lifter of course)... I wanted to see if it got the shakes and wobbles on the pad if you didnt go mad with the struts... so the ONLY struts I had on the thing was 1 from each of the lifters stacks to each other forming a triangle ... that was 1 strut with 3 symmetry on a craft with 4 mainsails, 3 orange tanks and 4 large grey (half orange tank size) with decouples and radial mounts. Craft sat on the pad rock solid after the initial bounce on the radial decouplers, the engines didnt do the Sambo , or fall off, the tanks dont slip and slide on each other. I hit SAS and launched the thing 100% thrust (with 4 mainsails, this was waaaay over thrust) , normally some tank would of popped off or the engine would of gone through the payloads arse... nope solid lift, no spinning and I was hitting 250 m/s at 60 000 m already and dropping thrust to under 75%. The craft was highly responsive (a bit too responsive) and did spin a bit and fight me during the gravity turn but not as much as the older build used to.... it also seemed to go much faster through the while lift to LKO, I was at a 200+ Apo before I knew it and much smoother than usual. It did feel a bit odd controlling it, almost too smooth too artificial during turns, there was no 'weight' to the craft but that was only the first launch of a quick build craft so I got to get used to it before I can really comment. EDIT: 500 tonnes may of been too high a guess, 200 is closer. I feel the new build has stronger tank to tank to engine connections, isnt so prone to structural link failures and random wobbling as before so we may not need so many struts to launch the craft which means a lot less parts so smoother play... I hope so, my initial trial was promising. I just need some time in game now to really see how it is but... promising for sure.

Check the descriptions of the engine... ISP - basically fuel efficiency, high ISP means the fuel will last longer Power - More power but usually at the cost of fuel efficiency Weight - A engine may have the perfect ISP and Power, but weigh too much. In general , high ISP engines are usually heavy and have poor power in atmosphere and the engines with good power in atmosphere are fuel greedy.

I would of preferred a opt in to test new updates rather than wait around while 'testers' test, it would of been nice to help develop the title as it makes its way to release and a opt in system would negate all complaints about bugs in the test versions plus negate all those who want to mess with the new stuff. Currently I am sort of in limbo with KSP, I dont want to start anything as it wont carry over and as the release date is not known and the hype is high I have been expecting the update anytime now, the result is that I am just getting more irritated with the game as I can only mess around with building craft and *boom* symmetry bug lololol craft is now useless. (Was messing around for over an hour building a large skycrane / tug in the same style as Manleys Arachne ship... but much more over designed and went OCD on the placement of fuel lines and struts, everything looked cool in the VAB, went to launch and ...TROLLED! One of the 4 engine mounts sitting on the side with the nuke firing into the air while the rest of the craft is ok, I was like ALT F4 gtfo my machine pos). Its a complex issue though, release too often and theres complaints there is nothing substantial in the updates, too rarely and the hype goes over the top, break saves and players dont want to play, but delay updates to not break saves and players complain they want the new stuff even if it breaks saves... You cant win

I would imagine a system where the further you were from the KSC the longer it took to get your Kerbalnaut back to duty, and a longer period of time waiting for the ship to be ready for launch again (can select re-use available or re-build from specifications, obviously re-building has a much higher cost). No need to go political or complicated... assuming in Career mode time will be a resource as well.

I get the same issues all the time, cant work out what it is... often the usual advice is put on 'moar struts' . Wanted to make a basic lifter, center stack (engine + duel = stack ) and 6 radially mounted stacks in asparagus staging ... that's it, each tank is strutted, each engine is strutted , the radial mounts have struts to strengthen the connection between center and outer stacks... all symmetrical and balanced, yet the craft spins. By the time the bugger is in orbit its spinning like crazy and totally ignore Q and E inputs (expected though as it only has ASAS and a Probe). Done all the usual tricks, disabled gimbals on the outer engines, tried strutting the stacks together, then only to the center, no struts at all (between stacks), cross strutting, checking no strut is in contact with another... I gave up and added AV-R8 winglets which controlled the spin while in the atmosphere and until I went to do my gravity turn... the second I touched F (Disables SAS if you hold F down) the craft jumped at the opportunity to enter the spinning top competition (and damn it is a good contender for that competition). It annoys me no end as there isnt a logical reason why, if I had a extra part on the side I could get that... balance was off, or if it wasn't symmetrical I could get that too, but there isnt a logical reason ... just a vague notion I need 'moar struts' ... ... so I gave up until the update, no point in getting more annoyed with the work in progress software until I check out the updates, for all I know the ASAS / SAS / Rotation Rings / Whatever will sort out most the crap I am having with spinning so all the swearing and calling the game everything under the sun will be for naught.

Yes and theres mods to by pass the low thrust issue as well, hell just edit yourself at / on the planet you wish to visit... why bother designing , launching and plotting a mission... Kerbil on a seat and edit ... wheee I am on Laythe. Yawn, game is too easy. A bit off topic but mods are actually becoming a problem in this game... Dont add that because there is a mod for it, dont need this because there is a mod that does that.... etc. etc. Now dont get me wrong here, I appreciate all the work the mod makers put in and I use some mods myself BUT a mod author is not obliged to maintain the mod, or even pass it on... they can walk away at any time without notice. Mods are thus dangerous as they can suddenly vanish without warning.

It would be more 'fair' to stablise the physics warp when they have implemented some manner of time resource, sending out your Kerbils for 3000 years so you can use 1 low thrust high ISP engine but by passing the time YOU spend, should cause loss of control of the ship when the skeletons of your Kerbils fail to resurrect and assume in death their life tasks . That and perhaps some supplies to keep your Kerbils alive, just to make it less point craft at target and warp time until you arrive. It just seems odd you can go oops missed my burn ah well time warp a few years while the poor Kerbils sit in a small capsule waiting patiently.

Its the ASAS update that makes it hard to bother firing up KSP to be honest... not in a bad way mind you. I mean all I can really do at the moment is basically mess with Lifters or design but not launch stations, perhaps mess with planes but then you wonder... will the Lifter spin with the ASAS update, or that Plane wobble so much in the next update. Is it worth spamming struts to try fight a issue that may be already sorted out with the new update ? The old strut spammed craft may not need half the struts in the new update, but which struts ? ... easier and less rage inducing to simply wait for the update. The Steam summer sale also impacts KSP as players are probably messing around with those games they never intended to play but couldnt resist the sale price.

2 plans, 1 set a Mun operation (Kerbin station , Mun Station, Mun mining operation , Mun command operation) and 2 design a craft to explore the hardest bloody planet to explore in the whole system....Kerbin (IF the new terrain gets in that was teased).

There is no sensible reason to install it if the drain from Chatterer is enough to cause your craft / mission to fail...right ? Guys, its a communication between the craft and the control room, communication requires power. Why are you fussing so much over such a minor resource drain... slap on a solar panel, if you are using a manned capsule it generates enough power and if you have probes they will need some form of renewable power (RTG's or panels), either way Chatterer wont add enough drain to be an issue.

Soon as it said iPad and iPhone I switched off, it wont use the PC ( or MAC) power at all, so the game will be a mobile game running on a PC. The vast majority of players dont really want a seriously accurate simulation, they may initially think they do but when the complexity kicks them in the teeth then they realise they just want to pretend to be a pilot / astronaut / engineer / tank crew / etc etc. KSP treads a fine line between serious enough to attract a fair number of serious sim gamers from say Orbiter, yet make it fun enough for a Minecraft player (cant drop the complexity enough for CoD players though (joking, couldnt resist ))... so it keeps a reasonable player base, too serious and the Minecraft lot bugger off, too fun and the sim lot go.

I wouldnt be happy at all, I would consider Squad to be a dishonest developer and not trust a single title they developed ever again. The game, while fun and enjoyable, is not complete and requires several more passes to make it a complete title... its the fact it is still in development that lets you ignore / work around the issues the game still has and also mods at this stage tend to fill in the gaps but it isnt enough. Mods are not to be trusted to fill in the missing parts of a game or to complete a game, its nice to have but the mod authors are under no obligation to support or continue their work and may just walk off on a whim, and if that mod is a really useful component of the game... players are in a pickle. But as this is hypothetical, I trust Squad will complete the game so I am happy with my purchase, on the condition the issues will be sorted out (those that are in Squads hands).

Its a bit hard to give advice based on the little information you supplied... Assuming its a Rocket and not a Spaceplane , do you have winglets ? ASAS on ? Is it balanced (COM in the middle when viewed from the top down) ? A fuel tank didnt pop off and is balanced on top of another tank (causing fuel weight inbalances)? Sometimes Struts can cause a lot of spins, especially if you strut the small / med grey tanks used to avoid the overheating when mainsails are attached directly to orange tanks... stutting those smaller tanks to each other can cause spin. Cross strutting can cause spin if it makes parts of the craft too rigid compared to the main body of the craft. Some say if your struts touch each other it can cause illogical issues with the physics engine which can manifest as spin (not personally tested this).

I feel your pain, being forced to sit there and assist all these new players all the time, I wish I could just simply not type anything or open these new player topics or calls for help. Guess I'll just settle for being sarcastic instead. Re topic - I cheated, I watched a few Lets Plays before slapping down the cash so I had a fair idea on a few aspects of the game before I loaded it up. I find it hilarious that some stupid publishers (Nintendo , Sega , etc) are targeting Lets Play videos when a lot of the time its these very videos that tempt others to buy the title. I bought many a title because the Lets Play looked so fun and I wanted in.

I found a few of my rockets dont turn well at all without RCS, mostly the unmanned ones but a few manned ones as well... the 'magic torque' wasnt enough, even with extra SAS modules. These craft were heavy bruisers though, about 100 - 130 tonnes fuel delivery ships (3 full orange tanks full , 3 nukes each with a FT800 tanks to fuel them). My docking practise craft has a emergency retro rocket system, small rockets that are toggled with a action group that switches off one set of engines and fires another set (so if you were firing mains and hit the action group button, it would switch off the mains and fire the retro rockets, and visa vera... no chance of firing both sets at the same time). I put that in just as a means to try avoid collisions with the station I used to practise docking with, its not much use as a retro grade burn engine as the retro rockets are a bit small for full burns. My RCS is used mostly for docking, I cant even use RCS for Mun landings as I always forget which way to fire the RCS to correct and found it easier to use the landers main engines to cancel lateral movement instead.