espm400

Had a rendezvous of a most bizarre nature last night (which also made me wish I had some capture software). Got myself lined up with my refueling station and time warped to close the gap quickly. Well, accidentally hit the '.' key instead of the comma whist in the map view (was checking on a separate mission). Jammed on the comma about a dozen times, hit 'm,' and my ship was docked. Luckiest mission ever, as I was doing 3m/s when I hit time warp... Have no idea how nothing blew up.

Got altogether too damn drunk (happy Canada Day!) and watched some El Mariachi movies. Afterwards deciding that throwing Jeb, Bill, and Bob's lives to the wind in a display of amateur rocketry was an ill advised plan...

UPDATE: Started a new single save with Deadly Re-entry, IonCross Crew Support, RemoteTech, and FAR. Now I have a reason to do some Mercury style missions to figure out survivable re-entry profiles.

@ASnogarD: if you're not a mod purist, I would suggest getting Romfarer's 'Lazor Docking Camera.' Technically speaking, it's nothing that real life astronauts wouldn't have, and it helps a lot with the whole lack of depth perception thing.

I play for fun myself, I just wanted a bit more challenge... I just wish I could count my B9 parts as shielded like the shuttle, as re-entry with SSTOs have become a bitch to de-orbit.

@Brofessional: Man, FAR is one of those 'can't live without' mods for me now. I don't know how people deal without. To think, I was hesitant to download it... @koshelenkovv: Get 'Deadly Re-entry,' see how easy it is when shock heating blows up your jet/craft when you accelerate to early.

Downloaded 'Deadly Re-entry' and 'IonCross Crew Support' and started a new save. Currently have launched a bunch of unmanned Mercury-esque missions to figure out proper re-entry profiles as well as launched six KSO comsats so RemoteTech works.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned sparing the lives of your precious Kerbals. Seeing as I downloaded RemoteTech and FAR a while ago, and yesterday I got Deadly Re-entry, I've been using probes/satellites a lot more. I've got six coms satellites in KSO, two in matching orbits on either side of the Mun, and three around Minmus. I've also been using them to figure out proper re-entry profiles with DR and not end up with a bunch of Krispy Kerbals...

I know that technically it's cheating, but my favorite Kerbal is one I created using Crew Manifest. I took a second string Kerbal that already had the 'badass' tag and renamed him Kilroy. The only reason being that whenever he is the first to land somewhere, he can plant a flag titled, 'Kilroy was here...'

I've made personnel transport SSTOs and currently working on a cargo version, although I've run into a bit of difficulty in that I just started using Deadly Re-entry. Apparently, though it seems I've been overlooking a part in B9. That large cargo hold I've seen in a couple of the pics should make designing my cargo jet a bloody bit easier (I don't know how I've missed it all this time)...

Well, I DL'd RemoteTech a couple weeks ago and am having some mixed results (some minor coms inconsistencies). As for major limitations; FAR, although a great mod, required a major change to rocket design and ascent profile, and more recently (yesterday) I got Ioncross Crew Support and Deadly Re-entry, so, some major changes ensued. At least I now had a reason to do some Mercury style missions, just to gauge which re-entry profiles were survivable. However, although they aren't stock, these mods severely limit you to much more realistic rocket designs and flight profiles, and frankly, I love 'em.

The only reason I keep my CoL back a bit (especially with my HL Cargo setups B9) is that usually I'm dealing with a lot of fuel tanks, and since KSP likes to drain the front tanks first, I like to give myself a bit of leeway. Back in .19 I think, I had an SSTO for moving crew around my stations. Well one particular mission I was bringing 12 Kerbals back to the KSC from orbit in a newish, somewhat untested version of said ship and due to the front tanks being drained and the CoM shifting (and no way for me to see it outside of the SPH/VAB), I ended up in an unrecoverable spin as soon as I hit the dense atmo. Hence, I keep my CoL back a bit, just in case. Mind you, for most of my SSTO craft I tend to take quite a high exit trajectory to orbit, thereby quickly bypassing what to me has become that dreaded transition area between atmo and space. EDIT: I did some moveable wings with Damned Robotics myself, but I could never get the aesthetic I wanted. I either had to offset the wings vertically, or do a biplane-style front wing section with a single sweepable wing, or visa-versa.

With the exception of my atmospheric cargo plane (which will likely never leave Kerbin), virtually all of my jets land at roughly 120-140 m/s. A couple examples: I guess what I'm saying with the pics is that I generally keep my CoL behind, but quite close to my CoM as it makes for a much more maneuverable aircraft. BTW, @zzz That's a nice jet you've got there. The third pic looks a lot like an F-14 (assuming that's what you were going for), which makes me want sweepable wings all that much more. EDIT: Am I alone in finding it hilarious that Romfarer's Lasor missiles are located in the 'science' tab?

I'll try that out, thanks. I managed some proof of concept ones with the B9 Aerospace pack with just the wing parts (I have pWings, but never though to try that). They're hard to build and control, but they work, although they're ugly as sin. I actually had one that I was just testing the body out, it had no control surfaces what-so-ever, but somehow managed to stay aloft for the entire duration of it's fuel (about 4-5 mins.). I think in my free time I'm going to do some self-education with Unity as well as with creating meshes to create some proper pods and such. P.S. I don't know why I've all of a sudden got an obsession with these things, I've known about them since I was a kid...

Wilco, don't think I have that part, guess I have to update the mod and check it out.

Great mod, Ferram, I'm definitely enjoying spaceplanes a whole lot more. I had a quick question though. I was wondering if FAR would support lift on craft such as lifting bodies or whether they actually require wings, IMHO something that has been surprisingly absent from the mod community for this game. For those unfamiliar with lifting bodies, check this page out ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifting_body ). Essentially, a lifting body is the opposite of a 'flying wing,' in the sense that a flying wing is a wing without much of a fuselage, a lifting body is a fuselage without much of a wing that's designed to get its lift from the shape of its body (surprise), rather than its wings. Anyway, just thought I'd throw that out there, as I think they could make for some small, reusable, and efficient crew transfer/return vehicles.

As I previously mentioned, it has to do with the way physics are being loaded upon switching crafts at distance (I don't know how, as I know nothing about Unity). I doubt this has much if anything to do with MechJeb as my explosive results were repeatable even after removing it and restarting the game (I only use MJ for the dV, TWR, and surface info, not the parts or auto-pilot, so none of those were present on my ships to begin with). EDIT: I never experienced any NaN errors though, just varying degrees of annihilation, from just parts broken off at moderate distances to full-on Kraken bitch-slap at full default draw distance and beyond. EDIT EDIT: If you are experiencing this problem, just use the tracking station to switch your crafts as this eliminates the problem. I'm fairly certain this is a bug and as such will hopefully be repaired with the next update.

This started happening to me a while ago. It seems to be related to the distance between the two ships being switched between. An example: I was making a fairly massive ship for a grand tour run of the system which require docking about six large parts. The crew quarters/command module was the first to go up, but whenever I got close enough to render while trying to dock the next piece, switching between the ships would cause the one I was switching to to do 'physics' and explode (thank you F5/F9)... I remedied this by using the tracking station to switch from this point on. However, I did some experimentation and I noticed that the closer I got to the ship before I switched, the less intense the random physics were, down to a point where I determined that around 250-350m seems to be safe for me. So if we are indeed all experiencing the same problem, use the tracking station to switch unless you've closed the distance.

I may not be new to this game, but recently I've been striving for a little more realism and structure (and please don't take this as a slight towards any mod I might mention here), but damn, I just made the mistake of installing this, FAR, and RemoteTech, all in one go. Can you say 'game changing?' Couple this with my lack of experience with tiny rockets (I'd have to say my norm was around 700t), and you have a recipe for a complete head scratcher... Awesome mod, don't get me wrong, but I've got the RemoteTech mod telling me I can't launch probes until I have ComSats, FAR flipping my rockets when I'm too aggressive with my gravity turns, and now it's costing me a bloody fortune. Oh well, I guess this is what I needed, fresh start, learning atmospherics and cost effectiveness all over again. Guess this is why I love mod friendly games...

You know you've been playing too much when you're browsing the net and either try to zoom in by pressing the middle mouse button and pushing forward on the mouse, or if you try to change the perspective of a picture by right-clicking and dragging...

I used to have that nosecone in .19. I'm also not sure where it came from, but I'm fairly sure it's not from KW, at least not the current version as I'm currently using it and don't have that part. EDIT: After looking at your mods again, I would guess FASA. It's the only mod listed there that I had in .19 but don't now in .20

I'm definitely two saves category, although ever since I designed myself a reliable series of lifters, I've found myself using it less and less. Although I haven't gone as far as installing Deadly Re-entry or life support yet, I used have permadeath enabled. I say 'used to' because I lost an entire six man crew a while ago when I found out that the second stage parachutes for the Orion capsule (Bobcat's American pack, I use that pod for virtually all of my crewed missions) didn't actually slow the pod down at all, and ended up splashing down at ~40m/s. Due to things like that and certain bugs (like ships exploding when switching between one another), I've since turned it off.

Although I wouldn't call it a landing, the first time I had contact with the Mun, I had one of those 'famous last words' moments; at about 6000m ASL I looked at the surface and briefly thought, 'Hmm, the grounds coming up kinda fast.' Followed shortly thereafter by, 'Nah...' Which was also followed by some awfully expensive fireworks. Now, the first time I actually landed on the Mun, Jeb and Bill jumped around a bit, and Bill ended up bouncing off one of the 'Gigantor' solar panels, breaking it, something that accidentally happened on the two following missions. Now it's tradition, one of the Kerbals that lands has to break one off to honor those first brave pioneers...

I watch a lot of 'quick looks' on giantbomb.com (basically gameplay vids). One of the ones they did about a year ago was KSP, and honestly not only did the game interest me, but it was one of the funniest quick looks they had done up to that point.

...After 36 hours in-game time, your Kethane map looks like this... Also, when you catch yourself saying, 'Nah...' after briefly thinking, 'The ground's coming up a bit too fast...'