Corw

No matter how good you get, no matter how skilled you are, no matter what precautions you take, you're still going to forget to extend solar panels.

Yeah, you installed FAR for your first launch ever and even knew there is a symetry? Riiiight....

I think you can get 3 by running the game, you can get additional if you get a card pack instead of card. Rest you have to trade. I've got max level on cards, only cards I ever bothered with

Kerbal Engineer, Kerbal Alarm Clock, Precision Nodes. Essential mods. Enhanced Nav ball and Chatterer are next. Rest I can live without.

Can you lower the thrust on it, maybe? You might still get most of thrust without exploding.

Short answer: no. Long answer: nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

lol, future proof

There are other mods that give you terminal velocity readout and you can manually adjust throttle.

Regarding figuring out orbit, there was a reference list, orbital speed at each KM of altitude, so with that and gauge that is telling if you are ascending or descending you had a fair idea

The manifold thing (one of the radial decouplers) does not use explosive, if I'm not mistaken?

If you remember, HavesteR said no game mechanic will be linked to lapse of time. If you would get certain amount of money every month/year, just timewarp until you have enough money. Also, the opposite would be that you actually have to timewarp until next pay-check to actually do something, which is equal amount of silly.

You are insane. Precise Node? You have no idea how much that mod helps.

Probably lots of us. It is really one of the rare games I wanted to gift to people. Make a poll about it?

Anything even a bit complicated is too error prone and frustrating without knowing the numbers. Just try making a return mission to Laythe without something like Kerbal Engineer. If you go with trial and error approach by the time you are fine tuning your lander or return stage, how long does it take to get your mission back to that point? Lets see. You need bit more fuel for aerocapure? Back to VAB, add more fuel to 4th or 5th stage. Make corrections to all of lower stages to compensate for increase in mass. They never work from first try. Make 3-5 more launches ("oh look! bit too low TWR in first stage!") and adjustments just to get back to that point you were fixing (if you are lucky). Not to mention those designs might work, but very likely they are going to be bloated. Personally, when new version is out first thing I do is check if Kerbal Engineer is working. If it's not, I don't even bother starting the Kerbals until I see on the forums that Engineer is updated. When I'm fooling around and make things explode for ****s and giggles it is fine and dandy to go without that info. Bit if I'm actually set to achieve something, I want and need that info.

Try EnhancedNavBall. It shows the ghost/direction of the marker on the navball.

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Tool that fits the task. Sufficient delta v (always bit more for reserve, for emergencies), low part count, low stage count. Function is primary goal, looking good secondary, but mist look reasonably realistic (no pancakes). Must be controllable and reliable. It is preferable not to leave debris in orbit. Personally I prefer not to abuse asparagus staging, it looks wrong. Love the Soyuz-like configurations, but I never go beyond single ring of side-boosters (no side-boosters on side-boosters). Really love to reuse lifers to orbit, but above that is almost always custom made.

Kash. And from I've read contracts are completely optional, so you don't have to taint your skies if you don't want to.

OK, that sounds reasonable.

Now thank you very much for needed distraction. The update is out and I have some asteroids to catch. Oh yeeeah.

Again, the slight hint is in the first wiki reference, the picture clearly shows pull up manoeuvre. What else but lift can make you pull up on command? Edit: if there is no pull up, it is not a skip but a graze. So multiple aerobrake is clearly not same as skip reentry

All that I'm finding about skip reentry indicates active guidance and lift control. Skips are controlled and planned. So it seams to indicate distinction between skip reentry and multiple aerobreakings. Another reference here: Managing energy and mode transitions in skip entry guidance for lunar return trajectories Page 62

"Does not require much lift" is equal to "requires some lift, but not much". All capsules were able to provide some lift. Skip reentry that "requires some lift, but not much" was a feature of Apollo capsule, but was never utilized in manned flight. Reference here.

-something broke in posting, brb-

How about wikipedia?