Skorpychan

Science sandbox here, because I want some progression instead of just using the bigger stuff right off the bat. But no Career grinding for funds. Sure, I could disable the grinding so I can make money doing whatever, but why bother when you can just disable the need? And a Sandbox save for testing designs for stuff I don't have yet, or perhaps for screwing around with hyperedit and such for tests. I want a Science mode with crew training and skills enabled, though.

KSP is hard enough as it is. If I wanted 'real', I'd go play Orbiter instead. I like the slightly cartoony nature of KSP, and having a wide margin of error on stuff. But when it comes right down to it, it's a game. I don't want it to feel like work.

Not with just thrusting. That runs into a similar problem to reaching lightspeed in itself. To get the required DeltaV, you need more fuel. But that slows you down because of the mass of tankage and fuel, so you need more engines and thus more fuel and so forth. I don't think it's possible to carry enough fuel to get that fast.

The forums changed, and then the community changed a little while later. Much more hostile, and nowhere near as nice and helpful.

Wages? WAGES?!? They don't get paid. Not in precious Funds, no. They get paid in experience! It's an extended internship!

Jool is blatantly mushy peas. Eve is some sort of melon. Minimus is mint choc chip ice cream. The ore is the chocolate chips. Duna is an apple, with a peanut orbiting it.

I realised that I couldn't be bothered to grind for funds AS WELL as science to do what I wanted. So I just switched to Science mode because I'm an adult and I don't have to deal with what I don't want to.

What stability issues? I've barely had any crashes in the time I've been playing.

Well, Kerbals are green. Orks are green. Thus, Kerbals must reproduce by shedding spores. That's what the puff of dirt is when they hit the ground; the kerbal exploding into spores on impact.

That's why I don't use 'follow retrograde' when I get near the surface. I tend to brake a little heavily to allow choosing a nice level landing site, and the autopilot often interprets that as 'flip the hell over' when I go up a bit. That, naturally, leads to a boom.

Science parts, batteries, small probe cores, an emergency solar panel or two. Generally just stuff them as full as possible. Using them to hold thrusters is a brilliant idea. Maybe that's how my belly lander is going to work.

A demonstration of a mun landing went kinda horizontal. I tried to flip it back over, but it didn't quite manage it. Over and over, it just wouldn't tip back upright. After a while, I tried to use the engine to tip it upright, using a little thrust. Didn't work, started burning fuel, but I'd passed the 'frak it' threshold by then. So, I cranked the throttle all the way open and took off then and there. Nearly horizontal at first, but tipping vertical as soon as I made it off the ground. Then back to Kerbin, only to not have any fuel left once I'd got an aerobraking intercept. Chutes and airbrakes all the way down, then a nice neat landing on the ground.

I name them by what they do and are. For example, 'inner system nuclear cruise stage', or 'munar lander'. I don't keep notes on which one is which, so I need the save files to be easily findable.

Assign them to storage just off the koast, in a ship. Or rotate them up to auxiliary crew duties on a space station.

There's a small fleet of probes and a cruise stage floating around the inner system from a failed Eve exploration, because I didn't have enough dV to actually orbit, and couldn't aerobrake because kaboom. Duna's got a semi-lost mission around it, but I will get back to it. It's a work in progress. Really, it's my earlier saves that are littered with issues like that. Abandoned missions, empty stations I sent up on a whim, fields of debris scattered over munar plains from a learning experience, and the like.

Well, boredom and depression have long been known to kill the immune system. So, it's really more restoring it to strength through solving boredom. Either way, children love spaceships. KSP is aimed at that demographic, albeit grown children that can afford gaming PCs and games. I find KSP is what I always wanted to play with lego when I was a kid. Spaaace~

Actual gameplay reasons are mostly storage. Storage of fuel, of modules, of fuel tanks, and of interplanetary drives. Storage of crew (and science) return vehicles, and of kerbals. My interplanetary missions usually consist of just sending a small station out to the planet for a long-term operation, mostly because I keep failing to bring enough fuel to return with, and expanding the station with return missions.

Care to link your work on that? I'm interested in making belly landers, because my munshots keep falling the frak over. My last attempt was admittedly taped together on the pad to show off to friends while tipsy, but it refused to turn back over when on the mun, and took off like a belly lander when Jeb hit the 'frak it' limit and ran out of patience. As for the topic, my ~10t landers get by just fine with a Poodle. Good ISP, good TWR for my landings, and more efficient than quad terriers.

I haven't quite gotten the hang of atmospheric guidance yet, so my landers land where they land. Be that ocean, land, mountains, whatever. Honestly, I'm pretty bad at picking landing sites ANYWHERE, so I've gotten used to trying to bodge a proper landing. Splashdowns simply mean it's easier to not die.

Yeah. Friends were messing about seeing how far up they could get a rocket. I threw together a mun landing and return. Pointless, and got me accused of taking it seriously, but damn if I don't like showing off. No KER, either.

To my mind, no. It isn't. NOBODY goes ANYWHERE without the intention of retrieval. Jeb may have been stuck on Duna for months, but he's experienced no subjective time. I will get a resupply out to him for his return trip. It'll take months, but I will get it there. Of course, that doesn't apply to equipment, so all the fuel tanks and stages will be re-used. Sometime.

I had forgotten exactly that.

Noted. I'll jetpack or waddle a bit further away in future. And maybe design landers that don't have to be rolled around to try and tip back upright again. Or maybe with vernors or monopropellant thrusters so they don't need so much rolling. Or maybe a belly lander with wheels.

So. Playing around with a vanilla KSP install earlier, showing off for friends. Basic munshot and landing. However, I encountered a strange issue after botching the landing. When the flag was clipped by the lander as it rolled around trying to right itself, the flag EXPLODED. After apparently striking the surface of the Mun. Then on takeoff, the second flag exploded. I was nowhere near it at the time, and it exploded after striking the surface of the mun. I'm pretty sure (about 60-70% sure) the rocket exhaust wasn't pointed at it. Despite it being a horizontal takeoff after I gave up righting the lander and just floored it. So, my question is simple: What the frak? It was my first attempt at the latest edition, so is this a known bug, or is it just because I screwed up the first time and clipped it? Is this going to affect career/science mode?

I feel it's cheating. I don't ask it to do things I can't do myself, at least any more. I used to use it for rendezvous and docking because I just didn't understand how. Then I realised how it was working by watching mechjeb waste all my monopropellant, so I took over docking. And recently I learned that I just can't be bothered with doing rendezvous myself. I CAN do it, but it's so much easier to just tell mechjeb to do it and save the brainache.