NERVAfan

Yeah, but the KSP drag model doesn't really give you "credit" for that. The fake cross-sectional area in the KSP drag model is calculated from mass... not actual area... http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Atmosphere#Drag

I agree. Uranus and Neptune could IMO be collapsed into one planet. KSP planets don't seem to be able to have axial tilt so the most distinctive thing about Uranus wouldn't be able to be modeled; without its tilt Uranus is just a less active Neptune. I'd suggest the asteroid belt should have two or three other large bodies (smaller than Dres though) ... equivalents of say Vesta and Juno... in addition to the procedurally-generated ARM-style small asteroids. One of them should also have a small moon because asteroids with moonlets are really cool. Kerbol System has 17 celestial bodies now IIRC. With GP2 and two "new" moons (plus Eeloo), an ice giant and a big moon, two big asteroids and an icy dwarf planet... plus procedurally generated asteroids and comets... that's 25 "real" or "persistent" celestial bodies in case too many messes with performance.

OK, did the high orbit Sun and return thing and it worked great, thanks again!

Thank you, that covers everything I was looking for...

Well, stuff has been landed on Venus and functioned (briefly) on the surface. The pressure is certainly a problem, but I'm not sure that's what actually killed them -- there's also the extreme temperature and lack of power (clouds are too thick for solar panels). Well, Mars landers do use them though... sure, you can't land on parachutes alone on Mars, granted. I'm not necessarily suggesting changing Duna's atmosphere. Just that there should be a really thin atmosphere somewhere -- maybe Tylo or Vall, or a totally new body.

I think the tail would be pure graphics, and maybe even only really visible from a distance. Comet tails are incredibly thin. The coma could be modeled as an actual really thin atmosphere, I guess, or could be just graphics also. EDIT: Maybe Squad could add comets this fall (September or early October) and put one (not randomly generated) in a close pass by Duna to celebrate/connect to the very close Mars approach (October 19 of this year) of Comet Siding Spring...

Duna and Laythe have a smaller atmospheric scale height than Kerbin. This is backwards from how it works in the real world, where more gravity = smaller scale height. (It's also affected by temperature and molecular weight, true, but for Mars the lesser gravity still means a bigger scale height, even though Mars' atmosphere is colder.)

1. How do I plan out a trajectory that gets me into the Sun SOI and then back to Kerbin SOI? I would like to get crew/EVA Reports from "High above the sun" without stranding kerbals (and return materials bay/goo also). 2. Is Eve or Duna a better first target? Duna has much less inclination (according to the wiki). http://ksp.olex.biz/ says it doesn't take inclination into account; how do I make sure to account for that?

If asteroids are parts can you launch them from Kerbin as parts of regular ships?

What does that mean? Sorry if I'm being dense...

Well, it could add an extra science zone at least. And if you cut off the atmosphere at 10^-6 atm like Kerbin maybe it could start at 10^-5 or something and only extend up to like 10 km and so people wouldn't really be trying to orbit that low. But mostly it just seems weird to me that there are no really thin atmospheres.

The thinnest atmosphere in KSP is Duna's -- at 0 meters, 20% of Kerbin's sea level pressure. The real Mars has about 1.6% Earth sea level pressure at its lowest point (Hellas Basin). Eve's surface pressure is 5 atmospheres (Venus's is more like 93). Even Jool only goes up to 15 atm. Now, maybe KSP's aerodynamics would cause trouble with really thick atmospheres, but why not give some bodies (maybe Vall or Tylo?) a very thin atmosphere, like 0.001 atmospheres at 0 meters?

This looks like it will be an awesome mod. Eagerly awaiting more news on this...

Don't use 2 giant panels, that's tons of extra mass. Use 6 of the smaller extendable ones (not the OX-STAT) instead.

Actually (as other people have said elsewhere) I kind of wish they'd enabled on-rails (non-physics time warp) thrust for ion engines and made the thrust much lower, so you could use them like real-world ion engines... it's a very different kind of trajectory. I think it's been done in a mod, so it's possible... --- I can certainly see the benefit of buffing the thrust to make them less boring, but they'll still be very niche IMO -- because the KSP solar system has lower delta-v requirements to get around than our solar system, and because NTRs are available.

I hope they really didn't lower the Isp. Higher thrust would be nice I guess, but not worth a lower Isp -- I use ion probes for really high delta v things like diving into the sun or achieving solar escape velocity.

Indeed it would.

Ah no wonder it lags so much... Yeah this would definitely be an improvement if it keeps the Space Center loaded...

I really don't understand why they don't already. Is the current model really easier to program? And right now RTGs aren't really that useful (though you don't have to remember to deploy solar panels/point the rocket at the sun for OX-STATs).

OK, thanks! I was missing the .png extension.

I can't seem to get the [ IMG ] or [ IMGUR ] tags to work. I'm following the instructions here .... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/48073-Forum-FAQ-%E2%80%93-Answers-for-New-Users?p=637095#post637095 but I get only a blank space with the [ IMG ] tags.

EDIT: OK, fixed (My first mission report) I've just started to experiment with what can be done with aerospikes... Part 1: Jeb's Mun Flyby KSC engineers were eager to test out the Toroidal Aerospike Rocket, and after several flights controlled by a QBE probe core, they were ready for a Kerbaled mission; of course Jebediah volunteered to be the test pilot. A fairly simple rocket was devised, with two “asparagus†side boosters with aerospikes, a central stage with an aerospike, and a LV-909 final stage. This was dubbed the "Aerosparagus". Takeoff went well... The side boosters ran out of fuel at about 12.5 km, just after the gravity turn. The remaining aerospike got me to a periapsis of about 75km, and I coasted up to nearly that and started to burn to get an orbit. Partway through the aerospike stage ran out and was separated, and the LV-909 finished the burn. Here's the Aerosparagus final stage and capsule orbiting above Kerbin... When the Mun rose above the horizon, burned prograde – voila, Mun encounter: Dropped out of timewarp for the SOI change, to keep my 40km periapsis. Unfortunately the closest approach was on the night side, so this is the best image: The Mun encounter put me in a Kerbin orbit with 32000 km apoapsis, 7800 km periapsis. Timewarped to apoapsis, lowered the periapsis to 6km... unfortunately set the timewarp too high on the “inbound†leg and actually warped right through Kerbin's atmosphere before the drag could actually be applied. Second time around I actually got a second Mun encounter, which raised the periapsis, but I had plenty of extra fuel to lower it again. In fact, the ship entered Kerbin's atmosphere with about 70 fuel and 85 oxidizer remaining- the FL-T400 tank was nearly 40% full. Separated the stage and opened the parachutes, slowing Jeb's capsule down to a safe splashdown in Kerbin's oceans:

How does the way KSP calculates orbits differ from reality? I know there are no Lagrangian points... Is it just that KSP uses pure Keplerian orbits (for on-rails objects) IE no orbital perturbations from other bodies (so Mun gravity won't influence stuff in Kerbin orbits), exosphere drag/orbital decay, radiation pressure etc.?

Well, if I'm understanding the suggestion correctly, you'd actually fill out quite a lot of 'goals' even if you went straight to Eeloo on your very first launch (first flight, first craft to space, first Kerbin orbit, first Kerbin escape/solar orbit, etc.) The "basic" stuff (decouplers, LV-T45s, LV-909s, tall basic solar panel, Stayputnik probe core)... could all be unlocked by those 'basic' milestones (first to upper atmosphere, first to space, first to orbit) so that you would necessarily get them early in almost any game. But you wouldn't have to go to Mun before Minmus, or indeed before Duna etc.

I can only understand 10% (optimistically) of this, but an N-body mod sounds very interesting!