Anton P. Nym

I've used small control surfaces on their own to act as mini-canards for some of my SSTOs to fine-tune the centre of lift, and on this drone I used one as a tiny rudder. (It's between the two radial intakes in the shot.) Very handy design tip if you need just a tiny bit of aerodynamic authority but don't need a winglet. -- Steve

I use SRBs to help big craft off the pad; they let me use more fuel-efficient but lower-thrust engines for the first 5km or so until they've burnt off enough fuel & oxidiser. They're much simpler to implement and debug than a full asparagus arrangement, and the biggest constraint on SRBs (no throttling) was mitigated when Tweekable thrust limiters were implemented. You don't have to use 'em, but they're far from useless. -- Steve

Taking out the trash. Comin' in hot. Jool fuel. -- Steve

Even the good ol' VAB is worth exploring. (Anrim here did so but not by choice... when prototypes fail and you have to hit the silk, you land where you land. He just got very, very lucky.) -- Steve

The industry term is "idle animations"; little things character models do when they're not actually following player directions. Scratching itches, looking around, checking the time, fiddling with gear... I'd definitely like to see some in KSP as they do "breathe life" into the game, though I'm willing to wait if there are other demands on the animators and AI code team. -- Steve

I'm having the darnedest time gauging altitude on Vall, as evident in this shot... not so much a rover now, is it? Jerly Kerman doing a pre-flight check on the Arro Shuttle mk.2 prototype. -- Steve

Real life ion engines develop less than a thousandth the thrust of the PB-ion, too. That's not the problem; the problem is that KSP is a game and the weeks-long burns real ion engines use are boring to play... and the game engine doesn't allow levels of physics acceleration high enough to speed things up to enjoyable levels. I don't know how to fix that. -- Steve

Sundiver 4 beginning its breaking maneuver at 120Mm above the Sun, rapidly approaching its 68Mm periastris at nearly 79km/s. Hot stuff, indeed. -- Steve

(from here) -- Steve

Dyson was looking at ground launches, or even sea launches. The issue was fallout... which has been "cleaned up" with newer technology, I'm told, but still they are nuclear weapons using fissionables so they'll never be entirely free of radioactive contamination. As for protecting the crew from radiation exposure from the detonations, the pusher plate is more than adequate. The crew is at more risk from cosmic rays after leaving Earth's magnetosphere. -- Steve

Docking is the hardest aspect of KSP, so don't feel too bad for struggling with it. That said, once you figure out the techniques that work for you and PRACTICE TONS it can become easy. (Even without fine controls or sophisticated joysticks; that just means you have to take things more slowly and deliberately. The last few meters I usually end up with relative speeds that barely generate a "prograde" bug on the navball.) -- Steve

I can't compete with Veritechs, but on a much humbler front here's Starcharger exiting Kerbin's SOI and burning for a personal speed record; 10% xenon expended and already at 20km/s relative to the Sun. Dunno what the final result will be, but hopefully it'll beat Starburner's 30km/s solar escape. -- Steve edited to add: Final result of the speed test; 33.515km/s wrt the Sun

Instabase! model A is now on its way to Laythe, accompanied by two more heavy tugs hauling fuel to support the crew already there. Sharing the Jool window is the Tylo Express sample return mission. Won't be building another one of those, though; injection burn took 40 minutes. Ugh. -- Steve

Nothing more complex than adding resources for "Air" and "Snacks" that get depleted/replenished. KSP isn't a NASA sim; it needs to be light-hearted and open to newcomers who are already struggling with the basics of orbital dynamics. -- Steve

Sometimes you know what can be done beforehand... sometimes you don't. Proposed features sometimes don't pan out in development, and if you've talked them up beforehand then you're going to have a real problem either scrubbing them or pushing out a busted version. (See the fallout on the collapse of the "local resources" feature in KSP, for instance.) I don't think voting for features would work out very well for KSP. -- Steve

I usually put a reaction wheel on my spaceplanes, to save on RCS propellant and help with stability in the upper atmosphere when the air's too thin to let the flaps bite in properly. I very rarely put a reaction wheel on my low-altitude aircraft, though; aerodynamics tend to be enough down in the soup. I always fly with SAS enabled, however. I'm not a terrible pilot, but I'm not quite good enough an engineer to build a good bird that's both maneuverable and dynamically stable without some fly-by-wire assistance. -- Steve

Sometimes a failure is an opportunity; here's the second test of the Arro Flycatcher, an attempt to snag a faulty stage of a shipment of jet fuel. Capture was successful if a bit tricky... but a deorbit is a deorbit, and the Flycatcher got the job done. -- Steve

Yup. People like to gloss over this one, but it's a HUGE unsolved problem. (So far, at least.) -- Steve

These days I tend to treat the lander as an external tank for the transfer stage, and then replenish it after attaining orbit; greatly saves wear and tear on the docking ports (and my nerves). -- Steve

I use the inline for my SSTOs; just like the look of it there more than anything else. As for the regular docking ports, yes they should be mountable radially. I've got several craft using them that way. -- Steve

Arro Quill, comin' in hot... (missed the runway this time, but the bird stayed in one piece; I'll take what I can get) -- Steve

Jafaaaah, krie! -- Steve PS: Curiously enough, it's not terrible to fly; it attained 80km equatorial orbit using a bit more than half its jet fuel and only about 20% of the bipropellant. PPS: Gilmore Kerman goes to inspect the damage after a tail strike during landing tests of the Arro Quill.

You can put the fuel lines from any of the three tanks in the boosters, to any of the three tanks in the core stage; the fuel feed logic will drain the boosters first. For extra stability, though, I'd recommend putting the fuel lines from the bottom tank of each booster so that the top tanks in each booster drain first. Fuel flow logic, so far as I've gathered, takes fuel from as far away from the engine as possible. -- Steve

Just knocked out a quick version; the ascent stage (with lander can, tankage, instruments, RCS, etc) had a pair of radial-mounted engines on an FL-T800 fuel tank and the docking adaptor above was just engaged with the bottom of the tank. That arrangement needed fuel lines from the tanks left behind to the ascent stage. It's doable this way; not sure if that's quite what the OP'd intended. -- Steve

Project Joolheist progresses apace as Fat Albert enters orbit around Vall. After the disappointment at Tylo there will be a great many probes raining down... if for no other reason, to lessen the mass taken to Bop on the last leg of Albert's journey. Meanwhile, Munar Search & Rescue makes a call for the first time in almost a year. (Prototype ran outta gas...) -- Steve