bobcook

Finished a workable original (original to me, at least) spaceplane design. It took eight iterations of design and testing to get something reasonably aerodynamic with the right crew capacity and feature set, and could get to orbit without completely flipping or exploding. I can even land it. It flies slightly better than a brick with wings, but then so did the NASA Space Shuttle vehicle. I call it a win! Not the prettiest thing, but it works!

Ha ha, one has to ask, on a collision course with what? Of course, I'm kidding. I assume you put the debris on a suborbital trajectory with the closest planetary object. Me too. Feels messy to leave debris in any orbit.

The general response is that "its impossible to cheat in KSP because its single player" - seems sort of obvious. Unless you are claiming things you've done without MechJeb, but you really were using MechJeb. Which would be weird. Anyways, the only person you are cheating is yourself when you are cheating. Lots of people in the forum like docking via MJ. Its not very efficient fuel-wise, but it does the job. On the other hand, its possible to learn rendezvous and docking well enough that you no longer need MJ. In fact you can learn orbital rendezvous and docking without MJ (I did it that way and I'm sure plenty of people did). MJ offers automation for things some people find tedious e.g. launch or insertion burns. Also for planning maneuver nodes. Obviously all of that can be done manually as well, and its only a matter of choice rather than one technique being better than another. MJ also offers really nice delta-v readouts. On the other hand, Kerbal Engineer does as well most of the time. I had to switch to MJ from KER for my Jool 5 mission as (at least at that time) KER couldn't cope. These days I'm back to using KER as I really like the heads-up display that KER offers. My recommendation is that you install it and find out for yourself whether you like it or not.

I've never done a crewed mission to Eve because I can't do a return mission. Well, I probably could do a return mission because I know its possible, but I just can't be bothered now because it doesn't seem like fun. I've never orbited nor landed on Moho with any sort of vehicle. A flyby was all I could manage. My only trip to Eeloo ended up with crashing into Eeloo. Fortunately no Kerbals were on board. Fun times. Never played the Outer Planets mod but probably should at some point. The Galileo planets mod is really cool though and I'm definitely enjoying it.

I applied the suggested workaround to edit the part configuration file, worked perfectly (as expected).

I first started using KER for delta-v readouts during construction of my Jool-5 mission. Found that, at the time, it wasn't able to cope with a massive build. Switched to MJ and was quite happy with it. Never bothered to use anything except the delta-v readout and Smart A.S.S. feature, as I'm quite capable of launch and rendezvous and docking on my own, thank you very much. Switched back to KER in my 1.2.2 installation and have never looked back. Don't miss MJ one bit. I really don't understand people who don't bother to learn to fly their space craft manually. Rendezvous and docking are very fun, makes KSP worth playing.

SAS doesn't perform well when landed. Even my tiny lander with a Mk1 Command Pod will slide and sometimes tilt enough to tip over (in the opposite direction of the slope!) if I leave SAS on. Its now SOP to turn it off immediately upon touchdown. Only after everything is stable is Jeb allowed to do science.

Working on my Nth career (can't remember how many times I've done this, but this time I started when 1.2 came out). I've acquired most of the "300 level" technology and upgraded most of KSC to maximum (haven't bothered with the runway or space plane hanger or administration). All of that was done with a lot of landings on Mun and Minmus, a bunch of satellite contracts, a couple of stations, and a 9-Kerbal outpost on Minmus. I'm waiting for the launch windows for Duna and Eve to come up, and I've got several probes in deep space that need orbit changes, to fulfill their contracts. I love the contracts to build satellites, and yesterday managed to fulfill two satellite contracts (one for Minmus and one for the Mun) with the same satellite, just relocated it to the Mun after the first contact was done at Minmus.

Sometimes its just fun to build an Apollo-style "Mun orbit rendezvous" mission with a separate lander. Not strictly necessary, as pointed out earlier, but fun. Here is one that I did a couple of years ago: http://imgur.com/a/kAVQq I find this sort of thing challenges me to improve my rendezvous and docking skills. I can do it pretty efficiently now, and keep getting better every time I do it.

I've done it in past versions, in early phases of my rocketry program. Lots. And successfully. I've found it much harder to do in current versions of KSP though, where the stabilization is turned off when the pilot exits the vehicle. Now its much more difficult as the craft oscillates all over the place when trying to push it on retrograde. Crazy.

Ug, I know. The default widget scaling is way too big, but shrinking the widgets to an appropriate size makes the text fuzzy and terribly difficult to read. Why can't we have both nice sized widgets and readable text? Why?

I play the stock Kerbol system. I've had Kerbals land and return from the Mun, Minmus, Duna, Ike, and all five moons of Jool. I've landed probes on every body except Eeloo and Moho. Have orbited Eeloo, and done a flyby of Moho. I think that means I'm average.

I recall my first Mun landing pretty well. It was in version 0.19 and I'd spent a serious amount of time researching how to do it. In preparation I watched quite a few Scott Manley videos to get the idea. I built a very large rocket with a completely over engineered lander, launched Jeb on his greatest adventure yet, and proceeded to enter Mun orbit. I picked my landing site with great care, and then begun my descent. I was rapidly switching back and forth between the IVA view (to get a peek at the radar altimeter) and the regular view (so I could rapidly pan the camera around looking for any sign of danger) as the capsule slowly descended to the surface. I was so nervous, my heart was racing, my heart rate was probably something like 120 bps. The descent took forever, as I was afraid of letting my descent rate exceed 10 m/s. Eventually I touched down on the surface, and I let out a huge sigh of relief. I felt like I'd just won the game. Much later, with many missions successfully accomplished, I set out to create a Mun mission in the style of an Apollo lunar rendezvous mission. Don't recall which version of the game was used. Lots of fun, but nothing will ever beat that original feeling of fear and excitement from the very first landing.

This again? Oh please. Let's complain about how <insert part name here> is not <powerful enough | too powerful | the wrong colour for my preference>. Or perhaps you'd like to have a serious discussion comparing the merits of visiting Eeloo vs. Moho?

Yes, second the recommendation for KAC. I find MechJeb has more useful delta-v readouts vs. KER, but its probably a personal choice. I've used the TAC LifeSupport mod and RemoteTech (TAC-LS was more fun, RT was sorta boring). Trajectories is useful if you are wanting to make precise landings on atmospheric bodies. There are oodles of parts mods that are useful to build with. My personal favourites: Near Future Technologies, SpaceY Expanded, Stockalike Station Parts Expansion. A good friend plays with the Dang It! mod and loves it.

Creating a flame-bait thread about other flame-bait threads is pretty much the definition of intellectual laziness. Meanwhile, in other news, someone cheated at KSP by using science.

I'm not getting any such security warning. The certificate I'm seeing is from GoDaddy, for kerbalspaceprogram.com and has a SHA-1 fingerprint of A4 58 CA 37 AE 86 4B 13 EE 79 87 11 FE 57 AD 6A 4A 89 96 7B. The server I'm connected to is IP 85.236.103.6 which belongs to panic5.panicsoftware.co.uk I'm curious to know what you are seeing.

MechJeb isn't cheating in my house. I used to use it all the time, pre 0.90 days. I don't have it installed now, installed KER instead, but I miss MJ. It is significantly better at holding a specific heading than the stock SAS, and the maneuver node editor is superb. On the other hand, I've been through a full career on both 0.90 and 1.0x without it. To be honest, I have no idea why I haven't installed it.

I play career, but not afraid of using the revert button when things go horribly wrong. I try to play "reasonably realistic" e.g. no clipping and reasonably well designed flight-worthy rockets. For me, the revert button is sort of like the simulator or trainer that any good space program would have. I've played long enough to avoid my "rookie mistakes" of forgetting parachutes or solar panels, but still getting a feel for the new aero and new parts. Flipping rockets can be quite humorous, but eventually I'll revert to the VAB and look to fix things. Because there is no way a rocket should flip end-over-end and still get to orbit. Duh.

Phil Plait is quite an amazing presenter and certainly knows his science, but this is clearly a studio set. People who do set design get paid to find stuff like this, to make credible backgrounds. On the other hand, there is no evidence to suggest that Phil doesn't play KSP, so let's just assume he does (and we can also assume he is very good at it).

Its my first outside-of-LKO place to visit in every new career. I try to land in every major crater, grab much science to fill out the tech tree up to the 160 level. Going to Minmus is more tedious, less challenging, and generally too minty for me. Its definitely helpful for the science points, but less... interesting.

Cannot play the game without? Hmmm. That is getting harder to say with the recent releases, especially 1.0. For every new release I start a new career, and usually can get pretty far in the tech tree without any mods. But as soon as I want to go to Duna, its time to install KER and KAC. This has been the ritual since ~0.25 or so.

I can't make an Eve lander capable of a return mission, and I gave up trying after a few hours of attempts. Never landed Kerbals there, just one-way probe missions. I cry a little each time I get the "Explore Eve" contract in Career mode since I know it will be yet another automated probe rather than Jeb and Bill and Bob.

Ooo this is a good guess! I was thinking something like a delta-v map. I recall there was talk of extending the engineer feature in the VAB to calculate delta-v, did it make it? These are the types of tools I would have liked, as a new player, when trying to go anywhere beyond LKO.

I'm going to start a fresh career, probably with very minimal mods (KER, KAC, maybe Trajectories). Very interested to try out the new parts and new aero system. I don't care for building planes (I find it very frustrating) but launching rockets should be more interesting, and thermal effects improves the challenge. I expect it will be a lot like using FAR and DRE, which was fun for a while too.