Superfluous J

The deserts, in Arizona or maybe Death Valley. Because we all know the Badlands science is always the hardest to nail.

I install a new copy in a new folder (usually named ksp_### for the version number. The current directory is ksp_104 for example). I then start playing, and download new versions of all my favorite mods as they come out. I keep the old folder for a month or so, and then delete it.

The big problem with that is it sucks all the fun out of the game.

Seeing as the stock game doesn't give the necessary readouts to build the rocket, I'll just crazily overengineer it. Then I'll port the ship over to a real game and see how far it'll actually go.

The thread you want is The Computer Megathread. Short answer: That laptop will run KSP, but not nearly as well as a comparably priced desktop will. Long answer: See the thread above

Thanks for the confirmations/corrections. As I said, I generally have it fully upgraded for the astronaut count, so didn't remember. So the only benefit is more astronauts? Yeah, unless you're me I wouldn't ever bother upgrading for that.

Follow the instructions in Post #4 of this very thread.

It's bad form to resize an image using tags anyway. Either you're making it larger than the source and it'll be ugly, or you're making it smaller than the source and forcing someone to download a (much, in many cases) larger file than they think they're getting. I browse the forums tethered to a cell phone a lot of the time. The propensity of PNGs in posts over JPGs is bad enough, don't make me think I'm looking at a thumbnail that is actually 1080p!

In addition to little tugs like GoSlash mentioned, I like to have some docking port converters. A Jr on one end, and a regular one on the other, with the small grey adapter between. Same with a Sr to a regular docking port. That way, you can mix and match in any way you want with docking ports and you never end up with the problem where you want to dock 2 things together and don't have a port of the correct type. I tend to ignore anything extraneous though. Once you've emptied the asteroid of ore, I'd send the drills, isru converter, and now empty ore tanks away, perhaps to a new asteroid or just deorbit them. I'd also lose all the solar panels. Part count and frailty are your enemies when refueling behemoths.

Mission Control first, as more contracts = more money, rep, and science. Astronaut Complex, usually on my first orbit or suborbital hop, so the Kerbal can magically gain the ability to EVA. Launchpad, as it's a pain to go anywhere past LKO without upgrading it. VAB, for the same reason as above. Tracking Station, for the same reason as above. --- I usually have all those upgraded before going to Mun, and always before going to Minmus. I've never found it difficult to find the cash to do the upgrades --- After that the order doesn't matter to me, but here are ones that eventually happen: R&D, as soon as I want to research a node > 90. Again when I want to research the next tier's stuff. Mission Control again, for more contracts. Runway and SPH once I start wanting to fly planes. Admin Building, if I want the swimming pool. VAB and launch pad, eventually when my rockets get big enough. Astronaut Complex again. Doesn't Tier 3 give you surface samples? I think so. If so it probably deserves to be in the top list. Also, for my YouTube series I tend to have a lot of astronauts so I upgrade it when I need to for that.

Can't be worse than docking, can it? EVA allows Locked Mode, right? You may even be able to use Chase Mode though I'm not 100% sure it'd work.

Very very cool. Haven't downloaded yet but will. I'm wondering how well it would play if you remap all the eva keys to match vessel controls, WASDQE and IJKLHN. With, of course, appropriate remapping of "Lights" and anything else on those 2nd set of keys.

It works better - in my experience - with airless planets and moons. When you're ready to land, switch to "Body Fixed Mode" and it'll always show you exactly where you'll land and the path you'll take over the surface. Makes nailing bases and waypoints from odd orbits a breeze.

Bi-directional would cause problems, no? I like the idea of being able to tell the endpoints apart, and would love to be able to REVERSE the direction of flow. Even better if you could do it in flight, too.

I don't think there's one person on this forum who can say the version numbering from 0.25 to present is a string of decisions they'd have made.

Thanks for adding my requested part unlocking! I've another request. This one isn't critical but will save me a bit of work and a lot of files in my eventual pack. Right now you can spawn a vessel or a Kerbal (or passengers, but that's not exactly he same thing). Would it be possible to either add SpawnPart (with all the options of SpawnVessel minus the craft file. instead, a part name), or modify SpawnVessel to accept a part instead of a craft file? It'll save me having to create a craft for every single part in the game and will make supporting mods easier down the line.

Hey at least the new ones will be cheaper to hire! (because that makes total sense)

Your periapsis won't matter that much. To spend the least fuel as is (reasonably) possible, you should actually just aim to hit Gilly. Once you're close, burn to stop, pick a place to land, and fly there. The low gravity and time warp issues (i.e., you can't when you're too close) combine to make any normal approach unnecessarily time-wasteful. Landing will take a bit longer than on normal worlds, as you will bounce if you come down at over a couple m/s and going that speed is tough because touching the engines can make you fly off into space. But with practice, thrust limiting, and a ship designed to land on Gilly (not just land, but land on GILLY) and you'll be fine. My last Gilly ship had 6 engines: 2 poodles to get there, 2 48-7ses to come in for a landing, and 2 Ants facing upward to give a little push on landing. I could have done it all with just the poodles, but figured the extra mass was worth saving the pain in the neck igniting a Poodle would bring. As it was, I had to thrust limit the 48-7ses down because they were too touchy.

What if they go on strike after 15 days, and die after 400 days? You can get far in a Kerbal year, but it's still a short time if you're out at Jool. And don't start with "self imposed." With that thought, you don't need this mod at all. Just bring an extra tank of Monoprop and pretend it's food, and if you have any unforseen problems crash the ship to kill the crew. I don't see the difference between multiple missions and running only one. The only thing I can think of that that affects is it'd be easier - with a single mission - to "self impose" your rules because you don't have to keep track of only one ship at a time. Note: I'm not arguing whether or not it's a good idea or not. And I'm surely not trying to convince you of it. I'm merely pointing out that there ARE gameplay differences that can be exploited and - who knows - may add to the fun and problem solving.

Just treat Gilly like a very large asteroid. Don't orbit it or try to be super efficient on your landing. Once you're in the SOI just get moving toward it and "dock" with the surface with your landing gear. You WILL land and you WILL be able to drill. Source: I did it within the past month.

It would give you a window to return without killing them, so long as you aimed well enough. Also, after they died you could presumably re-start operations with the now-empty vessel's probe core. Neither of these are possible to simulate now, and would give possibly interesting (and morbid) wrinkles to gameplay.

I think it could be argued that switching from U4 to U5 demands - or at least suggests - a major number change. As KSP 1.0 just came out, it's reasonable to consider what we have now some sort of pseudo pre-release of what will actually be KSP 1.0 when U5 is implemented. Also: This. In spades.

Every 10 minutes I drop a time stamp, so if you can find a spot in the video more easily. Something in "quotes" means it was directly said, though I frequently don't bother with that. [brackets] are those rare times where the accent barrier keeps me from understanding something, and italics are descriptions of what Max is doing in the game, with asides and commentary by me where I feel the desire. 0:00 The video started with Max in the tracking station, waiting for a Duna transfer window. He's eyeballing the transfer window. He uses the default staging the VAB gave him, which releases his rocket from the launch clamps, crashing into the pad. He reverts. He launches again, notices Bill is flying it instead of a pilot. He tries to... land? Back on the launch pad. He realizes that's a really bad idea, so throttles up to go to Duna without a pilot anyway. The rocket flips, and he eventually gives up. He does not revert, though. He lands, and is totally broke. Which is honorable, at least. 10:00 Then he takes a ton of rep-hurting loans, geting a total of about $140k He launches again, remembering to bring his pilot. He also follows what the chat says and removes 2 of his 5 engines, making his rocket only 2x more powerful than it needs to be, not 3x. He spends a decent amount of time fiddling with fins and engines and whatnot. The rocket has < 1.0 TWR with the throttle at 50%. Which is great, if he throttled up to max. He of course throttles up to 2/3 He gets to space... 20:00 ...and then to orbit. He realizes that his ship has no RCS jets, so docking at Duna to come home will be fun. He ejects to Duna with little problems. Quite a well done all-eyeballed transfer. He expects he will not have the fuel to return. I agree with that. Q: Atmospheric scattering? A: There are "doors that are opening with Unity 5. We can't share what the end result will be because we don't know what the end result will be." "The way we feel about the game curently is that it's a fun game - it's a good game. But it still is missing a bit regarding the artistic and visual quality of it. So we are going to do stuff about it... after 1.1." He uses all of his "return trip" fuel getting the Kerbin ejection burn. Too bad there isn't some sort of readout to find out how far a given ship can expect to go... He gets an encounter with Duna, with a small burn in the Sun's SOI. 30:00 Midway to Duna, he plans another node to get his encounter periapsis close. He uses the mouse scroll wheel to pretty good effect, doing what I would normally use PreciseNode for. I think I'm going to actually try it next time I play. He ends up with a periapsis over the North pole. He then burns south for a collision course, and in the SOI corrects it. "We have... 28 cups of fuel." (In the "return" stage) He asks the chat where Duna's atmosphere starts. Chat tells him to put his periapsis at 15km. Sounds good to me. He has 9 cups of fuel left. He ditches his "return" stage to be lost forever. He's committed to a rescue mission. Assuming he lands and gets back to space. He totally, completely, and surprisingly fails to time warp past the Periapsis. He suddenly panics. He's accepted NO contracts! Back to the space center, he takes the "Explore Duna" contract and no others. Problem: That requires you to orbit before landing, which he was not planning to do. Though I think a 15km periapsis will get you into orbit. 40:00 Chat says to put periapsis at 30km, 20km, and 35km. He opts for 25km. Squad HQ news: Remodeling is almost done. Huge pain, but the office will be fantastic. He'll do a video tour of the studio when it's all done. U5 going forward. PS4 is going great. Taking longer than originally thought. No release date. "I believe the Unity 5 upgrade is just about ready to go to QA, but don't quote me on that." [Oops!] He thinks next week for QA of U5. Then they will do analysis to see if it should be its own update, or it should be rolled into 1.1. Also, Filipe has been working deep into multiplayer. "Multiplayer KSP is going to be fantastic." Backend works great. Communication works great. Mechanics are being worked on now. Sandbox is simple, but they want to set up rule sets, and have career work as well. Q: Performance Increases? A: Yes, but Max is "very uncomfortable" saying any numbers. He'd love to, but it would be "super irresponsible" until a lot of people have tested it. But it is "certainly performing better." His aerocapture periapsis is too high, but he gets a VERY fortunate Ike encounter that will totally get him into a nice and circular - if high and retrograde - orbit. He complains that Ike is getting in the way, so burns a bunch to avoid it. He almost time warps into the surface, then burns to get a full orbit, getting the 2nd part of the Duna contract. All that's left is landing, and transmitting space and surface science. He burns down to get a circular orbit, then puts his periapsis down on the sunny side. He jokes that this is Hilisa's retirement trip. As in, she's retiring on the surface of Duna He transmits space science from Duna, nailing that part of the contract. He discusses the seams in Duna as he's coming down. "Part of the overall visual upgrade that we want to do with the game." But first, U5. He's excited to have it done, becasue then he can go back teasing fun stuff. 50:00 He's comign down way low, and not really slowing much, so he kickes the engines on. "And yes 64 bit is something we definitely definitely definitely want to dig our fangs into as soon as Unity 5 is out." Chutes deployed, engine off, he's coming down onto a slope at 15m/s. Q: Planned enhancements like EVE to stock? A: Currently the memory limit is a problem. But if U5 goes great AND 64 bit works, then it can happen. He burns, to slow under 7m/s... 2m/s... and he lands without falling over. Q: Will you have to buy U5/64 bit? A: Yes. Kidding! No. He transmits from the surface, completing all of the contract. And yes, as I suspected last week, the hatch is obscured by the solar panel. However, Max explains, it doesn't matter because he hasn't upgraded the Astronaut Complex so she can't go EVA anyway. However, with no EVA there is no repacking chutes, so even if the ship COULD get back to Kerbin, it'd never be able to land there. He throttles up. I have no idea why. It may have just been a mistake, but he was talking about how he'd missed the goo reading from space around Duna, so maybe he thought... I don't know. The ship goes sideways (possibly becuase of landigng gear stuck in the ground) and he panics like we've all done, hits the gas, hits the ground, and everything explodes. The lander can survives somehow, but not much else. "Okay so we're probably not going to get that goo data from space around Duna." The lander can rolls and slides down the longest, gentlest slope on Duna. It finally stops. Q: Will the 32 bit version have clouds? (I think this means, "assuming the 64 bit version gets them") A: Sure, but if it can't, then it would "not be wise" to be held back by it. (I read this as, if 32 bit can't have them, then 64 bit will get them anyway). Back to the space center, all the contracts are 1 star becasue the rep is so bad. He upgrades the Astronaut Complex. He wonders if she can EVA now. She can. So the solar panel does NOT block the door. Though it gets in the way. He plants a flag, does an EVA report, getgs back in the pod, transmits the data. R&D, he has 217 science, enough for a single tech node. He opts for "Fuel Systems" so that next time, he can get nukes.

<systemBlueprint name="weapons"> <type>weapons</type> <title>Weapon Control</title> <desc>Powers all of the ship's weapons. Upgrading lets you power more weapons.</desc> <startPower>4</startPower> <rarity>1</rarity> <maxPower>12</maxPower> <upgradeCost> <level>60</level> <!-- level 2 --> <level>25</level> <!-- level 3 --> <level>35</level> <!-- level 4 --> <level>50</level> <!-- level 5 --> <level>75</level> <!-- level 6 --> <level>90</level> <!-- level 7 --> <level>100</level> <!-- level 8 --> <level>110</level> <!-- level 9 --> <level>120</level> <!-- level 10 --> <level>130</level> <!-- level 11 --> <level>140</level> <!-- level 12 --> <level>150</level> <!-- Imaginary level 13 --> </upgradeCost> <cost>20</cost> </systemBlueprint> That's how you increase your total weapon power from 8 to 12 in FTL.

Yeah having Flash not work seems a bonus, not a detriment. I'd just get the flash blocker and the "Force YouTube To Give You HTML5" plugin. And anybody who forces flash... don't use their site anymore.