Superfluous J

Today I designed about 90% the successor to what's pictured in my signature below. I'm landing this one on the runway if it kills me.

No prob but I may not be able to help. I generally install mods and if they don't work I just toss 'em aside And those science ones don't get you more science, they just eliminate most of the drudgery in collecting it.

It would be an easy test. Make a maneuver node that would get you to - say - Jool but make sure it passes through Mun's sphere of influence. F5 to quicksave. Do the burn (Use mechjeb if you want perfect(ish) reproducibility) and go out to just after you exit Mun's SOI. Note the altitude and speed. Then F9 to restore and push the maneuver node an orbit or two forward in time. Do the burn again, timewarp up to the same altitude, and see what your speed is. Also, by getting Mun out of the way you may just be able to see the difference in the planned maneuver node itself. 40 m/s isn't super significant (as I said) but it may be enough to make the difference between reaching Jool and falling short.

All the mods I mentioned work in 0.25, though some don't say they do.

I strongly suggest you (and every youtuber) add Ambient Light Adjustment to your list. Your viewers will thank you. Also for pretty it's hard to beat Environmental Visual Enhancements and Texture Replacer and a pack for them (I like Astronomer's pack). If you're doing a lot of science, I suggest you cut that part out of your videos. Also, you can streamline it greatly with a combo of ScienceAlert and Science Containers (with a config for it, see below) so you don't have to spend time getting science and can spend more time getting to the places to get science. MODULE{ name = ScienceContainer } }[/noparse][noparse]@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleCommand],!MODULE[ScienceContianer]]{

I will admit I'm weird. I actually miss a bit my first walk through the tree when I had no idea where anything was. Sadly, it was a quick walk because science - even back then - was ridiculously easy to get so I blew through it quickly. I'm forced to follow the specific path where I avoid landing on a handful of worlds for a short while. That's a pretty broad path to be called "specific." FTR, I'm not against moving ladders down in the tree and suspect my own personal perfect tree would have the simple rung ladders in the first node. But using "no railroading me to specific places!" can be used for almost every part. There's a mode for those who don't want any sort of thing to bar them from any sort of mission, and that mode does not have a tech tree.

Ah. I see the disconnect. I never said it was SIGNIFICANT. I said it was present. And the original person you quoted said 40 m/s which - when it comes to interplanetary maneuvers - fits both of those: It's not very significant but it is present.

You can make it close, though, if you go fast enough (Going to Moho, for example, takes a pretty hefty burn and you can fly by Mun pretty straight). And they don't perfectly offset or anything, it's not a 1:1 thing. In fact you can tweak your Mun encounter to maximize the benefit or (even better) come out going forward along Mun's orbit and get the added benefit of Mun's orbital velocity to your own.

In a simple 2-body solution (which we have in all situations in KSP) the speed you are going at a certain altitude, you will be going every time you are at that altitude. So, you enter Mun's SOI at the near side of Kerbin going (say) 1000m/s relative to Mun, you will exit the other side going 1000m/s relative to Mun. Relative to Kerbin, you are now (about) the full diameter of Mun's SOI further away and going the same speed you were when you went in. If Mun hadn't been there, Kerbin's gravity would have slowed you down. Instead, Mun sped you up (on the way down) and then slowed you down (on the way up) to end up at exactly that same 1000m/s.

Just build your rockets with docking ports between each vertical connection.

Actually I think in general this is a very good thing. There is one specific case (well 2, but they did the first one already) where I agree with you but for genereal parts, I LIKE that you have to fish around for what you want. The vast majority of planets in the game have low enough gravity to jet pack back to your hatch. This includes all 5 of the most common early targets: Mun, Minmus, Duna, Ike, and Gilly. By the time you've gone to those you should be able to research ladders. I totally agree with this one. Not putting landing gear in a "basic planes starter pack" would be like not putting a parachute in the first tier. Except you can actually land a rocket without a parachute. I won't point-by-point the rest because they all conform to our basic disagreement about the tech tree. I like being forced to unlock most everything and fish around for the pieces I need.

How did the hipster burn his tongue? He sipped his coffee before it was cool.

Here's what I was thinking. Pictures would be great but really not necessary. (Sorry about the quick and dirty mspaint pic) The idea is you can drag each part (the names) to other nodes, AND drag the nodes themselves around. You could have the same list you have now off to the right to drag "unassigned parts" from. And in case I haven't said it yet, thanks for doing this. It'll really open up the tech tree to a lot of creative people who can't be arsed to spend days modifying config files. (like me!)

You can add and remove parts from the nodes, it's just clunky and difficult to work with. There are too boxes on the right hand side, one that lists what's in the node, and one that lists every part. You can click parts that are in the node and click remove to remove them. You can also click through the menus of the parts to add and add them. However, there's no list of parts that are not assigned to any nodes, so unless you write it all out yourself beforehand and just use the program to make the tree you'll never be able to get it to work because there's no obvious way (that I've found) to make sure you're only adding parts that aren't in another node. Ideally,the parts would show up in the main display and you'll be able to drag them from node to node.

3 start nodes is so functionally similar to a tree with 3 initial branches that the differences really don't matter.

Yikes. Keep your spirits up, man.

The only thing worse than going to the dentist is brain-shattering tooth pain. Trust me.

Am I the only one who was shocked that this isn't a spam post? Anyway, I had the same razor (Mach 3 I think) since the 80s until just recently. I then bought a Gillette Fusion (I think the Proglide, didn't keep the box. Looks like the pictures in a Google search) and don't really notice a difference. I *think* it shaves better but I used to have to slide the razor over the same spot a couple times to get a decent shave and now I have to slide the razor over the same spot a couple times to get a decent shave.

Amusingly I love FAR for rockets, but hate it for planes. What I hate about it with planes is essentially the same things you hate about rockets: I can't do crazy stuff and get away with it. But after doing a few launches with FAR and getting used to the way gravity turns (actually) work, it's always kinda painful to go back to stock.

I like that idea. Another idea is allow mods to state where to put their parts based not on the node, but on an item in the node. So (for instance) a docking port mod that allows them to rotate could define the node their docking ports are in based on where the stock docking ports are. Or a mod that gives more structural parts could place them in whatever node similar structural parts are in.

I don't see why you're doing all that complicated fuel line doohickery. I'd just run fuel lines from the interior asparagus stage (stage 12 I believe) on each side to the 3 onion-staged tanks closest to it, and then from each of those 3 tanks to the interior tank. Better yet I'd asparagus those 6 tanks as well

Oh! I forgot the other use of them I've done in the past and will likely do in the future. When you catch an asteroid and it's in a wonky orbit, it's a lot cheaper to get its orbit to intersect Mun's orbit in some way, than it is to change the asteroid's tilt and all that stuff. So I do that (intercept Mun) and use it to straighten out my orbit around Kerbin before burning to whatever orbit I want it to eventually actually be in.

(Okay now for one not scientific at all) A little old lady goes to see the doctor. "Doc," she says, "I've developed a case of the worst gas I've ever had. All hours of the day and night I just can't stop! The only good thing is that they're silent, and have no smell." The doctor quickly writes up a prescription and hands it to the old lady. "Take 2 of these pills a day and come back and see me in a week." 3 days later, the old lady comes back, furious. "I don't know what was in those pills you gave me, but they've made it worse!" "Worse? How?" "Well, I'm just as gassy as before but they've developed this horrible, sickening odor." The doctor claps in triumph. "Wonderful! We've fixed your sense of smell. Now to get to work on your hearing."

I only really use them in one situation, because that's the only situation that makes it easier: Getting into orbit around Jool. No aerobraking, no huge burns, just a simple 3-step process: Coming in, get your ship so it's coming around the back of Jool at Laythe's orbit. Ideally, your hyperbolic orbit should be touching Laythe's somewhere but really just getting close is fine. Unless you got lucky and got an encounter with Laythe already, as soon as you get into Jools SOI burn retrograde until you get a Laythe encounter. Fiddle a little bit until your Laythe encounter gets you to where you want to go. All other gravity assists take tons of planning and impeccable timing. No thanks!

The Dortmunder You didn't say WHICH ship, but you were probably thinking of Serenity. Here's one from books: Who came up with the theory of Psychohistory?