SyberSmoke

I have never been good at docking unfortunately. It is the reason I thank the creators for MechJeb. All kind and all skill levels I guess.

Well some one has to give us those WTF moments. :-)

Landing, like docking has never been my strong suite. So I use MechJeb for some of those actions. I also find it helpful as I can more finely tune my ships TWR and fuel for trips. That way when the devs put in contracts and money, I can make every Cr count.

Hurm...Let me see if I can help. Lets see...first off, you could replace the radial engines on your lander with clusters of Rocomax 48-7S's, each one has about 2.5 times the thrust to weight of the radial engines you're using. You will also use less fuel as they are more efficient for the same weight. So you will need less fuel reducing your ships weight or increasing the ships range. As for the staging...hurm...that is allot of SRB's. You may wish to play with using Liquid Fuel Engines in clusters using "Asparagus Staging". That way you use less weight each stage to do more lifting. I can not see what engines you have in the center stack, but playing in Career, I have a main lift stage using a skipper with four LV-T30 engines that have been clipped a little into a radial giving some efficiency. Just as a rule, bigger is not always (except in Whackjobs case) better. Smaller engines are more efficient then larger ones. So if you have an opportunity to use smaller engines, then you should look into it and see how it works. You will use less fuel reducing how much you need to lift.

This is what I use to get around the local planets. The lower tank has four 909's on it and is more then enough to get to the Mun and Minmus with fuel left over to circularize and adjust. The lander stage uses smaller engines for the low gravity, I tend to have half a tanks when I am done and is perfect for lifting off and setting back to Kirbin. Finally I ditch the lander after I Aerobreak and get my final descent angle. The final small tank and engine are ditched after final adjustments and the can, capsule, and Kerbals land safely. Going big never suited me...I always preferred small and functional as after a bit your just lifting fuel so you can lift more fuel.

Uhhh, isn't that a little overkill for the Mun? I mean if you lay in right, you only need 770m/s to get to the Mun. That shadow makes me wonder what your orbiting/landing there?

Bummer, And here I was hoping the world was bigger then my philosophy. Oh well...some where out there is something very cool that we can not conceive of yet.

Ok, I was a little off...they have found one using Arsenic. Link: http://gizmodo.com/5704158/nasa-finds-new-life ----- To Brotoro: Well there are a couple angles. Really all of our math is based around the idea that gravity, mass, and size are relative to what we know. Most of the values are arbitrary, we had to make something up, so meters, tons, grams, etc are just values we invented. So it could be reasonable to say that the Kerbals did the same. Their values, though understandable to us, are based on their perspective. Just because the math is the same does not mean they have the same factors involved. Who knows, may be their 1G is really .5G for us, but because they are there...it is the basis for their math. It is like wondering if Kerbin can be translated to Dirt in their language...Since we call our planet dirt.

Ok lets see...where to start. I have mixed feelings about building the ship and it then taking in game time to be assembled. I feel that the time I spend in the VAB should be accounted for and the clock should not stop, may be tick slower, but not stop. That said, making a new ship and three days skipping past...hurm...no. I would put forward that instead of time passing for the ship to be built, time passes for the parts to be built. What is the difference? Well the interface shows that there will be a limited supply of parts. These are probably parts you have on hand and have already payed for. So, that in mind you could have two ways of getting more parts. 1. Instantly and by paying the full part cost. So you need a tank right now...you can buy it from Jeb and call it a day. 2. Order the part and wait a period of time. This means you have to plan ahead a little, may be go on another flight with the parts you have. But ordering it and having them take time to be made and delivered gives you a discount on the cost...say 25%. So that spiffy science goody that costs 10,000Cr now only cost you 7,500Cr...that is good for your budget! This makes it a clear trade off, you can wait and get parts for less, or you can buy them right away and they cost more. And this way it does not effect the way the ships are built, but can effect your budgeting if you get do not plan ahead a little.

Well...like is possible. There are things on this planet that defy reason. Heck we have found bacteria that eat and gain sustenance from radioactive materials or are actually made using Silicon as their base material instead of Carbon. So who knows, there could be life that can flourish in such an environment. It would be an interesting addition if a Kerbal went to Laythe and saw little purple Kerbals standing there looking back.

Radiation around gas giants is very high. It is not that the planets emit radiation, but that their magnetic fields trap solar radiation much like earths Van Allen Belt does. This trapped radiation is accelerated and forms into belts of radiation. The radiation is strong enough to knock out probes and electronics. And if a human were to enter one of these belts, your life would be measured in minutes. The only way to approach would be in a heavily shielded vessel. Either using conventional material shielding (Lead or other materials), or to have your ship protected by a suitably strong magnetic bubble like the earth generates. This is not so far fetched as scientists have been looking into electromagnetic shielding for space craft and station for some time (not like Star Trek Shields). And they can generate them, the problem is the mass of the devices so far and the power requirements. But new materials are looking promising, and a hybrid system could be possible. Technically not true, the atmosphere is not dense enough to deflect solar radiation. The majority of the solar radiation is deflected thanks to the earths magnetic field. In fact if the Earth did not have it's magnetic field, much of the atmosphere would simply blow off because of the solar winds and we would be more like Mars. Also consider that Laythe, if it did have a magnetic field, would still be subject to intense radiation. The radiation trapped by Jool magnetic field would be accelerated, the particles could literally blow Laythes field apart. Some reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetosphere_of_Jupiter

Your dream is nothing new. Our conscious rational minds are just filters really, it is the subconscious that does allot of the heavy mental lifting. Those little moments of inspiration, epiphanies, or moments of clarity are the subconscious's way of pushing out a final thought of something it has been working on in the back of your mind. More so for lucid dreams, when your sleep is disturbed just enough that your conscious of what you're dreaming. Welcome to the zone, enjoy it while it lasts because it only lasts for a moment then is gone.

Taking off from any planet with an atmo would be a pain with that setup. He only has four nuclear engines on it and their thrust is trash for anything then traveling great distances. Just judging from the design, he would not have enough thrust to lift off using only the nukes as I do not see any additional stages or engines. The rough math is that He has a dry mass of at least (Only major parts and tanks) 18.1. while he has a wet mass (with fuel) of 53.1. Four nukes gets a TWR of 1.334 with a single full tank (X200-16) totaling to 18.5 mass with another tank and 9 more mass that TWR drops to 0.89. And that is just two tanks and four engines. I would suggest looking to make your craft a little lighter, using lighter parts initially to see just how far you can get. Once you have some sense of how far certain things can get you, then you can make a more efficient design. Oh and just so you know, The Rocomax 48-7S can do a very good job. It does not have the ridiculous efficiency of the nukes, but it also does not add 2.25 mass to your ship. Play with them.

I think the Science Lab, as described, will only allow you a place to take things you collect to get full credit. That way you do not need to land on Kerbin to get 100% with those samples from where ever.

This reminds me of a joke "What is the last thing that goes through a bugs mind when it hits your windshield?" "Its Ass." Technically the tank does not take damage from the force it hits at. There is just a value that says if the object is going X when it impacts another body, it goes boom. So really if the ship shown was not rigidly strapped together and the nodes interacted, this would apply forces and bets are the nodes would shear or compact the parts into one another...and then boom! This is probably more about Wackjobs ability to reinforce the nods so they do not wobble then it is about the object being able to take the stresses. Stresses that may not even be calculated by the object...just the nodes.

Lets see if I can explain. It does not look like ALL of the planets terrain is procedural, the terrain of all the planets conforms over a series of games in a broader sense. This means that some one created the terrain, at least the broad strokes (mountains, valleys, hills...etc.) while the smaller bumps and close in irregularities are added by the engine. This means that the terrain has a height map some where that it takes the general map cords from. I have made these and usually they are a gray scale image, but they can also be color coded, or just text files you paint into existence with an editor. The problem is that the image is a natural square. And squares do not work well when wrapped around a sphere. So in the process of making a complex terrain on a square, you generate artifacts...little holes, typically in the poles, where the map just does not make any sense. This can be mitigated by having your poles flat and at the default height...so the error does not manifest. But if you make a varied terrain that is higher or lower then default, you tend to get spires or divots. This is simply because that vertex of the mesh remains at default height while the vertices around it get height map data. It is a common error with spheres...you can get around it by having multiple terrain maps. Layering them together like paper machete on a basketball. But this can cause other issues if they are not blended properly. So in the end, we get odd little WTF's because of the nature of computers. Pixles are square...images are square...and we do what we can to wrap those squares around things that are not.

Hurm...Unless this low level science generation say a byproduct of doing other science. So, you goto the mun, get some rocks and drop them off at your station. The Mun rocks make you allot of science instantly. But then you have the research on the rocks, they are a project that takes time, so that generates a trickle of science as described. This way you need to have a constant flow of science in to get that trickle, other wise your Kerbals run out of things to look into. The cool thing could be that you also would not need to reassess the science tree. Instead the science generated could be applied to the parts it originally unlocked. 0.1% increases to ISP ratings for engines, a little more fuel, a little less weight, a little better transmission capability. Small incremental increases to parts that would take a good amount of science to get. That way your using the science and just do not plateau when you hit the end of the tree. A thought...

Mmmm...Sphere Tessellation errors, gotta love them. Simply put, at the north and south pole of any 3D generated sphere your going to get weirdness. Usually you just see strange wrapping from a texture, but when you throw in LOD and Tessellation to get a varied terrain...those top and bottom poles have to be handled some how. In many cases keeping the area smooth helps keep that area clean. But if terrain is varied, the differences can create pyramids, crevasses, or other weird things. And really...there is no real way around it...it is just the nature of 3D meshes. There is a way around it, use a tessellated sphere (triangles) instead of one made out of quads (Squares). But this causes other issues when dealing with texturing as wrapping a square texture around a spherical object...well...it does not work well. But hey, these anomalies do look cool. Oh and just keep the Kerbles off them, where the mesh goes odd, so will collision and physics.

An inflatable add-on to the ISS where they can film space porn? I bet they would be able to solve their budget issues with that cornered market! In all seriousness...I am not that surprised, I doubt many astronauts have time for games. Though it would be cool if your question sparked an interest in KSP and some promotional opportunities for Squad.

It is not a suggestion, as the title states, it is rampant speculation about what the developers may do. And not suggesting something I would like to see. So...it is in the right place.

In a discussion on this forum, the idea of maximising the amount of science you get came up. After the discussion, I started to wonder about what could be coming to really limit this practice. In the end I started to think about the command module, crew modules, and probe cores. What if these in the future were to have a specific data capacity. So you have a choice of storing the data, but you can only have so much and the rest, if you want it you have to send it. In some cases this would be good, like being able to transfer the data from a Science Jr. to the command pod so you can run another experiment, or ditch the module for the return trip. But the limit would work against the player some because if they fill up on crew reports and eva's...they would be forced to transmit other data back home losing points in the process. Of course better command modules and probe cores could have greater data capacity. But then your trading capacity with added mass. There would also be the idea of a hard drive module so you could store more...like the size of a battery pack. But it would depend. So the question is, do you think this is a path the developers are heading towards? may be other thoughts?

Instead of solar cells, why not do what history did and use fuel cells to provide power to the systems. The cool thing in the day was that the Fuel Cells used the life support O2 and a small tank of H to provide power. Not allot of power...but power all the same. I am actually a little surprised that the developers did not put in Fuel Cells yet...may be because they would need O2 and H tanks. Tweakables perhaps?

I agree, some times the most efficient way is not the most enjoyable. It is a game after all...last I looked games were there to enjoy. If playing it is not any fun, then it is just a job that your not being payed for. I will admit, after 25 years of gaming I have become very cynical. But that is also why I am open to ideas on games like this. The idea that they could make science more then just launching rockets. The idea that the tech tree has room for research that improves parts. The idea that some Kerbal screwed up making an engine and then you have to deal with the consequences. After all if it is just about efficiency...I would go back to playing Eve Online.

I am sure there are people that do as you say. But there are also people that do not do that path. For now it is something of a tutorial, but when budgets start coming into play (why else would everything have a part cost/unlock cost) career mode will be less a tutorial and more of a challenge mode. Kind of why people play Survival in Minecraft instead of always being in creative...it is for the challenge. The same can be applied to Kerbles. Right now there is an unlimited supply of the little meat sacks. But what if that amount were to refresh over time. what if the ability to revert you launches was removed...foolhardy decisions could leave you with out any crew at all. So having some way to test your rockets with out a Kerbal, even if it did not maximize your science, would be advantageous as it would preserve a limited resource. Right now this is all theory craft any way. Putting out what if's and conjecture about what the developers may do. But if I were designing the game...closing these loopholes to make career more more challenging would be on the top of my mind.

That is true. If you think about it most of the flight systems were originally designed for unmanned operation so they could launch puppies, kittens, and chimps into orbit. That way most of the death toll was remedied by going to the pet store the next day. Much of the flight was ground control. The NASA astronauts though did not like the idea of putting their lives in the hands of people that were not in their situation and wanted manual control. Kind of worked out for them as situations that would have lead to disasters (First Moon Landing) were recovered by skilled astronauts. So really there is something to be said for both early game launch types. I feel that people do not want to send up the Kerbals because we are already attached to them. We empathize with them and loosing a Kerbal in many cases is unacceptable. So for early launches I would not be against a severely limited automated control. Kind of why I suggested the Clockwork Kerbal. Now if the game were more hazardous, if there were chances of failure outside the players control and that can only be negated by using research to improve components. Then it would be far better to have the unmanned option. But since there really is no risk (revert to launch, no critical chance of part failure), then Kerbals are the fodder for the day.