codepants

I used to have a similar problem, no mods related, I believe. I had graphics setting turned down. I put them back to default and it solved the problem -- didn't have to make a new save, never happened again. In my case, I think it has something to do with the way the terrain is loaded on lower graphics settings.

Just added a load of options ("just" = less than a minute ago). Is there KerbinSrfLanded for each of the biomes? Can someone confirm? I'm betting that's coded in and has nothing to do with the amount of available options. On that note, if anybody is good with plugins, I'm interested in code that can: - Solve this problem - Choose a new log every time any experiment is run. Currently the way it seems to work is that a log is chosen upon entering a new biome, and used until the ship enters a new biome. Even in the same biome, I'd like a different report every time. ?

You should probably start approving something, because there are 75 entries today. Also, I don't think many people would cheer for the Krakens... just saying.

This can happen even in Surface mode, and this phrase is what alludes to it: If it's happening in surface mode, the reason is because the prograde marker shows your average prograde in the compass directions, not just in one direction. So if you have small x motion compared to your y motion, the prograde marker will point straight up. Consider: - You are moving 500 m/s east. - You are moving 500 m/s towards the planet. = Prograde is 45 degrees between top of the Nav ball and straight east. Then: - You burn off 475 m/s east. = Prograde is 25/525*90 degrees between top of the Nav ball and straight east -- basically, it points straight up. Then: - As you get closer to the ground, you burn off 495 m/s towards the planet. = Prograde is now 25/30*90 degrees between top of the Nav ball and straight east -- basically, it looks like you increased your horizontal velocity, when in fact it's just increased *relative* to your vertical velocity. Make sense? Solution: As you get close to the ground, burn towards your prograde marker or just below it... not straight up.

Ignore Mr. MOAR here. Build small. I mean, ultimately I think everybody's goal is to get huge stuff into space, but in my opinion the smaller the better. It took me a while to figure out that you can go to the moon and back, for instance, in only three stages, without using any of the "big" tanks or engines. The problem I suffered when getting started, and the problem I think a lot of new players suffer, is that we think the solution is more fuel and more engines. That's part if it, but it's the part with quickly diminishing returns. If you can build a small rocket, you can get into space. After you've done that 100 times, then magically, getting larger rockets into space will be easier, too. Also, watch youtube videos of skilled players (OperationDX is my favorite, Scott Manley is also popular). Even if you don't copy their designs, you will learn from them. Since you're using Kerbal Engineer, you might research how much dV you need and experiment with different designs that give you that amount. You will almost always find it easier to give small rockets the necessary dV than larger ones. And remember, stage-relative dV matters. If you have 100dV in your first stage and 10,000dV in your last, you probably won't get to space. The other way around will work much better. As far as making them "look real..." it's possible... but first I recommend finding what works... then make it "look real." Good luck!

These guys have answered your question, but FYI, you rarely ever need more than two nuclear engines. They aren't that powerful, sure, but when you're in space, you've got all the time in the world because there are no drag losses. I only use more than two if I'm moving something HUGE (more than one orange tank worth), but at that point a lot of people switch over to Skippers or Mainsails.

Atmo analysis on Duna: The carbon dioxide in the air is thick enough that it could be harvested for plants in greenhouses. This means colonies could be a thing here! Gravity scan on Duna: The gravity is high enough to walk normally but low enough for EVA packs to work like jetpacks. Colonizing here just got a lot more appealing.

Fixed; sorry about that. We are still filtering out those that made it in during the initial submission period. It's a process. - - - EDIT: A few of the submissions have referenced colonization. What's the public opinion on this?

I am aware and will get to that sometime this week. Sorry for the delay. "Then/than:" You would be surprised how many other grammatical errors we have to deal with. Thanks for checking.

Well, possibly. To be honest, sometimes I just want shorter, easier missions, but ones that still accomplish things. The other half, you're right, is RP'ing. I am aware that going to other planets ASAP is the best way to fill the tree. Even if it was explored centuries before by guys in sailing ships, they obviously did not have the advanced things we have today... like thermometers. ) Point and case: all the research we (humans) do today on the poles. I know Kerbals are in a different universe, but still. In any case, at some point it does become a question of, "To RP, or not to RP?" Exactly. My question was, what ship do you use to accomplish this? My designs can usually only do a few "hops" before needing to refuel.

Known issue: The code doesn't select new logs every time you run an experiment. - - - It's pretty cool to see more seismic logs than barometer scans... guess people actually use my charts. - - - Edit: Seventy-five today and counting. Woohoo! ...I credit Scott Manley.

Could we have a sample video as a rocket flies into orbit? I spend a lot of time in space so mostly curious what things sound like out there. The sonic boom is a very cool effect though.

What he said. Keep trying. Just like getting into orbit, your first 100 tries are really rather hard, but after that it's easy. Okay, "easy."

Hmmm, okay. IMO that's still a lot of play time for science doing. But good to hear from someone who flies planes more than I do. I guess I don't have a rebuttal for that. You're right, it would be pretty darned cheat-like. But if the terrain is flat and the rover is stable I'm not sure it's any different than, say, Mechjeb -- you're essentially asking the computer to hold "W" for you. Anyways, thanks for the info. I approve of this map. I was hoping for something that would take less than "a few hours," but it's not the fault of your suggestion... Kerbin is big. Thanks for the input. Hey, only off by a factor of 60! I got my seconds and hours confused for a second... hour... crap.

What everybody else said -- $$, expendable -- but wanted to add that because they are lighter, you can go farther earlier in the tech tree. EG by your second or third launch (depending on how you play) you can probably get a probe to Duna... but definitely not a Kerbal. That 0.4t you're talking about adds up when you have to move it halfway across the galaxy and don't have efficient engines to do that with.

aaaaaaaand my life is complete. - - - FYI: About halfway through editing the log, focusing on the things that were requested a while ago (static, breaking the 4th wall, etc). My goal is to finish by the end of this week, along with adding the missing biomes. - - - Request: I seem to have misplaced my original ScienceDefs.cfg file. Can someone who still has theirs send me a link to download it? Just want to do some stats on it.

So, I love science, and I always want more of it. I know for the Mun you can polar orbit and get the InSpace biomes, but aside from that it seems like visiting all the biomes is just very... well, time-consuming. I've got only a few potential solutions to this, and I'm wondering what other people have come up with, or if there's something I'm missing. I'm interested in general strategies, specific ship designs (screenshots welcome), and possibly mods, if they aren't too "cheat-like" (eg no Hyper Edit). Also, even though there aren't many biomes on other planets right now, I hypothesize there will be at some point, so if you have planet-specific solutions (strategies might be different on Duna than on Eve, for instance), I'm interested in those as well. (1) The most time-efficient yet least fuel efficient of my methods I just call "hopping." For the Mun, I've designed a VTOL that "hops around --" lands, does science, takes off with a 45 degree trajectory, lands, repeats. However, I can currently only visit one or two biomes without having to orbit and refuel (though I haven't tried a design with a nuclear engine). For Kerbin, I can usually only do one biome per launch because the atmosphere makes rocket launching so fuel-intensive (I haven't tried high-altitude trajectories with jet engines yet). For Duna, in getting from the middle of the planet to the poles, I've got a ship that does an orbital rendezvous for refuel, but the fuel intensity of polarizing the orbit usually means I can't launch, de-polarize, then rendezvous again. (2) (Kerbin only). A high-speed plane, obviously. But again, this is almost ridiculously time-consuming. Even with an educated guess at where all the biomes are, flying between them takes hours of gameplay time -- even with a plane that flies straight during physics warp. (3) Rovers, obviously, but again, they take forever, even if they go straight with physics warp. (3.5) I'm wondering if there's a mod or possibility of a mod in the realm of "Time Hopping -- " a mod that would simulate time acceleration for a period and reload the game at the end of that period. For instance, you might point your rover north, accelerate to 15 m/s, then "Hop" an hour into the future, effectively moving your rover 900m north. It would have to adjust for altitude changes and a confirmation option would be nice ("There's ocean/a cliff here, are you sure?), but I don't feel like that would be too "cheaty" as it just replaces me holding down the "W" key for an hour. Thoughts on if this is possible/something similar has been done?

Well, you can land anything with legs, even if it's tall, if you land on a flat surface and come down slow enough. Even if I don't have to, I always try and touch the ground at < 1 m/s. It's hard sometimes, but it will greatly reduce the chances of your craft tipping over. Also, once you've gotten rid of all your horizontal velocity, you can set SAS on when pointed straight up. Then if you start to tip, it will (try and) keep you upright. If the ground isn't flat, once it's eliminated your roll velocity, tap F to adjust to the ground a bit more. On smaller moons you can just have it keep your craft pointed up while you go take surface samples and such though, it's a lot less risky. Good luck!

Well, even probes get more efficient when you master the art of docking. ) Pro tip: Roll your craft so its up is the camera's up. Alternatively, try and design ships that don't need to dock to go far away. While the most efficient designs will have an orbital stage, a lander, and an ascent stage, it is very possible to get to most of the moons and planets in the game with a simple, efficient design. I almost exclusively balance them with another goo container using 2x symmetry. If you insist on having only one, you'll have to find something or a combination of somethings that weighs the same amount, and put it across from the goo. I don't recall how much exactly it weighs, but I imagine with a combination of the other experiments, an antenna, and some batteries, you could work it out. Also, keep in mind that the heavier the ship, the more tolerance it will have for imbalances. EG, a light probe generally has to be perfectly balanced, while a three-seater with two nuclear engines will probably tolerate a single goo hanging off the side. I find ~1.2k of electricity will let me run the high-science experiments a few times while descending. You might have to be picky and trash those that generate less than 10 science, but it's worth it if it means you transmit the 100+ ones (eg, atmosphere analysis). From Duna, the most basic setup would be a Poodle+1/4 Orange Tank (I forget what they are called). With a good transfer that will get you off Duna and all the way home. If you want to be a bit more fuel efficient use 1/8 Orange Tank to get into orbit, then dock with something powered by a nuclear engine and ditch the lander. Find the optimal height. ) 10k is safe, and most people will put their orbital stages in at about that height. 7k is as low as I would go. Keep in mind that the higher you are, the more time acceleration you can do. I don't recall exactly how height affects the biomes but I bet somebody has figured out how high you can go and still enable recognition of the biomes. Unrelated: For the Kethane mod, the long range detector in the highest orbit over the moon will only take a few minutes to map the entire moon... thank you, time acceleration! A quick search and skim suggests this one might be half decent: And I bet Scott Manley has done one that you would find useful. My process is usually this: - Get the docking ship up in front of the ship I want to dock with. - Match the orbits. - Grow the docking ship's orbit so it's just bigger than the ship I want to dock with. It will now orbit "slower" than that ship; since it's in front of it, it should only need a few orbit for an intercept. - Set the target and time accelerate until a decent intercept shows up. - Grow or shrink the docking ship's obit until the intercept is < 5km. - Tutorial takes it from there. Basically, if you can get two ships into the same orbit, all you need to know is that larger orbits take longer. So if you are behind your target ship, shrink your orbit; if in front, grow it. I like to start out in front of my target because you can always grow your orbit, but sometimes in shrinking it Kerbin will get in the way. Good luck! When you say "on radial boosters" do you mean booster engines that are radially attached? If so, the booster engines aren't very strong, nor do they last as long as an orange tank on a mainsail. If you just mean mainsails attached radially, then strut the sh*t out of it. Also, the closer they are to the center of gravity, the less trouble you will have -- use the "thin" decouplers if you can. OperationDx is one of my favorite KSP players to watch on Youtube. He does cool stuff, narrates well, and typically has pretty good designs. He does a heavy lift here: And again, I bet Scott Manley has a tutorial or something. Bottom line, if you can't get heavy stuff up, break it into two pieces and dock them in space. Everybody has trouble with heavy stuff... that's just how physics works. Good luck!

We can always use more! Especially for those experiments that have been neglected -- check the bottom of the first post. I hate you. - - - EDIT: Just update the line chart to be the number of logs instead of the number of lines (the computer did the counting, don't worry). There were only 482 logs to start, but in other news, we've almost tripled that. (as an aside in order to maintain my integrity as a statistician, the numbers are only exact from today onward; historical data are calculated approximations)

Might give this a shot. Would love to see videos if anybody does it.

Yea, I've noticed that. I'm not sure why that is. It seems possible that the code (Squad's code) might select one at random and use the same one until you change biomes/celestial bodies.

It's a good idea, but I'm not sure how well it would work. We already have a few "fake" biomes for SunSrfLanded and JoolSrfLanded, so I can't imagine what people would come up with if we did a mix-and-match for everything. Also, I spent all yesterday coding, so I need a break. If you want to PM me a list of the ones we're missing though, I'd be happy to add them. FYI, I am not sure if all the bodies have low/high in space, as I copied only the biomes I found in the original file. It's possible I missed a few, or it's possible if we type them, they will magically work, but I don't want people submitting things that won't get used (unless it's obvious, like Sun/JoolSrfLanded). That I am going to have to throw my hands up over, as the "fun to paint rockets" log is for MinmusInSpace. There are very few for the mobile materials lab around the Sun and Eve, so you know, add more? But in all honesty, I have no clue. If it continues, might be worth a message to squad. Try the second method of downloaded as .txt and renaming to .cfg. Then open with notepad and see what all is there. If that doesn't work, PM me, and I'll link to a download of the actual file.

These should all be removed by the end of the day tomorrow. Right now my main focus is on getting the new system up and running, and debugging is proving to be a pain (Google Docs is really slow with large text files). But I hear you; give me some time, and you'll see those changes made. Thanks for your input. If there is anything in specific that you would like changed, please comment on it. That would be a big help to me; otherwise, it's just my best judgement.

My guess is all the crap at the top got removed. EG, the instructions, the white space, what-not. Although, it's also possible that's just moderation of the inappropriate ones -- it didn't go down by much. Whoever put "You wonder if Twist and Pull are around here somewhere?" you are my new favorite person. EDIT: Just added a new chart. That's the most I want to break the data into. I thought about doing it by biome instead of by celestial body, but even just by celestial body, there's already SO MANY CATEGORIES...