HeadHunter67

I'd love a closer look at that little lander. Ah! Found it!

Guess you haven't tried actually using their docking autopilot recently - because it's not that much more reliable than manual docking now. Often, it just flakes out and wastes mono, without making any progress.

I haven't done anything to which I'm so attached that I'd fear losing or breaking it in an upgrade. And if/when I ever do, it's simple enough to just copy that version over somewhere and not update it.

Welcome to a world that's never heard of welding, or rivets... they snap parts together like a model for 10-year olds, and hope it holds. Struts are the only answer they've invented for reinforcement.

As long as they can turn back on, that will be OK. I often have to pause the game (for family needs, other tasks, bio break, etc) so if they can be turned back on I'm fine.

This made my day - I've been working on a Saturn program in my save and this section of the rocket has been the biggest challenge. The first part was finding or making an authentic lander that would fit in a 3.75m cylinder (Lionhead's MEM wins that contest) and the next part was to find fairings to make a reliable interstage that would not only cover the paylod, but properly support the CSM above it. Ph34rb0t's Kerturn came with fairings but the top of that rocket is only steady when using the truss instead of a payload. It sounds like your work will solve my floppy rocket problem while remaining authentic.

Glad you enjoyed it. I'm familiar with the artist, but couldn't resist the messianic humor. Well, what I'm saying is, my GameData folder is pretty big already - pushing 1.5-1.6GB with all the mods and plugins I use. So it doesn't really matter that the stuff I've put into Universe Replacer isn't "that big", relatively speaking - using Dreamscape (~10MB) and the Cloud Pack (~95MB) is over 100MB of stuff that loads with the game. And if this pushes my total memory size of mods past the amount that KSP can handle, it crashes. In an otherwise un-modded game, this would work fine and be a welcome addition. But when it comes down to trimming things, I have to get rid of a lot of stuff that would be nice to have, but not often used or seen. So for now, I've got the lovely skybox and the cloudy Kerbin and I'll hopefully have space to add skins for Mün and Minmus - but I just don't have the room for the lovely cloudscape of Laythe or Jool, for instance. It's not at all a criticism of the mod or the artwork - it's all beautiful and I wish the game could handle everything I want to use in it. I realize it's due to the large number of mods and parts I use, which is why I have to sometimes be very choosy.

That's great news! I definitely intend to use the needles but I don't think I'll use the velocity vector - I am still in the habit of using the navball for that part of the task, as I've already relied on it to get that far in the first place. Looking forward to 2.0, and thanks again for a useful and visually appealing plugin!

Well, how about that! I think that action groups should be configurable on-the-fly in the stock game, but until then, it's nice to know that we have this. Many's the time I realized I overlooked setting an action in mid-flight.

Yep, see! There's another. (My apologies for going off-topic. I did just download this and will be trying it out soon. I like having lights on my craft and stations after realizing how much of my docking seems to inevitably take place on the dark side).

I read about Christo visiting the Kerbals. It's in the Book of Kermon. Seriously, though, I am loving what this mod has done for my game. I've had to leave out planets I won't be getting to any time soon, but Apatheticjester's lovely skybox and 5thmushroom's cloudy Kerbin make my local "neighborhood" look so beautiful. I might install new skins for Mün and Minmus, but I'm running up against that wall where KSP crashes when one's mod folder gets too big... so I've had to be economical in what I use.

That's pretty clever, thanks for the pictures and explanation. I had tried the structural fuselage with a port on the nose but couldn't quite see it in IVA on the launch pad, so I figured I was doing it wrong.

...unless they're asking "How many quarters are in a lacrosse game?" That's the stupidest question anyone's ever asked me...

It's all stock - but it's very parts-intensive. And kind of bigger than it ought to be.

That's a fantastic view... but how in the heck do you use that cockpit on a rocket? I'm trying to imagine how to assemble it in such a way that you can put a docking port in front of it. I'd be curious to see an outside shot please.

I knew you'd do that sooner or later.

That would explain why I couldn't mount a center engine. But I'm not clear on what you mean - I mean, where else would you attach the adapter? It was hard enough to get it to snap to that. I had to actually turn the tank sideways to get that to work at all. I'll keep trying.

It looks like the one from the Kerturn rocket by HBI. I enjoy docking - I learned the hard way, by MechJeb showing me what it should be doing (and then screwing it up and wasting fuel until I took over in annoyance). I still don't have the hang of rendezvous, but the more of them I observe the clearer it's becoming. Soon enough I'll try that manually.

Fair enough - but the reason I said "cylinder" is for game purposes, specifically to mean something that does not hang out past that radius or clip the outer surfaces. I don't care how tall it is honestly, as the taper of a fairing is easily adjustable. I just don't want it to protrude - because if it does, the fairing must bulge to accommodate it.

It's finicky enough to get the mounts on in the first place. But I love what these parts do, it beats cubic struts.

I agree. If there's a way to disable given markers or otherwise configure what you see, that's great.

Awesome - thanks so much for this, I'll be adding it to my build now!

Must... have... those... suits.

Kerbin definitely needs clouds, and I suppose the other planets would look nicer for it too (in the proper proportions).

That's an important and often-overlooked distinction. For instance, the Romans had the metallurgical and chemical capability to build firearms - but they never did, because they never considered the technology, let alone researched it. Likewise with certain modern architecture - Roman concrete is held to be superior to our own. But they never built the kinds of structures we use in the modern day. That's a fantastic approach - even the tutorials and the little campaign missions in .20 had that kind of feel to them. For your first mission, you build a probe and put it into space. What you learn from that unlocks other parts, which are then used to build a better rocket to put that probe into orbit. Then a man... then, eventually, the Mün and a space station! It's a reality of our own space programs that exploration drives the technology, rather than the other way around. Everything we have was earned by brave pioneers who got into the capsule and said "I wonder what happens when we do this!"