Bobnova

Genuine 64bit apps on a 64bit CPU typically run ~10-15% faster than the same app compiled and run in 32bit mode. "Accuracy" is unchanged.

Pretty sure my current game (0.22) has a better safety record than the Soviet space program did.

Zero, amazingly. Jeb's in the space station I'm putting together. He has power and fuel and tons of solar panels, though nothing with re-entry capabilities. That's intentional though, an escape craft is on the list for the station. Three grey suits are hanging out in lunar orbit, but they have power (but no solar panels, whoops), they were the refuelers for a rescue squad. Brought 'em home just now, before they ran out of power. That's it for manned missions. Now earlier... The first lunar landing landed on a steep crater wall, fell over and shattered. Only the cockpit survived (I use the spaceplane cockpit for single seat stuff for just this reason). The first rescue mission did exactly the same thing, it just left a larger cockpit behind when it was done stranding itself and its pilot. The second rescue mission had a rather wider base and landed in a flatter area, it successfully brought the first two (Bill and Bob, if I recall. Jeb was Somewhere Else at the time. Ike maybe) pilots home, though it was a near thing. It had a solid 50 m/s of D-V left when I got it onto an aerobraking path. That last 50 m/s was enough to prevent the parachutes from ripping the craft to bits (or worse, tearing off). This is all on my current career game I started when I finally got my hands on 0.22. In my 0.21 game, plenty

3:45 to Kerbin escape. Orbit never happened (oops). Point it more or less straight up and hit spacebar every time a tank runs dry. When you hit the final tank, flip over a bit and keep burning. Or go straight up, that'll probably work fine too. Craft file. I'll try again later and see if I can get an orbit about Kerbin rather than Kerbol.

Do all the moons Do some science. Make more complicated rockets (apollo style, for instance). Make simpler rockets. Find some interesting challenges in the challenge section. Create some interesting challenges. Land on more than one planet/moon in a single trip. Make a sun impactor. Build a space station, because you can.

Seven seconds, one launch stablity doodad, so 220 points (Did this for the "land on the VAB with only solid fuel" challenge a while ago)

I usually see this when I'm timewarping and don't realize it.

Kerbin. In the spirit of the question rather than the letter, I think it was Duna, though that was for a landing. For the purposes of orbital capture/insertion, Kerbin. Other than Kerbin, Jool, but I went too deep and splattered. Just completed my second attempt at a Jool aerobrake though, it was rather more successful than the first!

I spent a couple weeks reading about 0.22 before I got a chance to play it (business trip), and I had concerns about career mode. Now that I've spent a couple days playing it, I absolutely love career mode. It makes things interesting in new ways! I've done new things, landed new places, had new failures, and all without the "normal" setup of a bazillion orange tanks and mainsails. I could go on for quite a while I expect, but I'm not going to. Suffice to say, I love KSP more now than ever before, which is a damn good trick. Keep up the good work, squad!

Have you read the challenge rules?

More solar panels is the answer. My answer, anyway.

I'd rather they spent their time making progress on awesome features for this already awesome game, personally. There are a finite number of working hours in a day, would you prefer they were spent A) working on the game, or writing blog posts?

Definitely start with Minmus, despite being further away it takes a lot less delta-v to get there and land, due to the (much) lower gravity. It's also flatter, aim for one of the frozen seas if possible. The only tricky part is the inclined orbit. Set up a maneuver node on the ascending or descending node (they show up when you set a planet as your target) and use the pink bits of the node to adjust the inclination. Are you familiar with maneuver nodes? Before you worry about landing, work on putting a ship together that can get there. If you're playing in career mode and are early in the tech tree, work on science. If not, spend some time looking at the rockets other people have made. Fail a lot, and eventually it'll start making sense to you. This is a very trial and error game! I haven't actually used the Kerbal-X so I can't answer that question, but getting to Minmus, landing and returning without refueling is easy once you get the hang of it. (It took me a lot of tries to do it the first time. Now it's a piece of cake) The hardest part, really, is getting into Kerbin's orbit. Once you're there you're (over) halfway to landing on Minmus. Are you familiar with the concept of delta-v? If not, spend some time contemplating it. I recommend installing the Kerbal Engineer mod, it's a fantastic learning piece that still forces you to pilot manually. Mechjeb will give you the same data, but IMO you're better off crashing a lot and learning how to fly than you are using Mechjeb to do the flying for you. Totally personal preference on that one though. If you're having trouble coming up with a good rocket for a Minmus (or Mun) trip, I'd be happy to make you one. You'll learn more doing it yourself though. As a final note, expect to crash and burn the first time (or fifteen) you try to land. Quicksaving will save you a lot of grief on that one.

My first rover drive was on Minmus. It was fun. My first rover crash was on Minmus. Turning at 25m/s turned out to be a bad idea. My first rover fatality was on Minmus. Rolling a rover that lacks rollbars at 25m/s turned out to be an issue.

Looks glorious! Too bad I won't be able to play till the 28th or 29th.

I'm sitting here hoping I can get some play time on 0.22 before I leave tomorrow morning (4am...) for Other Places For Two Weeks. We'll see! I expect they're probably madly fixing bugs in the hopes of publishing a "HERE'S 0.22!" Weekly.

Finally got a probe there. Now to refit things to get a Kerbal there. Eeloo is a long way away.

I managed a setup that can either do a 400k orbit or come back down (not, however, both). Sadly the parachute rips off on landing, making survival difficult.

Ahh now this will be entertaining. I'll take a whack at it tonight. Looks pretty doable. Any bonuses for leaving Kerbol SOI? Don't know if I can, but I'm going to try (I have a plan! Kerbals shake in fear!)

OK here's whack #1, things could have gone better I had one that breezed right through except for the minor issue of loosing the wings (That was jeb). This one had other issues (bye bye, Bill). I'm out of time for tonight, but this was fun

Lol OK! I'll take a whack at this tonight.

I like this concept. I'm going to give it a shot at some point here. So far I've only managed to make two planes that I could actually land in the first place, so we'll see how it goes

Don't feel bad, my longest was 5m 22s or so, making Jool orbit without aerobraking (the first attempt at making Jool orbit was with aerobraking, and I went a touch too deep. Bye byte Jool Probe I)

Interesting, this is food for thought. I'd been wondering about this earlier today amusingly enough. Thanks!

I do my best to keep them alive. Some rockets have escape towers, all are built with at least a bit of a mind towards aborts. Sometimes they even work. I had my first death in 0.21.1 a few days ago when an orbital trike that was built to re-enter had a minor issue on re-entry: The parachutes opening knocked the kerbal out of his chair, to plummet to the ground. The game seems to have forgotten that I lost him, which is a bit odd as I didn't go back in time. I'm exploring with probes currently, next after that is sending a Kerbal crew to various Far Away Places and trying to get them home afterwards.