thereaverofdarkness

This isn't the thing for Squad to make I don't think, but it'd be great if someone else made a mod for this! Then again, I wouldn't really complain if Squad made something like this.

I tried flying something vaguely similar to your craft. It doesn't have most of the extra bits on the back or in the cargo bay, and I tossed in some engines because I don't even see any on yours aside from the SRBs on the wingtips. It looks like you clipped a Mk. 2 cockpit with a Mk. 3 to 2.5m adapter, but I didn't want to deal with that so I just slapped a Mk. 3 cockpit on it. I have the fuselage and wings basically the same as yours. Here's how it turned out for me: http://imgur.com/a/iTSZU#0 (link in case the embed doesn't work) <iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="//imgur.com/a/iTSZU/embed"></iframe> I didn't experience the craft falling at steep angles, rather it flew reasonably straight. What did happen, however, was that it flipped out of control at very moderate angles of attack. I had to add a Mk. 3 Monopropellant tank to the front just to bring the center of mass far enough forward for it to fly, but maybe that mimics whatever that is you had in the cargo bay.

A skilled pilot maybe knows how to apply the torque better, and does so in a more efficient way? It's a tricky device to use, even a robot probably wouldn't apply force perfectly. Or maybe I'm wrong. I think the thing about less over-correction might already be implemented. I was playing today and noticed that my level 2 pilot (who I was using at level 2 for the first time) was overcorrecting much less than I am used to, even these past few days playing the full release. I was able to tell the pilot to go to a node on the other side of the navball and she'd do it usually with no overcorrection at all. Maybe it was the way the craft was built, but maybe it was the pilot's level of training.

I absolutely agree, in fact I feel pretty much all of the upgrades are too steep. I think it is perhaps because Squad didn't want to be bothered to design models for more than four versions of each building. I'd settle for just adding bits in with each upgrade, or even simply changing their size or color--but smoothing out the upgrades would really be great.

What's wrong with pilots increasing torque?

Okay, I get it now. I haven't flown with Mk 3 parts after the full release, but at a glance it looks like your craft has a very low density. Is it possible that you've simply got too much attack surface compared to its mass? Have you tried swapping the cargo bays for fuel tanks, or putting something heavy in the cargo bays? I'd also suggest more wing surface, you really don't have much there. And then you might need more engine power for the increased load, but that's just part of flying Mk. 3 parts. If that doesn't work, I don't know, sorry.

If it is creating extra drag, wouldn't that make it easier to land it safely? If you must put it at a high angle of attack to slow it to a safe speed, does that not indicate that when it is pointed into the wind, the fuselage is not creating drag? Perhaps you need more wing surface or better landing gear, or I am not understanding the problem correctly.

Your Kerbal crew don't gain much from leveling up, and a lot of levels give you nothing at all. Furthermore, scientists have only niche uses and their transmit bonus doesn't actually work--they always transmit at the original amount that anyone would have transmitted at. Engineers are even more niche--they seem to have a bonus to the use of drills but I can't figure out what it does. Here is a plan for a richer crew ability and leveling system, offering more distinction to each specific job, and making each higher level a useful upgrade every time: Pilot level 0: +5% torque from reaction wheels; can use SAS systems to stabilize craft Pilot level 1: +10% torque from reaction wheels; can follow prograde and retrograde markers Pilot level 2: +15% torque from reaction wheels; can follow normal/antinormal and radial in/out markers Pilot level 3: +20% torque from reaction wheels; can follow target prograde/retrograde markers as well as maneuver nodes Pilot level 4: +25% torque from reaction wheels Pilot level 5: +30% torque from reaction wheels Scientist level 0: +5% science on transmit; +5% max recovery per experiment; can operate science equipment manually Scientist level 1: +10% science on transmit; +8% max recovery per experiment; can clean out transmitted experiments Scientist level 2: +14% science on transmit; +11% max recovery per experiment; can clean out removed experiments Scientist level 3: +17% science on transmit; +14% max recovery per experiment Scientist level 4: +19% science on transmit; +17% max recovery per experiment Scientist level 5: +20% science on transmit; +20% max recovery per experiment Engineer level 0: -5% drill heat; +5% drill yield per second; can repair broken craft components to 50% effectiveness Engineer level 1: -10% drill heat; +10% drill yield per second; can repair broken craft components to 55% effectiveness; can repack parachutes Engineer level 2: -15% drill heat; +15% drill yield per second; can repair broken craft components to 60% effectiveness; can repair popped tires Engineer level 3: -20% drill heat; +20% drill yield per second; can repair broken craft components to 65% effectiveness; can repair landing legs fully Engineer level 4: -25% drill heat; +25% drill yield per second; can repair broken craft components to 70% effectiveness Engineer level 5: -30% drill heat; +30% drill yield per second; can repair broken craft components to 75% effectiveness Level 0 crewmembers gain some of the primary bonus in case the secondary bonuses are not useful, for instance if a scientist is working with experiments that do not need cleaning, the scientist still grants a bonus to the science obtained from the experiments. Each level of pilot increases the torque you get from a reaction wheel, allowing for easier control of the ship at no additional energy cost. Scientists increase the amount of science obtained from transmitting additively per level, so for instance a level 3 scientist (+17%) transmitting data from a surface sample (base 25% transmit value) will transmit 42% of the base science value for the experiment. The Mobile Processing Lab offers a 25% additive bonus to transmit value which is better than a max-level scientist, however it is very large and cumbersome. If it is crewed by at least one scientist, it gains half of that scientist's bonus as well, so with a level 3 scientist inside, the transmit bonus is 33.5%, and a surface sample would transmit at 58.5% of the base recovery value. If there are two scientists inside the MPL, only the higher bonus of the two is used. Scientists also increase the maximum amount of science that can be obtained from each experiment. This does not increase the amount you transmit at all, and does not increase the amount from your first recovery, but it raises the recovery cap, allowing subsequent recoveries to grant a bit more science. The bonus is applied from the highest level scientist on board the ship when the experiment is performed. EVA reports and surface samples only gain a bonus when performed by a scientist. The scientist's transmit bonus rises quickly with experience and tapers off, while the recovery bonus rises gradually. This should hopefully match the playstyles of those who prefer transmitting or recovering. Engineers can crew a drill to make it run faster while heating more slowly, significantly improving your ore collection rates. They can also repair broken parts of your craft at partial effectiveness. These are any parts of the craft (other than science experiment modules) that initially had a function but got dinged and ceased working although it is still attached to the craft. For instance, if Jebediah was hopping across the top of the craft and he stepped on an OX-STAT panel a bit too hard, it's okay because Bill can go out and fix it. It'll only grant 22.5 electric power per minute (at level 0), but it's better than nothing. This also covers the broken landing legs, although an engineer below level 3 will not be able to make them extend fully. edit: forgot a section All crew gains 50% of their experience on the spot when they perform an activity that grants experience and 25% when they spend 6 hours (resting) within an immobile habitation craft (ie. a station). As long as the Kerbal performs no work for 1 full Kerbin day/night cycle and the craft the Kerbal is in does not change its orbit more than 0.1º (to account for bumping or phantom thrust from SAS rotation, or using RCS to rotate), the Kerbal will "rest" and gain up to 75% total saved experience. You still have to return them home to get full experience. adding an ability for engineers: Engineers (all levels) can operate folding equipment without power by going to the module and folding it by hand. This can save your craft if you run out of power and you had forgotten to extend the solar panels, for instance.

I like the RT-5 a lot, but I would also like a 0.625m SRB a lot. I think I'd like the 0.625m SRB even more than the RT-5, in fact.

I had been waiting for a long time for Squad to finally update the aerodynamics. I was very tired of flying in soup. Now I was a bit worried that whenever they did fix it (IF they ever did) that they might use something overly realistic or otherwise difficult to use, like FAR. I am figuratively blown away with what they did. Sure there are some bugs, but the stock aerodynamics in KSP 1.0 are the best aerodynamics I have ever used in any game. They are fairly realistic and easy to use, and the system just feels like it fits with the simplicity of the rest of the game. I'm all for suggestions on how to iron out some of the kinks, but please don't even start to suggest that there is something wrong with KSP aerodynamics as a whole. If you're struggling to make your space program work with the current aerodynamics, try discussing it with someone. You might be experiencing a bug, or perhaps you need help with your strategies. Maybe you're too used to the old system and old habits are kicking your ass. There's many possibilities. But please try to understand that the new stock aerodynamics are working very well for many of us. =)

Yeah I tried the LV-N way before, but it was so inefficient with the long burn that I found it too difficult to work with. I can't wait for stock In-Situ Resource Utilization but I prefer to mostly play without mods. Sometimes it's a fun challenge, sometimes it's laziness, sometimes it's not wanting to deal with mod bugs, sometimes stock is easier for the computer to handle, and sometimes it's just making sure myself and everyone else are on the same page. I played with Kethane a while back and I'd probably go back to it if it hadn't already been announced that Karbonite will eventually become stock.

I should start a line of spacecraft. I've always preferred highly symmetrical, generic-looking designs. No matter how sophisticated I make a craft, for some reason I don't want it to look sophisticated. I'm good at designing them for ease of use, good structural integrity, few parts, and easy to look at and tell what it can do. I also balance them well, making docking easy. Maybe people would like my designs?

<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="//imgur.com/a/ZWde0/embed"></iframe> http://imgur.com/a/ZWde0#3 How do I get that embed to embed? I got it to work! I read it at 5654 dV, less than 6000 after all but still more than I need! I'll add some landing struts to the final design but I've basically got a working lander! Thanks! The two FL-T800 tanks detach during landing and backup tanks can be reattached at the refueling station. I haven't designed that part yet but I'm confident it'll be easy enough. Also, I maintained my 15 monopropellant the whole trip, so docking will be a cinch!

I'm not going to use it, it's beautiful but too clipped and angled for my tastes. I find it difficult to work with. I learned a valuable lesson from your example, however, and I believe I am on the way to solving my problem! I realize now that the moderate efficiency engines with high TWR are actually MUCH better for this than efficient engines. I can significantly decrease my dry fraction by switching to 48-7S engines, and I should be able to make a lander under twice the size of your Gecko that can carry two goo canisters and two materials bays, which will have at least 6000 dV, along with high TWR and good control. I'll let you know here how it turns out. The way I calculated the dV was with Strout's dV calculator ( http://www.strout.net/info/science/delta-v/ ), I plugged in the hangar listed mass for starting, and subtracted the fuel mass based on the fuel listed in the readout on the launchpad. I checked my numbers a few times, I don't think I messed up on my fuel mass calculation. Maybe I missed something else important. Oh well.

Am I reading this wrong? It seems like your Gecko lander has under 4200 dV. I don't see how it's possible to land it on Tylo and take off again.

A very large fuel section increases efficiency by greatly shrinking the payload fraction, but the dV gain as you increase fuel percentage comes with a diminishing return. You max your single stage dV too low for it to work. The only way I can see conventional engines working is if I can figure out a way to make a reusable two-stage craft--and it'll help a lot if the larger stage has more thrust while the smaller can conserve engine mass. I'm not worried about expenses, but structural integrity is a concern. I just don't see a way to do this.

Not a bad idea, though their TWR is only marginally better than the LV-909 and Isp is the same.

I am planning a very elaborate Jool mission and I've run upon a hitch: I need a lander design that can carry a Kerbal and full science array to the surface of Tylo and back to orbit to dock with an orbiting station where it can refuel and deposit science, then go back down again--until all biomes have been explored. The most important part of the design (other than just straight up being capable) is for it to be reasonably easy to land so I don't have to retry the landing eighteen times to avoid crashing or wasting excess fuel. I am skilled enough to perform either extended burns or suicide burns, efficient trajectory landings from low orbit, apoapsis sailing, and basic flight adjustments on the fly, but I fly by the seat of my pants--no piloting mods, no MechJeb, no Kerbal Engineer. I've gone through several ideas and one by one I've failed to meet my minimum requirements. Here's a summary of my best creations so far: 1.) With LV-N engines, 8000+ dV and with a TWR of over 2 when empty. Problem: it seems to not have enough dV due to the very long burn time required to decelerate. It is also just very time consuming to fly, and can't land very easily until its fuel is too low to take off again. 2.) With a Skipper engine, large fuel section, high TWR and over 5000 dV. Problem: doesn't seem possible to get enough dV, no matter the TWR, with conventional rockets and single stage, not even if it's prohibitively large. 3.) With LV-909s and extra drop-tanks, which can be attached at station and dropped off during landing- gets some 7000 dV. Problem: pretty slow to decelerate, runs even lower on fuel than the LV-N design by the time it reaches the surface. I'm thinking the extra drop tanks is a good idea because it allows the rocket to gain some of the benefit of a two-stage rocket. Perhaps also I could put engines on the drop tanks to improve TWR during the first stage? I can't think of a way to get them on such that the fuel tanks can be docked with and the engines will fire in a balanced manner. Let me know what you guys come up with, or just how impossible you think this is!

KSP 0.9 adds a new feature in which when launching for a specific orbit contract, your chance to accidentally put it backward skyrockets.

Lots of people manage to build planes with the center of mass further forward, but it usually involves putting a lot of empty structural stuff in the back. Hiking it up out of the way of the runway is the easy part. The hard part is that all of the engine weight is focused at the engine nozzles, where in a real plane, the nozzles are the only lightweight part of the engine, and the heavy part runs along the entire length of the plane. That's why real planes can mount wings forward of the back. Also real planes don't take off with red Radio Flyer wagon wheels, and they can spread their gear base apart without slanting the wheels at a strange angle, clipping them inside the fuselage, or mounting them to the wings.

How come there still isn't any explanation in the original post of how to alter the settings for traditional/realistic heating when using FAR/NEAR? Using them on default DRE makes re-entry heating ridiculously high.

Wings will really get a lot less lift as the air thins, and this effect can be noticed as low as 10km if your velocity is too low. If you intend to fly high and fast, you actually want very large wings. This is not realistic but is due to some inaccuracy in the aerodynamics model in-game. As you get into the upper part of your flight, where intakes start having difficulty, you also need extra wing surface and control surface to generate lift or else the atmosphere may start to pitch your ship toward your heading and you won't be able to get the high angle of attack you need to continue raising your altitude. If you have enough air intakes and wing surface (bigger emphasis on intakes) then you will be able to pass above 20km and into the range where the more the atmosphere thins the faster you can go. If you raise your altitude slow enough, you can simply keep increasing your speed as you go up, and your intake air will decrease a lot slower. Also, as drag evaporates into nothingness, you need less and less engine power to keep going. For instance, a plane with 3 jet engines can switch off the outer two when the air thins too far to run them, and keep the center engine running to a significantly higher altitude, and still have enough thrust to increase your velocity. You'll want a TWR greater than 2:1 for passing above 20km but around 25-30km when even multiple intakes begin to suffer, you can lower your TWR even below 1:1 and likely still have your velocity increasing. A big part of this is that you are already going a significant chunk of orbital velocity. Once down to a single engine, you don't have to worry about your craft spinning out of control when the engine starts to sputter from low oxygen. If it goes out, just throttle down until it turns on again, and nose down a bit to level out your trajectory until you reach a higher velocity. As you burn fuel, your craft will get lighter and you will be able to go even higher and faster with some patience. Using this method with a somewhat reasonable number of air intakes I was able to take my craft higher than orbital velocity at around 28km altitude. It gave me an apoapsis greater than the diameter of Kerbin, and had I known about air-canning, I could have made an orbit with no rocket engines. That's when you close intakes at an altitude and velocity in which you were still able to run engines, and it holds a tiny chunk of air inside them. Then at apoapsis you throttle up your engines and point prograde, then open the intakes. The engines burn for an instant, and increase your velocity just a tad.

You can't see out of that big window because the Kerbal sits too far away from it in IVA! I'd prefer if the Cupola had the window section protruding a lot further, and the seat pushed up into the window section so that the pilot actually gets significantly MORE than a 180º view, instead of the current design in which the pilot gets a lot LESS than 180º. Also IVAs in cockpits are just generally bad because the seats aren't high enough and the poor pilots can't see directly forward, let alone any of the ground. Last time I checked, cockpit windows aren't just for looking at clouds.

Actually 100 times poorer makes a lot more sense. No, really. Consider this: You give up 40% of the payout for that (300,000) and get about 100 science in return. Is that not plenty for your money? Now consider giving up that science for cash. You sell 100 science and you'd get around 100,000. Is that enough? Would you accept less?

I still remember an old paper airplane design game on the Apple IIe greenscreen, running off a 5¼" Floppy Diskette (a FLOPPY floppy) which had a wind tunnel for testing your aircraft designs. How come this much more advanced game does not have one? Supported.