Psycix

I say: welding!

Huge things wobble and lack structural stiffness. This gets worse with larger objects, especially the big KW tanks. Just recently, ferram released a mod that should mitigate this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55657-0-22-Kerbal-Joint-Reinforcement-v1-0-Properly-Rigid-Part-Connections Perhaps you could post a couple of screenshots of your rocket designs, and explain how and when they fail?

What if Kethane would no longer produce oxidizer, but oxidizer would come from another resource? (Naming ideas: Klorine, Kluorine, Klitro, Klitrous) This resource would be available in separate deposits that may partially overlap Kethane deposits (though it would be most interesting if we were forced to do pipelines or tankers) A cryogenic compressor unit could produce oxidizer on planets with atmospheric oxygen. The scanning and drilling hardware may overlap and work for both resources, but it would be most interesting if specialized equipment was also available. It would add an extra level of depth to the game as well as complexity, but for most experienced KSP players the logistics of combining products from two different drilling sites would simply be a lot of fun. Personally, I think Kethane as it is is way too easy. Find a green hex, plonk that ship down and suck up the fuel until you're filled up and ready to go. Kethane takes almost no effort while it gives free fuel on every body. I think that the advantages of in situ fuel generation are worth working for and it should be harder to achieve.

Personally I think RCS is pretty redundant in most situations: -Rotation, small ships: The pod provides enough reaction wheels. Otherwise, add one. -Rotation, large ships: Patience, even a small pod can rotate a jumbotank if you give it the time it needs. You will need to think ahead though, make maneuvers far ahead and hold that button for a minute on physical timewarp. If you are the kind of person that realises he has to flip his bunch of jumbo's 180 degrees in 20 seconds, this will not work for you. If it gets too big and slow, add one or a few big reaction wheels, they are very powerful. Again, just be patient and rotate carefully, you should not expect a big ship to rotate as fast and agile as small ones. Also make use of the thrust vectoring. Finish a maneuver node with a spin towards your next one or use a small low throttle burn to create angular movement. Turn off SAS and let it spin. Another trick is to asymmetrically disable some engines. -'Extra' delta-V: You mean that delta-V you lost in the first place by adding mass? Remove it or replace the RCS tanks by fuel tanks and you'll go a lot further. -Fine tuning trajectory: This is indeed useful, but I do not think this is a must. If your TWR is low enough (disable engines?) you can fine tune interplanetary encounters just fine. Docking: -Translation, small ships: Thinking ahead and quickly rotating + doing small burns with the main engine can make RCS redundant. -Translation, medium ships: This is THE perfect situation to use RCS. -Translation, gigantic ships: Tons of RCS can be used, but I prefer swapping it out for control-grouped bipropellant engines facing forward and/or sideways.

I vouch for a titan-like moon to be added to KSP. Including the Kraken mare which will contain actual live space kraken. They eat struts for breakfast.

It always takes just as much (and due to efficiency losses) more energy to reverse a (energy-yielding) reaction than you get out of it. Any process that goes back to the same components it starts off with will not produce excess energy.

Allright, good luck with it, we're all eager to see what this will turn into!

A simple way to do this: Extract water from rocks or atmosphere. Greenhouses. Done. Another interesting thing you might want to look at is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction It allows us to create methane (rocket fuel) on Mars and other CO2 containing bodies. (And we usually need a whole lot more rocket fuel + oxidiser than we need oxygen for breathing.) Otherwise, the CH4 can be pyrolysed, where the H2 is fed back into the reactor and the C is deposited as graphite. This creates a full CO2 to O2 cycle.

The 1.25m parts are not really "space station sized" except for walkways and the like. Why not go straight for hitchhiker-scale workshops? A minor note: Is it me or does this look like they have a gravity generator? In the ISS, all tools and objects are secured with velcro or straps and there is no difference between floor, walls and ceiling.

The problem: The IVA windows give a small field of view, even the largest ones (cupola, landercans) are barely useful. Consequences of this problem: IVA is not very user-friendly and is not encouraging to use. Despite IVA being an immersive gameplay experience, not many people use it simply because you can't see a damn. Solution: The camera needs to move closer to the window. Think of it as the kerbal leaning forward. Zooming in is essentially reducing FOV and will not give you a larger angle of view. Of course we still want to be able to get the full overview of the cockpit like we are used to. The lean-forward action could be streamlined into the zoom function, where zooming into the window first causes you to move forward before changing FOV. Some other options would be binding "lean-forward" to a key or performing it by clicking on the window, developer may decide what the best way of implementing this is. The landercans and cupola windows could even give up to or beyond 180 degrees view if the camera was able to move up far enough. This could allow for some absolutely stunning panorama views.

Since it is ringed, I really hope it has a hexagon on the north pole. Although a tilted-axis like uranus would also be a lot of fun.

Is this a problem, or is this simply a lot of fun? And it is not that far off, in real life, walking over a long body would also feel like a rising slope as you get further away from the center.

Hoping for that as well. If the tradition holds, we may have the entire milkyway in KSP by the end of this universe.

I always build towards a TWR of 2 (>2 for a majority of the stage burn), and then throttle back for terminal velocity. Asparagus is great for maintaining a constant TWR. Depending on the design, my upper stage can be even more powerful, just to get that thing into orbit as fast as possible after clearing the atmosphere. Although I might lose out on engine weight, I go for minimising gravity and atmospheric losses.

Thanks, that mod's functionality is exactly what I was looking for! I change the suggestion to: "Make this available as an option in stock."

I'd like to be able to see all 6 direction indicators on the navball. So that means all of these: Which comes down to adding normal/antinormal and radial in/out. I also suggest a retrograde maneuver node marker. Of course new players should not be overloaded with all this information, so this would be called "expert mode" and enabled through options.

Am I the only one who experiences this stutter every few seconds? It doesn't always happen, but most of my launches sound like this: BRGGGGGG ... BRGGGGGG ... BRGGGGGG ... BRGGGGGG The music does it too. It is horrid to listen to.

Now the best thing would be if we could use this map to make maneuver nodes, which will help with making very accurate landings.

I would like to suggest smaller kethane deposits (in hexes, not kethane volume) or even "scatter mode" where the bodies are covered in a lot of single-hex deposits. Because: 1 - Requires a precision landing instead of "cramming her down in an area the size of Russia" 2 - More distributed: More choice in drilling location rather than choosing between three large blots on the equator. 3 - More distributed: With single hexes all over the place you are guaranteed to have at least a few drilling locations on a continent or area. No more regenning until laythe finally has a deposit on land. 4 - Having a kethane hex close to an ore hex will be likely. We could do pipelines or cargo routes, fun fun.

I am not wrong, allow me to enlighten you with the following data: Source post. Thanks to yongedevil for performing the test. As you can see, the eventual science points obtained are almost the same. Transmission-only is equally as effective (and much more practical) rendering sample return useless.

I made a thread about this a few days ago. While the developers promised: "A picture of a rock is much less meaningful than returning an actual rock." The system actually works like: "Sending the same picture of the same rock a dozen times is worth more than returning the rock."

I never thought about that! Thanks for the info, it all makes sense.

I think the easiest way is to simply launch a rocket straight up to a 50km apo. At about 40km up when the craft is slowing down and about to fall back, hop in and out and spam some reports.

The power consumption drawbacks are simply too big for the minor transmission bonuses. Perhaps an antenna's data rate should diminish at long ranges, making the dish a much better option there.

Yes, it only goes for prograde and retrograde burns. (You seem to have missed my previous post by 5 minutes) However, doing a inclination burn ALSO raises your apoapsis, and the oberth effect DOES apply for this. It's just not what you usually want to do when doing a normal/antinormal burn.