Awass

Seems to me that atomic motors are not the best thing for last stage voyages through space. Despite having an 800 isp and 60 thrust, the weigh 2.25, as much as small diameter half fuel tank. In comparison, the LV-909 weighs .5 and has 50 thrust. I just performed a test with a small parachute on top of a small capsule on top of a small half fuel tank powered by an LV-909. After a vertical decoupler, the lower stage was a small diameter quarter tank on top of a full tank on top of an LVT-45. I launched completely vertically and made it to 1,275,000 meters. (The second stage ignited at 11k feet, almost in a vacuum, so the isp was already quite near optimal.) I performed the same test, except I swapped out the LV-909 for an atomic motor. It made it 525,000 meters. Conclusion: Although the atomic motor is just over twice as efficient as the LV-909, it's thrust-weight ratio is worse due to its much larger mass. Therefore, it is actually more efficient to use an LV-909. If you have enough fuel, the atomic motor's efficiency may eventually outweigh its thrust disadvantage, but at that point, you'd probably be better off using a more powerful LVT-45, so your burns don't take forever. Maybe I'm insane, but this makes sense to me. Thoughts, feedback, and your own testing results would be much appreciated.

I have pretty ridiculous names for my ships. I use asparagus staging for most of my rockets, so usually the word "Asparagus" finds its way into the name. My Moon rocket was named "Asparagus Super Heavy Munshot SRB". I called another rocket "Apsaragus-Pentaengine 1", and "Asparagus-Septaengine 1" is on the way.

Good point. I think that just about clears it up.

I would love to have in a career mode little clips of news coverage of your launches, like actual footage of your launches, successes, and awesome explosions. It could even be a little grainy to give it that nice space race era feel.

I read that even the the whole KSP Solar System could fit within the orbit of Venus. I'm just wondering why the devs chose to scale the solar system down from the real one. Is there a practical reason for it, and are they planning to bring everything up to scale later?

Thanks for all the replies, everyone. You have more than answered my question.

As I'm sure you are all aware, nosecones increase drag. Maybe this has been discussed to death before, but I just want to know if their are plans for changing the aerodynamics model or something to fix this in the immediate future.

Besides the obvious threat of explosion, if an engine is in the overheating zone does it produce less thrust? Are there any adverse effects?

and thank you

One more thing. How do I change the thread to "Answered"?

Thanks, guys.

Assuming spacecraft are docked correctly and everything is crossfeed capable.

This has been said throughout the thread; however, if you look at the OP, I never blamed anyone for anything. It was simply a warning. Although I think some little arrows (they're on some of the decouplers too, and they look fine) and maybe a note in the part description, I just want people to be aware that this problem is out there.

What is the fault lay in my ignorance rather than carelessness? It didn't occur to me that putting it on backwards was even a thing. Here's a great clip from one of my favorite series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0W9bQ2Jg3A Go to 3:35. "A failure of imagination"

I agree that the fun of KSP is learning through trial and error. However, failing only because you put a part on wrong is and learning of it when your space station is already in orbit is much too much frustration for such a small lesson. It's a trivial matter. When testing shows your concept was wrong, you change it, and that's fun. When your concept is sound, and you actually put into practice only to be stopped by a single part you had planned to have on correctly but didn't only because you didn't know it was backwards, which a simple little arrow and a note in the description could have prevented? That's another thing all together as well as horribly structured sentence.

How about some little red arrows and a note in the description that the arrows point toward the docking side? The real non-issue here is how the aesthetics would work.

Yeah. I mean it really is a non-issue like the say, but not because it's not a problem, but just because it's such an easy fix. Why not? Is there anyone who would actually be opposed to making a little change like this? However minor a problem it may be (although this one was pretty annoying), you may as well fix it. Karolus10: Multiple posting, rest of post has been removed and merged bellow - please using "Edit Post option", thank You. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - EDIT_1: Well when you're using them for the first time and you're putting it between 2 parts and you're in a side view, it's easy to overlook. EDIT_2: What if you're using a Sr. Docking port for the first time, and you're viewing it from the side, and it doesn't even occur to you that it might be backwards? That happened to me. I didn't check the part, not out of laziness, but out of ignorance.

Well sure, but it's really annoying when you make the mistake the first time, even if it is also the last. And you can put it in between 2 parts. For example, if you have it attached to one part above it and a decoupler below it.

I had some junior docking clamps too, but still, I can't really do anything with one side of my space station now. I learned the hard way.

Bottom line is: I sent up a space station core with a Clampotron Sr. Docking Port on the bottom, however, I neglected to rotate it 180 degrees so that the docking side pointed out. This is a very easy mistake yo make because unlike it's junior counterpart, it is just a disk with no obvious indication of which side is the docking side. Unfortunately, I did not realize this until I tried to dock with it (using another backwards Sr. Docking port). So everyone, make sure your Sr. Docking ports are aligned correctly. Don't make the same mistakes I made This has been a public service announcements on the correct usage of Clampotron Sr. Docking ports. Hope it helps.

No. I just didn't know you could cycle through the displays. I was just looking at the default surface speed display.

Thank you. Hopefully I won't have to terminate the mission and kill my crew now.

I'm trying to dock with another ship, and I have the ship set as my target, but it won't give me my speed relative to the target. I'm finding it really hard to zero my speed for docking. Anyone have any tips or tricks?