SebLavK

After seeing a few videos from the media group, I have no doubt that the Advanced Grabbing Unit, that claw/clamp that comes inside a 1.25m part, is by far the best feature of the new patch. Sure, the 3.75m parts and engines, the bigger SRBs, improved conics and persistent maneuver nodes with orbit selection sound great. But they are merely the product of logical progression in the development of the game. Necessary parts being added and features being polished. Now, I haven't mentioned the asteroids until now for a couple of reasons. Of course they are the main reason for the patch, and they seem to have been very well implemented so far. However, the way they work so far (remember, no n-body physics) require some workaround to be able to interact with them, besides crashing into them, that is, and hopefully future science parts to study them. And the solution for that has been the Claw. So the idea is to rendezvous a ship/probe with an asteroid and attach yourself to it with the claw. It allows some gimballing, so you can point your thrust across its CoM and not spin around like crazy. From then on, it's just a part of you ship, and you can alter it's collision course with Kerbin, put it in orbit and build a station on it, throw it into the sun, make it escape the system or fling it towards Bob. But you can also grab any other thing with the claw, including kerbals! ( ) So I guess the first thing that comes to mind is to use it in a rescue vessel, but I've thought of a couple of other things.-A space tug, for easier orbit assembly (less docking logistics) -Clean up duty (aka debris rescue) -Stations with moving parts, or permanently gimballed engines. (Don't know what you would use the latter for, but it's a possibility) -Some sort of launch clamp for use in other bodies -Tow rovers and rover trains. Also, parking brake for steep hills, but I don't know if the clamp will attach to the ground. -More stable skycrane landings Some people have said that being able to grab anything will replace docking ports. I can't see how, docking ports are still very useful to keep your different modules positioned the way you designed them, and maybe in a future only docking ports will alow IVA crew transfers. So what would you use the claw for? To be honest, I have had my copy of KSP a bit neglected lately, but it's always very exciting to wonder about and imagine using the new additions to the game.

Personally, I was thinking of a couple: *Be able to open the shielded docking port and stack things on it like all the other docking ports. *Be able to switch tanks between all liquid fuel, all oxidizer or both. On "both", the fuel amount sliders would work just like they do now. *Toggle torque on every part (including pods) that provide that function

Lurking around the suggestions forum, I've seen quite a lot of threads wishing for a single change in tweakables. I was thinking on posting a couple myself, but then I thought, why not decide as a colective what we do and don't want from tweakables? Then make a suggestion with the ideas that we like the most to make it easier for us and devs to see. Maybe those changes could be implemented in a .23.1?

It is solved with fairings, in some cases. However, in an Apollo style rocket, for example, where you have the command pod at the top, and the service module right underneath, there's no need/way to put a fairing, and you need to add panels to it. Maybe I didn't express myself in a clear way. Think of how the ladders are fitted inside the vessel before they deploy, making just a little bulge on the outside.

I think a release date is OK, as long as it's made the way the announced 0.23, meaning just a few days before. That way is not much of a deadline for the devs to meet but enough spare time to ready the servers and have the media group post their impressions. It also looked like they wanted to wait for KerbalKon to show the new features first hand insterad of having the media group do it

A couple of days ago I posted this in another thread, but because it wasn't much in the line of what was suggested, I decided to make a new thread. I guess one of the future updates will include a major overhaul of parts, mainly aerodynamic, even if it is purely aesthetic, so I would like to suggest this before it's too late. Many people complain of having "christmas tree" styled rockets, with lots of parts sticking out. This is fine by me with crafts launched in a fairing, but not the moment I have, say, a light sticking out, messing with the "airflow" around my rocket or spaceplane. What I suggest are parts that, in their undeployed state, are inside the rocket (i.e. the fuel tank they're attached to), to give it a sleeker view. We already have examples of this in the deployable ladders and the new 88-88 dish. This would not necessarily add new parts. It's very simple, really. The shielded solar panels, some lights, some landing legs or the linear RCS ports could stick to have more of them on the inside.

Personally, I'd prefer shielded solar panels to work much like the deployable ladders or the new 88-88 dish, which are actually inside the part they're attached to. This would not necessarily add new parts, and could work with other things, like lights, landing legs or linear RCS ports (to be more like "holes" in the structure)...

Instead of messing around with the maneuvering keys you could use for fine tuning your orbits and helping with your burns (i.e. translating forwards/backwards). This way will not only help you maximize your available dV but also decrease the amount required in the first place.

HarvesteR explained how KSP "moves" the universe around the craft when you're in orbit (I'll post the video if I can find it). My guess is, like chefsbrian said, that the engine can't keep up with the speed. My question is, does it stay like that until you hit the ground or does it render properly at some point?

I can't see why you can't use more than one at the same tame (provided you don't have memory issues)

Glad to see they finally were able to launch

With the way the Mun orbits Kerbin, you'd just have to time accelerate until the Mun is between you and the Sun. Slightly a bit more time as a munar orbit, each time is a guaranteeed eclipse. With Minmus it's a bit more difficult since the ascending and descending nodes have to be in line with Kerbin and the Sun, and with Minmus in the middle at one of the nodes. Optimally, this would happen twice every Kerbin year, but I would have to check the orbital periods to say for sure.

You're right. I've always thought the name came from the body that occulted the other. From Wikipedia I wonder if a true Munar eclipse is rendered with the game engine

Yes, I was just thinking about doing that, but posted anyway

So I was testing a "bed" to deliver my science rover to the Mün in career mode when I noticed the solar panels weren't generating any power. At first I thought it was a bug, but after right-clicking on the panels I noticed the message "blocked by the Mün", and sure enough, there was the eclipse. I've been playing KSP since version 0.18 and it's the first time I notice this. It makes sense, of course, as when in orbit this happens very often, but it was a nice surprise to see it happen at the Space Center. EDIT:Thanks to Xetalim for pointing out the difference between Solar and Munar eclipses

Yes, I get your vision. Maybe a few parts added to the science tab that read temperature, altitude, light intensity... And then use those parts to trigger actions. I want to make this, but I should learn how to write addons for the game.

Actually, I think it is. When thinking about making the plugin myself I thought of making a GUI. With that kind of "design" you would need to put a couple of inputs for the action to occur (e.g.: the thermometer reading X, or the altitude reading Y -> decouple a bomb) I was thinking of doing it with action groups. Open up the GUI, write an altitude and link it to the AG you want. Or linking a part, like a Gigantor solar panel to deploy itself only if one of the small panels catches some light. Maybe a skycrane to decouple when your rover touches the surface or your spaceplane to switch engines at an altitude. Are these really so different from what you had in mind?

With 150 m/s at 5000m with full thrust, it seems like you have too little TWR (though you can manage to make very efficient lifters that achieve the optimal speed for your altitude with little throttle correction, eg. an orange tank with an LV-45 at the center and four Aerospikes with a 5t payload) See this for a table with terminal velocities at Kerbin atmosphere Usually, if after making my gracity turn at around 10,000m my velocity doesn't increase quickly I know something's wrong with my rocket. Also, if you're familiar with the rocket equation, and you think your payload is too big, you could always try to split it in different parts and assemble everything in orbit. That's always a nice challenge. But basically, we need to know what everybody's been asking so far; -What staging are you using? -What is your payload? -How are you flying the rocket, when do you do your gravity turn? -Could you produce a screenshot or a .craft file? And if in doubt, MOAR struts, MOAR fuel and MOAR SRBs never hurt.

I was thinking about making an addon for this same idea. Automated action groups Although, my interest was more focused on simplifying things when using a rocket by "programming" behaviours before taking off, so you don't have to grow a third hand trying to reach a key during critical maneuvers. Is anybody interested enough to make this? Maybe with between various people? Using a part didn't cross my mind, but I don't fully understand how addons are implemented in the game. EDIT: The URL was wrong

Why hasn't anyone posted anything yet? I'll see if I can work on this... Can I use other purely aesthetic (fairings, lights...) mods?

My childhood! These were a series of games for Win 98, weren't they? I remember the main screen, but barely anything else.