Kerbart

Mainly this. I started out in Docking Mode, mainly because it seemed easier (just ASWD to worry about). When I got a bit more comfortable with docking, and after many unwanted stagings (when I was not in Docking Mode when I thought I was), I took the leap to stop using it. Yes, it will take a little while to get used to using IJKL for translation, but it's worth it: It makes it easier to switch rover steering over to IJKL (not interfering with SAS modules) which is a Good Thing No more unintended staging! You can adjust direction and position at the same time while docking, without having to switch back and forth between the various modes (and encounter the ever so nasty rotating-while-intending-to-translate event, or vice versa) Looking back I actually wonder why Docking Mode was created. It's not really making things easier (like putting up cross hairs, or switching to a different kind of navball) and it introduces the chance of making some very unfortunate (LOLZ Kerbal?) mistakes. That's hindsight. But coming from somebody who, at one point, swore by docking mode.

Especially combined with that mod where you get failures. Do you pick a brand new engine for a mission? Or one that went through 5 re-entries (*cough* *splutter*)?

That, obviously, is a 1.1 bug that I'm sure is being worked on, as the flight computer in 1.0.5 is very reliable. Setting SAS to hold the steering is problematic in career mode as the unmanned pods that offer normal/anti-normal (pretty essential for getting your orbits as precise as possible) are only available very late in the tech tree.

Given that in real life most big ships are propelled by low RPM two stroke engines (line, not v, though), that's only fitting. Amazing job!

While technically new in stock, those parts were already available in the official Squad Asteroid day mod. You can download it right now if you desperately want them!

Actually there aren't. Landing gear (wheels not legs) have been revised and extended with one new in-between size. And the inline Mk 2 cockpit was overhauled. And that... is pretty much it, I think. Can't recall any other new parts. Oh, and unity 5 did something to the way the lighting of the parts in the catalog works, so they all look very dull and unatractive now (not in-game, but in the VAB/SPH part catalog)

Oh, you mean the in space part. Yes. Definitely. I thought the discussion was initially about the size of the structure in the first place. Heck, size-wise even the Liberator from Blake's 7 is out of reach right now.

Which puts it in the "not out of reach" category. Especially since aircraft carriers are large but by far not the largest ships sailing the oceans.

That's why there's a black hole left after a supernova! It all makes sense now!

Can't you just cannibilize the 8GB machine and plant its memory in the 3GB machine? (IT'S A JOKE!)

One can argue not as quick and efficient as a CTD!

Well if you time it right you could use the moonlight to guide you.

In The Olden Days (when we walked barefoot to school, uphill, in the snow, and liked it!) this was achieved by using LOD or "Levels of Detail." In Microsoft Flight Simulator it was not uncommon for an airplane model to have 6 to 12 different LOD models. There would be a close-up model in all its full glory, and depending on the distance a simpler and simpler model would be loaded; the lowest LOD models were usually not more than a rectangular shape with rectangular wing and tail surfaces as it would be rendered from a distance where even that was barely visible. You could to the same in KSP. The surface of any planet or moon can be rendered using a 256×256 texture so you're using 192 KB (no DDS tricks needed) for each of them. Since they're not shown larger than a stamp you wouldn't notice the lack of detail. Only the texture of the planet or moon in whose SOI you are (to be loaded upon SOI change) is loaded at 4K resolution. Map view complicates things slightly, and I'm not saying that Squad should be doing things like that; far from that. I'm only pointing out that there are various techniques to get around "everything has to be loaded all the time." From what I understand the decision to load everything at once had more to do with Unity not cooperating with smart texture loading, than anything else.

I fully agree with you that, given the bug tracker, this version is many weeks away from publishing. Squad, however, is beating a different drum: I'm not sure how else to interpret this than "release is planned for coming Monday" although by now they might or might not have pushed that away for another week. But even without a set release date, their intention is obviously Very™ Soon™.

“When you enter moon orbit we also want you to read off the temperature of this thermometer, and study the goo in this container,” said project leader Yevgeni Kermanovitch with a big smile.

What would define a flight scene? Vessel ID + location? What if you switched vessels multiple times and now your quicksave was from two hours ago but in the same "flight scene?" A simpler solution would be, given the nature of quicksave, to warn if your quicksave is older than, say, ten minutes. Are you sure you want to go back to this quicksave? It is 2 hours and 13 minutes old! And then there's the $1,000,000 question... what if your quicksave is not the one you want? Then what? There's a reason you pressed F9 after all...

Reasons work for me! Proof once again that something that might seem simple on the surface can add a lot of complications. I'm all for keeping BBT as simple as can be; that guarantees that it does well what it does without gradually evolving into The Kraken.

Saved by the pirates! I guessed it correctly (although not quite in this fashion). Yay!

Yeah, but in day time! Not at night, when it's a lot easier!

Cities can be procedurally generated. That doesn't have to mean it's taking up CPU capacity, as you could use the generator to create "city data" to be used in the game. Of course it neither means there is no work but it shouldn't be a massive amount of work either. Having a dozen cities spread over Kerbin, each with an airport and runway, would be a tremendous addition of content to the game, well worth the effort. It can add a lot of purpose (especially when you don't have to fly back to the other side of the world after fulfilling an atmospheric research contract), by having all kinds of destinations. I can already see contracts to fly first to city X to pick up some cargo and then deliver it at city Y.

With the engines a good distance away from the surface of the asteroid, unless you want to blow it up (been there, done that).

How dare you not to take this into consideration in your calculations, you worthless scum! I demand that you fix this right now! Hahaha, now that we have that thankless reaction out of the way... KER reports the slope underneath the vessel, which makes me suspect that it's exposed through some interface somewhere (I'm truly clueless on mod programming). Now, assuming the slope is easy to read out, you could mitigate this problem by adding "APPROX" next to the burn time if the slope is greater than, say, 5°? That would be a lightweight "fix" that is easy to implement (“nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself,” as my father used to say) while at the same time reducing the chances that users get caught by a surprise like this. Of course all this can be ignored if the slope is not easy to read out. Playing stock 1.1 reminded me how how high your mod has climbed on my list of “essential mods,” by the way. Thank you for that.

That is actually a very good solution. “Plant Flag” is one of those contracts that are great money makers but at the same time feel a bit cheaty at times. Dump a hitch-hiker on the surface (anything smaller would be cruel), put two Kerbals in them (again, just a single one is mean, they'll get lonely) and whenever a flag contract comes up, one of them gets up from watching "CSI: Outer Space", gets out through the Mk 1 Lander Can airlock (I take my Kerbal Komfort seriously!), plants a flag and returns. Profit! It's a great way to get some good Kerbucks on the side, but at the same time it feels a bit shenaniganny. Now imagine that plant flag missions require taking representative from the contract sponsor to the site to plant a flag; it makes the mission more involved. The contract could even involve multiple steps: Tourist A plants the flag Tourist B takes a picture of tourist A next to the flag Tourist A takes a picture of tourist B next to the flag Perhaps even a tourist C could need to have its picture taken Tourists on EVA would have a function "take picture" (which generates funds per biome on safe return) aside from "take souvenir" and "plant flag". The conditions to fulfill the contract would be to be within 25m of the flag and within 25m of the target tourist (or something along those lines). Since these contracts are a lot more involved they should pay out significantly more than the current flag contracts (which could for that reason maybe still exist)

@Snark, that was very insightful. I'm “handicapped” with an engineering degree, so seeing struts as a superior solution to “make the joints stronger” is a no-brainer for me. However, your post makes me (finally!) realize why so many people insist that the game “is broken” and that KJR “should be stock.” If you’ve spent many hours on the drawing board drawing out calculations on girder constructions (yes, I’m that old school, hahaha) then reinforcing a rocket with two or three pairs of struts in order to make it as stiff as a door nail is easy and intuitive. But at the same time one can place dozens of bad-placed struts and still end up with a wet noodle at launch, if you have no good idea of what it is that struts are actually doing.

@NavyFish, thank you for spending your time on updating your awesome mod to 1.1!