Kerbart

In a scenario like this we shouldn't be discussing if the glass is half full or half empty. Obviously, the glass needs to be filled all the way up.

Wait... that mod is stock now? AWESOME!!

Using that logic there would be no reason to release a million additional spaceplane parts with each release.

1.0 happened. Where Squad seemingly said “We don't want something great, we just want something delivered and be done with it.†Now, appearances may deceive. Maybe 1.0 was really bug free and 1.0.1, 1.0.2, 1.0.3 and 1.0.4 were planned all along. And maybe we are wrong in assuming that a software company whose track record is mediocre smartphone game can indeed port a complex and hardware intensive game as KSP over to wide range of consoles with ever decreasing hardware specs. And yes it is assuming that Squad doesn't care about the long-term effects on the KSP “brand†because they're not planning anything longterm and are milking the cow right now for all it's worth. So none of that may be true. Squad is genuinely trying to make major improvements on the game, and is right on top of Flying Tiger Entertainment (who is using a shock-and-awe approach to leave their mark on the world) to ensure it's going to be a smash hit on all consoles. Maybe. But it doesn't have that perception. And Squad spawned off from a marketing company. And in marketing, perception is reality.

Nothing stops a rocket from being on the launchpad, with a technician ((who could either be a pilot, engineer or scientist doing a pre-flight check) in it, hitting the wrong button... One big KABOOM later the crew part, with the technician in it, get's slung into orbit. The weak part of the story is that, because of playing KSP, we know that you can't blast something into orbit. You'll need a burn to complete the orbit (which also happens to be nearly perfectly circular with a 0° inclination...). But it's still the story I'm sticking to...

According to Wikipedia, Manhattan is about 59.1 km2. “Nearly 1,000 feet†translates to about 0.3 km. That gives a volume of 17.3 km3 unless I'm off, and that matches the article. I assume ESA doesn't make mistakes in measuring the area of the chunk that fell off.

I was actually shocked to see that this is not on the “What not to suggest†list. I fully agree with you, and with the newest release the magnitude of this omission is getting bigger and bigger. Before aerodynamics one could argue that while it's optically offensive there's no real penalty in having booms and crew quarters sticking out when launching. But that has changed since 1.0 Of course you could attach those parts later on with docking, but that's incredibly expensive in career mode, not to mention the time required to do so, and the resulting noodlification of your ship as a result. IR pretty much shows the way to go but at the same time is probably the reason Squad is weary implementing it. It's not just hinges; you'll need rotator plates and sliding rails as well (“why do we have only hinges when we obviously need slider rails too?â€Â). And some way to apply struts (á la quantum struts) after rotation/translation takes place. That makes it a fairly involved project. But now that there's renewed focus on the parts collection (given all the goodies to be released with 1.1) I hope this will become something Squad is going to look into.

As mentioned before, something that you can time-warp through in mere minutes but introduces an extra amount of data to maintain inside the program has been replaced with something simpler. Yes, it's unrealistic but it's also more stable, and in the end not that big of a difference I think. You *do* need a polar orbit for it. Luckily, your call for more realism has been heard though, and now you cannot open parachutes at high speeds. You win some, you lose some. You lost some with the scanner, but you win some with the parachutes, no? More often than not the time frame to open the chutes is about a minute. You just have to make sure you're landing at places with lower elevation or you'll be in trouble (another win for realism--it matters where you land)

The logic of putting an equinox or solstice in the middle of a season has merit, but (and I hope this doesn't cause the wrath of the moderators, but if it does, I'm sorry) the downside of that is that the beginning/end of each season is a lot harder to measure. In ancient times (again mods, sorry if this is considered rude or polarizing) the only only calendar was the position of the sun and the moon and druids, priests (this might be considered politically incorrect, my apologies) and other wise people would declare the time for harvest, planting, etc based on events that were easy to measure: equinoxes and soltices. Hence, seasons tend to start/finish with those, instead of having them as midpoint, as much sense it makes.

It's "Terminate and Stay Resident"â€â€this may seem nitpicking but the whole point of TSR's was, after program execution was finished, unlike normal DOS programs that would be unloaded, that they'd stay in memory instead.

Impressivily done, with stock parts. I cannot imagine somebody would *not* be able to recognize this as a B17 (the F model, it seems), unless they don't know anything about airplanes.

Conveniently leaving out the paragraph that shows exactly that I know what I'm talking about: .

Evolution pushes species to as "as far as they need to go, but not further" We're not born with the physique of Mr. Universe because the amount of energy required for that would most certainly wipe out the species when food resources are low. More precisely: those genetic branches that did produce overly strong bodies died out when food resources were low. As a result, Homo Sapiens ended up with a body that was fit for (minimal) survival provided the brains worked. Take the brains out* and it's unlikely the species would survive as there was no need for mother nature to let us survive on expensive muscles and agility alone. *not literally, you dummy!

Scientists also managed to fuse Hydrogen, and have superconduction at near room-temperatures. Not to mention quantum computing! Even if they created a wormhole, which, given previous replies, seems not to be the case, there's a huge difference between a hysterical announcement in the press and mastering the technology in such a way that it becomes applicable to everyday life.

the XF designation really doesn't do the P-82 Twin Mustang justice. It was far from an experimental plane, and designed as a long-range fighter (with twin crew that could take turns flying). It was used in regular service and the first to shoot down enemy planes in the Korean war.

Yes. Of course. One of the greatest aerodynamic theorists of the 20th century, and a cofounder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, just completely made up numbers to come to a value generally accepted by scientists and the aeronautical industry. It makes totally sense. Mind you, nobody is daft enough to think that 99.9km is "atmosphere" and 100.1km is "space." However for many purposes -- legislation, jurisdiction, etc, there needs to be a well defined boundary, and we tend to prefer boundaries that have some reasonable assumptions behind them. Von Kármán based his calculations on an "average wing load," whatever that might have been at the time he came up with the definition, and it stuck.

Just click on the alarm and you can change the alarm settings, including how much lead time the alarm should have.

“All†the bugs is a rather vague description and leaves a lot open to be desired. And what is a bug, and what is a feature? Is the landing gear toggle (you have to press "G" twice the first time) a bug, or just a consequence from a programming decision? Should any update be held off until this agonizing, game-breaking feature has been fixed? No matter what, when you're going to look at the list of existing bugs you will invariably run into an army of seemingly insignificant, esoteric bugs of the <i>this only happens on a NVIDIA Monster XYZ card and when you have a 287 coprocessor board plugged in, running on a unpatched Windows For Workgroup 32 configuration</i> type. And there are probably <i>hundreds</i> of those. All development should be halted until those are fixed? Oooh, not those? Where to draw the line? I agree that there was a window where the new aero model could been introduced (0.91), and we could have seen subsequent fixes (0.92, .93, .94...) until everyone was happy (and not make a fuss about rapidly following iterations because, hey, we're in beta). But that window's closed. Each version will get better and the world we live in is ugly and things don't work the way we want it to work. Just look at it that way: it makes KSP more realistic in that aspect.

Not if you run the numbers. Out of the roughly 10,000 m/s required to get into LEO, about 500 m/s is apparently needed to overcome atmospheric drag. The vast majority is required to simply get to the speed required for orbit. So instead of 10,000 you'll need 9,500 -- as pointed out before, due to the rocket equation your fuel savings will be more than that 5% but not that much more. Which makes most of us here wonder how they manage to come up with "30% fuel savings" -- not to mention the fact that fuel is the least of your cost for a launch.

Given the costs involved in getting the ISS in orbit, it would be incredibly stupid to lose it over things like “the crew doing stupid stuff due to boredom.†There are a couple of things that reduce the chances of that: Crew selectionâ€â€it's not like you interview somebody today and send them up tomorrow. After a ten year (or longer) training program you know who's qualified to be enclosed in a small space with other people and who's not (although apparently they can act differently on the surface of this planet)Making the mental well-being of the crew a priorityâ€â€I learned on Startalk Radio from astronaut Chris Hadfield that yes, (the video is not a trick video) and it's part of the efforts to keep morale of the crew upThey're professionals who do their job. For the same reason submarine crews don't go cannibal on each other after a couple of weeks under water

I can see the performance issue with that. Not that this particular check would take so much time, but add a dozen other checks and the impact on performance might become measurable.

Isn't there also a space agency that, in exchange for money, will plant the flag of your choice on the Moon for you?

You have a good point there; we don't need to save 30% on the DV budget; we need to save 30% on the fuel budget. With less fuel we can use a lighter rocket, even less fuel, etc. There may be a flaw in your reasoning. Gravity drag is not induced by reaching an altitude of 20km; gravity drag is induced by thrust having a vertical component (which will then be negated by gravity). This is why you want to fly horizontally as quickly as feasible because all your thrust will go to increasing velocity instead of fighting gravity. The gravity losses are incurred while taking off vertically and transitioning to (nearly) horizontal flight. That'll happen as much at 20km as it will when taking off at sea level. Granted, launching at an altitude of 20km will reduce “gravity losses between 0 and 20km altitude†to zero. But it will replace them with an equal amount of “gravity losses between 20km and 40km altitudeâ€Â. Unless of course you launch horizontally and hope you have enough speed before you hit the surface 20km below -- but now you're more than doubling your atmostpheric losses. Because you're dropping 20km into the souposphere and then have to climb back out of it in a nearly horizontal trajectory, adding many more kilometers of heavy-drag travel through the lower portions of the atmosphere.

Radial engines are like struts and boosters: you can always add more. But what, on the other hand, if you need more power than your docking port engine can provide?

I get the impression that as long as you're in an atmospheric physics bubble, atmospheric drag continues to exist. I've seen the Kerbin atmosphere create drag while at an 85km altitude (very little drag but still). I suspect that the formula that calculates atmospheric pressure (based on an exponential curve) doesn't have a cutoff in place. Once you warp and put the craft on rails it disappears.