Kerbart

Chatterer, because it makes the game come so much more alive. And DMagic's EVA Struts. They're simple, they align well with stock without being OP, and they allow for large space stations without going spaghetti going all over the place while feeling "legit" at the same time. There's a lot I want to be stock but I never expect it to be. This one though really could, and should.

You have to admit that's a bit of an understatement. I'd say it's more "up the wazoo" What's really aggravating with AVC is that it's informing you that "you're not using the latest version. use 1.2" I wish whoever wrote it would check for newer or equal, not just equal.

But: one man's garbage is another man's treasure...

Damn! Just when all my mods were working... Back to square 0?

Mr. Bossman walks around. “Hey, what's that on your screen, Thomlock?” (Thomlock turns ash-white as he's caught in the act of playing KSP at work) “Ehm... eh.. it’s a simulation, sir. Yes! A simulation! Of one of our new designs!” “Ooh, excellent. Send me some video footage of that. We can use it in our upcoming episode of our Youtube series.” “Ehm.. sure... will do...”

Well, drawing the planets oblate would be a small change. Making the physics model adhere to it... Even the n-body mod treats the planets as point masses, as far as I know. And imagine a polar orbit over an obloid spheroid. True orbital parameters are defined as distance from the center, but shown as distance from the surface (sealevel) of the planet. Wouldn't they be constantly changing as the effective radius of the planet changes with the latitude? There are a lot of things that rapidly get very complicated when doing so, I think.

I don't know, I'm pretty happy with the 175 m/s the KSC gets me for free for equatorial prograde orbits. I'm pretty sure that's also the reason spaceports on Earth tend to be as close the equator as possible. The more you can get from that 465 m/s the better, especially as it drops of pretty rapidly with increasing latitude. That has a far, far bigger impact than the 0.07 m/s2 benefit you get from a slightly lower gravity.

Jeb wasn't mentioned as a special guest. Disappointing...

Not intended to either. As much as Blender is a horrible choice to do 3D engineering in, AutoCAD is a similarly bad choice as a rendering engine for 3D gaming. The systems are optimized towards different uses. Blender runs in Python though, so it's relatively easy to create scripts that can do precise/repetitive placement for you (I will admit I do not know how; I do know it is possible). While certain things might not seem "the right way" (like painting on windows instead of modelling them) they have the incredible benefit of saving a lot of time (both in model creation and computation time). It is up to the modeller to decide where the trade-off is; sometimes it's easier to suggest a ledge by texturing it, sometimes it will be necessary to actually model it. Keep in mind that there's a price to be paid for all that detail though. Modelling windows on spaceship is not uncommon (they don't have that many); on an airliner you'd likely model the cockpit windows but not the passenger ones.

From what I understand, auto-strutting reinforces joins by mounting an invisible strut from the join to the part the strut will attach to. That will make a join stronger, but as in this case the strut runs through the center line of the rocket, I fail to see how it would make the connection stiffer. Can it be that the node simple buckled and thus failed?

And my logic went by “why make a mod for something that is stock?” You could even go as far (and it's not my mod, so I'm not telling you to do so, merely suggesting) as to why one would use a mod like this: “Ever thought it is rather obvious that the only thing to go under a heatshield is a decoupler? In fact, why should the decoupler not be built-in to the heat shield? This little MM config will automatically add a decouple function to each heat shield, so you don't have to bother with attaching a decoupler underneath them”

Actually, it does not. It says on, as “on top of,” not under as “underneath” Now, there’s a good chance that the Spacedock blurb clarifies that, but most of us won't even go there as there's no reason to do so (the behavior described in the OP appears to be already stock, so why get a mod?). In that case it would be wise to have the OP updated, as to clarify that this would replace decouplers underneath the heat shields.

That's about the same (DV wise) as a 179° inclination orbit around the sun (which I've had at least once, not sure if that has been fixed since).

It stands to reason that an an industry that is is obsessed with weight savings that if they're willing to pack on the pounds needed for insulation, it is really needed.

Shame on you, @Beale for posting that utterly off-topic tutorial post in this Blender vs AutoCAD thread... (Keep sticking to Wings is my advice... because then you're not choosing sides! :p)

I'd make them 1:10. That's pretty severe but it adds a good amount of excitement But somehow increase the science we get from that failure compared to regular ones. It's SCIENCE! after all!

Sounds good to me. Here's a thought to add more excitement. If in Career mode, and the part is not unlocked (meaning you're using a part that is listed in a test contract), increase the chances of failure significant. To maybe 1:10 or something like that. After all, it's a new experimental part!

If you can find out the value of the vessel, I'd use that as a proportion. That might not be “realistic” (because we’re all about realism in a game that is about sending cartoonish green bug-eyed aliens into space) but it provides the best incentive for “allowing” big vessels to explode (without reverting) without abusing it to get disproportionate science returns from small ships. Also, and this goes almost without a saying, there's a chance of 1:50 (or whatever the chances are) every launch to go boom, or is it literally once every 50? Just because I do like the unpredictability.

Great thinking that the rest is already implemented. I think getting some science is a great reward and incentive to not revert to launch. "Damn that sucked... but at least I got 10 science out of it" or something along those lines. The amount of science could be proportional to the launch cost (and top out at a maximum). So your $200,000 fuel launcher might blow up spectacularly, but hey, 12 science! Kaching!

This sounds awesome, can't wait to install it when I get home. Three questions that came to mind: Could the chances of failure be set in the config file (if not already)? Useful for testing, or if one finds accidents happening too (in)frequent As a reward for the willingness to roll the dice on a launch, perhaps handing out some science when an incident happens ("we learned something!"). If that's even possible? While typing in the second bullet, I thought of a third option: is it possible to make the incident appear in the F3 window? That way you know the accident is caused by a "random launch" incident and not because you misrouted a fuel line or pointed an engine towards a tank. They could all start with FAILURE eg: “FAILURE: the turbo pump of the LV-909 engine failed catastrophically!” or something along those lines. Regards, Kerbart

Paying for a subscription to get access to the multiplayer server sounds great as a plan to create a more regular income stream. There are some considerable hurdles that need to be taken though: Apparently Unity and multiplayer don't jive very well. That's not saying it's impossible (see DMP mod), just that it might be hard and that getting a good performance out of it might be even harder Time warping is a problem. Sure there are “solutions” but those do necessarily mean they enhance gameplay, to say the least. Over the years I've seen various MP-mod developers claiming that “Time Warp is the easiest problem to fix” and while that may be the case from a programming point of view, it seems one of the hardest to fix from a game playing point of view. I haven't yet heard of any solution where everyone says “yeah, that's it, that's the way to deal with time warp. Well done, now we can TRULY multiplay.” Every solution comes with its own shortcomings and disappointments, so far. Grieving. Finally built that space station that took you 12 trips and hours of launching and docking (because you're not good at docking)? Proud to share it with the rest of the community? Well, that is until you run into this one 12yr old who thinks it's hysterical to crash a Jumbo 64 tank into your station from a retrograde orbit. LULZ!! Grieving is a problem in virtually any multiplayer environment and needs to be tackled just as well. What's the gameplan? Some games are only multiplayer (WOW), for others it adds something special to it (MS Flight Simulator, for instance) but for KSP the case for multiplayer is hard to make. In micro-economics, a sale is made when the PRICE is exceeding the COST for the vender, yet is lower than the VALUE the product has for the buyer. So for Squad to sell MP as a subscription, I really need to feel like it adds $10/mo (or whatever the subscription rate is) to the game. That might be a tough proposition. Then there are the practical considerations when hosting a multi-player service in the first place: Hosting a server like that is very expensive. Sure, there are some individuals that have a DMP server running out there. Which is great for a handful of players, but you'll need something more substantial if you're going to be the host for multiplayer and you have thousands of players logging on, DDOS attacks to deal with, etc. Subscription services open a whole can of worm on keeping track of payment details and getting hacked. You will need people monitoring/running those servers 24/7. The above will make a subscription service pretty expensive without Squad making a single penny, leaving little room for on-going game development. When you get past those, subscription has no reason to be limited to console only. And maybe we need to get creative. Maybe combining multiplayer with Twitch streams is the best thing since sliced bread, and Squad should look at that kind of multiplayer (following another player but with the ability to zoom in/out, switch to map view when you want it, etc). Access only for paying subscribers to a channel, and Squad gets a cut?

Good point. As we say in marketing: perception is reality. I always found it curious that Squad doesn't seem to care about its outside appearance regarding the future of the development of the game. Surely there are some occasional “but we really do! There IS a future!” posts but words are cheap, especially when they are not backed by the perceived reality (which might not be the real reality). Especially when words are not needed if actions speak for themselves (see: companies who claim that “our workers are our biggest asset”). Luckily Squad doesn't need words to convince us. A solid 1.3 release, as well as fixing the console problems, will do the trick. Time will tell!

More food for thought... Next time you approach Mun, or Minmus... or any celestial body in KSP... Think about the fact that it's really a paper thin shell with nothing inside it!

I'm sure someone will. The stars might not be colored to their liking, rendering the game "broken." The definition some people have of "broken" is amazing. (No, this is not a jab at console players; their version does seem to be broken, based on the complaints).

Aside from semantics about singularities... modeled planets have all their mass concentrated in a single point in the center. Real planets do not. There would actually be no gravity in the center of a planet as the gravitational forces pulling on you from all directions would cancel each other out.