ArmchairGravy

From what I understand .24 will not be implementing an economy, but merely implementing a contract system of "take part x to place y". The contract system will be purely optional. It's going to be interesting to see how an actual economy gets implemented. Economies tend to be limiters. How is Squad going to couple limits to their very sandboxy career?

I put an orange tank on top of the K-1400. What do I win?

One of the reasons I keep restarting is I don't like waiting for windows to open up and I don't like wasting months with time warping. I also got frustrated trying to juggle multiple missions, especially when asteroids got in the mix. I installed Kerbal Alarm Clock before my newest save, and it really helps manage those gaps and multiple missions. I have my queue of ships in their parking orbits, the "in progress" flights, and timers on asteroid entry all alarmed. I can mess around with stations and bases in Kerbin SOI and not miss opportunities. KAC is one of those "how did I get by without this?" mods.

I hadn't thought to use the claw for orbital assembly. Saving 10 parts per node will stack up quickly. Thanks for the idea!

I've gifted it to a friend. Looking forward to multiplayer so I can annoy him.

KSP popped up as part of Steam's Summer Sale last year. I read "manage your own space program" and was thinking it would be an economic sim like Tropico. I enjoy those kind of games, and the price was right so even if I didn't like all that much I wouldn't be out of that much cash. Imagine my surprise as I, a life-long space geek, found out I would be building my own rockets and learning orbital mechanics! I have over 1k hours into the game so far. KSP is the BEST entertainment value I've ever encountered. I'm really looking forward to the economy being implemented.

To be blunt, it would be a failure of imagination. I have over 1k hours playtime, and there is still a long list of stuff I'm working on. Take a break if you need to let your creative side recharge. There are so many things to do and so many ways to do them, and that's not even adding mods into the equation.

This is what I used for my manned Jool mission: Project Big Pig I have become a firm believer in orbital assembly of modular components. Habitat/science module, lander module, and drive/fuel modules. Mix and match for the mission. Since I recently installed ScanSat I'm also working on a probe module. Going with modular assembly has enabled me to do missions I would never be able to do without it.

I had a mission to Dres turn into my first manned Jool return when I was able to get my drive module orbited with the inner onion-ring of boosters still on it. Refueled the boosters, headed out to Jool and sent a separate mission to Dres.

I built maybe my third non-Rapier SSTO. For some reason I usually have a problem getting the design to come out right, but this one works like a champ. I've been using the Rapiers as a crutch since they came out, so it was nice to build a good SSTO without them.

I get the Hell Kraken about one out of five times on interplanetary flights. Jool missions see them more often it seems.

You may want to clarify the first box is referring to KerbalEVA state. It was Idle (Grounded) which I changed to Seated (Command). Otherwise it was very clear and fixed my problem. Thanks!

Heretic! Burn him!

This is a confession that shocks me! Heck yes I do this. Get an orbit? Quicksave. Get ready to burn for surface? Quicksave. Now that maneuver nodes are persistent I'm quicksaving those as well. Testify, brother!

While I've used Kerbal Engineer and Kethane from the get-go, I too have finally broken down and added more mods, and am waiting for some polish on a couple more before I add them. I've begun the slow slide into mod madness. Here's what I'm running now: Kerbal Engineer Kethane Kerbal Alarm Clock ScanSat Chatterer

I don't care about aesthetics. I don't part clip so my designs have bits and pieces sticking out all over the place. I use onion staging. Asparagus is just such a pain to set up. 2 layers of onion is what I use. 3,4, or 6 symmetry depending on payload. "Overkill" is not in my vocabulary. I make it back 90% of the time with at least 1/3 of my fuel left on the final stage. I hate the tension of "do I have enough fuel?". I am a serial game restarter. Once I get the tech tree unlocked I will maybe do one more mission, and then abandon it mid-flight as I've started a fresh save. I can think of only 3 or 4 saves that reached year 3. I don't think I've ever reached year 5.

Correct, and I think it's a good idea. To me it's a solution that allows the most people to have full access to the tree. If you want to go interplanetary for your science you can but are not required to do so.

Space.com has posted this animation of atmospheric asteroid explosions from 2000-2013 which range from 1-600kilotons. Pretty topical for KSP, pretty sobering for humanity.

Now I know where ISIS got all that blow from.

My favorite is the Sr ports. Without them I can't assemble my interplanetary vessels. They all have their niche, though.

I used to use the Interplanetary Calculator and eyeball the phase angles, but have recently installed Kerbal Alarm Clock and am now relying on it. For the ejection angle I just slap a maneuver node down and tweak its position until I get an encounter or have an orbit overlap in the case of inclined targets. I'll then make the final adjustments at the ascending/descending nodes. Not the most efficient in delta-v, but I find it a reliable system.

One thing I have started using in the last couple of months that has really opened up the rest of the Kerbol system is modular building. I send up a core consisting of a two-man can, habitat module, and science lab. I then dock a lander on top, and a drive module on the bottom. Sending the pieces up separately means I can use a much smaller booster set, and can customize the lander and drive module(s) for the mission. I was finally able to do a Jool return this way and hit Layethe and Val while there. I sent the Layethe lander as a separate launch. Modular designs has been a huge game-changer for me, and I highly recommend it.

Very nice tutorial. Could you add a section on how to use the science lab? One thing people don't get about the lab is how to recover results and store them so the experiments can be cleaned and re-used. Also the fact that the lab can be used to store duplicate results which allows for one-stop gathering of all available science.

I think the grey "oil barrels" are ugly, but I still use the heck out of them.

One really important thing with the labs is they allow you to store duplicate experiments. Therefore you can take 2 readings/samples and get all of the available science points with one shot.