RSwordsman

Mods are awesome! I like plugins such as FAR, DR, and KJR, as well as parts packs such as Interstellar and Kethane, and atmospheric mods like Chatterer and KerbPaint. I don't really discount anything unless it ups the difficulty too much for my tastes (Life Support packs) or feels cheaty. I actually underestimated the amount I downloaded when voting. I put 11-20, but it's really in the 20-30 range lol.

Can't you also selectively disable RCS blocks? If you don't need all of them for rotation, this could also be an option. (I haven't done it personally so can't say for sure, but it stands to reason. )

A little bit dismissive, don't you think? It is safe to say NASA and SpaceX have two very different approaches and infrastructures, and so set a precedent for meaningful choices when it comes to KSP gameplay styles. I think giving players the choice of public or private space program with bonuses to one or the other resource would be pretty cool. It could even go beyond just "research or currency," but also the type/frequency of missions that would arise in contracts. Government agencies would be given more of the big missions- traveling to other worlds, etc. because they are not for profit and can apply tons of resources. Private firms, while being theoretically just as capable, are more efficiency-oriented because they have a bottom line, meaning they will send up smaller missions for compensation and maybe throw in a little research on the side. Point being, it has my vote for a nifty feature down the line.

SSTO spaceplane. It might not bring a lot of resources per flight, but including the imaginary costs of disposable stages, it's by far the best in terms of materials per Kerbal dollar.

Do your turn almost immediately, as others are saying. You want to be going only as high as necessary to avoid crashing into a hillside; no more.

Because space is freaking wicked, and KSP is the undisputed best balance of physics representation, freedom for creativity, and pure shenanigans. I'd say "What more can you ask for?" but whatever you DO ask for, there's mods for that. In the running for best game ever. A wise guy, eh? XD

I voted to keep them the way they are. If kept even a *little* bit realistic, I won't use them either way. The KSP Interstellar pack is what I prefer.

What did your computer do to make you hate it this much?

They're mission ribbons for the worlds you've been to and specific accomplishments on them. Mine are nothing at all to brag about; I just like them because I'm a military nerd and I think ribbons are really cool. The image itself should be a clickable link to the site where you can make your own. Try it out!

That's messed up. I'm glad I got FAR and never looked back. It does make conventional aircraft a lot more tricky, but for regular rockets, it's a godsend.

Heh, we do enough "going down" as it is I suppose. Anyway, yeah. Stock KSP is not kind to shuttles. The asymmetrical layout is not accounted for in any feature, and flying one becomes an exercise in one's ability to angle the orbiter's engines or pixel-hunt for that perfect thrust limiter value, and then adjust it in flight once the fuel burns down a bit. Either that or slapping on like twelve reaction wheels, but that's not cool.

That is a hawt plane. SSTO version?

Pics? And out of curiosity, does it work with FAR?

Not necessarily. If you designed a ship with high TWR and a mechanism for hooking up with pieces (docking ports or otherwise), you could attach to a piece of debris, deorbit, then parachute down to avoid an explosive landing. Better yet, bring a piece of debris to an orbital recycling plant, reduce it down to components, then apply them to the Orbital Construction mod and build new ships.

Superb replica! The F-16 is one of the sexiest planes ever, and you captured it very well.

I might be wrong but I think it gives you the bigger frame struts on the first science node. And I was able to use clusters totaling over a dozen gimbaling engines without an annoying amount of lag.

You might also try throttling down. FAR greatly reduces the density of the atmosphere, meaning that you can get away with 50% or lower thrust for certain lifter designs and still hit that gravity/air resistance butter zone. Your rocket will get much higher and into the less disruptive air before you're going really fast, which helps me with those disobedient rockets.

The trade-off there is that they require a lot more power. I don't see the need to use any but the first antenna except for looks, personally. Either way you still get your transmission at the same efficiency rate.

May I ask what you're doing with the fat heavy thing that makes you want a synchronous orbit? I will advise without knowing though that you can try putting a bunch of fuel tanks in your lifter and using cubic struts to cluster LV-T45s. Using this method to put 5-7 engines on the bottom of a 2.5m stack, you can get almost as much power (and a teensy bit better Isp) than with a Mainsail. Coupled with asparagus staging (not sure if you have the fuel pipe yet) I still use this method for my heavy lifter.

Oh my goodness. It's normally acceptably small in terms of avoidability/annoyance, but is anyone familiar with KerbPaint? Holy frick. You can click parts through the mod UI, and it kills me.

Bingo. Having it go totally autonomous doesn't sound feasible, what with steep slopes, obstacles, anomalies, etc. But being able to map out and pre-program its route? Awesome.

I would have guessed that's the lowest LOD for Kerbin. Meaning it's always there, but you'd only see it if you were at the very edge of the planet's visibility and itappeared as only a few pixels on the screen, so that way they wouldn't have to render the texture.

This. And the fact that space stuff moves, a lot. I always pictured ships in orbit as drifting slowly around the celestial object. For moons and stuff, sure. But earthlike planets? Nuh uh. And no craft can ever truly be stationary.

The things that get me are estimating the rotation of Kerbin while my ship de-orbits, and the amount of horizontal distance lost due to atmospheric drag. But I usually make a maneuver node placing me somewhere a few klicks off the coast of KSC, then do correction burns as needed if it looks like I'm over- or undershooting. **The distance/dV of your maneuver node make a big difference when it comes to accounting for both of the above factors, but especially planetary rotation. The farther out and lower the dV requirement of the burn, the farther west you'll have to aim as the planet spins under your ship.

Ion engines are basically glorified light bulbs. How could you say they're overpowered? Certainly they're adjusted for gameplay purposes as I'm sure was said in 5 pages, but I wouldn't want fully realistic ones. Heck, I don't even use them now with the Interstellar pack XD.