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Which is why some stuff comes back: its the novelty and story of some games. Check this out: http://thejourneymanproject.com/presto/journeymanprime/trailers.html It was a cool series. Puzzle solving rather than combat. Exotic locations rather than mundane warehouses. That sort of thing.

A "let's play" kind of video:

^What the others wrote.^ Also, try reading. As for "outside", there is hiking (or if you are in a city and can't get to a place to hike, there is walking in a park). Get a pet. Find a part time job. There are always other things to do. That's without even mentioning a "significant other". Good luck!

Edit: the most practical graphs here yet are found below in post # 6. Just added. Compares max mass and altitude. Hey everyone. After seeing Tavert's impressive graphs, I made some admittedly simple graphs based on the results of test flights I did for my old chart (see sig line). The first is of the maximum mass an engine can vertically launch from KSC: Note that the Ion engine launches with more mass than its neighbors due to its electricity requirements; as opposed to it actually flying at all from Kerbin's surface. Second is the maximum altitude reached when the mass maximum consists mostly of fuel: At this scale, some engine results aren't visible, or too low to judge. Third is the altitude reached when using only the small(est) fuel tank: Some fuels obviously are specialized; such as Xenon for the Ion engine. Fourth is the altitude reached when the mass is maxed, but with 50% non fuel: Again, the scale is such that the lesser results are not easily discerned. (Edit: replaced a trivial graph with a more useful one.) Lastly, this graph compares the 2nd and 4th results (max fuel vs. half non fuel altitudes), so a pay-loaded craft would probably reside at a point somewhere on the length of a line: As far as graphs go, any real comparison of the "lesser" engines would best be done by excluding the more powerful engines. Edit: The following are based on graphs above, however the data for the highest achievers in each is excluded so that results for the remainder are clearer. However, the average in each retains the excluded data. The Aerospike engine (using diameter 1 parts) is excluded in this graph: The next two graphs exclude the air breathers: The next graph excludes the Aerospike (diameter 1 parts) and the LVT-30 engines: Note in this last graph that the data for the 50% non fuel altitudes begins to resolve at this scale. Also, the altitude where a craft or launch stage using 75% fuel by launch mass would be a point midway on each line. I hope these will be useful; especially in conjunction with other charts and tools at the forums or elsewhere.

Nice work, Tavert. Would there be any point to adding the jet engines and the RAPIER to your charts?

Kold Kinar Kurrency Kuiksilver I forgot: the Keso Edit: You can trade and barter with Kurios.

Very nice, Wooks. Keep it up! (You have more patience than I do.)

Good luck finding anything that your body is able to digest and successful absorb the nutrients from. Life on earth is adapted to what it can "eat". The ecologies of worlds at other stars would likely be so different that it would make no sense to eat any native life there; unless its on a dare.

Tag, you're it!

Well ... New room with a view. Something just doesn't feel right. So far, so good. Don't try this at home, folks!

Besides EVAs where the Kerbals lost their grips, there's this; in the interest of science. No shouts of "Jump!", please.

Bumped this because a picture is worth another thousand words.

Gravity generators? Just gather mass; lots of mass. A substitute? Centripetal force by rotating something ins such a way as to yield desirable results.

The easiest way to get the corrugated look is to simply put that into the texture. The model is basically a cylinder, perhaps you would want to add extended rings at the ends, but the corrugation effect is not done at all in Blender. At least, that's the way I'd do it.

Hehe! Yeah. That shot was definitely before I was able to asparagus stage. That was actually the flight which allowed me to get the science to unlock fuel lines, and other goodies (like larger diameter parts). The reason why solid booster fuel is shown in the resources is that I had sepratrons sitting on the top of each booster. I had problems before with them hitting the rest of the ship once jettisoned, and this solved the problem. Once costs/ budgets are enabled, it is gonna be a whole other challenge; and asparagus staging should actually reduce costs.

Thanks. Already did so AND I recommend that those in the US also contact their representatives about it.

Similar to gslarmour. I start with my ultimate payload (usually that's intended as a two way trip and ends by parachuting back). Then, if its to land at a target (which usually is an airless body), I put a lander under it. Since I'm still playing Career, and I've yet to unlock sturdy docking ports, that lander must also be able to return and deorbit. Then I put a single stage under that which goes one way from LKO to LKO. Finally I put the multistage launch assembly under that. I do have some sub assemblies for that, but as 5thHorseman says, by the time I'm ready to use them, I have new parts which I incorporate into a new design. When I do use a sub assembly, I end up tweaking it by adding or removing some boosters, until it will do the job without too many extra parts. I do use Kerbal Engineer so that I don't need to do extreme amounts of experimenting or over building. That's a choice for each person to make (or not).

Of course, asparagus staging is made possible because of the "fuel line". Note that I'm still playing Career mode. The first pics are before the fuel line part was unlocked for me. Everything was nicer once I got the fuel line part. Yes, it was quite the slide show! It was much more fun once I was able to use fuel lines. Asparagus staging was now possible. Its not an optimized set up, but it does the job. Of course you know how to do the staging; I just thought you'd get a kick out of the shots.

Well, we're on a generation ship. We just need to figure out how best to move Kerbal.

Good flight though, regardless!

I'm not aware of a "standard" quantity of tanks/ fuel mass per booster ring. Too many variables with regard to total dV, engine(s) used, number of stages, etc. However, if each of your boosters is the same (same engine, same amount of fuel), then as you move inward, the dV actually takes a hit and your central engine may struggle, relative to the dV of the other rings of boosters. While I usually just bludgeon my way into orbit, I do know that you could try making each succeeding ring of booster stages have more fuel than the inner rings. I've made some with 4 and 5 rings; so in this case the outer ring has the "tallest" set of tanks and each succeeding ring inward is less tall (has less fuel). This will help get you to a greater altitude than if all rings are of same sized boosters, as the outer engines get to work longer before time for jettisoning. That center engine and its fuel may be more payload than help, but it should finally be able to get you into a circular orbit after the boosters have done their thing. The ship might look more like a scoop, but it should give you good results.

Welcome (from a non Kiwi, but I'd love to visit)!

Wow! Whack is asking for advice, and I suspect he knows much more than he lets on. Nevertheless, here goes. First, please do not be offended when I suggest that you enjoy this pictorial tutorial on aerodynamics: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures. You might find inspiration in the smallest (pun intended) of details. Next, again, don't feel bad when I suggest that you watch this 3 part series of Manley aerodynamics (Scott, that is): . The above posts give very good advice. I'll just add that you might experiment with a variety of engines and see what results you like best.Good luck!

Now with photos. I recently updated my engine comparison chart file at the SpacePort, to add the RAPIER engine. Its the same one which is also available to view or grab using a web browser (see my sig line). Apparently some people prefer to download it, or are not encountering it via browser. A user at the SpacePort commented: “... My only suggestion would be to add (a) small text file to go along with it that goes into more detail about the testing parameters. Also, maybe try separating the engine types (jets, rockets, radials, etc.) more clearly with more space between them; although I also realize space is at a premium ...†Since I wanted to minimize the quantity of documents in this download which a person would need to read, I have no plans to add such a text file, although some people might find the information interesting. The commenter ends by mentioning the very reason why I have not expanded the chart in order to separate the engines by category. However, I think that the KSP forum is the perfect place to provide details which were suggested in the comment, since I can link from the chart's SpacePort comment page to this post and anyone who reads this forum post will have a better idea of what was involved in testing for my chart. Two tests were performed: one for efficiency and one for, in practical terms, “strengthâ€Â. These are specific to the moment of launch, in terms of mass; also of course limited to local Kerbin conditions. What this thread is not. It is not a discussion of what one's favorite engine is. Nor is it a discussion on how or why strength = thrust and efficiency = specific impulse. For the latter, it is obvious that such relationships generally exist. It is also not a discussion as to whether or not any testing needed to be done at all (hint: I simply wanted to do so, and I enjoyed the process). As mentioned, I will give details on how I tested KSP's engines. I'll start with the efficiency test. In order to be relatively consistent, I did certain things; some of which apply to both tests. Of course, there were the engines. I used one of each engine tested, launched vertically, with SAS enabled. Since some of the engines are jets (or have a jet mode), I used the circular air intake. In order to equalize mass and drag, I tested all engines by including the intake; with liquid rockets, SRBs, etc., where feasible. This in part offsets the fact that jets do not use the stored oxidizer mass. Since a control pod is required, I used the small RC-001S RGU. I launched each engine from the launch pad surface and allowed it to fly without any piloting. Any engine which did not retain a stable upward flight was tested with 3 AV-R8 winglet control surfaces attached, since there is a trade off with mass between vectoring and non vectoring (gimbaling) engines. This can be readily understood by comparing the LVT 30 and LVT 45 engines. In some cases, the winglets acted as supporting tripods for small engines. Specific to the efficiency test, I chose to use the small Oscar-B fuel tank for each engine. Obviously this limited the amount of fuel/ oxidizer available to the engine. The test results were of the maximum altitude each engine attained (a combination of thrust and inertia or momentum). Factors affecting each flight were the mass and drag of the engine against its thrust. There were of course some exceptions and considerations. Jet engines on one hand could not use the oxidizer mass, but on the other hand used oxidizer from the air; of course the atmosphere was a self limiting factor for these. For the ion engine, the PBX-150 xenon container was substituted for the fuel tank (while their mass differs, the size is consistent). It also required electricity, which I did not require adding to the other engines tested. The small FL-R25 monopropellant tank was used by the RCS units. It turns out that the small SRB (Sepratron 1) mass is nearly the same as the mass of the small fuel tank. Since the efficiency test involves limiting the quantity of fuel available, each size of SRB is considered as if it were the small SRB in these figures. This leads to another consideration: the use of radially attached engines implies that there is more than one engine used (at least for a stable flight). I tested radials using 3 engines (the least number of engines for a more stable rocket flight). So the results for radial engines is for the use of 3 engines. However, the engine thrust listed is still for a single engine. Its actual use thrust is 3 times that in this case. The chart also has figures for 2 radial engines, for use with planes. These were simply calculated based on the 3-engine results. Three engines tested yielded no vertical flights; the RCS7 thruster, ion engine and a Kerbal with EVA pack. Horizontal results were substituted for these. Now for the “strength†test. The prior criteria remain for this test. In this case, however, the fuel mass was not minimized; rather, it was maximized. I used such combinations of stock fuel tanks that allowed me to do this to a suitable degree of accuracy; sometimes a very small amount of fuel made the difference between an engine reaching a defined apoapsis and it reaching escape velocity. The test results reflect the mass an engine (including its own mass) was able to lift, without crashing or leaving an upwardly stable flight path. Another difference is that I used the launch stability enhancers (3 where possible), setting the altitude to the maximum start of 150 meters (which is about 80 meters above the launchpad). This allowed some engines to drop and recover prior to attaining their vertical upward flight. Poor Kerbalnaut! For him, I had to provide a pod and a platform from which he “volunteered†to step off. Others which failed to achieve a vertical flight were the RCS thrusters and the ion engine (as expected, really, but I tried anyway). An important difference between the SRBs and the other engines is that most of the mass lifted by the SRBs in this test was dead mass, rather than fuel which could be converted into thrust. When sorting the engines separately for maximum mass lifted (“strengthâ€Â) and maximum altitude for the efficiency test, some of these were at the top half of the list for both sorts. My chart color codes them as being “strong and efficientâ€Â. It also addresses some other data or questions not discussed here. All engines are sorted in this chart for the maximum mass at launch. While this mixes some types of engines, it can be readily determined which is which by experienced players. I recommend that new players check out the Wiki page on stock parts. While most of the thrust to weight ratio figures listed come from the Wiki, my figures for the RAPIER (air mode) differ. Since my actual maximum mass results differ significantly between the 2 modes, it seems to me that the TWR between modes should differ as well. In any case, most RAPIER launches will occur from Kerbin's surface, so the air mode TWR would normally prevail in practical terms. It is also true that while in the atmosphere, RAPIER engined craft can take advantage of lifting surfaces, which were not considered in the two tests discussed here. I'm open to suggestions for improving the chart or for correcting any errors in data or methodology. The chart includes other data not (yet) listed in the Wiki, such as the electricity generated by engines which do so. Edit: version 0.23.5 has improvements. I changed column Q from useless row sums into an added test: drop test results similar to column O altitudes (with maxed out mass), but with about 50% of the mass being non fuel mass (including unused payload fuel tanks). This is a reasonable test which resides halfway between the maxed fuel test above and what would be a minimal fuel test (which would yield a hover or no flight at all), in terms of flight results. Jets are so efficient that I minimized the fuel mass to 7 or 8% for those two engines, and still had fuel remaining as a portion of the payload. I also found and fixed a few minor data errors and cleaned up the layout a little, while clarifying some of the explanations. I think this version is much more useful than earlier versions. Thanks for reading!

If you enjoy Mozart, just listen. If you like shooting (or being shot by) science fiction aliens, just watch. If you like the synergy of both, watch and listen! If you'd enjoy playing Bungie's Marathon 2 for free: http://marathon.sourceforge.net/games/marathon2.php