MiniMatt

Well the centre of mass being behind the rearmost wheels will be why it wants to tip back on the runway - maybe mount the rear wheels splayed out on small hardpoints attached to the main body, further back. The suggestions I wrote in the earlier post may go some way to alleviate airborne control issues. In your new design I'd suggest the centre of lift is edging a little too far back from the centre of mass, but should still be controlable - until that is fuel starts depleting - with the bulk of the fuel being apparently held in the rear (and do double check for oxidiser in there, as previously mentioned) the centre of mass is only going to move further forward as reserves deplete. What is the power output of the engines you're using & what is the mass of the plane on the runway? Mk3 cargo planes can get *very* heavy, I've got one design I'm struggling to sufficiently power with 8 stock turbojets.

You've got some issues with the image URL there, but a bit of tinkering reveals these: and First thoughts are that it looks like you're certainly on the right track. Perhaps dial in a bit of attack angle on the main wings - ie. a slight ~10 degree angle - move the wing angle from present --- shape toward a \ shape (but nothing like that sharp). This will aid in take off and allow the wings to generate optimum lift whilst your nose is pointed to the horizon. You've an awful lot of yaw authority on there, and I'm not entirely sure the canards on the wing tips are helping in that regard - though I may well be wrong here. Possibly experiment removing those main wing canards and instead giving an upward inflection to the delta wing tips, a little like the wing tips on a 737-NG. This should help encourage the plane to keep it's tummy pointed toward the ground and it's top toward the sky. Suspect you can also daisy chain the fuel lines under the wings from the body, to one engine pod to the next, to keep things looking neat too. EDIT: Occurs to me that we haven't actually asked the problem you're having. If it's one of stability in flight then the suggestions above might begin to put things right, but like I say you're definitely on the right track. If it's a case of bouncy wings, well that does indeed get a little problematic, easiest solution is one you've already started - moar struts. If it's a case of insufficient lift then your options are bigger wings, or less mass. On the mass front, there's at least one part in your plane which by default comes loaded with oxidiser - the Mk3 to 2.5m slanted adaptor part toward the back of the plane - assuming you're not taking this thing to space and all your engines are air breathers then you have no need for that oxidiser and removing it prior to launch will reduce your mass quite noticeably.

Appears for now that gravity, such that it is, is the only thing holding the little fella down on the surface: From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30034060 edit The bandwidth used is also interesting: Think back to ten years ago when this mission was launched, I suspect many of us were still familiar with 33kbps modems for internet connectivity - comparable bandwidth out to a comet a gazillion miles away in deep space is pretty impressive From http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/13/rosetta-operations-update/

First post, from August 2013, was a rather mundane bit of navel-gazing about the practical applications of orbital infrastructure. However I did sign off by noting: To which a kindly anonymous Mod granted my wish and provided a dancing elephant KSP mods are the best mods

They are, as of version 0.25. Their official wiki pages are here & here. Are you running an earlier version? Or are you perhaps looking at a Career Mode save which has yet to unlock these parts? Hadn't tested those ones - truth be told I forgot about them initially. They perhaps complicate the issue due to their mass being significantly greater than the regular intakes, plus two of them having the added functionality of carrying fuel. From the stats I would presume them to perform similar to a single XM-G50 intake in terms of the air they can provide, but their extra mass proving a significant hindrance such that they'd likely perform very poorly on these tests.

Ok, went ahead and re-run the second (spaceplane) experiment with a mass handicap in effect. In the original experiment all configurations came equipped with 30kg of unused monoprop. In this re-run the overall mass of the craft in each configuration was equalised as close as possible, by removing all monoprop from the heaviest configuration and adding sufficient monoprop to lighter configurations to make their mass up to equal that of the heaviest, baseline, configuration. It is important to note that these results do not help us answer the question "Which intake should I use?" - in fact the original experiment is far better equipped to do that than this re-run; in real play your designs are already mass optimised, you're not carrying additional handicap mass and you don't get to handicap other competing designs - you pick your intakes and you live with, and consider, their mass. What the results of this handicap run perhaps do is allow us to better investigate how intakes work. Methodology Taking mass values as listed within part.cfg files rather than in-game screens we see the mass of the various intakes is: Single Shock Cone Intake (1 * 0.025) XM-G50 radial intake (2 * 0.01 = 0.02) Structural Intake (2 * 0.008 = 0.016) Ram Air Intake (1 * 0.01) Circular Intake (1 * 0.01) As such, to equalise mass across all configurations the following was performed: Remove all monoprop from the Shock Cone Intake configuration, as the un-handicapped baseline. Include 6kg of monoprop in the XM-G50 radial intake configuration, making it 1kg heavier than the baseline. Include 9kg of monoprop in the Structural Intake configuration, making it equal mass to the baseline. Include 15kg of monoprop in the Ram Air Intake configuration, making it equal mass to the baseline. Include 15kg of monoprop in the Circular Intake configuration, making it equal mass to the baseline. It is assumed, thanks to the somewhat fruity way drag coefficient is calculated in stock 0.25 KSP, this handicap mass has an individual drag value of 0.08 by virtue of it residing within the Mk1 Inline Cockpit. All further methodology exactly as described in the original experiment. Results Equipped with 15kg monoprop handicap & a Circular Intake the test rig had 305m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Equipped with 15kg monoprop handicap & a Ram Air Intake the test rig had 423m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Equipped with 0kg monoprop handicap & a Shock Cone Intake the test rig had 494m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Equipped with 6kg monoprop handicap & a pair of XM-G50 radial intakes the test rig had 502m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Equipped with 9kg monoprop handicap & a pair of Structural (radial) intakes the test rig had 29m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Conclusions As highlighted above, these results don't help us answer the question "Which intake should I use?", and are indeed less helpful in answering that question than the original run. They perhaps show us something about how intakes work. Of most interest is perhaps the results for the Shock Cone Intake and the pair of XM-G50 radial intakes. Both configurations result in 0.012m2 of intake area. With the overall mass of craft within 1kg of identical the two configurations get to orbit with just an 8m/s variance in delta-v remaining. Proper statistical analysis is really required but I think it hints toward the mass of an intake being relevant only in regard to the force being required to accelerate to orbital velocities and it's effect is minimised on the slightly fruity drag coefficient calculations.

Trying to devise an experiment methodology which would go some way to explore the principles raised by Wanderfound & Clockwork_Werewolf. If we added mass handicaps to the craft design such that in all configurations the craft had the same mass what would this tell us? I'm thinking that would make equivalent the basic F=ma effort of getting a given craft to orbit, leaving us only comparing the drag induced opposing force and air intake efficiency. Taking values from in-game screen, in order from heaviest to lightest we see: Single Shock Cone Intake (1 * 0.027) XM-G50 radial intake (2 * 0.0125 = 0.025) Structural Intake (2 * 0.0105 = 0.021) Ram Air Intake (1 * 0.011) Circular Intake (1 * 0.011) The difference between the lightest and heaviest configuration is 0.016 - 16kg. Handily, the Mk1 Inline Cockpit used in the test rig includes 30kg of useless (to us) monopropellant which can be tweaked in 3kg increments. Thus we could: Remove all monoprop from the Shock Cone Intake configuration, as the un-handicapped baseline. Include 3kg of monoprop in the XM-G50 radial intake configuration, making it 1kg heavier than the baseline. Include 6kg of monoprop in the Structural Intake configuration, making it equal mass to the baseline. Include 15kg of monoprop in the Ram Air Intake configuration, making it 1kg lighter than the baseline. Include 15kg of monoprop in the Circular Intake configuration, making it 1kg lighter than the baseline. Would this tell us anything new or would it merely refine and remove error from the original experiment? Second question - which mass values should we be using - values in the part.cfg files are different to that shown in game: Single Shock Cone Intake (1 * 0.025) XM-G50 radial intake (2 * 0.01 = 0.02) Structural Intake (2 * 0.008 = 0.016) Ram Air Intake (1 * 0.01) Circular Intake (1 * 0.01) In order to handicap these values such that all configurations mass as much as the heaviest configuration we'd have to: Remove all monoprop from the Shock Cone Intake configuration, as the un-handicapped baseline. Include 6kg of monoprop in the XM-G50 radial intake configuration, making it 1kg heavier than the baseline. Include 9kg of monoprop in the Structural Intake configuration, making it equal mass to the baseline. Include 15kg of monoprop in the Ram Air Intake configuration, making it equal mass to the baseline. Include 15kg of monoprop in the Circular Intake configuration, making it equal mass to the baseline. I'm tempted to think the in game screens are including a mass of intake air resource which within game calculations would be considered massless and as such the part.cfg values are possibly a better choice.

Short answer: I *suspect* that the mass of all intakes, for the purposes of calculating drag only, are normalised around 0.01 when they are open. Long answer: Yep, the drag model of air intakes is.... weird. As a rough rule of thumb I *think* it's safe to say that the right click values of an intake shown in flight are.... squiffy. At least they're squiffy when the intakes are open (which is the state we're most concerned about). When closed, radial intakes have a drag value of 0.2, inline intakes have a drag value of 0.3. When open we're actually looking at a child transform of the game object which is calculating relative velocity and, crucially, accounting for mass differently. Why accounting for mass differently? Drag is a function of atmospheric density, the velocity at which you're trying to push through that atmosphere, the drag coefficient (how "slippy" your shape is), and the cross sectional area of the shape you're pushing through. Adding a deflector to the roof of a truck cab doesn't affect the cross sectional area but makes that area more slippy, improving the drag coefficient. A panel van might have a similar drag coefficient to the truck, but being smaller it is pushing a smaller cross sectional area against the atmosphere. 0.25 stock KSP doesn't calculate cross sectional area but fudges it as being proportional to mass. The mass weighted average of all drag values then form the total drag value for the craft. A craft consisting entirely of 0.2 drag parts will have an overall 0.2 drag value. Cross sectional area is calculated as being 0.008 m2/kg This mass proportional fudge gets wonky with air intakes. Consider the new Mk1 Fuselage Intake. 0.06 intake area, just like the XM-G50 radial. Both also have a closed drag value of 0.2. But the Fuselage Intake has 9.8 times the mass of the XM-G50 radial intake - if the overall drag factor is calculated from a mass weighted average then the Mk1 Fuselage Intake will impart massively more drag on the craft than appropriate. Imagine a craft consisting of the Mk1 Inline Cockpit (mass 1.03, drag 0.08), a full FL-T100 fuel tank (mass 0.5625, drag 0.2), and a TurboJet Engine (mass 1.2, drag 0.2). The craft's drag will be: (1.03 * 0.08) + (0.5625 * 0.2) + (1.2 * 0.2) ------------------------------------------------- 1.03 + 0.5625 + 1.2 = 0.4349 / 2.7925 = 0.156 Let's now add a single, closed, XM-G50 intake (mass 0.0125, drag 0.2) (1.03 * 0.08) + (0.5625 * 0.2) + (1.2 * 0.2) + (0.0125 * 0.2) --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.03 + 0.5625 + 1.2 + 0.0125 = 0.4374 / 2.805 = 0.156 Let's now open that XM-G50 intake (mass 0.0125, drag 2.0) (1.03 * 0.08) + (0.5625 * 0.2) + (1.2 * 0.2) + (0.0125 * 2.0) --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.03 + 0.5625 + 1.2 + 0.0125 = 0.4599 / 2.805 = 0.164 If we replace that XM-G50 with a closed Mk1 Fuselage intake (mass 0.1225, drag 0.2) we get: (1.03 * 0.08) + (0.5625 * 0.2) + (1.2 * 0.2) + (0.1225 * 0.2) --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.03 + 0.5625 + 1.2 + 0.1225 = 0.4594 / 2.915 = 0.158 Now let's open that Fuselage Intake (mass 0.1225, drag 2.0): (1.03 * 0.08) + (0.5625 * 0.2) + (1.2 * 0.2) + (0.1225 * 2.0) --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.03 + 0.5625 + 1.2 + 0.1225 = 0.6799 / 2.915 = 0.233 All this is a rather long winded way of noting that our imaginary craft with a single XM-G50 intake has a drag value of 0.156/0.164 (closed/open) but with a MK1 Fuselage Intake, which offers exactly the same intake area, has a drag value of 0.158/0.233 (closed/open). The extra mass of the MK1 Fuselage Intake is already accounted for via the Newtonian principle of the force required to accelerate a given mass, but here it's also significantly affecting the drag of the craft - a double whammy. Thus the fudge (approximating cross sectional area through mass) requires a separate fudge - normalise mass for air intakes when calculating drag (but not when calculating F=ma). Now, I *think* that mass gets normalised around 0.01 for intakes - to refine this we'd need someone far more experienced in modding - or a diminutive goblin experienced in pot-holing prepared to delve into the perilous cramped, dank and dark depths of the KSP code. Given it looks like the aero system is getting a fresh lick of paint over the next few updates, I suspect the system will be more elegant and predictable in the future.

Yep, the advantage of the new Structural Intakes is definitely going to be that their shape will allow more of them to be placed on a craft without looking too spammy. Two of them under each delta wing, for example: Trying to fit four XM-G50 intakes under the wings would likely look a bit air-hoggy, but should look quite natural if using the Structural Intakes. Still having the second test rig and flight plan on a save, I just ran the plane featured in the second experiment with four Structural Intakes rather than two - this time it recorded 384m/s delta-v remaining after reaching 75km orbit (over the original 16m/s with just two intakes)

As suggested by Kulebron I've put together a very simple spaceplane and set MechJeb the task of piloting to a 75km circular orbit with various air intake configurations. Methodology Version 0.25.0642 Test rig of FL-T400 Fuel Tank (full oxidiser & liquid fuel), a single RAPIER engine, a MK1 Inline Cockpit, a pair of Type B Structural Wings, each wing equipped with an Elevon 3 and an Elevon 2, a rudder consisting of a Type D Structural Wing and an Elevon 4, three Small Gear Bay wheels, the rearmost two affixed via structural Small Hardpoints and four fixed OX-STAT solar panels. To this, the various available air intakes were affixed for each test. The RAPIER engine was set to automatically switch between air breathing and closed cycle mode so as to eliminate human variance. MechJeb was given an orbit ascent profile of 0.1/70/1/20 - that is, set to begin it's "gravity turn" at 100 metres (ie. just above the runway), that turn being an arc flattening out with a 20% turn shape to 1 degree at 70km. This profile resulted in an ascent which looked roughly similar to the flight path I'd use when manually piloting a very light spaceplane. A circular 75km orbit was requested of the MechJeb autopilot. MechJeb's throttle feathering anti jet flameout feature was not enabled, primarily because it interfered with the RAPIER engine's automatic mode switch. As such a human pilot and/or better tweaked MechJeb settings may well get the plane to orbit with more delta-v remaining, but with the stated methodology the results should be repeatable and comparable to eachother. Launch procedure involved staging the RAPIER engine and immediately enabling MechJeb autopilot - from runway to orbit everything was automated. Upon attaining a circular 75km orbit, and autopilot disengaging, the closed cycle vacuum delta-v remaining, as reported by MechJeb, was recorded. Results Equipped with a Circular Intake the test rig had 294m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Equipped with a Ram Air Intake the test rig had 413m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Equipped with a Shock Cone Intake the test rig had 474m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Equipped with a pair of XM-G50 radial intakes the test rig had 487m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Equipped with a pair of Structural (radial) intakes the test rig had 16m/s delta-v remaining after attaining 75km orbit. Conclusion The results found give a very similar order and impression as those attained in the first vertical experiment. As such I'm prepared to, tentatively, be a little more firm in repeating the same conclusions found in the first experiment. Ie. if you're looking for an inline air intake then the Ram Air Intake and the Shock Cone Intake are likely your best choices - the difference between the two appears to give a slight advantage to the Shock Cone Intake but my hunch would be that the difference is so slight as to lie within the margin of error. The Circular Intake appears to be a slightly inferior choice, however not so much so as to dictate design - if you prefer the Circular Intake for aesthetic or other reasons you will not be hobbled by your choice. The radial intakes seem to show the same clear results in this test as in the first - a pair of XM-G50 radial intakes appears roughly equivalent to the best you can expect of a single inline intake. The new Structural Intakes appear to be a substandard choice but again not one that would cripple a design - indeed the slim form factor of the Structural Intakes perhaps opens up other design possibilities, for example one may be able to fit more of them under a wing than the XM-G50 radial intakes. Final thoughts A weakness of this test design lies in the flight profile chosen: it's quite possible that different intakes will perform better or worse under different flight profiles. I reached upon the 0.1/70/1/20 flight profile after three test flights to tweak settings and purposely wished to limit my fine tuning of this profile so as to avoid inadvertently tuning the test to best suit a particular intake choice. Nevertheless the first two test flights were performed with the Shock Cone Intake and a third test flight was required with the Structural Intake to tweak the flight profile such that it could achieve a 75km orbit with any delta-v to spare. Thus it's possible I've advantaged the Shock Cone Intake and the Structural Intake by tuning the flight profile to favour these intakes. Finally, KSP devs have noted that future updates will be steering more toward balance tweaks, and include a fresh look at the aerodynamics system in use. Thus it's more wise than ever before to treat these results with a big pinch of salt if you're running a later version of KSP than 0.25.0642.

Mech Jeb is not a bad call actually. It should provide a way of largely eliminating human variances in a more realistic flight plan and design. I'll knock together a more plane like test rig tomorrow and figure out a methodology to get some useful results with Mech Jeb.

Which is the best air intake in Kerbal Space Program? The answer, as with most in KSP, is, of course, it depends. However, we can compare air intakes with a modicum of scientific rigour. Of course, science - working everything out with a pen, paper, and slide rule - is distinctly un-Kerbal; far better to strap Jeb to a test rig and launch. So.... Methodology Version 0.25.0642 Test rig of FL-T100 fuel tank (drained of oxidiser), four LT-1 landing legs, a single TurboJet engine, a MK1 Inline Cockpit, two MK2-R Radial parachutes and variable air intakes. Launch procedure involved setting throttle to max, enabling SAS, and igniting the blue touch paper. No controls (or time warp) were touched until apoapsis reached (at which point throttle position was nuked and parachutes enabled), upon landing the maximum altitude reached was recorded via the F3 results screen. Results Equipped with a Circular Intake the test rig reached an altitude of 128,981 metres. Equipped with a Ram Air Intake the test rig reached an altitude of 141,239 metres. Equipped with a Shock Cone Intake the test rig reached an altitude of 147,461 metres. Equipped with a pair of XM-G50 radial intakes the test rig reached an altitude of 149,037 metres. Equipped with a pair of Structural (radial) intakes the test rig reached an altitude of 103,572 metres. Conclusion Not sure we can actually draw conclusions from this experiment - the test rig is rather unrealistic compared to real (in KSP) spaceplane designs. Drag, mass, and speed at varying altitudes are all likely different to a typical space plane design and flight plan. That said, of the inline intakes, we can perhaps say that the "best" intakes are - in ascending order of proficiency - the Circular Intake, the Ram Air Intake, and the Shock Cone Intake. It is important to note that the difference between the best and worst in this test is only around 10%. The radial intake results are surprising. So much so that I re-run them, only to record results within 100 metres of the initial recordings. It is, perhaps, safe to say that if you're looking to use radial intakes then the original XM-G50 radial intake might be a better choice than the new (as of v0.25) Structural Intake. And that a pair of XM-G50 radial intakes may well be roughly equivalent to a single instance of the best inline intake. Final thoughts Re-iterating - the test rig is rather unrealistic. It provides a way of producing replicable results but it is very far removed from typical space plane designs and flight plans. As such, results may not be applicable to real world designs. Suggested improvements in methodology are very much encouraged.

Not being able to revert is certainly making for some interesting gameplay Booster separation shortly after launch didn't go cleanly, destroying half the lifter stage - do we dump the expensive payload in the sea? Nah, we land it with a tiny unbalanced payload parachute and the interplanetary nuke engine (was a mission to put a rover and a satellite on and around both Ike and Duna - rather panicked as that represented around 3/4 of my available funds)

But Crime & Punishment is about a spaceplane pawnbroker murdered by means of orbital asteroid bombardment! (I may have skimmed Crime & Punishment)

Telly is the new film - expand your search into TV shows and you've still got a few thousand hours to catch up on. Not sure how much difference there is between Netflix's UK & US offerings, but goodies on this side of the pond: House of Cards (the US one *and* the original 1990 UK one) Orange is the New Black *All* the Swedish/Danish crime dramas (subtitles are fine, they're better than the remade/dubbed versions, + you learn some Scandewegian!) So - The Killing, The Bridge, Borgen Nurse Jackie Homeland Breaking Bad (guessing everyone's seen this now, but just in case) The Thick of It (this is exactly how government runs, plus you learn the very best swears from Doctor Who) Black Mirror edit: oh, and if you can find it - In The Loop - film spinoff of The Thick of It - more fantastic swearing should give a flavour.

Concorde style intakes are kinda similar to the original SP+ radial intakes as shown below. From media release videos it looks like they've made it into the 0.25 stock game, with possibly a slight tweak to sizing. (from SP+ mod page at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/80796-0-24-Spaceplane-Plus-1-3)

As Red Iron Crown notes, looks like they've made changes to vertical (as viewed in trad space plane hangar) symmetry such that cargo bay etc can be rotated 180 degrees and retain symmetry. Also I detect a hint of horizontal angle tweaking so it's easier to align things to a typical thrust vector when coming off an angled edge (such as the short LFO fuel tank adaptor part). Not sure I've worded that particularly well but I hope you've got the drift. Basically SP+ has become SP++.

Mere collateral damage. I find myself weirdly excited about this one, despite playing with SP+ for the last couple of months. Partly it's because I don't want to start any new missions with a release imminent. Partly because, much as I'm loving SP+, I'm seeing it's limitations - limitations apparently fixed in the release such as symmetry and easier (ALT to eliminate surface mounting) cargo bay building. Kinda hoping it's tonight as I'm busy tomorrow

Nah, there's no hate here. Just rocket propelled hugs HAVING SAID THAT.... Hate leads to anger, and a whole bunch of other things, but eventually hate leads to moon sized space stations armed with planet destroying lasers.... which would be cool. So perhaps a little hate in the Kerbaverse wouldn't be such a bad thing?

Rather than science being merely a currency for unlocking parts (and in 0.25 an exchange rate into cash/reputation), I suggest science and space infrastructure could also unlock features. For three reasons. First, and of least importance, realism - on Earth science tells us more about the Universe, how to predict it's workings and how to get out there; on Kerbin science merely concerns itself with the parts we can use to get there. Second, and more important reason is that it ramps the feature set up for new players in addition to the part catalogue. This avoids too daunting an initial experience, whilst gradually introducing players to advanced tools for even greater adventure. Third, it gives a reason for space infrastructure. At present, if you send a probe to gather Duna orbit science and return it to Kerbin, there's absolutely no reason to ever send another mission to put a satellite around Duna. A case in point would be delta-v calculations. Squad have said (rightly in my view) that they prefer the trial and error approach that not having a delta-v calculator encourages. Failure should always be fun, and in KSP, failure is often more fun than success. However, whilst trial and error will get you into orbit, will see you land on the Mun, and will see your second rescue mission save your intrepid first pioneer, I'd argue it's largely impossible to design, say, a multi part Jool tour, or a grand tour, or an Eve return craft without a delta-v calculator. Either you sit down for minutes/hours with a notepad and Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation, you download a mod, you repeatedly massively under or over estimate craft design, or you simply don't go. What if the process of say, landing on the Mun, or getting a couple of satellites in orbit gave your little green scientists the experience and knowledge required to better calculate & predict rocket behaviour such that they can now calculate delta-v of a craft as it's designed? Feature unlocked! Basic delta-v calculator appears in design buildings. Landing a probe equipped with a graviton sensor and/or atmospheric sensor on a planet/moon could give the built in delta-v calculator the knowledge of approximate delta-v & thrust to take off/land from that given body. "It looks like you're designing a Dres lander - we've landed a probe there! We now know it'll take approximately X delta-v to take off/land". This allows for the initial visit to still retain some of that trial and error approach, but gives appropriate tools for subsequent more ambitious visits. Maintaining a satellite or two around a given body (perhaps one equipped with particular science gear, eg graviton sensor) could allow top Kerbin minds to better predict orbital paths. Feature unlocked! Approximate launch window costs are now displayed in the tracking centre for that body. Finally a reason to maintain satellites rather than as a mere one-shot science grind! Again, the first couple of visits you didn't know much about launch windows, you used trial and error, which was fun - but now you're able to better predict optimum launch windows for your future missions. I'm a big fan of trial and error. It's fun. But it's effectively impossible to visit some of the more exotic locales or undertake ambitious tours without knowing what the current planetary alignment will do to your launch window costs, roughly how much it'll take to get there, land, take off & get back, and what the individual stages of your current craft is capable of. We currently gather all this knowledge either from external sources or we download a mod or two (or we painstakingly work it all out with a notepad, I'm discounting that as, for the majority, not fun). Lighter, simpler, missions which can be trial & error'd open up that knowledge for more ambitious future missions, keeping knowledge in the game rather than alt-tabbed, and introducing it at the appropriate time. It also gives purpose to maintaining permanent space infrastructure.

With the proviso that I have no way of knowing how Squad like to organise development or what their code looks like, I can see that a bug fix release (rather than patch/hotfix) is likely to result in a lot of wasted effort whilst features are still being added. You end up fixing bugs in placeholder code which is subsequently scrapped a few months down the line as underlying systems are rebuilt from scratch to take into account new features they want to add or merely after figuring out a better way of doing a given system in the context of the wider game. As a quick example, the infini-glide bug. Spend dev time fixing that in the current aero system? They've said they want to revisit aerodynamics at some point in the future - that may just need tweaks or it may need a new system built from the ground up. It's likely, at this stage, no-one knows for sure. Spending time fixing the infini-glide bug now stands a good chance of being wasted effort. Same could be said for terrain glitches and floating/sunk easter eggs - new biomes, new Mun style procedural cratering etc is likely to make any such work redundant a few months down the line.

Quick question for those doing frame by frame analysis of the videos (and any left over tea-leaves / chicken bones) to divine arcane secrets: Have you noticed any deviation in part specs from original SP+ parts to their new official counterparts? Ie. mass/lift/fuel etc. Just trying to see if what works in SP+ will most likely work in 0.25 (the shape/symmetry changes will surely mean re-assembly is necessary, but wondering if general design principles will crossover). On a related note - any other part changes spotted? I note the "brown SAS with the HAL eye" is now a 0.625m part which makes a lot of sense.

That's quite special Have a little +rep nod

Yay! Thanks for that Wasn't fussed about the colour but the shape being previously asymmetrical as well looked a bit off.

Looks like a reasonable place to ask this - did we get any hint of downward facing (aka bomb bay) cargo bay doors appearing in addition to the SP+ upward doors we (the "we" who've been playing with SP+ in anticipation) are used to? I vaguely recall some discussion earlier but not sure if this was confirmed or merely wished for. Would be handy for landing a plane on the moon... ... opening doors and dropping a rover from it's tummy Also - and I appreciate I'm just being greedy here - any circular 2.5m/1.25m cargo bays in the works for rockets? I'm assuming for 0.25 they'll be limited to the SP+ plane shaped ones.