Niccolo

Out of curiosity, what design choices led to how the plumes act at higher altitudes? They sorta shift into becoming fuzzy bursts rather than jets of fire like at the surface. Is... Is that what rocket plumes look like in space? Edited to move bug report to proper spot.

I can't seem to install any mods using this. There's no error, the program just sorta sits there doing nothing. Detailed Explanation: I've installed it correctly - I've checked and double-checked, I followed the install directions for Linux fully. It runs, connects to the repository, everything. However, if I select a couple of mods and hit 'apply changes' it switches to the "Installing Mods" tab and says "about to install". Forever. The progress bar doesn't fill up, just a little blue bar moving from left to right. I've found if I go through and download each mod one-by-one on the mod selection page, then it lets me install them from cache. But CKAN refuses to install a mod that it also needs to download - it just hangs indefinitely. I tested this with Blizzy's toolbar - a very small mod which should download in seconds on my internet connection. It's still on "About to Install" after ages. Anybody know what's up? For reference: Running Linux Mint 17.1. I'm a linux newbie, having installed it for KSP alone, so please bear that in mind for technical solutions

I think you misunderstand what 'perfect' means. Perfectly engineered rockets tend not to dissolve Although I can't talk. I had a rather expensive, rather fancy high-altitude plane that I was toying around with, tinkering with ramjets and turbojets and all those fancy aerodynamic terms. However, I forgot any of the ancillary details. Like drogue chutes. Or airbrakes. Or an ejector seat. Or anything else to help my plane land in one piece rather than my pilot undertaking an overly aggressive lithobraking manoeuvre. So she died, I lost half of my available funds and there's now debris scattered over several hundred metres of the grasslands around my KSC.

Hey, I love the mod - more realistic experiments are always cool. But whenever I load one of your experiments into the pod, on launch (And for the whole mission sadly) it runs at about half FPS. It's weird - there's no textures, no parts, so nothing should be making my computer suddenly start chugging like an ancient coal-powered IBM or something.

Hey Claw, I thought I'd just post something I learned this morning concerning this bug and its brethren - it happens with completed contracts, as is known. What I didn't know - and what you may want to mention in the OP - is that if it IS because you've uninstalled/updated a mod that's messed around with an agency, all of the contracts of theirs will show up in the mission control as blank squares with nothing but the contract's title. This happened to me this morning and after hours of combing through kerbals looking for who was missing, I by chance noticed the weird blank contract. Made it really, really easy to search for the contract in the save file so as to delete it, too. I wonder if something similar happens in the astronaut complex?

Love it and can't wait to see how it advances! Aaaand now I'm inspired to build my own tiny-ass box satellite and fire it into space. But please fix the battery module! Every time I pick it up it eats my ram. All of it - every last drop. And then doesn't let go, leading to me having to reboot my computer.

+1 to that. Refurbishing a ship and storing it in the hangar would fit right in with the theme of his mod and honestly, that's how I'd want to see it done - it sounds weird, but I get attached to my vessels and want to look after them! After much simulating, I've refined my jet design down to one that can get anywhere on Kerbin within twenty minutes or so. I call it the Labbit (After a moustachioed rabbit... don't ask) and Jeb appears to have taken a liking to it, too. I don't have the heart to break his jet down! Maybe even a minor editing - direct editing of the model to allow you to swap out experiments, alter KAS container contents, that kind of thing. I guess that could be limited by limiting the number of BP you can alter - most experiments are really small in terms of BP. Gods above, I imagine the scripting would be something of a nightmare. I have no idea how feasible that is.

I love this mod! I find it a little frustrating to have to wait, but then I guess that's the point... now that I'm used to it, I find myself planning and managing things around. Once you're in the swing of the mod it feels perfectly normal to have to plan missions around time. The mod fits into the base game with barely a seam, always a mark of a well thought out piece of work! On that note, though, I have found something interesting to do with purchasing upgrade points - don't quicksave! The science price for an upgrade point doubles each time, right? Well, if you quicksave on a flight, head back to the KSC, buy a point (so the price is doubled for the next one) and spend it, then at some time revert to the quicksave from before purchasing, the point vanishes but the doubled price stays the same. As an addendum: Does anybody know of a mod that lets you store ships? Ideally what I'd like to do is build a plane, fly it around for science, land at KSC and refuel and store it until I need it again. I've looked at Allista's Hangar mod, but that involves piles of science to fly portable hangars to other planets, rather than a new building next to the SPH

I won't then. But seriously, thanks for making that tutorial. Managed to land my Kerbals on the Mun now. The landing was a little, uh... bouncy. My craft fell over, but luckily my RCS was powerful enough to right the ship. Didn't expect that. Got the bastard back into orbit with about ten units of fuel to spare - but on the opposite side of the moon from my transit craft. Lacking the fuel to adjust my orbit (Somehow on BOTH vessels, yeesh) I'm starting a rescue operation to bring those brave sons of Kerbin home.

I docked! I docked I docked I docked! Man, I am so happy. I think I might sacrifice my firstborn to Blizzy in thanks for that tutorial. ... Now to see if I can do it without the hand-holding...

Dwarf Fortress the whole way. A tip: visit the Dwarf Fortress forums. Here's a handy link. Go pootle around in the DF general discussion and the Dwarf Mode Discussion. Read the stories, get immersed. You'll see what I mean.

I second Radiokopf. Just fool around. Get a feel for the game. Fling ridiculous rockets shaped like ducks around. See if you can't get to space on your own (You probably won't ). THEN go look at the tutorials. I'd recommend at least starting with one or two of the pre-loaded tutorials that come with the game, though. Particularly the ship-building one and the basic controls one.

Finally working out gravitational slingshots! I was trying to get to the Mun and found that for some reason my trajectory shot off the other end, wrapped around Minmus and fired off in a generally sunwards direction. I mean, I knew the general theory, but it just didn't quite click until I saw it laid out like that. I've actually learned a hell of a lot about space from playing KSP.

Managed to land not once, not twice, but three times on the Mun. Two immobile science platforms and a rover. The science platforms were an utter bitch - well, the first one was. I mistakenly made it a little top-heavy and it kept rolling whenever I touched down. The Mk II science platform landed nicely and exactly where I wanted it with no structural damage whatsoever and enough battery power to last the half-month-long night of the Mun. My Rover landed in one piece and functioned really nicely - until I tried to go down a canyon wall, rolled and exploded into a million pieces. But hey, at least I got my Mun Landings honed!

My probe arrived on the Mun, which was good. However, it arrived at 200 m/s, which was not good.

Sadly, my little probe-ship had no docking ports on it. Also, no. I am terrible at rendezvous. The last time I tried... we, uh, we don't talk about the last time. EDIT: Well, I since arrived at the moon... but thanks to underestimating my speed, I arrived a little faster than I was intending. Unfortunately my quicksave was just a little too late to prevent this. In other news: I suck at designing spaceplanes. Jeb hates me now.

I've never tried MechJeb, since I want to do it all myself first (And I'm still a newbie!). But I've been wondering about it, about whether I might like it or not... but I do know pleny about the scientific method. You remained pretty objective in your analysis and gave both the control and experimental group equal weighting. You had a clear goal in mind and a set of parameters you stuck with. The tests performed were more than fair and are indicative of typical day-to-day actions for KSP players - about my only nitpick is you didn't test how it finds escape vectors, but that nit to pick off is frankly really tiny. And I'll be honest, I've found your experiment here particularly enlightening, so definitely bonus points for your concise conclusions. I've read scientific journal articles with less clarity and objectivity than this; that's not hyperbole, either. Aaaand now I know how MechJeb works. So there's that.

I was sending a probe to the mun so as to "safely" test out my new Artemis class lifter. Managed to get my probe out to 7,000 km orbit and was just preparing my manoeuvre node to hit the mun. Everything was going swimmingly until I hit burn - and found that my batteries had drained flat. I had forgotten to extend the solar panels. Took me a good half-hour to get out there, too.

I never thought of doing that to port them across. I must say, I've found this whole thread pretty useful... Spaceplanes have been giving me hell. ... Although given my newness to orbital mechanics in general, so has most everything.

Well, I hope you know that Kerbin only has a diameter of 600 km. So your dwarf planet is no dwarf... And the Do Not Suggest list mentions new stars, planets, moons and asteroids. But then most of the Do Not Suggest things tend to apply to generalities, so I will definitely defer to someone of greater experience on that front! However, a nicely-populated asteroid belt is something I can get behind.

It's nothing big, but I managed to get a satellite into geostationary orbit for the first time. I was extremely pleased with how the launch went, too; my Heracles class lifters are a little temperamental, which is one word you never want describing a rocket. First try, got my orbital plane to 0.4 degrees off of equatorial just by eyeballing it on the navball. So, yeah, I'm pretty damn happy.

I think I might be missing something... Why is 'Jeb' a state of danger now? Adding a little to the spectrum might be good, too. Maybe adding in something along the lines of "Low Kerbal orbit" = relaxed, geosynchronous orbit = nervous as hell, escape vector = scared, first time in space = This is awesome!

I had a Scott Kerman who had completely maxed out courage and stupidity. I loved the little guy; no matter what I did, he was always so incredibly excited and happy. Then my save-game up and deleted, so Scott is no more...

I do. I had Jeb stuck in a pod on orbit which had, for some weird reason, decided to jettison its engine and I had no way to get him home. I terminated the mission and felt really guilty over killing him for ages! ... Then he somehow came back to life and I freaked the hell out. Still, zombie Kerbals are pretty cool.

Y'know, I hadn't even considered the extra length of night on the Mun. It makes sense, though... What's the orbital period of the Mun? That's awesome. That's really, really awesome. How many RTGs are on there?