RyanRising

Just to be extra clear on this, issues with Waterfall-Restock (the configurations) posted on the forum instead of GitHub should be in the Waterfall thread, not the Restock thread?

Since so many people have it in their Steam Wishlist, this seems like a good place to repeat that old, tired advice. When this game starts accepting preorders, don’t do it. If it’s a good game you can buy it once the reviews confirm that. If it’s a bad game, you won’t have wasted your money on it. I suspect the game will turn out alright, but it definitely won’t live up to some of the expectations about it, and if those expectations happen to be a dealbreaker for you you’ll be glad you waited to see. I know some of you will be in that camp.

In contrast to my earlier optimism, what makes me think even the simpler implementations of differing water levels might be very hard to implement is the fact that we still have imitation water in KSP1’s admin building pool.

I think I’ve only now realised I’ve been thinking about KSP2 as an overhaul and expansion to KSP1. But no, it’s a different game, with a different focus, and that’s led me to realise that there’ll inevitably be things you can’t do in KSP2 that you can in KSP1. What systems, I wonder, were a good fit for KSP but just have no place in the sequel? Will the focus on supply lines mean there’s no place for portable & compact ISRU equipment, and so that system would be significantly altered to make permanent resource-gathering installations mandatory to refuel crafts? Will the attention to the needs of Kerbals as more than machines mean it’s no longer feasible to send them on one-bal journeys using gravity assists to do a grand tour over several dozen years? Will the much larger scale of the advanced future tech mean less options for smaller-scale missions with lower mass budgets? Will the expanded scope of multiple star systems lead to less interesting local planetary surface opera- pffft, yeah, can’t write that one with a straight face. Scope reduction musings aside, I very much hope we’ll be able to have overhangs, roofed surfaces, occasional caves, and a camera that doesn’t freak out if you go underneath a static. The worlds themselves in KSP are rather limited in variety not between celestial bodies but within them. Kerbin has the most diverse landscape, but it’s still all either ocean, flats, or varying severity of hills.

It wouldn't allow for stuff like tides, but couldn't you manage it with a heightmap for the water? Essentially putting another layer of terrain on the planet with a different type of collision? That doesn't immediately seem like a nightmare, though I'm sure it could turn into one eventually.

My thoughts exactly! I thought something looked off during the end of the entry burn (flame only to one side), but my mind was taken off of that by the drone ship camera with the birds. A net loss for SpaceX with that, but definitely a net win for those birds. EDIT: Also, I’m surprised they said they lost the booster on stream, even though it was blindingly obvious from the camera views. I remember them bluffing about the center core on the FH test flight for a bit, then just dropping the subject. I guess media pressure was higher that time, though.

Possibly, but I think there’s limited value in such an endeavour when it lacks the numerous attempts SpaceX could give the booster landing. I get the impression they learned mostly from the changes they made between attempts, and you can’t quickly make changes and try again on Mars. I think you’d really only get a lot of good data if you landed successfully. I’d love to be proven wrong, though! Maybe that Mars sample return mission can give it a shot?

That’s very odd - this issue showed up in 1.11.0 + Restock 1.3.0, and was ostensibly fixed in Restock 1.3.1. At any rate, a little more info would certainly be helpful to those who can help - other mods, clean installation testing, logs, you know the drill.

Well that’s rather unique. I’m imagining the Kerbal scientists trying to squeeze crude oil into a nuclear reactor, and I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised they made it work. Where did the idea for this come from?

Plus there are a few engines that Restock doesn't touch - the Making History 1.875m engines and the aerospike come to mind.

Obviously this can’t be the case for a multitude of reasons, but if the budget that went towards the SLS had instead just been a “make a good moon rocket” fund instead of a “keep the Shuttle contractors employed” fund, do we have any idea what that rocket might have looked like? Or is that idea too far divorced from reality for us to have any inkling what NASA could have come up with?

I may need to get more sleep, thanks

Oh, I've no doubt they're hard at work over there. It's just that outward secrecy makes it seem like nothing is happening to us observers, and so it seems like a surprise when we see any visual progress whatsoever. I was trying to play into that for effect.

Darn it, I just went on a forum adventure looking for that too. Well, glad you found it. Definitely more him agreeing to six vacuum engines than coming out with it himself, but it's still some validation on the idea.

No kidding, huh? So they are making a rocket after all.

Possibly, but ISTM that you could remove the sea-level engines in the middle and add 3 more RVacs around the perimeter, for 6-fold symmetry. If one of those fails, you can shut down the opposing one (though that will result in lower total thrust), and if it doesn't fail you have a higher specific impulse throughout the ascent. That's what I think was being suggested for this upper stage, anyway. And if I dare say, I don't think a variation on the autopilot that can handle 6 RVacs instead of 3 RVacs + 3 Raptor SL would be that much of a challenge for SpaceX. They seem... reasonably decent at writing rocket control software.

You're going to have to be more specific than that if you actually want support, but I have a feeling your problem is that you're opening it without having any engines configured for Waterfall on your craft. Take a look at the first post on this thread and the Github wiki section for more information.

If that’s the case, why does the Moonship concept have SL raptors? It also operates only in vacuum, so what would it need that capability for that a deep-space Starship wouldn’t?

If this is possible to answer with the given information, am I correct in assuming these problems with JNSQ come from an outdated Scatterer configuration? If so, is there anything I can do to fix it besides pestering the authors?

The latest Scatterer update (0.07xx, that is) seems to have broken all the sunset/rise effects in the JNSQ scatterer config. There's no sunset-coloured clouds, no sunlight extinction, even though I have the option for preserve cloud colours off, the option for integrating effects with EVE clouds on, and the option for sunlight extinction on. Here's what I mean: Dusk, scatterer 0.0723: Dusk, scatterer 0.0632: Dawn, scatterer 0.0723: Dawn, scatterer 0.0632: Game version 1.11.1, mods are JNSQ 0.90.0, EVE-Redux 1.11.2.1, scatterer (versions above), Kerbal Konstructs, Omega's Stockalike Structures, and Kopernicus 1.11.1-30 (stable). Fresh sandbox save. I dunno if I should even be posting this here, let me know if I'm better served by going to the Scatterer thread. I thought to post it here first because to my untrained eye this seems like a configuration that requires updating.

I have to agree that they're not really as readable: vs. , for example. At a glance, you can much easier tell that the low-res, brown haired, not-really-much-like-a-Kerbal-at-all emoticon is grinning rather than, say, grimacing. And yeah, where's the female Kerbals? Still having to fight to get representation after all these years.

JNSQ Kerbin does seem a little less lively than our stock one, now that you mention it. Also, an originally straightforward story of spaceflight eventually getting tied up with some sort of decay that threatens to wipe out the Kerbals? I’m getting reminded of First Flight. This existential threat to the Kerbals is new in the context of your series, right?

While it is worthwhile to engage on endeavours of great risk to further the reach of humanity, and that risk is definitely worthwhile for the purpose of space exploration, Starship is being proposed by SpaceX as a transportation system to compete with airlines. If they want to become a relatively popular means of mass transportation, the risk will not be balanced out by the payout of reaching amongst the stars, it will only be balanced by the payout of getting from point A to point B. That's where this airliner-level reliability idea comes from. But a rocket is inherently less safe than an airplane, in the same way an airplane is inherently less safe than a car. (This is, of course, ignoring the safety attributed to the pilot, which is what makes cars more dangerous than planes in reality.) If your engine goes out while trying to park a car, you can put on the brakes, get out, and walk out alright. If your engine goes out while trying to fly a plane, you can glide down, hope there's a suitable landing area, land, and possibly walk out alright. If your engine goes out while trying to land a rocket, you die. You can survive a lot of things going wrong in a car that you can't survive going wrong in a plane, and you can survive a lot of things going wrong in a plane that you can't survive in a rocket. Airliner-level reliability for a rocket would be incredibly difficult to achieve because they need to overcome the fact that the situation is more precarious with their system, but SpaceX needs to make it happen in order to for Starship to perform the functions they want it to.

Same thing with pretty much any rocket engine. Usually that stuff is omitted, which is what makes the mount for those wires' inclusion here notable. Personally, I think it's there because the engine would be kinda visually unbalanced otherwise.

I'm not a fan of stars looking washed out at night, so I've got it pinned at 100%. This does lead to some rather jarring changes and the skybox being brighter than it seems it should, sometimes, so I'm not sure I'd recommend it.