agentKmurph

Windows 8? Power users? Windows 8 was meant to be a "casual" platform hence why it features basically a tablet interface. I mean one could argue that "power user" implies "difficult to use" in which case Windows 8 might be more of a power user platform than I thought but still I prefer to do my hard drive formatting, file servers, development, and other not-everyday-user stuff on just about any platform BUT Windows 8. Lets separate your PC's settings into three different locations. Lets make it so it doesn't shut down fully by default. Lets make it so you have two different taskbars. Lets make an interface optimized ONLY for touch screens. These are the big reasons I can't stand to do anything really "computery" with Windows 8. Desktops / classic laptops with Windows 8 make me cringe. Okay this is going to sound really wierd but I am now going to defend the Windows 8 interface. When I use Windows 8 on my tablet for taking notes, web surfing, Xbox Video, Music, Maps, and other more application oriented tasks, I actually quite like it. I don't really care where settings are, or that that it does a hybrid shutdown so I can resume work faster, or how I have two taskbards because I really only use one when I am tablet mode. The charms offer great multimedia interconnectivity without the BS of past Windows distributions. The interface works very well for certain things and clearly those things are not what you do. Basically that makes it ill-suited to what you do but not inherently "horrible." Just got the Windows 10 Tech Preview running in a VM on my Linux box. The first thing it did when I signed into my Microsoft account was load my tablet's desktop, login screen, theme colors, and photo library. I was VERY unnerved by this. I knew MS accounts were more integrated and universal but I never really thought about how much I was sharing until then. How naive of me in hindsight. I totally agree that the potential for constant surveillence is there. In fact, I would actually go as far as to say at somewhat of a risk that you have every right to gut those features despite what the EULA says. My philosophy of computers is very much at odds with most of the industry at the moment, part of why I my major in college right now is computer engineering. Refer to above comments on the UI. As for the second part of your comment, THANK YOU SO MUCH! Someone finally understands computer architecture and the that operating system is different from the interface To clarify, the way most people think about Windows 8 isn't really what an operating system is. An OS is just a hardware access and memory management program called a kernel. The UI or "shell" is something totally different; its the part people actually see and interact with. Its actually a program run by the operating system. Windows 8 kernel is actually really fantastic. It has less overhead than the Windows 7 kernel, performs better on similar hardware, and is so far the most stable version I've used yet. Uh that beging said, RUN LINUX! Does better on all fronts, except perhaps stability (but then again if Linux crashes its probably your fault because you did something stupid) Wow, we were talking about Holo lens originally right? Yeah, about that. Love it. Want to get my hands on one. I think for once in Microsoft's history since the days when they migrated out of DOS and 3.1, they are doing something that is truly unique and industry defining. The Windows 10 UI is much better than Windows 8 for mouse-keyboard by the way.

Check me if I am wrong but it sounds like you are trying to say "It shouldn't be stock because its a mod." To which I would respond "That is a moot point; a lot of stock KSP came from mods." Also people shouldn't have to pursue add-ons to compensate for poor design. That's like saying "We should build a car without power steering and seat belts because the owner can add those themselves later." In any case, thanks you for the link to the mod though. I will be trying that soon. Yeah I know . It is the only page that is completely empty ever in KSP which is what I needed to visually describe my idea.

Especially with the recent incorporation of KW Rocketry, I've been growing to dislike the current interface for selecting parts in the VAB and Hangar. Its clunky, slow (pages rather than a scroll... ick), and the shear number of parts makes a visual labyrinth that is easy to get lost in. I find myself looking over the part I want two and three times even though I have played the game for a little over a year now and am more or less acquainted to where each should appear in the menus. The current organization scheme of Pods, Control, Structure, etc I feel doesn't go far enough. There doesn't seem to be a particular order that the parts appear in the menu other than parts that are similar in function will appear in the same tab. Also some parts are not classified correctly, such as the ion engine or Hitchhiker Storage Container. Seems to me those should be in Propulsion and Pods respectively, not Utility. This is what I would personally like to see. In each tab, group each part by its exact function (and part size for those that are particularly numerous like fuel tanks) into a labelled sub-menu. Then have the item tab contained the sub-menus scroll up and down to reveal them rather than have pages. Here is what I am getting at: Alternately at least group into subgroups in the tabs and sort them in some non-random order like by ascending size order and use a scroll bar instead of the current pages. These are the sub-categories / menus I would suggest: Pods: -Manned -Small Unmanned (Oktos, Stayputnik) -Large Unmanned (the pancake control units) Control: -Thrusters -SAS Units Propulsion -Small Fuel Tanks (toroidial up to FLT200) -Large Fuel Tanks (FLT400 and up) -RCS Fuel Tanks -Small Engines (LV1 up to LVT30) -Large Engines (Poodle up to Kerbodyne) Aerodynamic: -Fixed Fins&Wings (Wings without control surfaces) -Controled Fins&Wings (wings with control surfaces and control surfaces) -Nacelles and Intakes -Nosecones Utility: -Batteries -Landing Legs -Wheels -Solar Panels -Ladders -Docking Ports -Lights Science can remain unsorted. In each subcategory, fill them such that the parts go from smallest to largest in terms of thrust, fuel capacity, energy content, etc. The icons are deceptive and untruthful about the size of the part so we need something else to go on. Of course this is just what I think should be done. Thoughts, comments? And please give quantitative reasons for your opinions. If you think the interface should stay the same, "I don't want to learn a new interface" is not a valid reason. "I don't want to learn new interface because the new one isn't as good for X, Y, and Z," That's fine. Don't be a traditionalist is what I am saying.

Yup. I use a program called Xpadder. It turns any controller into a mouse and keyboard. Ive used it for playing Minecraft on Windows with Xbox 360 controllers and the original Half Life which doesnt support gamepads.

Biggest thing I ever successfully launched was this: If I remember correctly it was for launching 80 tons of fuel to a previously launched space station whose destination was Eeloo. The whole rocket weighed in at 1095 tons.

"real rockets have a lot of strutting that is built in to their structure." IN TO - Right, the structure is inside. Why then do we have to recreate it externally with struts? The superstructure should for the most part already exist. I'm not inclined to the "modular parts are why joints are so weak" argument because that methodology is only used to make this into a game rather than a CAD program. I hope I am not to far out of line assuming that these parts are being properly bolted, welded, and riveted to each other. Now radial parts, odd placements, extremely massive stuff. Of course that should all require strutting. But a simple linear Atlas, Titan I, Ariane, Saturn, Redstone, or Delta style booster shouldn't bend and oscillate like a tree in the wind. That's really my only point here. And of course real rockets have a lot put into their structure; I don't think that knowledge is quite as esoteric as you make it sound. The bottom stage getting weird spread or oscillations isn't a problem since I am using the non thrust vectored LVT30 engine and 1.25m tanks. It most bends at the decoupler between the first and second stage. Removing the third engine would be a theoretical dV gain but the TWR would be unacceptably low given that the first stage drops at the start of the gravity turn. I'll try the reaction wheel relocation though, thanks for the tip.

Wow 50% larger by mass than a Saturn V according to the MechJeb readout. Props for making that monster work! But my real point was that KSP rockets have immense difficulty maintaining stability even with a decent engineering mind behind their construction. I am not asking for something like this: To keep its form without bracing (or total redesign ). I want this, a launcher I used to use for mid-sized probes: to stop bending like a twig whenever I try to steer the darned thing. I've phased out use of this thing because its a bear to control until the first stage detaches. Yeah I get it. Making the joints stronger could lead to making whacky machines that are totally outside the realm of of even distended plausibility and sap the fun out of the challenge of building a successful craft, but I think that only begins to happen when the joints become nigh unbreakable. An decent but not gratuitous increase to their current strength would greatly alleviate some of the most frustrating aspects of this game, like the infamous orbital wobble.

Please read the rest of my post because it seems you did not.

My favorites that have come up in my astronaut pool are so far Al Kerman and Doodski Kerman. Sadly I lost both of them to a vicious stall in an SSTO on reentry. I have since learned to install contingency abort systems on all my SSTOs and make strategic use of F5 and F9.

You realize that the S-IC stage of the Saturn V is 10 meters in diameter and 40 meters tall right? That one single stage is quite a bit larger than most of the rockets we build in KSP. Now consider the entire Saturn V. 110 meters tall and 10 meters in diameter versus our 2.5 meter diameter 30 meter tall rockets. It suffered catastrophic structural failure 0 times of 13 launches. Our rockets are unrealistically TINY and they have difficulties. The ones that require massive bracing are actually only approaching the size of a real launch vehicle. The joints do need to be stronger. Also can someone explain to me why the Cubic Octagonal Strut appears to have the strongest joints in the game (I commonly mount LVT-30s on radial Cubic Octagonal Struts without bracing) while the Rockomax 64 fuel tanks struggle maintain stability even with proper bracing? This seems a total reversal of what should be true.

You mean like the Nav lights on aircraft, right? Like this: Just little beacons to let you know where the darn thing is? If so.. OMG yes! I would love this!

I hate the Mk1-2 because its so FREAKING HEAVY! I usually just use a Hitchhiker Storage Container with OKTO2 for command - that's 1 more crew for a 2 / 3 the weight. If you really want lightweight, Mk1 Lander Cans are the best. Four kerbals for 2400 kg.

The Mailsail is.... unecessasry. In most cases. Its just its big and bad and yeah I get it but really, its more of a red herring. You can get to both Eve and Duna using only the Skipper which I can see you have unlocked. And the nuclear! Wow, you're actually set! You also have the right idea of launching two part missions. Most of my missions in career mode in involve orbital assembly. Its best to do it in LKO actually. I wrote a full tutorial that you can view here Here are a few sample craft of my own (bland but functional) design. This was my first probe to orbit Duna. As you can see, no Mainsails - only Skippers. This is a manned derivative. This is an interplanetary booster I used for putting a 10 ton lander into orbit around Duna and then for returning the lander's barebones core and science experiments after a rendezvous in Duna orbit. The fuel efficiency of the LV-N is your best friend in this game. Literally. Also, watch Scott Manley's videos on how to aerocapture. Aerocapture saves thousands of dV which can then be used for return and in-system orbital corrections. Here are my main rules on interplanetary travel: -the smaller your craft, the better -learn the rocket equation; dV = ln( initial mass / final mass) * Isp * g, with g being 9.8 and Isp the specific impulse of the engine -any interplanetary transfer stage should be using the LV-N once unlocked -two part craft are usually better (this eliminates the Mainsail from the picture in most cases and keeps me from building Whackjob-ian rockets) -Three words; aerocapture, aerocapture, aerocapture EDIT: ALWAYS ASPARAGUS YOUR BOOSTERS. until drag gets patched, its the easiest way to put huge payloads into orbit with a small launcher.

^ Correct. Unless you have a life support mod installed but I don't think you do. Scott probably does a better job explaining orbital rendezvous better than me but I wrote a full tutorial a few weeks back. Click here to see. I think the only thing that may be unclear is that you should achieve a very similar orbit via Mohman Transfer (burns at apoapsis and periapsis to raise / lower the opposite in each case) after adjusting your orbital plane. Oh and honestly, you can do things GRAVITY style if your anywhere closer than about 50 km. Kerbal EVA packs have the dV of a mid-sized probe unlike real MMUs which have a small fraction.

May we derive propulsion from something other than the jet engines? It is implied that we can't in the title and description of your challenge but not clearly stated.

So your only using a single stage right? Because if so you can use the properties of logarithms to solve for the empty weight. ln( x / y) is equivalent to ln(x) - ln(y)

I wouldn't deny any of these claims on paper. However, as multiple people have stated, the logistics of building such a rocket is no trivial matter. The "realistic rocket" you speak of faces a daunting challenge of being able to actually pump all that fuel around and do it without upsetting the balance or throttling of the rocket. Whatever gains you could realistically get would be offset by a hell of an engineering conundrum. I would think that given the challenges of building a true asparagus staged design, it might be best to find a compromise. A parallel staged rocket might be much more viable, where all radial boosters feed centrally rather than into each other and eventually to the central tank. This would distribute the central-feeding fuel flow across two or more parallel stages meaning that the flow rate at any given valve / junction between radial stage and central stage would be a fraction of feeding a whole booster. In this scheme, you would never have dead engines and the fuel flow at the junctions could potentially be small enough in magnitude to be acceleration-fed. You also wouldn't have to face the challenge of building a rocket that stages 3+ times like you would in true asparagus scheme.

First of all, I think that we run in to an empirical trap when trying to imagine life on other planets. We think that organisms require water and DNA and RNA simply because every organism on Earth has these things. That is an incredibly limited sample size when we look at the scale of the universe. My point is that because its all we've ever seen, its all we are capable of thinking about. Life on other planets may use some other self-replicating molecule or it could be silicon-based instead of carbon because silicon, being a metalloid with a +4 oxidation state, has similar properties to carbon. I do agree that water and carbon's versatility makes them prime factors but I am also going to say they are not the only things life would require That being said, I cannot with any certainty say what lifeforms other planets would look like or what they would be made of. However I would contended that we would immediately recognize them as living. Why? Simple. Life is all a question of meeting certain basic requirements. Does it reproduce? Does it respond to its environment in a meaningful, non-random way? Does it exhibit a complicated, multifaceted chemical structure? And even though we may not be able to anticipate what life on other planets might look like exactly there are probably things that are going to remain pretty consistent. For instance, perceptive organs. Eyes are going to be pretty much the same because of the nature of light. If you have some other way of focusing light other than a lens with an aperture, I am eager to see it. Ears would be pretty recognizable as well. Maybe less so because other organisms may transduct sound directly rather than through a fluid-filled cochlea like in humans. Noses / nostrils, especially if the being depends on atmosphere for respiration.

1. The only thing we know for sure is that the universe exists. If we spend all of energy trying to figure out why, then we will never do anything worthwhile. Of course that also raises the question. If we can't figure out the purpose then why do anything at all? All of our actions would be meaningless and inconsequential, right? Hardly. Here's the thing. At any given moment, we are presented with a literally infinite swath of choices. Some of these choices are admittedly inconsequential but more often than not our choices could result in damages to the property of ourselves in others, death of ourselves and others, or swing to the other side and our choices could solve a major world problem or keep someone else from taking the short way out with the latter options I mentioned. A lot of our choices are intertwined, even sometimes codependent with the lives of other people and indeed the very nature of the universe. By making each choice, we are condensing the theoretically infinite realities of our world down to one. We do this thousands of times a second... What is this BS about humans not having the power? I change the entirety of our reality with just one choice and I make thousands of choices per second. With that kind of power alone, I would say life's pretty worth living for. Who cares where it all came from? 2. The thing about the laws of nature is that the only reason they appear to exist is because things appear to follow them. There is a codependency / tautology here. The laws of nature exist must exist because most everything we observe adhere to them closely and things adhere to the laws of nature because they apparently exist. When you start thinking about the circular logic, you begin to realize that there is not really any reason for the relationship between the behavior of objects and the physical precepts supposedly guiding their behavior. Therefore it is entirely reasonable in my mind that we get things that seemingly disobey the laws of nature like black holes, white holes, singularities, dark matter, dark energy, and the idea of changing constants. Whose to say that the laws of physics are laws at all? Why can't they change over time? The answers to these questions are simple; no one, no reason. 3. A simple analysis of the universe's composition (which ultimately turns out to be fundamentally unobservable particles called quarks) would point to a Hindu or Taoist perspective of a god (sorry to bring religion in but I am at a lost for how else to describe this). That is there is an eternal essence that composes the universe but that is only made to look different. Therefore, a god wouldn't be removed from the universe - a god is the universe which would make us humans part of that god. So the end, yes the universe is a goddlike being's personal plaything. We just make the mistake that something else is holding the brush. 4. People call me crazy for this but I think its hardly far fetched that the universe is actually just the product of an alien civilization's computer simulation of the universe they live in or that the universe was created by a Type 4 or 5 Kardashev civilization (transcendent race; complete mastery of energy and spacetime). Actually some of the things in our universe such as the Planck Length or the varying constants conundrum already point to the computer simulation theory. Quantization is characteristic of computers which cannot render continuously varying systems and must instead iterate them in infinitesimally small ticks. Floating point losses could also account for thousandth-of-a-percent errors required in the fine structure constant to make light arriving at Earth from the first stars obey the laws of relativity. 5. Consciousness is a funny thing. The brain is an organ trying to understand itself. It is indeed too complex and paradoxical in issue to really determine for sure whether or not there is some special purpose for it. I guess that from an evolutionary standpoint, intelligence is one of the more useful traits to an organism. This is why the average mammalian brain has been getting larger over the years. Self-awareness is a logical progression of intelligence that allows for deeper analysis of a situation, weighting of selfish vs selfless impulses, a sense of personal space, etc and therefore an enhanced ability to survive. Consciousness runs into a problem though because once its clever enough meet its needs in less time than is actually alotted, it starts to wonder it existed in the first place.

[The Mardi-Gras Story] {25} While in orbit around Kerbin, EVA to and board a ship that is more than 20 km distant. [Never Tell Me the Odds]{15} Plant a flag on Gilly [Houston, We've Had a Problem]{10} Get a vessel from Kerbin parking orbit to Mun SOI and return to Kerbin's surface with only 2 burns.

Are you by any chance related to Whackjob? I would enter but I would probably melt my motherboard trying to beat you Smidge. Grats man. Pfft...my poor Athlon x64 7550; old school tech. No way I am even getting past 500 parts on one ship.

I respectfully submit 1 minute and 54 seconds. No debug menu. This was the original craft. 6 asparagus staged Mainsails on Rockomax 200-32 fuel tanks.

I think you mean "Scott Manley" Funny how their both Scottish actually.

EtherDragon is absolutely right on this. If you have propellant to spare, you can simply boost into a higher orbit for a one shot rendezvous. The reason this will not always work is because you may be orbiting a moon for instance where the orbit you would need to achieve in order to phase match a target may actually fall outside the SOI of that moon or you simply don't have the propellant to spare. I'm thinking of missions to Eeloo on that last point. Another reason this may not work is because your vessel may have a low TWR. Keep in mind that the encounter with the target will occur in this case at the periapsis of your orbit, or in other words, where you will be going the fastest. This also means your relative velocity to the target will also be the fastest and I don't see you killing 100+ m/s of dV with a nuclear engine in a reasonable window of the encounter. The patient way to do this is to boost into slightly higher orbit and complete many passes. Because of the caveats I detailed above, it is also the guaranteed way of accomplishing things.

Figuring out rendezvous and docking was one of the hardest things I ever did in KSP but I have it down to a science now. MechJeb is no longer needed. In fact, MechJeb is actually wasteful during docking because it spazzes out your RCS thrusters. So here's how to do it the "hard" way. A detailed guide to rendezvous and docking without using MechJeb and with visual aides. Today this is the craft we are going to rendezvous with, named Agena in honor of the Gemini missions. I purposely put it in a highly inclined orbit for a wholesome demonstration. Step 1: Launch Window This is probably the most critical thing to the success of rendezvous and docking. It is possible to rendezvous with a ship that is 180 degrees out of phase (on the opposite side of the planet at any given point) but it is significantly harder and requires far more dV. So Launch Window - number 1. Its actually very simple on Kerbin. When your target is in LKO, the launch window is when the target strikes that India-like peninsula on the desert continent West of the KSC. Oh and make sure you launch IN THE SAME DIRECTION AS THE TARGET. I accidentally launched a craft into the proper plane but going the wrong direction on an Apollo style Duna mission that almost stranded my poor Kerbals. Step 2: Launch Into an Orbit with a Similar Plane Logical right? If your target is in polar orbit, you wouldn't launch into an equatorial orbit. That is what we call stupid. Of course, thanks to the inclination of my target combined with the rotation of Kerbin, rarely can we ever reach exactly the same plane so we'll just have to make it good enough. Step 3: Match Orbital Planes with Target This is the second most critical step to any rendezvous and docking, after the launch window. This will make it so your closest approaches to target are a lot closer. It makes the rest of this process a friggin breeze. First, select the target in the orbital map and click "Set As Target." You will see its orbit turn green and a bunch of little bugs and dotted lines will pop up that you probably have no idea what they do. Not to fear. For this step you need only play attention to the green house-shaped bugs labelled "Ascending" and "Descending" Nodes. If you drew a line between these two points, it would be where the orbital planes of the target and your active ship cross. It is at these points you want to set a maneuver node to adjust your orbital plane because your orbital plane will rotate around the node. Set the node at whichever you will reach first. Drag the purple triangles on the maneuver node adjust the plane. You will notice that your orbital will start to become elliptical. Not to worry; thats normal. Drag the Retrograde bug to compensate. It takes a little finagling because in your new plane, they are not mutually exclusive vectors. Eventually you will achieve a projected orbit that is at the same altitudes but an different inclination. As you can see in the image, our projected orbit is within incalculable difference from the plane of the target because it reads NaN. Even 32 bit floating point can't see the difference. Step 4: Match Phase with the Target This just means get pretty close. The thing is orbital mechanics are a little bit wonky at first glance. Even though I am behind my target, I have to burn Retrograde in order to catch up. If I was ahead of the target I would have to burn Prograde to fall back. The explanation is boring and long so just believe me. So you see those orange and purple bugs on the Orbit? Those show the location of the target and the active ship at their closest approaches. The best places in the orbit to phase match your target are at these points. Set a maneuver node at the nearest intersection. Drag the retrograde / prograde vectors until the bugs are almost matched. Fine tune from there. You want your closest approaches to be within 1 kilometer. Typically these maneuvers don't take more than 50 m/s of dV, so be careful. You have to execute these burns precise to + - 0.05 m/s Also be careful that you don't sink into the atmosphere. Looks like this phase match is going to be a two parter. Yikes. 1.2 m/s! I should use RCS for this. Well how about that. 100 meters at closest approach. That turned out better than I expected. Step 5: Match Velocities at Closest Approach Now that we are really freaking close to our target we can pretty much ignore the orbital map and just pay attention to the relative velocity indicator on the Navball. Once again, a long boring physics explanation involving inertial reference frames and relativity. Don't think you really are here for that. Click on the velocity readout on the Navball until it goes to "Target" mode. This gives us our velocity relative to the target. When the closest approach rolls around, burn retrograde. Burning. Burning. Burning Excellent. We are separated by 600 meters on the day side. Lets warp over there. Step 6: Docking Your almost there. Remember earlier how I said we can pretty much ignore the orbital map now? All you need now are your eyes, some RCS thrusters, and the purple markings on your Navball. The circle means you are pointing directly at your target and the trefoil means you are pointing directly away. From here it really is as simple as pointing at your target and thrusting forward. To use the RCS translation, switch to Docking mode down in the lower left corner. This will map WSAD to Forward, Backward, Left, Right respectively and Shift-Control to Up and Down respectively. Weeeeee! Oh yeah! Did I mention you can control your ship from the docking port? And set the docking port on the other ship as the target now? I didn't? Okay... Did I also mention how easy it is to navigate? The RCS translation maps directly to the vector displayed on the navball. Thrusting Up moves the vector up, down moves it down, etc etc. Almost there! When you get really close, magnets will activate and try to drag the two docking ports together. Turn off RCS and SAS for this and just let them do their thing. Capture! And there you have it ladies and gentleman; rendezvous and docking. Of course I am always looking for new insights so please comment, correct and help me improve.