The_Rocketeer

That used to be true in stock atmo, but I believe the new atmo model allows for the fact that parts behind other parts are shielded from most drag effects. It's not quite as straightforward as that - the leading edge creates a shock cone that reduces the affect of drag on any parts that are 'inside' it.

I don't see how porting to console can affect KSP for me. I'd never play it anywhere but on my desktop anyway. I surely can't be alone here. As for what the community wants, that's not necessarily a wise way to develop a game. Feedback has it's place, but the community wouldn't exist at all if Squad hadn't already produced a solid product, and allowing the clamour of demands to heavily alter that product doesn't necessarily result in a better product. I mean, we'd all personally love a year without taxes, but we wouldn't love the resulting collapse of society.

I think you're lost. Try this page for your answer. EDIT: I think what you're asking is why does 2 squared (4) not equal half of 4 squared (16 divided by 2 = 8). It's because this is a 2-dimensional maths problem - it's exponential, not linear.

Nailed it. Thanks :-D

Wings all have different lift, drag and mass ratings. The best all round wing (most lift for least drag and mass) was the Wing Strake, but that was based on a couple of versions ago. Fuel in the wings affects CoM in different ways depending on how you mount the wings, but otherwise it's not really any different from fuel in the fuselage. Space saving really. The longer and narrow wings generally give better high-speed high-altitude performance whereas wider, shorter wings are better at low-speed low-altitude. Most wings you make will be a composite of different wing parts anyway though, so any particular quirks will probably be averaged out once it's all stuck together. EDIT: In career mode you do unlock different wings at different stages of progression. In stock the largest parts tend to come at the end rather than the most developed, but early wings tend to be of the good-for-low-and-slow type and then progress to better-for-high-and-fast type, before getting into the super-size stuff.

Can anybody tell me how to eyeball (or if there's a good mod for showing) when a near-ideal-efficiency interplanetary-transfer window is coming up? I've done loads of interplanetary missions before now but I always do it the inefficient way by adding moar fuel and going wherever the hell I want whenever the hell I feel like it. Now my game's maturing I'd like to learn to pro-mode when's a good time to make a mission to each planet to minimise dV expense.

You may have already answered this, but have you established that your stick works as intended in other sims/games? In my (admittedly partial) experience, there's no reason why KSP shouldn't understand an analogue input that's properly configured in windows. Edit: also, no. There's absolutely no reason to blow another £30 on another game key for exactly the same problem to come up again. This isn't an issue stemming in any way from your game source, and Steam community support is actually often first rate for solving problems and remembering the solution for others. FWIW, I set up my PS3 controller with a 3rd party configuration program. It was fiddly to get it all working correctly (windows thought the sticks were all buttons) but once I had it sorted out in the windows calibration wizard, KSP picked it up perfectly fine.

Did you remember to tell Goose it was time to buzz the tower? Did you successfully cause the air traffic control officer to spill his coffee? AFAIK: 1. You need to enter the SOI and leave it again to count as a flyby. EDIT: if your trajectory enters into an orbit or collides with the planet I think it no longer counts as a flyby. 2. Atmospheric flight is just a flight that drops into the atmosphere-high biome and back out, so yes aero-braking would count. 3. No, sub-orbital flight is another kind of mission parameter.

On a sidenote, is the .... flag deliberate? Some people might frown on that sort of thing...

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I think you might have a more basic misconception about how interplanetary craft travel. In RL (and in KSP) crafts are launched when both planets are still far apart. It's important to realise that although the ship might leave its parent planet in a fairly straight line, it still travels in circles/ellipses around the sun, and never ever travels in a straight line from one planet to the next. Interplanetary missions always rely on changing the shape of the circle/ellipse to make things line up or pass close to each other, not by stopping and setting off in a different direction - that would be technically possible, but it would be very, very inefficient. So, the shortest distance between two planets (often called the closest approach) is interesting and useful to astronomers or stargazers (because it gives a particularly good view of other planets), but not so useful to rocketry. Edit: Having warmed up my observation engine, I noticed you're far from a noob about the forums. My explanation stands, but I retract any implication that you could have made this mistake.

I usually just shut my eyes, clench my buttocks, ramp up the throttle and sing songs of worship to the space kraken as I tap the spacebar. Yeh, mostly keys. I have used a joystick and it's good fun, especially in atmo, but pulse-steering and using trim keys also works fine. When u need fine control hit the capslock. I don't know, but I'd also guess that when using keyboard controls you tend to rely on the SAS/autopilot more than with a stick.

None that I know of. The navball aligns to the direction of the current SOI's gravity (brown is down).

Hang your base into the hole from a cradle like the dish at the end of Goldeneye :-D

You guys are Cracken me up. (going back into my cave now).

Do you have another experimental contract for the same part? Could be when you complete that one it will switch back to normal.

You want to check the Challenges section of the forum for things like this. The fastest surface vehicle I know of was about 450m/s, I think that was in a Scott Manley video though (and may have been before 1.0). As for in air, it depends what rules you're setting. Is re-entry allowed, or are you talking about planes below a certain altitude? Re-entry could be up to any speed really, including speeds higher than lightspeed. Atmo-only aircraft will be limited by thrust:drag ratio and obviously too much speed would result in orbit. The fastest I've personally ever flown on jets only was 1800m/s but that was back in alpha.

Pointless isn't really a relevant term is it? After all, we're playing a videogame... the only point of any of it is entertainment value, or arguably a little bit of intuitive knowledge gain. Anyway, one thing that building a STS replica does do is teach you that not all rockets need to be phallic missiles - they can be practically any shape you want, and as long as you understand the physical practicalities and design accordingly you can make absolutely anything and get it into space.

Need a little help stabelizing stock Space Shuttle I've now made several NASA STS replicas, with varying success and performance. The short answer is, it's a total ball-ache and it's much easier to get other types of craft with similar or superior capabilities into orbit by other means. On the other hand, if a STS replica is what you really want to do, eventual success is massively rewarding. My last/best refined version is excellent, carries payloads up to a full Jumbo tank, but still has a totally unique flight profile and staging sequence compared to a rocket. Lastly, fuel mass trimming during flight is a red hot tip. Edit: I just realised the thread I linked dates from before the Mk3 overhaul. My newer shuttles use the updated Mk3 parts, with 3x Mainsail, 2x S1 SRBs, and 3x S3 14400 tanks for the ET. It also has 2x Swivels for OMS with their own FL-T400 tanks which are not used during take-off.

I fly with the keyboard most of the time just cos I'm too lazy to set up my stick. Analogue control is nice and all, but keys work fine as long as u understand what happens when u press them. If Tazin doesn't have a stick there's no need to get one just to be able to fly atmo in KSP. That's my 2 cents.

You should roll and pitch up. Yawing is really for fine-tuning alignment, for example IRL you'd need it for dealing with cross-winds. If your steering input is having an extreme effect, try turning on fine-controls with the capslock key, which should make things more gentle. Also, try setting your inner elevons just to pitch and the outer ones to pitch and roll. Flying on the keyboard is fine, but it's digital steering - you need to be gentle, do everything a bit at a time. Choice of gears is up to you, but you should be able to land on small gears on that aircraft, and using longer/larger gears will make the craft more top-heavy, so it's more likely to tip over. Also, potential design-issue, your nose wheel is longer/higher than the rear landing gears. That's fine for take-off, but it means if u land with too much speed ur plane will try to take off again. A better solution is to put the rear gears at the same final height as the nose wheel, but position them just a little behind the CoM. Then a gentle bit of pitch-up once you're up to speed will lift the nose, and when landing you won't generate any extra lift after touchdown. This could be a few things. 1. It could be that you're touching down with too much vertical speed, in which case you need to pull up harder at the last moment to bring your prograde to <5 degrees (near 0 is great). 2. If could be you're touching down too with too much horizontal speed, and because of your wing-angle (see the gears problem I mentioned above) you're then taking off again. 3. It could be that you're rolling too long and going over rises in the ground that u sort of 'glide' off and then stall. Try stopping sooner - brake balance is one way to do this. In any case, the issue is that you're stalling (flying too slowly to make enough lift) after the bounce and coming down much too hard, hence explosion. If you do bounce high, immediately hit full power and try to climb - if you come down wrong, you'll always crash, but if u take off and go around you can try again. Wish you luck - practice makes perfect!

Dres was the very first world I visited outside Kerbin's SOI back in 0.18, in fact even before I visited Minmus. I was shooting for Duna and then realised I had waaaay more dV than I needed, so I pushed out to the next planet. So, Dres has a special place in my Kerbal-relationship. Of course, back then I had no idea what any of the planets looked like, how big they were, whether they had atmospheres or moons. I have to admit though, having got there and landed, there was really nothing to do but plant a flag and go home.

Sure it does, but since KSP (stock) doesn't have those things I'm quite happy making do with 'engines' pointing out in funky directions. KSP's engineering problems aren't full-real (thank God!), so as long as there's a simple set of physical rules/laws that aren't too tough to get to grips with (i.e. engine is good if fuel and air exist). When I make crafts that look like real life I flatter myself that I'm getting closer to understanding the engineering process that developed the real thing (NASA-STS was a hell of a learning curve), but if I can cut a corner to two and still have something that performs adequately and looks cool, that's all I'm really after. That being said, I do mind when KSP's 'laws of physics' get drastically altered at the drop of a hat. Ok, so it wasn't realistic before, but now it's not just unrealistic, it's not even familiar anymore.

steve_v, I think a little imagination can go a long way here. For example, why shouldn't the compressor be perpendicular to the thrust nozzle, as in vectored-thrust engines? If there's to be a mass location that indicates the position of 'engine' parts/mass, I'd be much happier if it was associated with the intakes rather than the thruster. KSPs 'jet engine' parts are really just the holes for heat and noise to come out (and gimble controls) after all. I've always assumed it was down to imagination where the gubbins were supposed to be. Anyway, what really distresses me about this is my awesome AV-8K Harrier design doesn't fly anymore with the engine mass moved so far forward, it's just impossible to make it look right and still function (tho at some future date I might have to go crazy with some I-beams and weigh the tail down...).

Claw, thanks for your response, I had suspected that something like that was the case, but have you actually tried putting the parts together in the way I described? This puts the CoM outside the craft! Madness!

First apologies if this has already been reported, I've made a few web searches and found nothing. KSP Version: v1.0.2.842 Mac OSX, also Windows 64-bit What Happens: Jet engines moves CoM in opposite direction to part placement (i.e. forward if engine is placed at the back) Mods / Add-Ons: All Stock Steps to Replicate: 1) Go to SPH, new craft 2) Place FL-T100 fuel tank as root part (any tank will do, but small tank makes issue clear). Turn on Centre of Mass indicator. 3) Place J-33 "Wheesley" Basic Jet OR J-X4 "Whiplash" Turbo Ramjet Engine on either attachment node. 4) Notice CoM moves forward beyond fuel tank to impossible position. Result: Balancing jet VTOLs is nearly impossible (reason I noticed it). This just doesn't seem to be working as intended. Can upload pics if required.