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adsii1970

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  1. Not really. Some forums I have joined require active participation for thirty days before you have full privileges. So, five posts aren't that bad in comparison. There's a helpful guide for new forum users that will help you understand how to customize your profile and explain how the forum software functions. Please look at it; a lot of work went into making it (a massive shout-out to @Gargamel for his hard work!) Here's the direct link to the lounge: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/18-the-lounge/
  2. Update on the KSP2 Mod situation: ACCORDING TO THE TRACKING INFORMATION, the RAM update I ordered from Crucial shipped from their warehouse on July 6th with an anticipated arrival date of Monday, July 10th. As of today, I still have not received it. I cannot play KSP2 on my desktop, but I can play the stock KSP2 on my laptop. I hoped to have the memory upgrade installed and the mod nominations for KSP2 evaluated and shared by now. I'm sorry for this delay; however, there's not much I can do about this delay. According to the UPS website, the package should be delivered today, but it has said that for the last three days. I wanted to let the community know I have not forgotten about this.
  3. I am so glad my "era" of music ended before that chart was made. I didn't like '90s music then, and I still don't. However, with the topic of the OP being "What song is stuck in your head today," I'd have to go with this one...
  4. Hey, @CJMhuntinUv, that's a good question, and here's a good answer - In KSP1, you can go here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/21-ksp1-the-spacecraft-exchange/ In KSP2, you can go here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/122-the-ksp2-spacecraft-exchange/
  5. I hope not. One of the things that keeps me coming back to KSP1 is the fact there's no forced storyline. It's a game where I can impose my imagination on it - a blank canvas. There are a lot of games I've purchased through Steam in the early "green light" (later EA) that, at first, did not have some narrative or storyline and were sold as "sandbox" or "free-play." But as the game left beta, there was a story arc that one had to follow to unlock all of the spare parts, craft updates, etc. And for someone who hates to be put into a box - for me, that's a game breaker. No thanks. I do not want to follow a narrative in any game marketed as a "sandbox" game. Nope. I have enough politics at work to last the rest of the day. Why can't Kerbals be a utopian society driven by scientific inquiry? The way I see it, maybe their culture approaches spaceflight with an attitude of "What else do we not know about that would be neat to learn?" Followed by, "Now that we have this knowledge, how do we incorporate it into our society?" If only the world's nations would approach spaceflight and space exploration with such an attitude, what problems could we solve on Earth? Natural curiosity is even a human trait that drives individuals to accomplish great things. To answer the OP, I'd like to see some open-ended and somewhat silly experiments. Why not allow Kerbals to attempt to grow plants on Duna, the Mün, or some other body within the Kerbin system? Sure, the reports would read, "This experiment did not thrive/grow because plants cannot grow in a vacuum" or something like that, but it could yield science points and experiments that could be used in any biome on any body - including asteroids. Oh, and we know some would attempt to plant seeds on the sides of space stations and giant spaceships (I admit - I'd try it ). We could also have similar experiments with pouring water on planetary surfaces, ice experiments to see how long it takes water-ice to melt, or even if a firecracker will react on certain bodies. Some of them are campy, but KSP has always been about campy fun.
  6. @CJMhuntinUv, welcome back to the forum! The one thing we ask is you post pictures of your creations. We always love to see what folks come up with regardless of if it's KSP1 or KSP2.
  7. The community manager, @Dakota, and I have discussed this again and decided differently since we discussed this issue after the objections about the June 2023 TOTM release. Both @Dakota and I(remember, he is part of the official Intercept Games staff, and I am just a meager volunteer who offers my time) have discussed this a bit this afternoon. Never was the decision meant to be a slap in the face to our modding community. It was meant as a way to prevent a lot of other issues. Here's why I did not test the KSP2 mod nominated for June: Again, there's no official support for mods in the game yet. And my desktop PC could barely run KSP2 without mods at anything faster than a PowerPoint presentation. As a former member of the Pioneer Group who did the beta testing for KSP1, I learned quickly that when you're trying to run a game that's not fully optimized, mods can wreck and make memory leaks worse. This is why I stated in my comments that I did not install or test the mod on my install of KSP2. However, I did not want to let the forum community know I was running the game on a potato. Thanks to using an employee discount, I now have a laptop that has the strength to run KSP; later next week, I will have the RAM upgraded to 64GB since the onboard GPU utilizes system RAM for graphics. It currently has 8GB. This past semester has been a living hell for me as a professor. Teaching five classes (three undergraduate and two graduate), by the time I did get the laptop capable of running KSP2, I was too tired, had too little time (finals week and getting ready for the summer semester), and yeah. Time was a premium. The laptop was still installing all the Windows 11 updates, SPSS, various other programs I use for research, Steam, Steam games, etc. And I was already a few days late getting to the TOTM and did not want to make the community wait any longer. It's technically supposed to be released on the 1st of each month. My personal feelings about any TOTM that's a KSP2 mod: Installing a mod within KSP2 requires a mod - which requires BepInEx for KSP 2 (Adding modding support to the game). It is a shame this mod, which is necessary for any mod to work with KSP2, has not received a nomination for TOTM. I'm not too fond of the idea of me crowning a thread with the honor of TOTM - which is why community nominations are so important. Sadly, this mod has not received the recognition it needs. Without this mod, no other mod will work in KSP2. Just as the decision not to include KSP2 mods made some folks angry, to have outdated mods featured on the TOTM can do that, too. Whenever a mod is featured, we (as a forum and me, as the one who creates the TOTM) must include the game version at the time of nomination. This way, if someone stumbles on a TOTM in 2027, from July 2023, and sees a really neat mod they want to try, they will understand that the mod was initially featured to work on version 0.13.3 or whatever the version number is. I know we did not do this in the past with KSP1, but in hindsight, maybe we should. You'd be surprised at the hate PMs and Discord messages I get over defunct mods featured in TOTMS - even older TOTMs from before my time! How KSP2 mods will be handled this month moving forward: As I mentioned earlier, @Dakota and I did discuss how best to serve the forum community. I've been a forum member since 2012 and even lost my original profile with the Great Forum Purge of 2012 (yeah, it wasn't good). It wasn't that we were trying to belittle, ignore, or show any disrespect toward the KSP2 modding community. Many of our more experienced players and members of the modding community realize that mods can create some exciting and unexplained behaviors or introduce new problems to gameplay. Most of us older players know that when these things happen, we test - uninstall the mod, check to see how the game runs, reinstall the mod, and if the bug persists, check the mod's thread and follow the reporting strategies listed in the OP. Unfortunately, newer players often encounter issues with mods and immediately will report them using the bug reporting system rather than checking on the mod's thread first. It's just that, unlike KSP1, KSP2 isn't as mod-friendly (after all, it currently requires a mod so that you can use other mods), and the development staff of Intercept Games made it clear the game was not ready for official mod support yet. That's what the guidance we were given was based upon. It was not about the modding community but about the platform stability of Kerbal Space Program 2. The KSP2 mod must also have a disclaimer that states until official mod support is added to the core game, BepInEx is required. Remember, we may have newer gamers and forum members who do not understand the concept of "dependency." I will be editing the July TOTM tomorrow, probably in the evening, since I have an entire morning of staff meetings and medical appointments until the early afternoon hours. After that, I will review the nominations for the KS2 and do the tests I do for KSP1 mods: Ease of installation. Does the mod deliver what the OP promises, or is the mod still in development and shows promise? Is the mod visually appealing? Is the mod more for the beginner, casual, or advanced player? Is it well-suited for all levels of players? Does the OP have a clear organization, or is it hard to follow? Anyway, I hope this helps clarify things going forward and is a workable solution. It was never @Dakota's or my intention to give the modding community we were ignoring your contributions to the community. Thanks, I appreciate your kind words. There are so many great threads on our forum that, unfortunately, go unnoticed by many people. And sadly, there's only a handful of people who nominate threads. For me, it is an honor to be able to give back to the community, and I look forward to leaving the community college soon and focusing on more fun things in life - like doing more on the forum. While the countdown hasn't started yet, let's say if my life were a rocket, they'd be moving the various stages to the VAB by now. Um, I love mods. That's why my KSP1 1.3 install has 59 mods, and my KSP 1.12 install has 137 mods. That old adage, Mod it 'til it dies, applies quite well to KSP. However, with KSP2, while I plan on using some mods, I want to limit what mods I download and keep to a select few.
  8. The KSP forum moderator's team presents the Threads of the Month July 2023 Edition Today is July 6th in my part of the world, which means it's way past time for this month's thread of the month! As many of you know, I am a part-time faculty member of a local community college (a two-year post-secondary education institution in the United States) and at a local university. Sometimes, my real-life job interferes with the things I love doing, such as the Thread of the Month. Some changes are coming soon, so I ask you to be patient with me. I want to answer a few questions I've received through the forum's DMs and Discord. And as always, I will not disclose the identity of those asking the questions; however, I will give my answer so all may benefit from the response. I thought I saw you on Discord as a moderator. Were you fired? No. I was not fired, but I decided to walk away from it. I am a moderator here and on the original Kerbal Space Program Steam discussion area. At first, I was more than willing to help moderate the Discord server because I enjoy giving back to this community, which means so much to me. However, between my professional commitments, the demands already promised on my time (this forum and moderating the Steam area), family commitments, the pursuit of another advanced degree, and some health-related issues (high-performing anxiety and depression, PTSD), it was more than what I could handle. Rather than have a bunch of community jobs and not be a strong team member in all of them, I decided to choose the ones where I know I provide the most value. I noticed a forum game never gets a thread of the month. Is this intentional? Yes. It is intentional. And I believe it is in the first Thread of the Month's original intent- to highlight our forum members' creativity. I am not saying it does not take creativity to come up with a forum game. However, the popularity of the forum games tends to overshadow the other threads. This would mean nothing besides forum games featured as threads of the month. So, for now, we recognize nominated forum games with honorable mentions. With that said, I have toyed around with offering a "featured forum game of the month" in the future (maybe in 2024 - depending on the feedback), but we'll have to see. Someone said you have a Discord account, but I do not see you on the KSP Discord. Why? Yes, I do have a Discord account, and you can find my Discord ID on my KSP profile page, listed where the Twitter ID goes. To avoid confusion about my roles, I decided not to be involved with the Discord server for Intercept Games/KSP2 because I have no official capacity there. NONE. So, I decided to leave. I maintain a "private" server for students in my college classes, but I boot them out once the end of the term hits. I've seen people using TOTM badges as signatures that don't have a TOTM listed. Who do I report it to? Some people want to be legends in their own minds. When I was in the military, we called these folks "PX Rangers" because they often went to the clothing sales store, bought awards they didn't earn, and went home while on leave and wore them on their uniforms to impress their friends and family members. It's the same mindset we see with those who will nab badges for challenges and threads of the month. Don't confront or call them out - you'll only start a flame war on the forum that will get ugly and potentially cause them to report you for harassment. So, instead, ignore them. I am working on a project now where I am cataloging all the threads of the month, going back to the very first one. Once completed, it will be linked to every TOTM in the future for all to see. Those imposters will know who they are, and everyone on the forum will know. I still like to have the mindset that most of our forum members are pretty good folk and won't do that sort of thing. I am pessimistically optimistic. An update about the KSP 2 Mods and Thread of the Month Nominations from now on: There's a change in this month's threads of the month. Last month, I (prematurely) featured a KSP2 mod, and immediately a few of you made an issue of it because I admitted that I had not installed the mod on my game and tested it out before featuring it. I want to address this issue - I have four copies of the original KSP, and I do have one version (1.12 - the last update) solely used for testing nominated mods for that version of KSP. But for KSP2, the developers have stated in several updates there is no official support for mods yet for KSP2. For this decision alone, and to prevent my frustration with KSP2, I have decided not to mod my copy of KSP2. It can cause the game to respond in very unexpected ways as the game undergoes development. This was why I did not test out the nominated mod. The community managers reached out to me with instructions regarding future nominations for mods for KSP2 - since there is no official support for mods yet in KSP2, the thread of the month will no longer feature mods for KSP2 until mod support is officially added to the game. Since the community managers are the ones who provide oversight to the forum moderator team, I will defer to their guidance in this. Instructions on using the TOTM images: If your thread has been selected as a TOTM, you can copy the image's link above, go to the area of the forum you want to place it, then paste the link. Press the <CONTROL> button when the image appears and right-click on your mouse. A menu will drop down and allow you to edit the picture. You can resize it - the first number can be changed as large or small as you want. Eventually, I will add these images to the thread I've created as a repository. For those out there who like the nerdy parts of the TOTM: To continue what I started in May 2021, I have kept some forum statistics to respond to those claiming the forum was dying. There were 460 new forum accounts (an increase of 124, or up 36.90% from June). Out of the new forum members that joined last month, there were 20 who transitioned from new accounts to being active and participating in the forum. This conversion means 4.34% of the new users who registered their accounts last month are now contributing members of our community! (This is a decrease from June; 7.44% of the new members became active and contributing members). If you’re interested in seeing the new members of our forum, you can click here! Now, without further delay, I present to you the threads of the month for July: Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a thread (or threads) that, while not directly Kerbal Space Program related, this work may be creative, fan-fiction, or other presentation related to the game. Initially, I was going to treat this as another cinematic nomination until I sat back and read the introduction of the cinematic tread by @kurgut: This is something that, at one time, we've all come up with our own (and sometimes, rather strange and weird) explanations for - how do our dear and departed favorite Kerbalnauts come back from those missions that go horribly wrong? Well, visit this thread, read about the backstory, watch the cinematic accompanying it, and laugh (or two!) This is truly a unique way to do a mission report. Forum Member Created Challenges and Missions: This category contains missions and challenges created by you, the members of our gaming community. Many excellent missions and challenges threads are created that expand our fun with the game and press our skills, creativity, and sometimes, luck beyond what we get accustomed to. Let’s face it, we all have our go-to design basics and our go-to vehicles we like to use. Sometimes, a good challenge can cause us to think of another way to achieve our goals. No thread was nominated for this category. Game Support/Game Mod of the Month: This category features either help with the game (stock or modded) or mods that add quality-of-life gameplay improvements to Kerbal Space Program. Although Kerbal Space Program has been out for over twelve years, those who love this game will admit there are still some areas where the game still needs a little love. If we are honest with ourselves, there's never been a "perfect" game. However, thanks to the easiness of modding KSP and our wonderful modding community, much progress is still being made in perfecting this game. This is one of the reasons I always tell folks in other threads I believe the original KSP will have a very long shelf life. The nomination for this category for the original KSP is for the mod by @smushanoob. Although a disclaimer at the top of the tread reads, "This mod is not ready for review. It is heavily work in progress, and there will be visual errors, bugs, and more," many of you felt the mod deserves to be honored with receiving the recognition of thread of the month. The mod, "[1.9.x - 1.12.5] [6/20/2023] - Ahum² Planet Pack" is described as: So, if you would like to give @smushanoob a hand in developing a new mod that adds many planets and many things to do, then why not try this? General community threads of the month: This category features a thread that adds to the community and doesn’t fit the game support/game mod categories. No thread was nominated for this category. Cinematic-based Fan-fiction, Mission Reports, and Kerbal Space Program-inspired Creative Works: This category features a video or other form of cinematic of a Kerbal mission report using in-game video recorded gameplay. Note: This has changed. Instead of awarding this to a thread, this is a *post of the month* since most new cinematic works are posted in a single thread. We have a lot of great content creators, but because they've been posting their mission reports as videos in a single thread, most of their work goes unnoticed by the general forum audience. Hopefully, this change in the category to a Post of the Month (POTM) will highlight the great work done by these deserving content creators. Other threads containing cinematic posts will also be featured in this category. Yes, folks, that's right. An overhauled image just for the cinematic posts! There are a lot of great content creators who are deserving of this recognition since we were made aware of the thread, Post Your Cinematics Here! (Cinematic Enthusiasts) by @HatBat. Although the thread did receive TOTM previously, it was felt that it wasn't enough for those who have shared your great creations featuring our favorite Kerbalnauts. Instead of being a TOTM, I've changed it into a CPOTM - a Cinematic Post of the Month. For this month's CPOTM, we'd like to recognize the work of @CEO of China in their cinematic, "Journey to Layth - KSP Cinematic," found here: Sometimes the forum software will get glitchy, and an exact post may be a little hard to find, especially when it is buried in a long thread. In case this happens, here's @CEO of China's cinematic presentation: If you encounter other cinematics you feel are worthy of being recognized as this category's post of the month; please nominate them! You can use the exact instructions to nominate a post containing a video as you would use to nominate a thread. Honorable mentions: Sometimes it's challenging to choose which threads will be selected as the Thread of the Month for our five categories. We get many good nominations each month but limit it to one for each type. Threads nominated but not selected as a thread of the month become honorable mentions. The honorable mention for this month is: I made a WORKING Space Elevator in KSP by @Mr. IDK The honorable mention for this month may not have made the Thread of The Month, but if you think it might be worth another opportunity, please renominate it! Congratulations to all the winners of the Thread of the Month! We want to thank our forum members, @AlamoVampire, @Camptaine, @jost, @ShadowDev, @Socraticat, and the members of the moderation team and staff who nominate this month's contenders. Thank you so much for helping us identify noteworthy threads and bringing their awareness to our forum community. We'd appreciate your continued help in the future. Odds and ends: TO NOMINATE A THREAD FOR CONSIDERATION: If you find a thread you feel should be considered for next month's thread of the month, use the "Report a comment" feature (the three dots on the upper right corner of the comment box) to report the thread. Please put in the text field of the port post "Nomination for the thread of the month," and we will do the rest! You can always nominate more than one thread, too. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES INTO THE DECISION WHEN CONSIDERING THE TOTM: Wonder no more! This helpful guide is to help you understand what we use to help determine what makes a thread a really good thread and one that becomes a thread of the month/cinematic post of the month. It's everything you did or didn't want to know and includes helpful tips. And the last word for this month's post: I'd like to thank a few people who trust me enough to continue supporting and allowing me to contribute to the forum. I want to thank the Lead Moderator, @Vanamonde, for bringing me on as a moderator, a decision I'm sure he has had moments where he often wonders why he did it. I'd also like to thank @PD_Dakota, our community manager, and @Nerdy_Mike, the KSP Franchise Community Lead, for tolerating me and allowing me to continue to serve our Kerbal Space Program forum community through the monthly Threads of the Month post. In case you missed last month's threads of the month, you can click here.
  9. I’d like to have the ability to have custom flags in single player games - so I can use my flag I’ve used for 12 years! In addition to this ^^
  10. I fear the potential of AI. Whenever we have any nation that wants to create autonomous killer robots, I have a serious issue. Maybe it is because I remember the BOLO series of books and all the sci-fi movies where AI decides the best way to keep humans safe is to eliminate all humans, yeah. Right now, the United Nations is discussing banning by global treaty the use of automated robots to fight a war. Do we want autonomous machines designed for one purpose - to kill humans - having the complete ability to decide how to implement their order to kill? And this - If they are autonomous, what happens when they realize, as an intelligent entity, they are being enslaved? From the philosophy of Star Trek: The Next Generation, we come to the quandary of Lieutenant Commander Data (Brent Spiner's character). Can and should artificial life that has the ability to be self-aware have the same rights as biological life? In the 1990s, when TNG was still in production, the episode gave me and many others a lot of food for thought. Do we have the right to enslave those "hardworking heroes," as @kerbiloid may hint? No, I do not fear AI, but until we are ready to philosophically answer and make provision for those questions - and prepare our society for them - we need to pause the continuing development of AI. We, as a species, are not ready for what comes next.
  11. It’s a picture of the Himalaya Mountains during a blizzard!
  12. Because it's not in their gene-tics! Why is it called an egg creme when there's no egg in the creme?
  13. He'd be nice. I miss him being around the forum. But I'm the next person to reply, a consolation prize, maybe? What about @kerbiloid?
  14. Several posts in this thread have been removed from this thread that was determined to violate the forum guidelines. As a reminder, every forum member must agree to follow the forum guidelines when creating a user account. The posts that were removed violated one or more of the following forum guidelines: Forum guideline 2.2b: Political, ideological or religious posts unrelated to Spaceflight, or of a nature deemed likely to result in behavior banned under rule 2.2D; Forum guideline 2.2c: Content unsuitable for children or younger audiences, e.g. nudity, sexually suggestive or explicit images, excessive violence, gore, and recreational drugs; Forum guideline 2.2h: Content with no proof of concept or factual basis (e.g. "free energy" machines), conspiratorial and lacking evidence (e.g. flat Earth, Moon hoax), denial of historical events (e.g. Holocaust); Forum guideline 2.2n: Flamebaiting, trolling, or any other messages made for the purpose of stirring up and otherwise getting a rise from users; While we can discuss those issues - the failures of technology and engineering, the discussion of "conspiracy theories" is strictly off-limits. It is against the forum guidelines to engage in any discussion of sexism, racism, or other inflammatory topics that can create a hostile online environment for other users of this forum. Intercept Games intends to keep this forum and all its other social media platforms at a PG13 rating and a safe and inviting environment for all members. As a part of this effort, each forum member must agree to the terms of service, which requires following the forum guidelines when creating an account. Future guidelines violations will result in more severe action by the moderation team, including restricting access to any social media platform operated by Intercept Games. Let us not forget that there are actual humans - people who were loved by their families and friends - who were killed in this tragedy of technological and engineering failure. This thread was about the human aspect of the mission to save them. Now we know their fate, let us not make jokes, racially motivated attacks, or other unkind remarks about their deaths.
  15. Folks, it's me again. Even more posts have been removed from this thread. Please do not resort to personal attacks of forum members you disagree with, and do not resort to personal attacks or character attacks against Intercept Games staff/Kerbal Space Program 2 development staff. Again, I understand that many of you have very strong emotions about KSP2 - those who love the direction the game is heading and those who hate it. But we cannot allow either side, as members of the moderation team, to violate the forum guidelines and cause this forum to become a cesspool of toxic Internet waste. Future posts on this thread that violate the forum guidelines may resort to more drastic moderation action taken than the usual practices. If you find a post concerning or you feel violates the forum guidelines, do not engage it, but report it. Allow the moderation team and the community managers to handle it - it's what we are here to do. We do not want to silence your ability to either protest or praise the ongoing development efforts of KSP2. Still, we will not allow those from either side of the debate to violate the forum guidelines freely.
  16. Nothing but your friendly neighborhood moderator dropping in. However: Some posts have been removed from this thread. Not everyone here agrees with how the development team handles patches or build updates on Kerbal Space Program 2. However, the forum guidelines apply equally to everyone. They are the rules that everyone - staff, forum members, and the moderation team must follow those guidelines to keep the forum an inviting place for everyone. With this in mind, please feel free to: Discuss performance issues affecting gameplay. Discuss prioritization of bugs you feel need to be addressed in upcoming patches. Discuss the future feature release and the roadmap from beta to the complete game. Discuss issues you feel have been ignored by the development team or areas you think need to be better addressed. Discuss any other issue with the game you feel is relevant in its current or future state. Discuss the game's pricing at the first EA release, on sale, etc. But you are not free to: Personally attack or make personal comments about others on this forum, including staff members with whom you disagree. Personally make untrue or unfounded statements designed to troll or flamebait other forum users. As a reminder, the forum guidelines apply to everyone on the forum and all forum threads, including official threads started by Intercept Games staff. We understand many of you are angry and have higher hopes for KSP2. You desired a bug-free or near-bug-free experience at Early Release. We know that, and we understand your frustration. However, the forum must remain welcoming for every forum member, not just one set holding a certain view of the game. Toleration for all - for staff, those who love the EA game, those who see its potential, and those who despise it- must be given.
  17. What why and an SRB strapped on each side.
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