StrandedonEarth

I spent hours just this morning trying to get a ladder system that worked on my Duna Lander. I finally ended up with this, which lets him climb from the hatch to the ground and back the hatch and in with no problems or falls (see the "post fails" thread in the discussion forum).

Moving to the Launchpad: Welcome to the Machine (Pink Floyd) Launch: Ride of the Valkryies Eve mission: Nightflight to Venus (Boney M)

Bill was clambering around a Duna lander prototype on the launchpad, checking out the ladders and experiment locations, when he slipped and found himself in a rather precarious position. No, he's not falling at the time. Jeb told him to just "Hang in there!"

No, but they get their astronaut wings for getting over 100km high, even without making orbit. That may change when Virgin Galactic enters commercial service, or everyone with a quarter million bucks to burn will get their wings.

If we're going to give the Kerbals some love (and I agree with everything in this thread) and we'll get more attached to them, perhaps there should be a penalty for keeping them alive by way of quicksave. Say, 1000 kredits to quickload.... Or 1000 kredits to make the quicksave in the first place.

I noticed it but never tried to correct it to level. I gather the wings don't generate lift from the classic asymmetric airfoil design (Bernoulli principle, IIRC) so much as get the reaction from deflecting air as the angle-of-attack increases. Have you tried perhaps tilting the wing up (leading to trailing edge, not root to tip) relative to the fuselage? Then the fuselage (and thrust) can stay level with the wings tilted up and perhaps get lift that way.

Even something as simple as having cities on the globe, with negative consequences if your debris hits a city. Or a little kash boost if your debris hits unpopulated land and can be recycled.

When you look at part of a disassembled machine at work and wonder what part of a rocket it would be. RTG? Jet engine? core with radial decouplers/hardpoints?

That is awesome. Now if only you could paint the set red so you can fake a Duna landing! But that grey could work for Dres

First flights of new (massive) designs are always called Widowmakers, with the generation numerical and iterations alphabetical, until they are successful. Thus the third tweak of my fourth clean-sheet design would be Widowmaker 4c. Once it can make orbit more-or-less intact I will assign a name to the lifter, usually related to the size of the lifter. My go-to design is the Goliath, which can put my 100 ton tanker into LKO, with most of the lifter still attached. Without an economy, why use anything else? Actual missions usually end up as "_______ Explorer", such as the Jool Explorer flagship mission from 0.22

My first attempt at docking was without any real idea of how to fly the navball or use maneuver nodes. After several orbits of Mk I eyeball and seat of the pants maneuvering, I was finally able to close to a few meters, stationary relative to the target and the ports more or less lined up. At which point I was completely out of every kind of propellant. These days docking is still a pain but fairly routine. I still guzzle mono, especially since I have a nasty habit of pressing I or L when I should have pressed K or J. At least I don't mix up H and N.

I try to steer clear of mods too. I had heard of Kerbal Alarm clock, but never downloaded it until I went looking for a transfer window thingamabobber, and the KAC came up. Now I don't know how I ever managed without it. That and the Docking Alignment Indicator are the only plugins I use.

I'm gonna guess you left the data in the lab.

Yes, this is a favorite pet peeve of mine. As soon as I select the wrong part I'd like to be able to press esc to put it back where it was. Ctrl-z does work (I had to ask about that myself), but you have to drop the part you selected first. It sometimes lags, and may do odd things once in a while.

Dual monitor should be almost mandatory for this simulation, look at how many screens were on the Space Shuttle! Having one screen in map view and the second screen in stage view would be soooo handy. With a laptop connected to a big screen on the wall it would be extremely Mission Control-ish

I strongly second that. Ctrl-z undo does work in its way, but it's that moment in the VAB when you try to click on a misplaced strut and take off the whole 6x strap-on assembly instead that gets frustrating. You know right then you made a mistake and it would be so nice to be able to press esc to undo that selection and be back where you were a misplaced click ago..

I note that impact tolerance in the tooltips has been changed to crash tolerance, with units of m/s. While that certainly helps with knowing just how fast you can crash, er, land, the laws of momentum (mass x velocity=impulse x time) imply there should be more to it than that. A 50 ton ship landing at 10m/s (500tm/s) is going to put a lot more stress on the landing gear than a 1 ton ship landing at 20m/s (20tm/s). The part itself may be able to with stand a crash/landing/impact at the rated speed, but not when you stack a 3-kerbal can with the required snacks on top of it! Granted, this gets a lot trickier to calculate depending on whether your 20m long craft is hitting on its side (all parts should survive) or on its 2.5m diameter (accordion from the bottom up) at 10m/s. Crumple zones FTW!

Red 5 standing by... until after work...

Sent Bob and Dilbles on what turned out to be a 1-way trip to Moho, landing on fumes.

Or there's the old "get out and push!" Seriously, you can go EVA and maneuver him to be in 'front' of the capsule, then push it retrograde with the suit RCS. Once you get down to about 10% RCS propellant, go back into the capsule to recharge your RCS, then rinse and repeat until you're in the soup. If the capsule has any RCS capability left you can use that first, of course.

Nah, he's fixing the wheel....

(To the tune of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer") Jebediah, the cheerful Kerbonaut, Had a very shiny nosecone, And if you ever saw it; you would even say it glows. All of the other Kerbonauts Were very jealous of his fame; They never let poor Jebediah Join in any Kerbal games! Then one foggy Kerbmas Eve Santa came to say; "Jebediah with your rocket so bright, Won't you launch my sleigh tonight?" Then all the Kerbals loved him As they shouted out with glee; "Jebediah, the cheerful kerbonaut, You'll go down in history!"

Deck the pad with big orange tanks Ka-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la Excitement fills the kerbonaut ranks Ka-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la Jeb is in his space apparel Ka-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la As the ground crew bids him farewell Ka-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la Jeb is on his way to Duna Ka-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la With more boosters he'd get there sooner Ka-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la Bob prepares the rescue ship Ka-la-la, la-la-la, la, la, la 'Cause Jeb didn't plan the return trip Ka-la-la-la-la, la-la, la, la

As was pointed out earlier in the thread, the chinese had solid rockets centuries ago, but they never tried to build a space-capable (AFAIK) one nor had anyone brave enough to ride one (except maybe one). Perhaps if they had figured out parachutes as well (prerequisite tech: hot-air balloons) more people would have been willing to ride one.

We three brave li'l kerbonauts are Launching on a flying cigar Overloaded, it exploded Now we're on yonder star. Oh-oh OH Flight of wonder, flight of fright Flight into the beautiful night Westward heading, parachutes shredding We won't get to the Mun tonight