Madrias

The way I meant it was in the same way I rode out a Core 2 Quad well into the i7 age. By 'outperforming' I mean that point where hardware requirements for stuff starts pushing what I'm running out. I try to skip several generations at a time when doing upgrades. Heck, my CPU history shows it. Pentium III Coppermine @ 900mhz, Pentium 4 HT Prescott @ 3.0 Ghz, Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83 Stock (OC'd to 3.4), and then Dual Xeons @ 3.7 OC. Each time I upgraded was simply because my older hardware could no longer perform the tasks at hand. I figured with this system I could get 5 years easily, maybe more, before the hardware no longer has the strength to run consumer grade programs. As for what I used to use it for, a combination of playing video games and Folding @ Home, an attempt to use distributed computing to cure diseases. Backed off and stopped because I was sick of the heat wash the workstation threw in my face during summers. Even H80's can't throw all that heat out, and I'm not up to doing a proper custom watercooling loop just yet. For now, I'm content with this machine, and the only thing I'm upset with is the aging GPU's.

I've found the biggest disadvantage with what I did when I built my rig is no one tends to believe it. I did what I did to avoid the everlasting cycle of CPU upgrades for a long time. Yeah, my GPUs are a little old and tired at this point, but I bet I can get another 5 years out of my rig's CPUs before something hits the market that can surpass this beast in multithreaded tasks. I understand as well that KSP can't utilize what it brings to the table, but it wasn't built for KSP. 2x Intel Xeon E5645 6-core CPUs. Stock speed of 2.4 GHz, but due to the board, I'm running 3.7 GHz. EVGA SR-2 mainboard. Yeah, it's huge. Yep, it was expensive. Yes, it was worth it. 12 GB Corsair Dominator DDR3. I played with the latency a bit and got it screaming. 2x EVGA GTX 580 SC in SLI. Sadly the 1.5 GB VRAM versions. My screen resolution in some games tends to slap the memory cap on 'em hard. 1x EVGA GTS 250 to drive my Auxillary monitor. 1x BFG GTX 275 OC as a PhysX card. I know, why not use the 250 or the 580's. The 250 isn't as fast as the 275, and the 580's are already working hard. Primary screen resolution: 5040x1050 spanning 3 displays. Why 1050 and not 1080? Because they're what I had laying around. Secondary screen resolution: 1680x1050. Screen positioning: 3 monitors across the top, one sitting low. T configuration, for those in the know. And, because someone will inevitably cry out that I'm making crap up: http://i.imgur.com/edouvJk.jpg

Either it was the EVA seat spaceplane where the wings folded on me during reentry and they smacked the Kerbal out of his seat at 3000 m/s, or the takeoff of the next version where I'd put the pilot in a 'safer' position under the craft. I dragged his helmet down the runway like someone playing with matches, pulled up to a 50 degree climb, and touched off the Mainsail at full throttle. It ripped the craft apart, ejected the Kerbal, and shot him down into the dirt with enough velocity to have atmospheric effects as he went through the Mainsail's exhaust blast.

Exactly. Dad likes throwing rockets together and sending them screaming into orbit. I build spaceplanes. One of my friends let his 7 year old brother try and he strapped a booster to the side of a cockpit and sent it flying toward the ocean, laughing as it exploded. Fun can be had at any time, by any age.

I hate docking, but I can do it in a pinch if I have to. Had to learn it to strap fuel cans underneath my SSTO's after they made orbit.

Depends on what save I'm playing. If I'm playing my Career save, I'm careful and want the nice gentle launch, somewhere in the middle. My War-Zone save, clearing the clamps in a tremendous spray of rocket exhaust at 6 m/s is an awesome start to dropping all sorts of heck on KSC 2. And for my general KSP Sandbox save, lobbing a space-plane skybound, leaving fire trails, smoke, and re-entry plasma wash in its wake, ascending at a 50 degree incline and trying to level out and orbit at 150km, ending up with an orbit at 340x180km, then trying to figure where to go, lighting off my LV-N's. Alternately, strapping a Mainsail to a craft normally pushed around in space by an Ion Engine can be real bloody amusing. Fastest space probe ever.

I feel that SQUAD threw a blanket out over the gaming community, such that any and all can enjoy KSP. Sandbox mode offers all the parts in a convenient lumping to have fun instantly. Career mode pushes to teach everyone how to use the parts to their greatest effect, starting with a fuel tank, an engine, a booster, a capsule, and a chute. There's a steep learning curve, yes, but there's pretty explosions along the way. And let's face it, we've all had those days where we just wanted to blow something up, and KSP is one of those games it's very possible to do that in, and not have too much stress about it. It's also a game to try new things. You can fly airplanes that would never fly in Earth's atmosphere. You can make rovers and trucks and bases on other planets, each time chucking another friendly green guy out into space. Or you can send him back home with a mainsail cannon.

Just thought of an idea for cockpits. We've got the round bubble that was used on the P-51 Mustang, but I think it'd be nice to also have a cockpit similar to either the BF-109 or the FW-190.

I tend to either return them to Kerbin on SSTO's, or if it's a real danger for landing, I pull a good old fashioned eject-and-chute on 'em so they land safely-ish near the plane. Interplanetary ones tend to either be shot toward the sun or toward deep space if the fuel is left but the engine has no potential for gentle landing. Crashed engines lead to a 3 day "no go zone" placed in the rough area where landing cannot be done. After all, Kerbals are radiation resistant, but we don't want them thinking the radioactive debris is a snack. As for those that have to crash-and-burn into Kerbin Atmosphere, but have some method remotely resembling control, I try to point them toward an ocean. One, it's not a landing zone I'd normally consider for a craft, and two, it's far enough away that the guys at KSC won't be scooping it up and eating it. They're already green, we don't need 'em glowing.

It took me a while, but I've managed a few landings.

I've, admittedly, used a bit of reverse engineering (my rocket designs suck. I needed some ideas to make space in Career mode until I could make space with planes.) in my time playing KSP. I see it as responsible behavior done by responsible people, but irresponsible behavior done by those who misuse it. What do I mean? Here's a couple examples, one responsible, one irresponsible. Player A uploads his SSTO craft, loaded with science gear. Player B downloads the SSTO, flies a mission with it to check out how it works, and dismantles it in the SPH to see what it was built out of. With the newfound knowledge, Player B builds a new SSTO for his own applications and runs several missions. After several minor renditions of this, he decides to upload the craft file. Player A looks on the Spaceport, sees B's new SSTO looks familiar, as most designs tend to, downloads it, and picks it apart, only to find that B has a whole new internal core that is more efficient overall. A reverse engineers the core, builds a heavy-lifter SSTO with his own revised core design, and uploads it. This is responsible reverse engineering. Both players participated in making each other's ships a little better. Neither player purely copied, but refined the design or outright changed the ship. Player C uploads his awesome new rocket, having loaded it out with science gear. Player D downloads this rocket, straps one Kethane drill to it, and reuploads it under a different name as his own. Player E has Kethane and downloads Player D's rocket, tries it out, and finds out that due to the imbalanced weight, the landing rover is impossible to land on a world. Now looking for just a good heavy-lifter design, Player E notices Player C's rocket, downloads and tries it out, and nearly lands on top of the crashed debris. In a surprising twist of fate, Player E is a friend of Player C, and mentions what he'd found. Player C tries out Player D's rocket, notices that there's only one more part in the count list, notices that the lander still has the same accidentally upside down probe core, and calls Player D out on it. This is an example of irresponsible reverse engineering. Player D copied Player C's design entirely, only to add one small item (that without further supporting hardware, ends up useless. A Kethane Drill alone is worthless without at least a Kethane tank), then uploaded it as his own design.

I've learned this from playing KSP and being a part of the community: We all bring different strengths to the table when we play. I hear people who say SSTO's are hard, but I've not had any problems with it. However, I've built remote control aircraft out of 1/4-inch foam board, too, so I knew going in about Center of Mass, Thrust, and Lift needing to be very specific. I hear people who say docking is hard. It's tricky, I'll admit, but there's only one thing to do: practice. Lob a couple of capsules with an overabundance of RCS fuel into orbit and practice your docking. There are planets I struggle with. I have difficulty with ultra-low gravity, such as that on Minmus. Everyone says "Minmus is easy" but I've lost more ships to it than I have with Eve. Maybe I build differently, maybe the atmosphere on Eve helped me some, but I've found Minmus to be extremely difficult. So to answer the original question, as to when you should be able to call yourself an expert, I say it is a combination of things, but mostly these: -You have an intimate knowledge of the design of your basic lander craft and could rebuild it on a new save without carrying files over. -You have, at least once, made a "challenge save" where all missions must be done with a certain handicap, such as "open cockpit" or "only SSTO" or "No launch over 10 Tons," or one I'm doing "Debris Sweep" where all debris must eventually be removed, including debris that lingers between worlds. -You have, at least once, done an orbital transfer to any interplanetary world, landed, and came back. -You tend to not need Quicksave, Quickload, or Restart Mission anymore, because the ship is engineered just right to make the mission. and last, but not least -You are still, above all, having fun. Yes, being an expert means being able to have fun.

I have an idea. Not sure how feasible it is to do, but I think it'd be kinda cool: Tracks that can steer like the rover wheels do. Kinda like those tracks you sometimes see on modified off-road trucks. Only because I would like to be able to drive something around that had tracks on all four corners and steers like a car instead of a tank, given that it's rather hard to turn tanks at high speed.

Mission complete.

A round glass bubble canopy on a 1 meter stack might be nice. Not the elongated fighter one, but a cross between the open cockpit and the fighter and the stock round parts. Useful for UFO's and interesting futuristic designs, I think. Especially if combined with fan style lifting engines and a circular/octagonal/hexagonal body structure.

I don't use a lot of Ion propelled craft (At least, not in stock form. I increase the thrust, but reduce the ISP of the engines to make them more fuel inefficient), but the handful of small probes I've set up to encounter planets while I eat lunch have done the job needed. Honestly, I prefer the Probodobodyne Ant Engine. 1.5 units of thrust doesn't sound like much, but if you couple it with a few other engines to get it to space, it's sufficient as a last-gasp engine for your probes to send them hurtling into the black. That Rockomax small red radial engine is a lot of fun for cruising around in small vehicles, too. As for Ion engines, I've found their best purpose is as a downforce engine on my rovers to keep them on the surface of low gravity moons. Yes, they're obnoxious for power consumption, but they make up for it with stupidly low fuel usage.

Just had another handful: Insufficient lift-to-thrust-to-mass ratio. If the plane dips down at the end of the runway, you are not going to space today. Keep CoM in front of CoL or you will flip out, crash, and die screaming. A high-mounted spaceplane engine requires significant amounts of pitch until the Center of Thrust is pointing roughly toward the Center of Mass or you will take off, increase throttle, and fly right into the runway. Low mounted engines require pointing the thrust end toward ground. Don't forget SAS on your VTOL's or you will be SAD.

Staging error causing cockpit to separate instead of dropping spent stages during a rocket test. Lack of struts allowing wings to fold and plane to crash. Mainsail + Fuel tank sheared off during SOI transition burn, leaving the contents of a full orange tank to hurtle my ship into the Mun. MINMUS! Low gravity is not my friend. Aerobrake'd too low into Jool, got aerocaptured. Forgot the sepratrons again. Wait, did I just make orbit with this pile of junk and forget my parachute? and last, but not least: New VTOL SSTO design launch in three, two, one, explosion!

Now I'm interested, so I'll have to give this a try. Just need to mess around until I figure out how to assemble the K Drive, then I'll leash the Kraken and pilot it to rule the galaxy!

Mostly, I build spaceplanes. A lot of them. Simple strategy is that everything I construct in orbit has to make it there in a B9 cargo hold. Or a Firespitter Bomb Bay. I'm not afraid of mods. Procedural Wings, B9, Firespitter are my big 3 must-haves. Mechjeb is useful for my orbital crap, but I rarely use it for much else. Yes, I do have a space station that I put together using pieces, probe cores, and RCS to dock those pieces. I'm proud of it. I also make sure any planet I intend to go to has a satellite around it, even though I don't use any mods that require it. VTOL craft are desired, although completely non-essential to the job of ferrying crap into orbit. They're needed for landing on a world. Probes must touch a planet's surface before a Kerbal can walk on it. This is to prevent a repeat of the Jool incident where we lost three brave pilots due to a surprising lack of ground.

I'd just like more plane parts. And IVA's for the cockpits we have. I shouldn't have to get mods for the MK2 and MK3 cockpits just for the ability to, on a whim, see as my pilots see.

I should clarify that while I may abuse Hyperedit, it's only ever done in my older versions. 0.23 won't get it until 0.24 becomes my main. As for the 'lovely' person who commented regarding hyperedit being for losers and for us to join that little warp drive dev thread, let me ask you this: Where are you going that you need that kind of delta-V? I mean, with Hyperedit, you could put a planet out there that you could go to, but that'd make you as much a loser as the rest of us. Oops, didn't think about that, did you?

I've used HyperEdit just to throw stuff that should never be in space into space when I'm bored. Sometimes I'm putting ships up for some orbital target practice (mindset: "Why spend 40+ minutes to put ships in orbit that I'm just going to shoot down in 40 seconds?"), sometimes I'm testing an interplanetary stage idea and I don't want to waste time with launches (mindset: "I know my Solaran Heavy Lifter can carry this, I just need to know if I can make it there."), and sometimes I just want to test a lander in real conditions, and not puddle about with trying to get it there (mindset: "I know I can get it to Eve. I can build something to get it there. I need to know if I can land it, then return from Eve."). Then there's just those fun moments of setting things up to fail with HyperEdit and trying to get out of them. Like purposely putting your ship into a 76km Orbit... around Jool. In a ship with one LV-909. With half fuel. Or fulfilling those 'what if' scenarios like "What if I hadn't tipped over my ship on Minmus and knocked the engine off? Given that the lower stage was just to get me to Orbit, could I even have gotten the crew home, leaving the lower stage satellite in orbit around Minmus? Let's put it in orbit, kick the can, and get those Kerbals home!" and "What if I got this to Orbit, could I even dock with the station?" I know, HyperEdit feels a bit cheaty, but it is kinda fun at times. Especially for putting impractically large ships in orbit that won't even fly out of Kerbin's gravity well and atmosphere with Hacked Gravity enabled. Yep, made a few of those in my time just cause I wanted freaking Star Destroyers to shoot at.

Not a whole heck of a lot changed since I joined. Career mode, new parts, big forum debate/flame-fight over resources/multiplayer. It does seem quieter than when I first joined, though I can attribute part of that to the fact that we had that flame-fight and people got annoyed and left, combined with being in the lull between updates, where we know the next one is coming our way and threatens again to break all our saves, but we're coasting on our current version, afraid to make any big mission plans as we haven't a clue as to what we'll end up with, other than it'll break saves (potentally) and it'll break mods (most assuredly. Track record of past updates has been showing a lot of mod mishaps...)

I consider KAS well balanced in my opinion. Didn't select an option because my choice would inevitably be "Install ALL the modz!" because I believe that unless it's a purely obvious cheat mod (like engines that don't consume fuel or produce insane amounts of thrust, or a battery that weighs 0.001 and stores 2 million EC), it's likely balanced. My basic recommendations? KAS, B9 Aerospace, Hooligan Labs Airships, Firespitter, Lack Luster Labs, and maybe the Rubber Band Industries Caterpillar Tracks. In order as to Why: KAS allows a lot of interesting interaction between Kerbals and ships, and gives a big reason to using Kerbals in EVA. B9 Aerospace because of awesome Sci-Fi inspired plane/rocket/shuttle parts. Hooligan Labs Airships because Airships, enough said. Firespitter because sometimes it's fun to step back, stop shooting craters into the Mun, and fly a propeller plane around Kerbin. Or land a biplane on the Mun. Lack Luster Labs for some Sci-Fi inspired non-round parts that look Awesome and work well. And the Caterpillar Tracks for Heavy Duty Rovers, or other interesting methods of abuse, like heavy duty landing gear. I guess I'm just strange like that.