Madrias

Capsule torque on your rover is not your friend. It eats power and spins you sideways faster than flipping over. Shutting it down helps maintain control. Don't be greedy. High speed eats batteries and causes expensive accidents. Slow your rovers down when cruising.

T45's for me. Thrust Vectoring allows me to maintain some control when mixed throughout a cluster of T30's. My general rule is that for every 4 T30's, you should have at least one T45. The LV-909 is awesome as a landing stage. Small ships, I want an LV-T30. Tons of power, ship small enough to steer by capsule torque. But until I unlock decent control surfaces, the T45 is my go-to engine.

Because most of my designs use dual cockpits for holding 2 Kerbals, or a Kerbal and a Probe, I can picture this: A1: Left correction! A2: Too much, hard right! A1: You tipped it! Hard left, and up! A2: Full down elevator! A1: I see water, full up elevator! Me: *adjusting trims to try to stop the nightmare, as well as repeatedly cycling SAS, as well as pulling the controls to level the plane out* A1: Who turned out the lights? A2: C'mon, I just wanna spin the plane once. Me: *turns SAS back on after trimming the plane to fly* A1: Just a little up elevator to keep it level. Me: *drops empty fuel cans* A2: Full down elevator! We're going up too fast! We're all gonna die! A1: Full right roll, full left rudder! Let's flip it! Scratch that and reverse it! A2: Full up elevator! (Plane flips, starts burning retrograde, engines flame out) A1: Full down elevator! (plane flips again, engine cuts in at full power, tears the wings off) A2: We've lost control surfaces! Emergency mode, full right rudder, full right roll! A1: I agree, full left rudder, full left roll! (plane miraculously keeps flying straight due to no control input mucking between computers) A1/2: It's working! We're not dead! (engine falls off the plane) A1/2: Nice try, we're gonna make it! (30 seconds later, the batteries die) A1: Oops, there go the reaction wheels. A2: I can feel my circuits fading. Goodbye! Me: *struggles to keep flying, crashes.* Sorry, Jeb. Sorry, Bill. I tried not to put you in the side of a hill.

About the only thing I don't like about Career mode is how long it takes to get decent plane parts. You're telling me that Kerbals researched rocket engines and solid rocket boosters before they thought about jets, wings, or landing gear? I know they're space-crazy, but it'd take some of the sting out of my earlier missions where there's a lot of one-way trips because I can't think of a safe way to bring them home again.

When driving a rover, shut down the steering on the rear set(s) of wheels. This will greatly increase your turning circle, but allows turning at higher speeds on higher gravity worlds where you might wish to not destroy your science miner. Also, turning off power to the rear drive wheels will cut your speed to about 66% total, but will increase battery lifetime. Useful for when you have to stop, align your panels to the sun, and transmit your science in a hurry. Also, applying single-panel solar cells is never a bad thing. It only takes 5 at worst- one on each potential facing side of your rover- and it'll at least give you enough juice to maintain control by applying brakes or gently decelerating, then expanding your solar panels for a full recharge. Set an action group for front/rear independant braking on rovers. This will save you many headaches when you're flying down a hill and need to stop before you flip and smash your antenna array. More Communotrons is not a bad thing if you provide sufficient power. This eases the headache of science dumping taking forever by relaying said forever to your solar cell recharging device. It's not a bad idea to drop a "solar base" on any planet you plan to do massive amounts of research on. Ideally consisting of 3 Kerbals minimum, lots of solar cells, and one communication antenna, but has docking ports to accept your rover, and no action groups. This way your rover can still send science and can steal power for recharging. Open air jump-seats placed close to the ground allow gathering of surface samples while on the move. You can also transmit EVA reports and surface samples from a jump seat on a vehicle equipped with communication devices.

My probes have only ever returned if they fail to make orbit around Kerbin before heading outward. After that, they stay out there as markers, guides, symbols of another time. Until I send manned missions to collect the poor thing, set up a base, couple the probe's docking port to the ship, and send it back home. Yes, I've done that once I unlock the Docking Port, all probes must come equipped with one standard Clamp-o-Tron to send them home when operational services are no longer needed, such as when a proper base gets built.

I voted it's not a bug. It's a feature. You know, a feature that was once a bug that the community loved so much the devs kept it as a feature. After all this time, they could've gotten rid of it, but they haven't.

Started playing just before .18, but got into it after .18 dropped and spaceplanes became a reality.

Eve. High gravity, check. Pea soup atmo, check. Areas not made of ground, check. Suddenly your land based planetary base is splashing down in pieces on an ocean of purple. Your docking ports won't line up. Your engines are destroyed. Solar panels broke on landing. And worst of all: you can't explore because the kerbals end up seasick and you can't walk on the platforms you've set up to get from area to area. They just keep laying down until they fall off. Alternatively, Minmus. I've got well over 15 Kerbals stranded on it, each with partially destroyed ships. Too much gravity to land a big ship gently, not enough to influence something small, and passing gas makes you float off again.

Would be nice to have some plane parts, but I'm loving these extreme-low-budget parts. They make the game properly difficult while maintaining fun. Also, would be nice to have a bundle of fireworks taped together as a solid rocket booster. Bonus points if it screeches on the way up.

I wouldn't mind at least being able to see the funny text as I run through Sandbox mode. I test a lot of designs in Sandbox so I don't kill off all the Kerbals in my Career mode. The thing is, I'd love to see the text without having to jump back to Career mode just to read it when I'm in a 'spam the science' mode.

3700 with a basic probe with solar panels and a couple transmission antennae and a few batteries. Sent it screaming sun-bound and managed to intercept Eve on the way, and Gilly, shot around the sun close enough to get the 'near the sun' points, and then let it leave the solar system at high speed, still transmitting science occasionally on the way.

If I manage to build something big enough to strain my desktop, I've created trouble. My gaming rig is less than normal even by gaming standards.

I've got a few mild ideas on the Modular Multiwheels pack. First and foremost, I have to say I love the wheels! Driving around Kerbin is awesome, and these wheels make that so much better. First idea I had was that I wish there were some double or triple thick wheels on the little wheel frame, for making proper hot rods. Maybe a set of thinner little wheels as well, or just a set in a different tire size, like you would use on an off-road truck. Second basic idea that came to mind was to make another cab, this time car-styled so we could have a good IVA rover that fits the style of the awesome car wheels. Third was the idea of making V segments of the engines. That way one could make inline, flat, or V engines. Preferably in 2 cylinder packs instead of 4, I think, would be nice. I have to say, the Modular Multiwheels are by far my favorite wheel mod, and I use the MK3 cabin as well. And the MK3 IVA view. So many things that make my KSP experience much better. So I say Thank You! for the awesome mods that make a great game better!

I'm just waiting for 64-bit and multithreading. Then I'll have no problem with framerates ever. As for currently, I rarely have framerate problems, but I have put the counter solid yellow a few times when pushing the 1000 part barrier. It's no lack of speed, being that I've OC'd to 3.7GHz. If multithreading comes out for KSP, I'll never have problems with the physics rate dropping out of green. I can at least say that without fear.

Decided to play with my modded engines again and see if I could beat my low-altitude record. I figured that with one engine, I was having fun, so why not strap 6 of these 1680 kN thrust engines. First image is on approach, second is the record, and third is landed. Sorry for the night-shot on landing.

Best way I've found to stop Jeb and the other 2 big ones from respawning is to place them in a parking orbit around Kerbin. If they never die, they have no reason to come back.

I've found the Ion Engines to be rather not useful to me. Not enough thrust for a ship of moderate size, I don't lob small probes often, and when I do lob probes from the back of my spaceplanes, I've found packing enough liquid fuel and one of those Ant engines is worth the weight, and then I don't have an engine eating up my power supply. And I don't have to waste mass on 50 solar panels. So in the end, I'm not patient enough to use the Ion Engine without modifications. Strapping a modified Xenon tank to it (I added some power generation while removing the Xenon, making a nice RTG out of it.) along with some actual Xenon, along with making the Ion Engine output 3kN of thrust instead of 0.5kN, I find myself using them everywhere.

I've only ever used MechJeb to get me my closest approach. After that, I've just docked manually. A good autopilot might do the job, but it's no match for a pilot's instinct.

Supposed to be an apostrophe in that name somewhere, but I know who you mean. Fellow Stargate fan here...

Always fun to see. I make it my goal to get atmospheric effects in my spaceplanes if I have no intent on making it to space.

Been there, done that. It's hilarious. Use enough winglets and get it balanced, you'll glide nicely enough to make a belly landing later.

About the only reason I could see achievements as "useful" is tracking your own personal progress in game. Oh, wait, that's what the map view is for.

Yeah, the crime's high on the Mun. Some jerks flipped my rover down a hill. It was parked while I was busy gathering samples, come back from planting a flag and it's upside down and in pieces.

Squish! Don't know how many times I've killed Jeb in previous playthroughs. Last time I landed a plane into him. The time before that was a solid rocket booster testing sled. Before that was an orange tank through the Crew Module of my space station. This time, I'm hoping he lasts. Welcome to the Forums!