Northstar1989

Sorry man, but jet engines are banned for anything but "mothership style" planes, and for landing (this is particularly useful for VTHL stages). RAPIER and SABRE were both meant to fall under that category, as they are basically just dual-function jet engines (they are strictly inferior to rockets in terms of TWR, so the only reason to ever use them is if you will be using both modes...) Regards, Northstar

My next couple launches didn't actually make use of the new mods, but don't worry, that'll come eventually... First, I performed a Launch Escape System test near the KSC (the alternate launchpads are currently disabled- I need to update RSS, this is a known bug with the version I am running) Then, a little more !SCIENCE! on the Runway: Followed by some !SCIENCE! on the Launchpad: And finally, I performed a plane test in order to try and fulfill a jet engine contract at supersonic speeds and low altitude: However, as can be seen, the plane I used was incapable of breaking the sound barrier at that altitude (I may still try going higher up to break it and then diving down into that altitude range...) I then landed the plane on the Island Runway and parked it in one of the hangers before calling it a night (it was 4 AM here) Regards, Northstar

New Mods! Normally I wouldn't feel the need to announce something like this in a post entirely of its own, but the new mods are quite large/significant. They are: Procedural Parts (so I can eventually design ENORMOUS rockets closer to say, the 10 meter diameter of a real life Saturn V) Procedural Fairings (I'm going to need them if any of my payloads start exceeding 3.75 meters- the largest KW Rocketry Fairings) Atmospheric Trajectories mod - this is a new mod that was just released on the forums less than a week ago. It makes calculations based on body lift and drag to attempt to predict re-entry trajectories with FAR installed. It's also going to take me some time to get used to- as the default assumes facing perfectly prograde (thus no lift or body lift), but there are settings to account for lifting re-entries as well... Kerbal Alarm Clock (an oldie but goodie) I'm also planning on eventually installing Firespitter and Procedural Dynamics mods, but am saving those until I decide to attempt the Flying Duna Again challenge in this Career save... (Real Solar System should make that !FUN!) I might not get to that point before I decide to update to 0.25 (after it's released) anyways... And, if my Career Mode game progresses far enough to set up a base on the Mun or Duna, Karbonite mod is a must (KSP-Interstellar and more realistic ISRU will have to wait until I next start over, as it's designed/balanced for a different tech tree than the stock one...) Regards, Northstar

+1 Rep for you! I can't believe nobody's created a plugin like this before! (trust me, I've been waiting for one) Regards, Northstar

Fractal_UK, AWESOME! Silly question, but what will this do to memory usage vs. previous versions of KSP-Interstellar? Also, did you see my suggestions before? I have an additional suggestion regarding cost balancing: make the upgrades of the KSP-Interstellar reactors affect pricing. I.e. a gas core reactor should be more expensive than a solid core reactor. This reflects the real-life difficulty of engineering these reactors, and makes Career Mode games with Interstellar isntalled a little less of a mad dash to the most advanced reactors- while also realistically reflecting some of the engineering difficulties of more advanced reactor designs. Of course, the cost increase shouldn't be TOO great- I'd imagine that part of the science to practically implement these designs would be figuring out cheaper ways of solving some of the technical barriers. That being said, all space-grade nuclear reactors should be highly expensive. Which gives me one more idea- maybe you'd also consider introducing an (extremely heavy, but cheaper) more "conventional" fission reactor, not intended for use in space? (and thus built with much less concern for mass) I would think such a part could be much cheaper than the other nuclear reactors, and thus make Microwave Beamed Power liftoffs from the KSC *MUCH* more affordable- especially if the space-grade reactors were extremely expensive... Such a reactor could even have built-in radiators optimized for atmospheric use, to avoid the need for design of a separate line of high-mass, low-cost radiator; and a built-in generator as well, to avoid the need to design an ultra-heavy but low cost generator, and prevent people from using the reactor for rocket propulsion as it wouldn't be designed for it... Both would also reduce part-count. Finally, the ground-based reactor should be in the 5 meter size range or larger: both to push cost-efficiency (bigger = more cost-effective power production), and the reflect that nuclear reactors become exponentially harder and more expensive to build (for their power production) the smaller you have to build them... It would certainly beat building a "train" of 3.75 meter fission reactors for Microwave Beamed Power launches from the KSC, at least from a cost and realism perspective (and a 5 meter reactor would still be small enough to reasonably move one or two at a time outside of physics-range from the KSC rover-style) Regards, Northstar

I had time to get in some more launchpad science today before heading off to my political organizing shift this afternoon... It may not be particularly exciting, but it paves the way for more interesting missions in the future: Note in particular this screenshot: I decided to unlock Electrics for the spotlights- which should be marginally useful on my manned Mun landing... (it also provides me access to electric propellers when I eventually install Firespitter) Regards, Northstar

Well, I'm back to KSP again, and found a little time today to perform some more science around the Orok spaceport! First, I performed a couple simple launchpad tests to fulfill contracts and open up more interesting ones: Then, I whipped out that test plane I was working on earlier (which was waiting in the SPH for its maiden flight) and took it for a spin around the Orok Spaceport for some !SCIENCE! Not shown (strangely- I would've sworn I took a screenshot) is my test of the rocket engines for a contract. What *IS* shown, however, is Bill Kerman getting out on EVA in an attempt to grab the data from the thermometer so I could take another reading (one over the desert, one over the grassland) and recover both. Unfortunately, what happened instead is that once I had Bill release his grasp on the cockpit, he slowly rolled around on the wing (using his EVA pack to attempt to right him proved ineffective) and eventually fell off. Surprisingly, though, Bill survived the fall. I'm not sure if it was my using his jetpack to attempt to slow his descent, the low altitude he fell from, or shear dumb luck (he bounced once off the ground), but he managed to survive the impact with the ground and live to take a surface sample; after I switched back to the plane (gefore it exited physics-range: remember, I was flying very low to the ground) and landed it, of course. I then went about landing the plane on the Orok runway- which actually provided a surprising amount of trouble: I was having difficulty lining up a good, long, landing approach, and so had to make a switch off the MechJeb2 ASAS and perform a steep dive towards the space center followed by several extremely low-altitude circles gliding around the runway to bleed off velocity... One of my next contracts is to test a Mainsail Engine landed on Kerbin- which should prove easy enough to do from the Launchpad; and then I should have enough science to unlock probe-sized fuel tanks and engines (which should prove useful not only for probes- but also for fine-tuning my manned Munar Lander), or the Actuator Claw (useful both for debris-management, and operations to salvage leftover fuel and life-support supplies in abandoned ships), or be well on my way to an even more expensive tech node further down the line... (rocketry techs are always nice, for instance- because the additional tech level they open up improves TWR and ISP on all my existing rocket engines and SRB's...) Regards, Northstar

Wow, it seems like you put a LOT of thought into these kinds of decisions- I'm impressed! Your thoughts also mirror mine more or less exactly, with one exception... What do you mean by "smaller per-unit cost"? Are you suggesting that the smaller reactors, etc., should be cheaper for the power they provide? Since entry cost isn't really implemented into the game yet, I'm not sure I'm in agreement with that... Plus, unless you're mass-producing the reactors (which is unlikely, on the tiny scale of demand of a space program) I can't see any reason why the smaller reactors would be more cost-effective... Anyways, with regards to suggestions for balancing costs for 0.24.2/0.25, I *strongly* suggest paying careful attention to make sure the Microwave Beamed Power and In Situ Resource Utilization parts aren't overpriced. While some of the advanced stuff like antimatter reactors and DT-Vista engines would likely be incredibly expensive in real life, and are desirable for the improved performance they allow; Microwave Beamed Power and ISRU work off technologies that have already been around for decades (or in the case of ISRU, over a century- many of the relevant chemical cycles were worked out and widely-utilized in the 1800's and around the the turn-of-the-century...), and one of the main attractions about using these technologies in real life is the cost-savings they enable. ISRU, for instance, allows use of a moderately-priced chemical reaction chamber to save on use of a whole bunch of at least equally-expensive rocket engines and fuel tanks. Like with rocket engines (which are inherently cheap), the majority of the cost comes from the fact that the ISRU system has to work in space and on very narrow mass margins, rather than anything inherently expensive about the technology... Microwave Beamed Power, similarly, is attractive in real life for the cost-savings it offers- this time in the form of leaving the expensive parts on the ground (ground-based nuclear reactors and beamed power transmitters) rather than sending them up into space (chemical rocket engines or NERVA systems). The ground systems are quite expensive in real life, and should be in KSP-Interstellar as well, but the rectennas necessary to turn the beamed power into electrical power (power transmission on the other hand requires a gyrotron or magnetron- which is MUCH more expensive than a rectenna), or the thermal receivers to turn it directly into thermal energy, are both relatively cheap compared even to a rocket engine. The actual base technologies of Microwave Beamed Power are inherently more expensive that rocket engines, but the costs increase MUCH less steeply when scaling them to use space-quality materials and mass margins: resulting in a much cheaper rocket power/propulsion system than chemical rocket engines (although any electrical engines utilizing the beamed power will still be quite expensive). A space-grade thermal receiver (which contains no moving parts, and is basically just a pressure-fed heat exchanger built of microwave-absorptive materials: most likely semiconductors which can easily be made with some of the same technology/equipment as solar panels or circuit boards, according to current feasibility studies) is *MUCH* cheaper than a space-grade chemical rocket engine in real life. A thermal rocket nozzle for a Microwave Beamed Power system is even simpler/cheaper than the receiver- it's little more that a hollow metal cone the thermal receiver's exhaust passes through (and the exhaust temperatures it has to withstand are in fact *lower* than those for the nozzle a chemical rocket- the superior ISP comes from the lower molecular mass, and thus higher velocity, of the exhaust gasses, not from the chamber/exhaust temperature; and superior TWR to chemical rockets can be obtained due to the potential for the thermal rocket to have at least 2-3 times higher fuel mass-flow rates with much lighter equipment than a turbopump-fed chemical rocket...) It annoyed me to no end that WaveFunctionP decided to make this relatively cheap/simple exhaust nozzle part more expensive than some of my RSS 6.4x orbit-capable rockets... (which have approx. 9 km/s Delta-V) Regards, Northstar

That's basically what I'm suggesting. Obviously, because the prices are in a different currency, on a fictional planet, the prices can't be accurate in ABSOLUTE terms. But what I *would* like to see is prices that are accurate in RELATIVE terms. I.e. a cheap metal thrust nozzle for a Microwave Beamed Power Rocket shouldn't cost as much as an entire RSS 6.4x orbit-capable rocket. Adjusting the prices so the right *relation* in prices is maintained between the parts is the key. @WaveFunctionP Oh, by the way, I think what you're missing is that it makes absolutely no sense for there to be a linear relation between power output and cost. In real life, fission reactors (the only nuclear reactors we can really make reasonable inferences to, since everything else is highly experimental) are more cost-effective the higher their output. I.e. a reactor with 4x the power output might only cost 2x as much. What I think you're missing is that larger rockets SHOULD be more cost-effective. Their fuel tanks should (realistically) have better mass ratios. They should be more aerodynamic due to their better ballistic coefficients. And, if they utilize nuclear reactors, their reactors should be more cost-effective for their power output as well. Some mods have already managed to captures this dynamic, which is present in real life, with better fuel fractions on larger fuel tanks (in TweakScale, for instance- although many mods still commit the realism atrocity of giving larger fuel tanks the same mass ratios as their smaller counterparts instead of respecting the square-cube law...), better ballistic coefficients on larger rockets (FAR currently realistically favors larger rockets with relatively lower drag-losses and higher terminal velocities), etc. In the case of larger vs. smaller rockets, realism aligns with FUN. Larger rockets are more fun, and in real life they are also more efficient (due to the square-cube law and better ballistic coefficients). Watching a 5 meter rocket liftoff is both a lot cooler and a lot more realistic than watching a puny 1.25 meter one, and the hard work of earning larger rocket diameters should be rewarded with more efficient larger rockets... SLS, in real life, is being designed to be 8.4 meters in diameter. Saturn V was 10 meters. The stock KSP rockets are puny by comparison. Regards, Northstar

@FractalUK Great work so far! I'm glad to see that you're back on the project and working at updating KSP-Interstellar! I hope you keep an eye on the 0.25 development, though- it's likely that'll be out before you get Interstellar fully up-to-date for 0.24.2, and it may be worthwhile for you to just to skip 0.24.2 entirely and go straight to developing for 0.25! Also, a couple questions/comments: First of all, I'd like to impress upon you the importance of properly adjusting part costs for 0.24.2/0.25 so that they are realistic. I don't know how much you've been playing KSP since 0.24.2 came out, since it sounds like you've been rather busy with real life- but it's really quite essential to correctly balance the costs of any mod if you want it to be realistic or balanced now... Along those lines, I also don't know if you were following this thread some weeks/months back, but I got into a bit of a discussion about this with WaveFuncnctionP about his "Lite" version of KSP-Interstellar because the costs (at least in the version I discussed with him then) were so incredibly unrealistic. As in, the thermal rocket nozzles (which in the lower temperature ranges used by a Microwave Beamed Power system would realistically be little more than a cheap, dumb metal cone that should cost almost nothing...) costing more than some entire rocket designs I've built that can get small payloads into orbit in my Real Solar System 6.4x + FAR + RealFuels game... Obviously, these costs need to be more realistic than this if you want to have any kind of realism- which everything else you've done in this mod, from the WasteHeat management system, to the fission fuel energy densities, leads me to believe you are ardently pursuing; and is one of the factors that has led me to so strongly praising, "upping", respecting, and trying to share your mod whenever I discuss it with other players. Second, I was wondering: what are the chances of this mod working correctly with my RealFuels/FAR/DRE/TAC Life Support/Real Solar System 6.4x mod grouping that I've come to see as my "core" of indispensable mods of late? I know there are already a number of configs to help this work with RealFuels and TAC, but would Real Solar System 6.4x have any trouble using the In Situ Resource Utilization system (would the Crustal resources be buried deep beneath the actual surface of planets, for instance, instead of normally accessible?) The RSS 6.4x config also seems to be one of the less common configs to play with- but one I favor as it doesn't require any re-scaling of stock or mod parts for them to be balanced correctly, as most parts in KSP are at approximately 60-70% of real-life scale... (compared to medium-payload lifters, although heavy lifters such as for the real SLS system are much bigger- 8.4 meters in diameter instead of 3.75 for SLS.) Regards, Northstar

Today I performed some more basic science around Kerbin. First, I fulfilled a contract to test a Mainsail splashed down on Kerbin: Then, a contract I subsequently received to test a turbojet landed on Kerbin: Followed by a contract to test a Seperatron landed on Kerbin (I simultaneously performed a freefall test on my Barometer) Following that, I launched a sounding rocket just past Kerbin's atmosphere to obtain upper atmosphere atmospheric data in addition to recovering a vessel from a suborbital flight: Finally, I performed a runway pressure test on Orok to get some definitive data on just how much lower the atmospheric pressure is there. I also used the opportunity to runway-test a jet design I have been working on utilizing the newly-unlocked Supersonic Flight tech node parts: The plane you see here is highly similar to the final version, which I finalized at the end of my play session, but didn't get the chance to actually use as KSP experienced a crash after one-too-many reverts during testing... (I was having problems with the landing gear causing the plane to roll over while still on the runway) I'll be busy with Dwarf Fortress the next three days, as it is currently my turn in a succession game I have been running there. I've also got lots of real-life stuff to take care of. So don't expect too many updates for a bit... Here's the link to the succession game if you want to follow it, though: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=142169.0 Regards, Northstar

Yesterday, I launched a Solar Probe to complete a pair of contracts requiring me to test parts on escape velocity from Kerbin, as well as to achieve a new milestone opening up more contracts: The intention here was to shoot the probe just outside Kerbin's SOI, then immediately turn around and return to Kerbin using the Seperatrons (the probe was equipped with a small heatshield for re-entry). However that didn't go as planned- the Seperatrons didn't have enough Delta-V to push the probe back inside Kerbin's SOI. Most likely, this was because I fired the liquid-fueled engines for too long when building to escape velocity (to the point where I escaped at approximately 700 m/s), and didn't have enough Delta-V to return with the Seperatrons (which only held about 400 m/s Delta-V). I managed to quicksave in the failed result, so loading the quicksave wasn't an option, and I had to live with the results. On the bright side, the contracts did more than pay for the cost of the probe, and I earned considerable !SCIENCE! from the launch. On top of all that, I also noticed a randomly-spawning asteroid that had somehow ended up in orbit of Kerbin on the way out (this might have been due to a Munar gravity-brake on a previous orbit, or due to spawning inside Kerbin's expanded SOI in RSS 6.4x). So I have another future target for missions within the Kerbin system besides the Mun and Minmus... In theory, there was nothing *wrong* with the mission plan, except that I fired the liquid engines for too long, which could have easily been fixed with more careful mission execution. That being said, I have no intention of carrying out another mission like this until I get more contracts that want me to test parts on escape velocity from Kerbin... Regards, Northstar

My next launch is, well actually, a takeoff. I present my next Test Jet: It (just barely) had the range to fly from Orok to Kermansburg (although it would have been a bit less close if I didn't climb to such a high altitude, where standard jet ISP suffers significantly). However, as you'll notice, I actually had to land it on the grassland- this is because *apparently*, only one launch site can exist on Kerbin at a given time. Thus, when a plane takes off from Orok, Kermansburg doesn't actually EXIST until I go back to the Tracking Station and switch the launch site. frustratingly, recovery percentages are also calculated from the standard KSC location even if you use an alternative launch site unless you manage to land on the runway/launchpad (100% recovery) or launch facility grounds... (98% recovery) I managed to easily stick a runway landing, though, thanks to my plane's excellent yaw ability (usually my planes have much less vertical stabilization and no dedicated rudder, and thus have a much more difficult time properly lining up with the runway...), and so basically got FREE !SCIENCE! out of the mission, as all RealFuels fuels are currently free (which more accurately reflects real life fuel costs- where the cost is all in the tanks/engines/structure/payload, and the actual fuel is less than 1% of the rocket's total cost...) I also got some sweet new contracts: I hope you guys enjoyed this update! Regards, Northstar

OOC: Sirine, I re-formatted these images from PNG to JPG file format just for you. I hope you have an easier time loading the images! Also, the discussion of finding Munar resources is a prelude to eventually installing an ISRU mod somewhere down the line like Karbonite... Northstar Kerman stood near the window in Mission Control warily eying the rocket on the launchpad. Scientists at the KSC had *insisted* on the utility of this mission. In order to begin looking for local resources on the Mun, the first step was to look for temperature irregularities, they said. Differences in the heat capacities of the surface would lead to "hot spots" on the Munar night surface, and a clever scientist might even be able to make some guesses at what these materials could be. In order to get close enough to read the local temperature would be to launch on a collision-course with the Mun, as a sufficiently close flyby would be next-to-imposible with a SRB final stage... Northstar, however, was not convinced. To him, this was just an expensive exercise in smashing things into the Mun to impress the higher-ups who had demanded the space program obtain some sort of scientific data from the vicinity of the Mun... Politicians must be appeased, however, and so Northstar Kerman gave the order for the launch countdown to begin. "Liftoff in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... WE HAVE IGNITION!" boomed an excited Kerbal voice over the loudspeaker, and with that the expensive piece of discovery equipment (or simple exercise in futility) lifted off from Kerbin: Several minutes later, Northstar Kerman sat sipping Koffee with the KSC scientists, discussing the probe which now waited in orbit for its chance to make a Munar injection... "You DO realize how difficult this mission was to plan, don't you?" Northstar started off "It took our rocket guidance specialists at least a DOZEN simulations to sufficiently narrow the transfer parameters such that a probe of this size and thrust could make an accurate injection into a Munar collision-course directly from Kerbin orbit..." "Now, now then Northstar" replied Sir Dubya D Kerman, the lead scientist on the mission ("W" for short). "Would you rather that we launched a MANNED mission to the Mun this early on? Our engineers STILL haven't finalized work on developing a series of lightweight lander-capsules, and everyone here remembers what happened to Jebediah Kerman the last time we attempted a mission before we were fully ready..." "You know as well as I that Jebediah's capsule only ended up a fiery BBQ because some fool in engineering forgot to replace the heatshield in the design from one of the launchpad tests" replied Northstar. "And as we all now, he's now stuck cleaning toilets for the rest of his career at the KSC. Let's just hope he doesn't manage to burn one of THEM up as well..." Northstar paused to chuckle before continuing. "As for the impactor- if we had waited just a little longer, we could have slapped the same temperature sensors on the first manned lander to the Mun. You know as well as I the only reason I approved this mission was to appease the engineers who wanted us to test one of those mini-decouplers in orbit of Kerbin, in the hopes of them coming up with more useful things for us to test once their attention is off those darn separators..." finished Northstar. "Don't forget the politicians who promised better support for our space program if we collected scientific data from around the Mun!" an excitable young intern chimed in, before being slapped smartly across the back of the head by a senior scientist for interrupting a conversation between such senior staff members. Northstar made a subtle nod at the intern for his accurate and useful comment, despite his annoyance at being interrupted. Then he gazed dreamily out the window, wondering when Kerbals might get the chance to go to the Mun, or finally set foot on Duna... Meanwhile, mission controllers in the next room carefully executed the probe's trans-Munar injection, and set about preparing the probe for its brief stint of data collection before forming a new crater on the Munar surface... After the mission was over, while Northstar Kerman caught a nap after the success party, scientists set about reviewing the data, and discussing new proposed contracts for the space program in accordance with his standing orders. They also carried out a small launchpad test to examine the performance of the newest command pods on the launchpad as well as their integration systems with some of the older-style decouplers... OOC: I hope you guy enjoyed this episode in the progress of my space program. More screenshots to come SOON , and hopefully I'll have my video recording software back up and running properly sooner rather than later... Regards, Northstar

@Sirine I'll PM you about both of those things, since I'm not sure the best way to do either... As for the rest of you, here are images of my latest launch. I tried to take a video, but it turns out that the latest update to Open Broadcaster Software, while it improved my audio quality a bit, also broke the video portion of my recordings... So no more videos until I figure out how to fix it... After this mission I got a couple interesting contracts, but only accepted the Mainsail one you see selected. I declined the one for the Skipper in the hope of being offered an easier or more useful/lucrative contract- but nothing was offered in its place... Regards, Northstar

I present, the Kerbal Clipper: Basically just another local science launch, but I decided to give it a fancy name due to its slight resemblance to the real-life Delta Clipper... I also took on some new contracts, including one to test a LV-N in orbit (and, after declining several contracts asking me to orbit inside the edge of the RSS atmosphere, finally at a valid altitude to test it in orbit!) More progress coming soon- including a video of the Kerbal Clipper launch and of another vessel I've been working on... Regards, Northstar

I present, a "bigger boat". Tongue-in-cheek I named it quite literally. As usual, I have both video and screenshots: The launch stage was meant to be reusable, but by the time I was able to switch it to physics-loading it had penetrated so deep in the atmosphere (without drag) that it quickly burned up once loaded... The upper stage then proceeded to rendezvous with the Rescue Orbiter from before, and pick up the Kerbal and scientific data before returning to the vicinity of the KSC... This gave me enough !SCIENCE! for Advanced Flight Control (and with it the MechJeb2 autopilot functions), and with its discovery placed me one step closer to Specialized Control and the Mk1 Lander Can which I will need for an efficient Mun landing... Science is a never-ending process though, and to unlock the remaining nodes for my Mun landing (Specialized Control and Specialized Construction) I have to continue launching rockets. Thus, I performed another local launch in the vicinity of the KSC to meet the requirements for some splashdown-test contracts... Then I performed a launch in the vicinity of Orok (one of the Real Solar System Kerbin scale-up alternative launch sites) for biome !SCIENCE! And another such launch around Kermansburg... And then a launch at the KSC for high-altitude science (launching at Orok would have made for a cheaper rocket, but I've discovered the recovery costs are calculated from the KSC if you don't land directly on one of the alternative KSC sites) Finally, I decided on a use for the Rescue Orbiter other than simply Terminating it... In the short run, I will use it as a crew lifeboat in case a rocket in LKO runs out of life-support supplies (but can't safely re-enter) or I need to leave a Kerbin in LKO for an extended period of time. I might as well make use of the Oxygen and Water already onboard... In the long run, I will probably end up terminating the craft, however... Regards, Northstar

Just a little more progress from my last play-session... First, I terminated some space junk (such as the now-useless High-Altitude Materials Study), and cancelled the contract to test a "Skipper" engine on a sub-orbital trajectory after some off-camera testing revealed it would not count reaching those altitudes as sub-orbital since the atmosphere extends above them (making the contract impossible). I then replaced the cancelled contract with a simple launchpad one that opened up as a result of the cancelled contract, and got some free Funds and !SCIENCE! on the launchpad: I hope you guys enjoy. Keep an eye on the streaming calendar for my coming live-streams! Regards, Northstar

What about just using Karbonite for the ISRU capabilities? (to make other fuels through mining/converters) Would that allow it in the same category as normal entries (just counting any drills/mining units and converters as "cargo") What if we left the Karbonite equipment in ground bases, and didn't actually include any of the parts in our Duna flier? Personally I'm thinking about installing Karbonite but deleting the engine parts for precisely the reasons you described about the engines being OP'd... The only thing RSS really changes is the *size* of things. Which is why I suggested some guidelines about hoe to merge it into the same scoreboard. Having too many scoreboards will make things too confusing, and on top of that, there isn't really as much of the glory of doing something even more impressive than what's already been done so far if it can't compete directly with the other entries... Also, one more question: what about RealFuels mod with the Stockalike configs? Would that mod be allowed (not necessarily in a separate category or for bonus points, just allowed). Basically, it adjusts the stock engines so they have the same thrusts, but realistic TWR and ISP values. This actually makes most of the engines lighter and have better TWR, but this is balanced by realistic ISP's and energy-densities (Hypergolics are very dense, but have significantly lower ISP than stock; LOX/Kerosene is slightly lower density *and* ISP than stock until the later tech-nodes improve the ISP- but the tanks and engines are lighter; LOX/LH2 has *much* better ISP than stock, but *very* low energy-density and relatively heavy tanks for the fuel mass they hold... On top of all that, LOX and LH2 suffer from significant boil-off, so only Hypergolics and the Kerosene component of LOX/Kerosene can be stored indefinitely...) Regards, Northstar P.S. Your screenshots in the OP are all broken/missing.

Real Solar System 6.4x scale is still making a noob out of me. Which is nice, for the challenge- but as I'm sure some of you have heard me say, I wish there was a version at a lesser scale. Something between 30 and 50% (instead of 64%) the diameter of Earth would make for the most !FUN! for noobs and experienced players alike, in my opinion, and even a 20% scale Kerbin would be much more tolerable than the annoyingly-small stock Kerbin. That being said, I do like and appreciate Real Solar System, and think the mod and the 6.4x scale config are both well-made, and demonstrate what could easily be possible with a "hard mode" of the coming difficulty factors feature, if Squad were willing to set aside their blanket "no larger planets" ban... Now, to the good stuff. Things started off fairly smoothly, with a rendezvous with the stranded Kerbal: Billy-Bobblie made it safely onboard without issue, and began breathing the Oxygen and drinking the Water I prepared for him (I didn't pack any Food in order to pack more of the other two, and because Kerbals, like Humans, can live quite a while without Food but only a very short time without Oxygen/Water). However, things quickly got a lot more interesting with my second planned rendezvous, to pick up the science data from the High Altitude Materials Study: The rendezvous and pickup were managed without major incident, but as you'll notice from the Delta-V screen in the very last screenshot, the rocket ran almost completely out of fuel just in the rendezvous... Which made any thought of a de-orbit attempt INTERESTING... My solution, as you might notice from a select few of the screenshots while also collecting Science, was to have the Kerbal get out on EVA and *push*... However, re-entry attempts (not shown) didn't go so well as planned (everything burned up, consistently). I guess I should have packed some Ablative Shielding after all (the only problem being, it's heavy, and I didn't have enough Delta-V for it with the current rocket design: which pushed the limits of cost-efficient 1.25 meter designs...) I ended up having to push again to stabilize the orbit at a lower altitude after a single aerobraking pass through the very edge of the atmosphere... At least this progress in the rescue contract (having successfully brought the Kerbal aboard a crew capsule) opened up a couple new contracts at Mission Control: Of course, my situation is now not much better than when I started. I may have the Kerbal onboard a capsule, but this only means I've made him "real" to TAC Life Support, and started the long countdown until he eventually suffocates (he only has about two 24-hour days of Oxygen and Water- guess which will kill him first when both run out?) Meanwhile, the situation isn't much better from a cost of mass-to-orbit perspective either. All that the "Rescue Orbiter" mission ended up being is a couple more expensive experiments stuck in orbit, and more pieces of space junk I had to "Terminate" (technically, I could have left them around- but they wouldn't have served any purpose unless I were to install Extraplanetary Launchpads and recycle them for RocketParts; which became a much more involved and expensive process as of some of the latest updates to ExPl Lnchpds and the stock game, if a lot more realistic for the inclusion of a massive time factor and crew-labor requirement you now need for things to be processed and built...) They weren't really a realistic collision-hazard though: space is such a vast place as to make such collisions infinitely unlikely (even more so in Real Solar System), the only reason it's a danger is real-life is because of the literally thousands of pieces of space junk that have been generated over the years (many have already decayed out of orbit), and many dozens of satellites currently in operation... (over a hundred total!) I guess I'm going to have to launch a "bigger boat" if I want to save the Kerbal and the experiments (I'll need to transmit the data from one of the Mystery Goo containers, however, as I am limited to storing the data from just one container in a crew capsule at a time: IMHO a "feature" that is silly, imbalanced, and *not* fun...) I'm starting to wish I had just transmitted the data from the High Altitude Materials Study before (that ceased to become an option when a bug in physics-loading caused the empty fuel tank the antennna was connected with to spontaneously combust before the launch of the Resuce Orbiter, off-camera of course... I installed Kerbal Joint Reinforcement specifically to avert this bug in the future, by benefiting from its "physics easing" during craft-loading, another feature that should be made stock- as it prevents many such Kraken attacks...) and not bothered to pack so many scientific experiments on this mission (skipping either the Materials Study or the two Mystery Goo containers would have left me with enough mass for some Ablative Shielding for re-entry, and possibly enough fuel to not have to get out and push to try to de-orbit...) Regards, Northstar

Do I have to be a featured streamer to embed the stream in the Calendar entry (so that players can watch the stream without having to follow a URL to Twitch) like I see some other players doing though? If not, how do I do so myself? Regards, Northstar

I can see your point about the community possibly breaking into factions, and that wasn't actually something I had thought of before reading that, so +1 for bringing a new concern/idea into the discussion! I, personally, am nonetheless in favor of expanding the difficulty options to include many related to realism. You see, whatever fractionating of the community might occur from difficulty options- it's already bound to happen as the devs have confirmed difficulty options for 0.25 IMHO, the best way to handle it would be to make SOME realism options part of the base game (like improved aerodynamics, which was always supposed to be a part of the final product), but other realism settings optional (like a more realistic-sized Kerbin, although I think the default should be at least 20%-scale and the current stock >9% scale should be an "easy" setting below that). Some unrealistic aspects of the game actually *prevent* the devs from expanding KSP in new and interesting directions- like the lack of a life support system inhibiting the development of things like greenhouses and more meaningful permanent base infrastructure (including ISRU systems to obtain Oxygen from the atmosphere and such...), or the lack of a more complex fuels system creating interesting and meaningful choices players can make on what type of rocket engine to use (certain engines could only burn certain fuels, like in RealFuels mod, for instance...) I think these realism factors should be part of the base game, because they create new and more interesting directions to expand the game in. Other aspects of realism, such as a more realistic-sized solar system, tend to more strongly affect the difficulty of the game- although it must be admitted that having a planet where curvature is visible at sea level also detracts from the aesthetics/visuals and sense of immersion... These options would best be chosen using difficulty settings... Finally, some aspects of realism (such as working geysers on some of the Joolian moons, which the devs were working on a while ago; or clouds/waves on Kerbin) are more visual/aesthetic than anything else, and aside from the GPU/CPU cost of these features, can only *add* to the gaming experience... These should be defaults, but have the potential to be disabled through the graphics settings screen... Regards, Northstar

@Sanguine That sounds more like the Kraken, are you *sure* it was debris? (EDIT: Ninja'd by tntristan12) @OP I doubt you'll get many replies to this thread, as the chances of getting hit by debris in KSP are probably less than the chances of getting hit by lightning (twice), unless you intentionally go about trying to create Kessler Syndrome. You might be interested in this article on real-life space debris though: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html#.VAa5kWMzK7s Or this website that tracks debris re-entry: http://www.satview.org/decay.php Regards, Northstar

Some local science around the KSC to get a couple more tech nodes: And said tech purchases: And then I immediately put the improved ISP from the additional tech level (with RealFuels each additional tech node in rocketry unlocks another tech level) to use in my first manned orbiter in Real Solar System: At the end of the album showcasing the launch of the "Rescue Orbiter", some of you may notice that I begin to perform a rendezvous with the High-Altitude Materials Study already in orbit. This was simply a mistake- playing at approx. 3 AM I forgot that I needed to rendezvous with the stranded Kerbal *FIRST* in order to actually be capable of picking up the data from the Materials Study later on... As such, I won't actually be finishing the incomplete rendezvous, which I accidentally Quicksaved in (luckily it cost me almost no Delta-V so far)- but looking for my first transfer opportunity to the stranded Kerbal instead... Regards, Northstar

You obviously don't know what you're talking about here. The game devs have themselves said that one of the major decisions was whether to include a realistic orbital mechanics system as they expanded towards including other planets and making Kerbin an actual planet (originally, Kerbin was just an infinitely-large procedurally-generated flat world), or use something less realistic. They made the DECISION to intentionally move towards a more realistic model, and were surprised when people actually *liked* it... Once again, you're completely wrong. Docking was DEMANDED by players because it could be done in real life and they saw no reason why they shouldn't be able to do it in-game. Yes, it also made the game more fun, but it also simultaneously made it much more realistic. As for magnets in real-life docking rings, you couldn't be more wrong: http://www.internationaldockingstandard.com/download/IDSS_IDD_RevA_Final_051311.pdf Making the planets larger doesn't require a major re-write. Mods like Real Solar System already do it with just a couple small files and a handful of lines of code. The vast majority of files in RSS are for the new textures to make the planets look like Earth, Mars, etc. If you play the upscaled-Kerbin system variants (like I currently am doing in my latest Career Mode thread), it's nothing but a couple tiny files/configs... I also have to say you're quite wrong on the requirement for an autopilot thing. In *MY* current Career Mode game I have MechJeb2 installed, but haven't actually unlocked any of its autopilot functions yet. Thus, I have been playing with Real Solar System (6.4x Kerbin system) using only MechJeb2's Advanced SAS functionality (which basically is used to align your craft along a maneuver node, the prograde/retrograde vector, or a couple other nodes that are already part of the stock game; or to set a specific angle/rotation to the horizon which is useless for maneuver nodes anyways and sees most of its use in plane flight and high-precision rocket ascents...) and the Kerbal Engineer style functions for info on your vessel mass/situation and Delta-V budget... What you just said made absolutely no sense. A huge number of players have been crying out for a better aerodynamic system meaning full well a more realistic one, and knowing this would make pancake-rockets impossible to fly. They want it anyways, because sometimes more realistic is more fun, like with adding docking... By most definitions, semantics aside, KSP *ALREADY IS* a simulator. Nobody is asking for 100% realism (a fully-realistic politics system that always cut your funding would be no fun, for instance), but a huge number of players would have more fun with more realism in the simulation. Orbiter isn't necessarily a realistic simulator at all. Under-the-hood, it's incredibly unrealistic (rockets are simulated as nothing but a mass, a thrust, and a shape, for instance- they are not composed of smaller parts that can individually break and such). Orbiter is only the facsimile of realism. And boring to boot- NOT because of the realism, but because is stupidly limits players to nothing but basically re-creating missions that have already been pre-designed for them (and most of which are recreations of historical missions) rather than allowing players and freedom to design their own missions in-game whatsoever (all mission-design has to be done out-of-game and takes HUGE amounts of effort). I'm betting dollars-to-donuts that you, like most players that set up Orbiter as a straw-man argument against realism in KSP, don't actually own the game yourself, and have probably never even played it. Realism makes the game much more fun and interesting at times. As it stands, experienced players quickly lose interest in KSP, because it's *too easy*. They wouldn't be saying that if they could set a difficulty slider to make Kerbin Earth-sized and it took 10 km/s Delta-V *just to make orbit*. Personally, even I am not in favor of life-sized Kerbin system. I think that the most FUN setting for an experienced player would be between 30% and 50% scale (which is why I play with the 64% scale Kerbin system RSS config- not only is it to scale with the 64% sized rocket parts in the stock game, it also is the closest to what I consider a FUN level of realism- though it's probably a little too hard for most players IMHO, and I would bet most would prefer a 30-50% sized system instead of the current >9% sized system...) Finally, I would ask you, WHY DO YOU CARE IF THE DEVS ADD REALISM FACTORS AS DIFFICULTY-SLIDERS ANYWAYS? Since it would be a tweakable setting at the beginning of a new game, and the default would be what's currently used anyways, it wouldn't actually change your game experience at all. And, a I've already pointed out, and RSS has already proven, it doesn't take more than a handful of lines of code to make the additional setting a reality. Why do you care how other people play their games if it doesn't affect you? Regards, Northstar P.S. It's already been confirmed that Difficulty sliders will be in the 0.25 update, so it looks like, I win this debate. Even if they won't have things like a planet-size factor at first, I bet the devs will be *quite* amenable to including them in the future once it's shown to them that it would take *very little* effort to include as an option... Respectfully, I hope that you'll even consider playing with it yourself at some point.