Bobe

So the career mode as of 0.90 is fairly decent. However, I can't help but feel the contracts are somewhat meaningless in the whole scope of the game. Why have I sent a dozen space stations out into solar orbit? Why am I deploying several small "stations" in LKO? Why am I building a 20 Kerbal outpost on Minmus before I even have a proper space station around Kerbin? I feel that many of the contracts don't justify any sort of sensible progression in a space company. Of course early on you're doing a lot of testing and science experiments, but you get to a point where you're just deploying endless satellites, stations and outposts. Rather than the same sort of contracts being randomly generated, why not be able to select long term contracts? So for example, you do enough small contracts such as testing, science experiments and satellite deployments to raise your reputation. Once you have achieved a high enough reputation, you are presented with a major contract, the first probably being to construct a space station around Kerbin. To qualify it as a proper station and not just two Hitchhiker containers taped together, there would need to be extra requirements such as electrical storage and power generation (values, not capabilities). Once that contract has been completed, the station then becomes a permanent "target" for future contracts, such as adding a module or swapping out crew.

That's something I was going to bring up, but wasn't sure if it was really necessary and I didn't want to make it seem overly complicated. But you're right, the booster itself isn't always the only thing attached to the decoupler. I was going to suggest being able to view the CoM of a subsection rather than the individual parts. So for example if you clicked on the booster and toggled the plugin, it would factor in all parts that are children of the selected part.

Obviously, but I'd like to see the CoM while attaching the part to the ship. I thought this might be a simple enough plugin and that someone else might find it useful.

This mostly came about from wanting to position my external boosters such that the decouplers eject them smoothly rather than tilt and bounce off the rocket body*. Basically all I'm envisioning is a global tweakable to toggle "Show centre of mass", which would just display another floating ball, perhaps in green or red to differentiate, in the middle of that part. *The issue of the booster separation can of course be solved with ullage motors, but I tend to avoid using them unless absolutely necessary as they are just a bit unsightly. Besides, the Sepratron and the motors in KW Rocketry are often too powerful when all they need is a gentle push (even limiting the thrust to 0% is too high). I feel like the decouplers themselves should be more powerful.

Just curious, where is the data for alarms stored?

I keep reading about people running their engines up to ~30 km, but mine (the turbojets at least) always flameout just before 20 km. I can often get the speed up to about 1,000-1,200 m/s during that phase, but even if I gradually throttle down to keep them running longer, that loss of thrust causes my speed to start decreasing, so I'm forced to shut them down and switch the RAPIERs to closed cycle. As a result I have to burn more oxidizer to get my speed back up and lift up out of the atmosphere. It doesn't help that my TWR is usually less than 1.5 at that point.

This is confusing. What intake are you referring to? Shouldn't you instead be using intake volume/tonne?

I'm still a bit of a spaceplane novice, but I can get an SSTO into LKO with a little bit of fuel left, nothing that can leave Kerbin orbit yet. As far I know, the shock cone intakes are the best, but I tend to supplement them with one or two pairs of structural intakes. I've tried a lot of different combinations of engines, but the bottom line is a RAPIER or two is more or less essential to boost you out of the atmosphere. Turbojets work great in atmosphere to get your speed up, but once you are forced to shut them down you need to have something running. RAPIERS run for longer with less intake air before they switch modes, but it is a matter of whether they will provide enough thrust by themselves. I haven't tried toroidal engines yet, they seem like they would be ideal upper atmosphere/vacuum engines, but they wouldn't provide any thrust from the ground (unless you wanted to waste oxidizer). I've been trying to optimize a configuration of two turbojets, two RAPIERS and one LV-N, but balancing the fuel and weight is troublesome.

Yeah it doesn't bother me that much, I just like to be able to do things as neatly and efficiently as possible.

You can set an inclination to launch into, and you can launch into a target's plane (or launch to rendezvous), but you can't launch to match a desired orbit. With that said though, do the orbits have to match up precisely? Does only the periapsis/apoapsis and inclination matter, or the ascending/descending longitudes also, since surely the longitudes (relative to the surface) would match after a given time? I'll have to test that out. Tested; the orbit has to be exactly as displayed on the map. The fact that the world rotates beneath the satellite doesn't seem to be of any concern to kerbal scientists. And now I have to deorbit this satellite because I can't revert.

For contracts requiring a satellite in Kerbin orbit, I've just been eyeballing the orbital paths to determine when to launch. Since we're given the longitude of ascending node, is there a way to use that to set the launch time? I'm using MechJeb and Kerbal Alarm Clock, but I don't think either of those allow you to input a longitude. Just so I understand correctly, since longitudes are normally fixed to the surface, does the game create an arbitrary set of longitudes relative to space rather than the world?

Not my design, I'm sure many of you will recognize it.

The original station I had just required the basics (power, antenna and docking port) and space for roughly twelve kerbals. So I sent up two modules, each consisting of a Mk1-2 pod and a hitchhiker container with ports at both ends, and docked them in orbit. The next contract was identical, no extra stipulations like research labs. I tried sending a third module to extend the station and the contract was not satisfied, so ended up just duplicating the original station and it was accepted.

I tried that and it doesn't work.

Assuming this is the intended format, they should either qualify the prerequisites by saying "At least one of the following:", or "All of the following:", or something to that effect. Perhaps nodes could receive a small discount if you have unlocked all prior technology, so you could go straight for the higher tier, or progress everything slowly and save on science points in the long term.

I noticed a while into my career that I had been able to unlock certain research nodes even though only one of the prerequisites had been met. Is this how it's supposed to be? I thought all prerequisites would have to be unlocked in order to progress. As far as I can tell the only thing that changes once all node prerequisites are met is that node becomes visible. I'm not sure if the issue is mod related. I played completely stock for a while, but I'm not sure if I got far enough in the tech tree to experience prerequisites before putting mods on.

I only use the spaceplane guidance to hold altitude and heading for long flights, and I enable ILS just for the navball marker. I don't like to autoland. If you use the landing guidance module, you can pick a landing target and just use the data readouts to guide you in. You don't have to enable the autopilot. It will also add a navball marker just like the spaceplane ILS.

I know that, but it's usually difficult to determine which parts are for what. I do use the SDHI mod (or will continue to use it when a 0.90 update comes out), but that does not include the ICPS or the more realistic Orion capsule.

I like simple mods like this. I tried RemoteTech for a while, and it was a nice challenge, but eventually it was just too much and the time delay became more of a nuisance. Subtle things like this are what really need to be added in stock.

I like the look of this mod, but the sheer number of parts and dependencies concerns me. All I'm after is Orion, its service module and the ICPS. I don't want all these extra components, especially duplicate parts from KW Rocketry. Do you think it would be possible to create smaller, more modular packs?

Those are runway lights. I believe OP is referring to landing lights: For now you could just use MechJeb which enables ILS and landing guidance.

I'd recommend trying Ship Manifest. It was built on top of Crew Manifest, so it includes all crew-related functionality, as well as providing resource management.

Didn't know you could move an already staged part to another stage to re-stage it. How does that work though? If you swap the engine stage with the one above it, aren't you forced to then stage that part, whatever it may be? Still, the fact that we're forced to stage it instead of just being able to run the tests bugs me. It may be one of those things that's unlocked with a higher level building, but it just seems like something we should have from the start.

In 0.25, for contracts that required a certain part to be tested, it could either be done by staging or by choosing a "Run tests" option in the context menu. This was at least true for engines, I don't think any add-on was adding this functionality. In 0.90, assuming that was stock functionality, that ability is now gone. This makes some testing contracts a pain sometimes. For example, if you are required to test a LV-T45 engine in orbit, it can fairly difficult to create a rocket that can make it into orbit (with level 1 buildings) that has to carry that engine as dead weight. Was this option removed intentionally? Was it perhaps added as part of a mod? Am I just imagining things?

Just a quality of life request; do you think you could append the version number to the release files? I like to be able to keep track of which version I have.