Bobe

When you say reinstall again, do you mean launch the game with only ATM and then launch again with the mods back in?

I just loaded the game for the first time with 2.15 Basic installed and I settled in for the long wait. However, it seems to have frozen about halfway through the progress bar. The screen is black (ie. no splash image) and the current file is Squad/Spaces/PodCockpit/model. There is no crash dialog or folder, it just looks frozen.

Is it possible to bind keys on the numpad? Also, it would be nice if we could enter specific angles in the config for starting positions and also in flight to automatically move the part to that position. Why doesn't clicking on the toolbar icon toggle the Servo Control window? Is it possible to edit the servo configuration in flight?

Isn't that a solution right there? If it bothers people that much, I'm sure they can figure out a different way to name their ship variations. I don't use "v" or "Mk", I just go with the standard Roman numerals.

I feel like there's too much trying to be crammed into staging. Personally, I only use space bar for the actual ascent stages. Once I'm in orbit, I typically do everything via context menus, unless the mission is simple enough (ie. release fairings, decouple payload, activate engine, etc). I don't like seeing a stage list reaching through the top of my screen just because I have many components that can be activated. It should be optional whether or not you want something in the staging list. Typically the order of the stages isn't even what I intend to perform them in, but since the must be in there I have to at least make sure nothing will activate at the wrong time. Moreover, perhaps the staging could be separated into different groups, such as ascent, mission and descent, just so things are a bit tidier. Everything else can be handled with action groups. While I use Action Group Manager, I strongly feel its functionality should be a core element of the game. The ability to manage your action groups after launch just seems like common sense, especially, as many have said, since conflicts arise after docking two ships.

In my opinion, mods should stay mods. Needless to say, the community has put together a very impressive repertoire of high quality mods. It also goes without saying that not everyone uses all the most popular mods. For example, of your "essentials" list, I only use Kerbal Joint Reinforcement. I used to use KAS and Lazor, but that's another thread. What I'm getting at is that we should continue to let the community to provide each other with great parts and plugins, and let Squad focus on polishing the core aspects of the game. There's no point in wasting their valuable time and resources to make a mod that most people enjoy a permanent part of the game. At least not at this early stage of development.

It can be a challenge, but if you want to emulate something like a space shuttle landing, plot your deorbit trajectory such that you would overshoot KSC by a considerable amount, usually somewhere between KSC and the island runway. How much you should aim to overshoot by depends on your ship and its orbit, so it's something you just have to develop a sense for through experience, assuming you don't want to use MechJeb. During re-entry, your trajectory will naturally decline. At this point, assuming you have no fuel and must glide it in, you still want your trajectory to place you on the other side of the runway, since you obviously can't accelerate to compensate if you aimed too short. Then it is simply a matter of performing braking manoeuvres, such as S turns, as necessary to adjust your glide slope. You at least need to know the glide speed of your craft to be able to pull this off. Of course, if you have some fuel left, things will be much easier.

That would be my assumption as well. I can't really check the craft file now, but if you don't have any, try putting some ullage motors (from KW) or sepratrons on the SRBS. A pair at the top and bottom of each booster, obviously facing away from the rocket, should be enough to eject them clear of the rocket and avoid any collisions. Before I started this practice, I would often get unlucky and have my boosters hit my engine.

Even though the probability is effectively zero, why don't you just put them at different altitudes? In reality, polar-orbiting weather satellites like the NOAA series orbit at altitudes between 800 and 900 km, whereas the ISS orbits at roughly 400 km. If you were to mimic this in your scenario, the weather satellite would ideally be at about 300 km. My kethane scanner around Kerbin has a polar orbit of 600 km, so it never gets in the way of stations or departing vehicles.

Can we get a screenshot of them in orbit with the ports near each other?

Though it may be a significant drain on performance, I very much like the idea of launching up into a cloud layer or landing through a thick atmosphere with a very low visibility ceiling. At the very least, Kerbin really could use some scattered clouds, even if they're sprites, just to improve the ambiance.

Do you frequent Yahoo Answers by any chance?

Ha, yeah that's pretty much exactly the kind of thing I had in mind.

Neither of us can tell what all other players go through while playing the game for the first time, not even the majority. The best we (they) can do is establish a target audience and cater primarily to them. This means some will inevitably find the game frustrating, dumb, boring or even scary. You can't appease everyone, but you can do your best to keep the people you intend to satisfy happy. With that in mind, I'm not trying to say that career mode should be kept "difficult", but in my opinion perhaps giving them functioning rockets may not be appropriate. Consider that the tutorial does hold your hand and help you build a proper albeit simple rocket. If after that the game notified you that there are pre-made rockets available for use, what do you think those people who aren't exactly engineering enthusiasts will do? I do agree that in this scenario they will eventually stop using them (I know I'm contradicting my previous post, but that was just a generalization). However, it wouldn't make sense to offer stock ships with parts that aren't unlocked yet (I'm sure you were implying this but let me say it anyway), so they would really only get maybe two rockets and two spaceplanes. Do you think once they unlock new parts, or a whole tier of the tech tree that new ships should also be made available? At that point you'd imagine they got the hang of things. My subjective opinion, which I'm simply offering as an additional idea, is that there should be more tips rather than showing final products. For instance, a new player might not know what a radial decoupler is and what it's used for. So instead of giving them a new rocket with boosters (which granted would show them) have a little diagram, like a cartoony style blueprint storyboard, showing where they can go, what you can put on them and what happens when they're activated. I have an image in my head of some miniature silhouetted Kerbals with question marks above their heads looking at the decouplers on a fuel tank, then lightbulbs when boosters are attached to them and then exclamation marks as they run away in terror from the decoupled booster that is flying towards them. But that's just a fun thought I had, it might require more to process that than to simply experiment with a working example. I kind of lost my train thought as I started writing this a couple hours ago but got distracted with other things, so I hope that sort of makes sense and adds something to the discussion.

Strange. The only issues I've had with the landing guidance is it sometimes forgetting to perform the braking burn. Typically this is my error, as I may have forgotten to install batteries or something, but on a few occasions it has simply failed inexplicably. However, ignoring those instances, all my landing have been within 1-2 m of my target, regardless of the size, and I actually haven't experienced that issue since. I had a Mk1 lander touch down next to a rover I had waiting and it was so precise (or rather fractionally imprecise) that it nestled up snugly against the rover with its legs either side of it. It was an... intimate encounter. Recently I set up a kethane operation with three heavy landers of between 40 and 45 tons each, all landing directly on their target flags. I will say that all these landings were in a vacuum, my few landings on Duna (I'll ignore the horrific crash on Eve, my bad) were successful but I haven't tried to land at a target. I'm so obsessed with setting up this kethane resupply system that my other endeavours are on the back burner.

Personally, it was a while before I even looked at any of the stock ships. Granted I was playing in sandbox, but I enjoyed the process of figuring things out without the game holding my hand. After all, if you understand the fundamental principles of constructing a rocket, it's not that hard to get started. I'm sure even the younger players know that the engine should be on the bottom. Of course, I didn't just instinctively know everything. I absorbed numerous videos and articles even before buying the game, learning little tricks and gaining inspiration along the way. I don't even play career mode, I tried it out after it was added, but honestly I just wasn't having much fun. It felt like a grind to generate science. Perhaps I was doing it wrong, and maybe the changes to science experiments has made it a bit better, but in its current state I enjoy sandbox a lot more. Anyway, I believe that giving players some stock ships in career mode might discourage them from even making their own. If there's already one that can make it to Mun, why would they even bother? I think the construction tutorial is plenty to get new players started.

As far as I understand, the issue is not hardware, a high end computer will be bottlenecked by the engine's limitations. 529 parts is a lot, the engine simply can't keep up with the processing necessary to keep the game running at a stable rate. Do you really need that many parts, or are you just fooling around trying to make it as big as possible?

Also, kind of off-topic, if you're using MechJeb, I've found that if you set both ships to fix on their targets using Smart A.S.S. and enable docking autopilot, as you get closer the ships can sometimes start to sway as they constantly compensate to line up.

Well, let's not draw that parallel, because what Kasuha has demonstrated is clearly anything but a pain to set up. What I was referring to were things like this:

Can anyone possibly provide some insight on this issue?

First of all, let me preface this by acknowledging that KSP is by no stretch of the imagination meant to be an analog for a real space program. With that said, I wonder if later down the track the career mode should be structured such that performing certain experiments, or using certain types of parts, during missions accumulates science in various different categories based on what kind of experiment is being done. For example, sending a probe into orbit around Mun would reward you with science in propulsion, utility and I suppose science for respectively launching the rocket, utilizing solar panels and activating a communications device. Similarly, a manned sub-orbital flight would again reward you with science in propulsion as well as command, control and perhaps utility. The amount of science you get in each category factors in the time spent using them, the cost (which might influence a base science index) and of course their usefulness (a monopropellant tank with no RCS is not useful). I believe this might encourage a more logical and meaningful progression through research and development. After all, NASA didn't acquire the technology to go to the Moon by driving a buggy around the parking lot. Sure, they might get some interesting data out of that, but the key elements were the early stages of astronaut training, including their flight experience prior to the Apollo program (ie. spaceplanes), building bigger and more advanced rockets over time and previous missions to explore the effect of prolonged exposure to zero gravity on humans. In terms of the tech tree, rather than a single branching tree, perhaps there could be one smaller tree for each type of part with less parts per unlock. This way you could obtain more relevant parts sooner based on your current mission. The current progression of the career mode is not far off, we obviously still have to start small and do small things before moving on, but it might be more enjoyable if you could really have more control over the direction of your own space program.

Definitely. I've seen some incredible people who construct proper launch towers using mostly stock parts including fuel tanks for this very purpose, but they're a pain to make. I'd like to see more parts designed specifically for launchpad stabilization. For instance, the current support tower has to be a fixed distance from the attachment point, so it'd be nice if we could create more complex towers to accommodate larger rockets.

Are you sure it's KW causing the crashes? Under what circumstances is it crashing? How much memory do you have? Do you really need Procedural Fairings if you're using KW? Also, I've had serious issues with ISA MapSat, so perhaps something similar is happening with ScanSat?

Depending on how you have built the ships, you can enable force roll in the docking autopilot and adjust the degrees accordingly. If however, like myself, you find manual docking more satisfying, do like Kasuha said and aim for a contact velocity of about 0.1-0.2 m/s. I think once they are in range they pull toward each other at about 0.2 m/s anyway, so you might notice a slight increase in speed at the very end.

Precisely. Well put.