Pecan

Lol, since the picture's "misleading" you can just use that one for every encounter - it'll still be wrong for them too ^^.

Ok, good - so did you go at the right date and time? If you're going the right way at the right time it's very strange that you didn't get an encounter. http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ is favourite for telling you when to go as well as which way.

Well if you say so, but how did you calculate your ejection angle? How did you calculate the planetary alignment?

Hard landings ;-0

That's my point regex - if it's sandbox, you do it because you want to do it. When it's career "the game" becomes completing it ... and then what? It is a problem that every game developer faces - campaign vs open play. On the one hand they want people to be able to do whatever they like but on the other they have to provide some 'framework' for those that need something to hold on to; which means the aims are finite. Personally, I'd prefer a far more limited 'campaign' where people were actually required to design vehicles for sensible objectives, starting with light unmanned instead of heavy manned, and then 'let loose' into sandbox mode, but clearly that isn't the way Squad want it. :-) Good luck to KSP however it develops, we all want to see it succeed :-)

The games are identical. If you like steam use it. Personally I hate it and only 1 of my ~400 games uses it. I don't play that game much.

No worries - Hodo started it in the post you quote at the top of this page. It's just one of my bugbears - "SSTO" doesn't equal Spaceplane. The other is "Asparagus" doesn't equal ugly. [i'm glad you enjoy spaceplanes and wish you all happiness. I don't like spending all that time messing around in atmosphere, which is why I stress that point at the start of my tutorial ^^. I also stress that spaceplanes are good though, for those that like them :-) ]

Jetsim - I've only just seen the small 'plane you posted 2 or 3 pages back. Sorry if I was slow, I thought we were still talking about the monster you'd posted in the first picture. You've got to admit that there's a LOT of difference :-) Well done for persevering.

Yep, that's what you get with a tech-tree that you unlock as you progress: an 'end game'. What are you going to do next?

No, it makes small rockets because it's efficient. It only makes ugly rockets if people design that way.

Large, heavy aircraft are generally less responsive, it's that easy. B U I L D S M A L L E R A N D S I M P L E R Read http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures

And also remember that SSTO doesn't mean spaceplane ^^. It is perfectly possible to SSTO with a rocket as well.

I can recommend the NRAP mod - it's a test weight! The whole point of it is that you can set its mass and size to whatever you need, so you don't have to mess around trying to make a test load.

Hodo is far better at this than me (look at his title!) but you should practice with 'fine' controls - toggle with caps-lock - and trim - alt-WASDQE - to balance the plane. When you're in 'fine' mode the yaw/roll/pitch indicators at the bottom-left of the screen display in blue and you have much better control of your planes - rockets are less sensitive and usually don't need it (although it can be good for docking). With trim you can remove the need to keep pressing the control keys and should be able to balance the plane so it flies without SAS or input. You'll need to adjust trim fairly often, as the speed, altitude, fuel-mass and distribution change, but it's a lot easier than 'bouncing'.

Exactly what I have done, as well. KR-2L for 10t and 4 of them strutted together for 40t, just as you and Jouni say: "] The central orange tube there, and its accessories, is the payload. There's a bit more fuel than you specify because of the parachutes, landing-legs, batteries, etc. 100% recovery if you fly it right, and a lot simpler than a comparable stock spaceplane.

Thank you. Yes, it is the nonsensical progression of the tech-tree, starting with big, heavy, manned pods especially, that keeps this sandbox. Because of that I think sandbox is a better way to learn the mechanics of the game anyway, before getting bogged-down in the complexities of the tech-tree, contracts and funds. As mentioned above, I'm messing-around with more career-friendly designs at the moment - the big problem being how much you have to do before a satellite is possible, of course :-( There is the "Better Than Starting Manned" mod for re-organising the tech-tree but I haven't tried it - I'm happy playing in my sandbox :-) - and if I had written this using it those who wanted to play completely stock would have been excluded. For the rest of the afternoon I'd better get on with updating the stats for 0.24 though. Work, work, work ...

More asparagus drop-tanks. Fuel tanks are pretty cheap, especially empty, so there's no point in recovering them. Keep all the thrust - and expensive engines - on the core/final stage which de-orbits and lands as all my launch vehicles are designed to. As soon as docking ports are available ships are designed to stay in space be refuelled and reused anyway, so cost doesn't come into it. The worst thing is that the tech-tree is still so awful - starting with big, heavy, manned pods especially. That and I'm playing-around with SSTO designs which just bring the whole thing back. I'm moderately happy with the 10t and 40t ones but trying to improve them. They are much easier to build and fly than spaceplanes and don't look as ridiculous as the stacks of stock wings require for that sort of payload. If FAR/NEAR, B9, procedural wings and other more aesthetic and practical spaceplane mods were stock I'd be more interested in planes but they're still more trouble than they're worth at the moment. For me anyway.

Transcript/written-form and still images please :-) Sounds like you put a huge amount of work into this but a 45-minute video would kill my broadband cap. Written-form is also easier to scan through to find a specific item

90 - 100km will give you an orbit fully outside Kerbin's atmosphere so it'll stay in space forever, whereas the real sputnik didn't. 40km, on the other hand, is fairly deep inside the atmosphere so a station there will need constant station-keeping burns or its orbit will degrade pretty quickly. KSP's universe is not Earth's or even a scaled version of it, trying to replicate sci-fi missions from this mythical 'Earth' is rarely useful, accept KSP for what it is. If you want something to orbit indefinitely set its periapsis to at least 70km, preferably 75km as a margin for error. If you want it to degrade then use a lower periapsis and, possibly, apoapsis.

Rule 4 - there is no rule 4? Or is that rule 5, which is a bit pointless. If you have an apoapsis in space you must have got sub-orbital. Bleh! I've been to the pub - will be playing later ...

KSP is not a flight simulator. As you will have noticed from the other comments the atmospheric model leaves something to be desired if you are flying planes. To put it simply, KSP was meant to be a space rocket simulator and atmospheric flight always has been very simple in stock. Even with the mods available - principally FAR - the aeroplane model is never likely to be great, it's just not that sort of game. One thing that should be made clear though (I think you know this but other people looking at the thread might not) is that you can right-click on the control surfaces in the SPH/VAB to toggle whether they work for pitch, roll, yaw or any combination of the three.

There's no hell for new players, there's Mun for the 'foolishly daring' ;-0 In other words - if people won't look at even the simplest planning information they've only got themselves to blame. Huh? Why was it Apollo Eleven that landed on the moon? I can do it right now!

Maybe the meter is logarithmic like the VSI and, therefore, almost as useless.

Please do; all feedback will go into the second edition :-) Edit: Just saw your location - come over for a beer (if you're old enough. < 60 miles, I haven't calculated the deltaV requirement ^^)

Woot! You're starting to push Whackjob now, aren't you? Can you land that thing again? ETA for below: pah! missed that bit of text, sorry.