Pecan

Perhaps using the dev build would help

Yes, to be honest I don't bother most of the time. On the other hand acceleration can be very slow and if you're following a rocket ascent-path instead of spaceplane you can get halfway through the atmosphere without actually building-up much speed. It's all a matter of balance, of course, but just as pilots 'hold the plane on the brakes' so they don't use-up the runway at low speed clamps serve the same purpose vertically. Not much in it but it could make the difference to launch or falling-over to some ships.

Well yes, you, I and all the 'aye' voters would say it's a clear majority and by any statistical measure of this sample it is. What's "arguable" is whether we are a representative sample of all KSP users. Again, you and I would agree that we are, but for the sake of consensus I'm letting the 'nay's have their quibble :-)

It's nice to see something tempted you Kasuha, as you were saying you'd done all you wanted/could (and your Eve-landing-twice in one launch is a masterpiece).

Yep, it worked that way for me Red Iron Crown - I installed KER because there was lots of posts about how much it helped design rockets ... and had absolutely no idea what it was telling me! So I found out and started using it and my rockets got better.

Indeed; we reach the point where any remaining disagreement between us is only a grumble over a pint. Consensus, as far as I'm concerned - it's up to Squad to decide and it should not be 'in your face' at all but it's clearly something a lot of people (arguably a majority) want. [ETA off-topic: hmmm, and this seems to be a English argument at the moment, oddly enough.]

JATO tips in launch order: Rocket-fuel tanks with the oxidiser tweaked down/out usually have a better ratio of fuel to mass than the 'pure' liquid-fuel tanks. Use launch clamps to hold your vehicle down while jets spool-up to full thrust (or thereabouts, at least until TWR is around 1.4). Stay in (high) atmosphere as long as possible to maximise the speed you get from the jets - the lift itself isn't worth it if you just go straight up. They're wingless spaceplanes as has been said. If you shutdown jets using an action group, rather than just throttle them down, their thrust goes to 0 instantly ;-) Vertical landing with jets can be tricky simply because the time it takes them to spool-up and -down makes it hard to control their thrust at any specific time.

If you aren't calculating deltaV you aren't 'designing' for any particular mission. DeltaV is one of the critical criteria a design must meet in order to even be viable - being successful depends on much more. If you are calculating deltaV it doesn't matter much whether you use paper, calculator, spreadsheet, application, mod or stock - except in how convenient and reliable it is. Other than the challenge (and satisfaction) of it there is nothing 'better' about refusing to use the tools available, nor is it more 'real' - no engineering organisation boasts of doing all its calculations by hand ^^. [Lol, nor does any organisation that wants to stay around long boast of using (as opposed to testing) equipment when they have no way of knowing if it is viable or not, even if the cost/time/risk is negligible it's just a waste of effort.] The ability to opt-out of using a tool is important but making it inconvenient to use one (and it is much less convenient to keep installing and updating mods rather than use stock) is a failing.

There is also a mod called "EVA Followers" or some such, but I can't find it just at the moment. What you want is not available in the stock game though, you can't switch ships while throttled-up or in an atmosphere. You can switch between stopped/landed vehicles or those in space (not under thrust). ETA: Oops, I didn't say what 'EVA Followers' does - it lets you create formations of Kerbals outside their ships so they follow-the-leader or group around him.

From where? "LKO" usually means 75 - 100km above the surface, so you know the orbital velocity there (~2,200m/s, but depends on your specific altitude). If both ships are in the same orbit then the deltaV is zero or infinite, depending on how you look at it. They'll both be going at the same orbital velocity so the distance between them will never close. So the 'other' ship must be in a lower orbit (=slower orbital velocity) or higher (=higher orbital velocity). The difference between the LKO orbit and the 'other' one is the amount of deltaV you need to bring the orbits together (plus or minus). Hohmann transfer should be half that to reduce your periapsis (if coming from above) or raise your apoapsis (from below) and the other half to circularise once the ships actually meet. So pretty simple, if you know the two orbital velocities. In practice, of course, your rendezvous won't be perfect so you'll need a little bit to bring the ships close together but - go slowly! - that'll be insignificant compared to the orbit-changes (say 10m/s per km).

Don't open this if you want to find 'suprises' yourself: There is an Easter Egg at about 80-degrees North, in the ice. Even under a spoiler tag I won't give any more information here but this thread does, if you want to visit it.

Be brave, bite the bullet! Once you've done a Mun orbit plan to land on Minmus. Ok, you might decide to scrub the landing once you've got your Minmus orbit but you know you want to do it! Minmus has very low gravity so it is easy [in as much as anything is] to land on as long as you don't just 'throttle to max' all the time. Your first landing also gives a huge sense of achievement. Tip (for your first landings): cirularise into low orbit, 7km is fine for Minmus/Mun, you won't accidentally hit any mountains at that altitude. Point retrograde (backwards, nose on the retrograde marker on the navball). Switch to map mode. For Minmus start your decelaration burn (high throttle) about a quarter of an orbit (90 degrees) before you reach one of the big, flat 'frozen lakes', they're the safest places to land. Watch your orbit-line in map mode and stop your decelaration when it intersects the surface roughly in the middle of the lake. Now go back to flight mode and watch the navball all the way down. Throttle-up slowly so your speed is decreasing and keep turning (face to the sky) so your nose-indicator stays on the retrograde marker. This initially reduces your horizontal speed which brings the landing-spot closer and makes your descent steeper. As the descent gets steeper the retrograde marker moves towards "straight up". As you turn your nose to follow the retrograde maker more of your thrust goes into reducing your descent rate. With almost any sort of TWR on Minmus you should find that full throttle is not needed but keep an eye on your altitude and VSI (Vertical Speed Indicator). The 'lakes' of Minmus are at 0m altitude so your altimeter will give a 'true' reading. By about 100m you should be almost stopped horizontally and, therefore, pointing almost straight up. Use the throttle to get/keep your descent rate under 10m/s and you're all set. Just don't panic as the ground gets close and open the throttle - even a little bit too much will quickly have you going back into orbit (or at least upwards). Have fun.

I'd be much more interested in seeing core functionality added to the game to give information (eg; KER, MJ, VOID, KAC, docking alignment) and purpose (SCANSat, RT2, Kethane) rather than anything specific for career mode. Nothing that is done with career will stop us being able to do things 'our way' in sandbox, of course, but by definition career will always be 'one way' to set objectives and structure missons. At the moment it's "get science so you can get parts", which is just a difficult way of getting to sandbox. 0.23.5 is a big improvement over even 0.23 and I'm looking forward to seeing what the team does with career, and the rest of the game, but don't need to "score points" to give me a sense of achievement. Note that a lot of what is being asked for can also already be done using mods (which should be an easy way for Squad to add them to core). The 'game changing' functionality of FAR, DREC, LS etc. would be good but I wouldn't vote for them as a priority, just because they do change the way people have to do things, rather than what people can do. Similarly all the - excellent - graphics/audio mods make KSP much more immersive but they aren't really 'core' functionality; nice to have but not essential. Anyway, speculation and wish-lists are pretty pointless. Let's all just enjoy whatever it is the devs decide to give us :-)

I'm thinking this would rank alongside Chatterer as a must-have; "totally useless, totally fun" (a good thing). Erm, that might sound a bit underwhelming - it's not meant to be but it's late and I can't think how to phrase my praise better. Thank you.

Ninja'd (10 char)

What makes it difficult in stock is, on the night side, not having any idea which side of the target you are approaching from, which way to face for the docking port, etc. Yes, it's easy (once you know how) to dock with a ship if you can swing it round so the port faces you and you can see it. With uncontrollable objects (solar panels facing the wrong way again!) where the approach to the port may not be clear and no lights it gets a bit trickier. Much easier with an alignment indicator, because at least that shows you where the port is and which way it faces, not just "the target's over there". BTW: I just used MJ for docking while I was cooking and it uses much, much less monopropellant than it used to. Bit more than I would, but then it decided the 'safe distance' was further than I would have gone.

As a rule optional dependencies are always good, for memory/processing reasons if nothing else. That said - and I know you're reading this too codepoet! - I'm really starting to like, and design for, CLS and probably wouldn't have downloaded it if it hadn't been for SM. Kudos all around, in other words :-)

Oh man tavert, is your birthday due or something? You keep coming up with such excellent stuff that we all owe you presents!

There are three things to note about orbital drift: 1) It happens in real life too, only more so. Every vehicle needs some sort of propulsion so it can perform orbital corrections. 2) As long as you don't take control of a vehicle in KSP or come within 2.5km it flies 'on rails' so the only drift is from rounding errors. 3) Such drift as there is in KSP is almost impossible to eliminate completely; it's just the way computers are. You can still do better than real life though.

This. And for the best engines to use for your various vehicles the absolute best resource is also by tavert.

You won't need to. One turbojet will be sufficient. Just give it plenty of fuel [NB: a 180-unit rocket-fuel tank, with the oxidiser tweaked out is the lightest way to get fuel] and fly high (15km+). What you lose in the fuel consumed you'll make up in the speed you get. Plus, of course, you can glide a long way from 15km up!

Last night a few of my friends were visiting and wanted to have "a quick look, for 5 minutes" at this 'KSP' thing I talked about. So ... Launch tiny rocket to prove the point, orbit. Oooohs and Aaahs. They ask if it'll go to the moon, I tell them no, but "here's one I prepared earlier" or we can just switch to the spacestation I have in orbit there. They really liked that and asked if we could land. Not in the spacestation, of course, but it has landers. Might as well do some proper sightseeing at [an anomaly/easter egg- name removed to protect the innocent]. To keep things quick - we were already over half an hour into their '5 minutes' - I typed the co-ordinates into MJ's landing guidance and auto-warped. LOTS of ooohs and aaahs as Mun's surface approached, more as the [anomaly] came into view, gasps as MJ landed ON it! And then it all got 'interesting' - as some of you will know the [anomaly] is rounded so, with MJ 'done' and the engines cut the lander promptly rolled and fell off it, "N-o-o-o-!" in slow-motion Mun-gravity. Hit smart A.S.S 'radial +' fast, lander flipped upright, burn engines - soft landing, applause from the audience! EVA, plant flag, take picture, etc. Takeoff to re-dock with space-station, retract gear. Two legs don't retract, establish low orbit, retry, stuck (presumably damaged hitting the [anomaly] as it fell). This design can't dock with the gear extended. EVA again, jet-pack next to each leg in turn and 'repair'. Re-board lander, legs retract, rendezvous, dock. Breath. Then they wanted a go. Total fail, of course, but that just meant they appreciated what they'd just seen even more. Their '5 minutes' took over 2 hours and they're awestruck - if I had planned it it just wouldn't have worked!

Why play career? You have been (at least partly) through it once and know how to get things done - a Mun landing is quite an achievement, after all. Do you really want to just grind science to get parts again? As an alternative you might like to consider simply making-up your own objectives in sandbox. Want to make better use of probes and lead with unmanned missions? SCANSat for mapping celestial bodies (also find easter eggs!), RT2 for communications satellites (NB: can be quite tricky, make sure you read-up about it) Like the idea of bases and mining? Try the Kethane mod, mine for fuel on other moons and planets, refuel ships without having to launch new tanks from Kerbin. etc. etc. etc. See this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/77745-Fine%21-I-ll-mod-my-game%21

And another mod that may be of interest is, of course, Station Science.

Well Vanamonde's has a claw so it attaches itself. If mine's just intended as a one-off lander I attach it with a small separator. Otherwise, for reuse, my usual design uses 2 radial LV-1R engines so there is room for a small docking port on the bottom of the fuel tank.