Pecan

While changing the name in persistent.sfs is easy, doesn't it also change the 'profession' thingy in career mode (that I don't use, which is why I don't know)?

Docking ports, as you've discovered, allow fuel-crossfeed. To prevent that you have to right-click the port and 'disable crossfeed' every time you launch or dock.

Autopilot instuctions (true) for lazy navigators: 1. When aiming for a buoy or other mark first determine the target's latitude and longitude. 2. Adjust these 100m at 90-degrees to your course. So, if approaching from East or West, adjust the target position North or South. 3. Enter the adjusted figures into the autopilot and engage it. (Yes, people *cough* do hit buoys because their figures are too accurate).

Lol, you made me look up the origin of the word "Easter". Apparently it's from pagan German roots so some Christian sects don't use the name. Source here and verified at a couple of other sites.

Note that's just the figures for Steam. Since Steam is so awful the real figure is probably more than twice that.

Learn to do it all again in 1.0

Part-clipping is where you use the offset tool or something else to 'embed' one part wholly or partially inside another. Usually people do this for aesthetic reasons but the physics forces can sometimes see those parts as colliding into each other, "with hilarious results" (= explosion).

Welcome to the forums. Efficient launches depend on four things: 1. Use multiple stages to jettison excess mass 2. Don't carry anything you don't need on any stage 3. Use the most efficient engines (highest Isp) that give you a thrust to weight ratio (TWR) of 1.4 - 1.6 (there's more to this but those figures will do for now ^^) 4. Perform a 'gravity turn' during ascent rather than going to space then turning sideways. Generally, less is more.

For a single-stage rocket launch vehicle: Launch payload capability = ((Launch_Ratio * Mass_Dry) - Mass_Wet) / (1 - Launch_Ratio) Mass_Dry and Mass_Wet are without fuel and with it, respectively. Launch_Ratio = EXP(dV_Launch / Exhaust_Velocity) dV_Launch is the vacuum dV the vehicle needs at launch - at least 4,500m/s to get to orbit, plus probably 200m/s-400m/s to de-orbit and land - 4,900m/s Exhaust_Velocity = Isp * 9.82 (or 9.81, I can never remember ^^). Mainsails have an Isp of 360, giving the SSTO 40 design in Chapter 7 of 'Exploring The System' a theoretical maximum payload capability of 40.4t, as follows: Exhaust_Velocity = 360 * 9.82 = 3,535.20 dV_Launch = 4,900 Launch_Ratio = EXP(4,900 / 3,535.2) = 4 Mass_Dry = 66.3 Mass_Wet = 386.3 Launch payload capability = ((4 * 66.3) - 386.3) / (1 - 4) = 40.4t (rounded to 1 decimal place, which I drop as 'margin for error' so 40t usable as far as I'm concerned) ETA: What I call 'Launch_Ratio' is the same as EtherDragon ninja'd me with and that's the key to reversing the rocket equation :-) EXP() is the exponential function for LibreOffice and Excel spreadsheets.

Don't use timewarp in atmosphere. Don't use high timewarp while crossing SOI boundaries (definitely being addressed in 1.0). Be very careful with part-clipping.

Wonderful Dres, for all your holiday needs. No crowds, no fuss. 20% discount on holiday group rates, visas not required for Kerbin citizens.

"+" = advance one orbit, "-" = back one orbit. That is, when you place it KSP assumes you mean next time you reach that point. If you're doing something like a rendezvous you might not want to transfer to the target orbit until after two, three or more orbits. That's when you use the +/-

If ships are within 2.5km their parts count in the, er, part count so you'll get the same lag. As you'll understand from all the above it's also not practical to just drag them with another. Have a look at the Hanger mod which seems to provide exactly the functionality you are after. You can store vehicles "inside" the hanger but they are really removed from the game, so their parts no longer exist and aren't counted. Later, when you want them back, they are recreated from the .craft file, so everything is back as it should be.

Remember that the goo container and science junior can only be used once each, unless they are 'cleaned' using the MPL. To do that I think you have to dock with it anyway.

... and yet long-range fuel drop-tanks have been used on aircraft for decades. This is not an insurmountable problem, just not an economic one.

August 2013 thread about atmospherics due to be completely replaced in 1.0

Thank you, I have been moved to change my forum title. Dres, for the perfect holiday far from the madding crowd.

The shuttle was three stages to orbit, or two-and-a-half if you're being generous. First it jetisoned the side-SRBs, then the huge orange tank of fuel. It's the imbalance of these and the large changes of balance that makes replicating that design hard in KSP, where our engines don't have anything like the same gimbal range. Single Stage To Orbit just means something that doesn't jettison anything on the way up; whether that's a pure rocket, vertical-launch jet (assisted) or spaceplane is immaterial. The ones in 'Exploring The System' don't work in FAR, by the way, so forget that reference.

I think I'm going mad - imagining things now ^^.

Simple rule: strange things can happen if you use timewarp in atmosphere. I read a book while returnees drift down.

A lot of the land on Laythe is green 'grass', ergo photosynthesis, and we have no idea what life might be in the oceans.

Historically total-loss failure was about 2%, usually Kraken, occassionally really bad piloting. This has improved since I found out 'just above highest mountain' was not a viable orbit, even on vacuum bodies ^^. Now my low-orbit probes don't disappear (as often) their missions are more like 0.5%, mainly 'lost in deep space' failing to make Moho insertion burns. For crewed missions objective failures with crew recovery probably run about the same but I can't even remember the last time any crew were lost. Failure during tests is a whole different matter, although I still don't kill Kerbals ...

There are several SSTOs, rockets and spaceplanes, in "Exploring The System"

In The Drawing Board the only in-game tutorials made by players are by blizzy98, who of course also has several mods to his credit. You might want to download those and look at the source code in C#

"Induction To Construction", Chapter 2, explains it for Windows. No idea how proprietary Apple have locked things down on Macs.