Pecan

Yes, building planes is a real pain. KSP was originally a rocket simulator. Contracts frequently don't make sense - going to space, the moons and other planets is easier than "discovering" the wheel (or ladder!) with the current, insane, tech-tree.

But, but, we have moderator telling us they 'get it' about all the comments saying Squad should post information on the forums, not complete-twit, face-slap and didn't read it. So obviously this didn't happen, or they just don't give a ****. Wooooo! It's just like a real vote!

QED. Now to start work on something else.

In stock there are four types of fuel and five types of fuel tank: Solid Fuel -> (combined with) solid rocket boosters Liquid Fuel -> jet engines Liquid Fuel + Oxidiser -> rocket engines Monopropellant -> RCS thrusters and O-10 engine Xenon -> Ion engine Solid fuel just 'is' integral to a SRB and can't be moved around but can be tweaked out in the VAB/SPH. Liquid fuel is the same for jets and rockets, but rockets need oxidiser to burn it, whereas jets get that from the (oxygen) atmosphere. The ratio of fuel:oxidiser is 9:11. Monopropellant is mainly for low-power RCS thrusters used in docking but the O-10 uses (a lot of) it for main thrust too, if you want. Xenon is a special case for the very high-efficiency but low-thrust Ion engine (see NASA's Dawn mission to Ceres).

Next release introduces (better) ability for Kerbals to climb onto ledges, etc. apparently. Meanwhile - yes, when you select a part in the VAB/SPH you also select all child pieces, that's the way the construction engine works. However, what I find odd, ladders can't have child pieces so they are always selectable individually. I think you'll just have to be more careful with the mouse-pointer.

(And @LD) No, I'm not being completely serious with all that SPACE stuff, just making the point (on the first and second lines) that atmospheric handling is a minor part of things. Given that, and the planned replacement in the next release, there isn't a lot of point in effort spent learning the stock aerodynamics. @OP: "Other users seem to manage flight (indeed, even SSTO spaceplanes) with stock aerodynamics. My aim isn't to complain about the current model (which I could just mod out), it's just to ask what rules I should use for operating below space. In the end, this information might be useful for stock SSTO designs." Whatever you want to do is fine, there's no wrong way to have fun. The summary of stock aerodynamics are - the atmosphere is really thick below around 20km so drag will make you lose speed, even in a dive quite a lot of the time. If you want to make SSTOs the first rocket in my tutorial is a Single Stage To Orbit and for more useful things, a Skipper can SSTO 5t, a Mainsail 10t and KR-2L 24t. Hopefully jets will be nerfed to something realistic, since realism's what air-lovers seem to want, but as they are you need a different launch approach to getting them near orbit before switching to rockets. Again, see the tutorial, it contains designs for four planes, three of which are for *hehe* SPACE!

Well I can't leave it alone. It just doesn't feel right not to update the BBCode in the thread, so I'm going through reformatting all the original. Got to chapter 5 so far, 6 - 8 may well happen tomorrow; sooner rather than later, in any case. Next up, which I hope I can get written before 1.0 comes out, will be "Induction To Construction, a complete beginner's guide to KSP".

Kerbal SPACE program has just enough of an aerodynamics model that you can wave bye-bye to it as you pass through on your way to or from SPACE. Kerbal SPACE program was never intended to be an atmospheric flight-simulator and I think Squad were surprised at how many people cared even about realistic rocket-handling in atmosphere. Kerbal SPACE program never even had plane parts until comparatively late in development because it was intended to be a SPACE simulator. There probably wouldn't have been such pressure for an accurate aerodynamics model if it weren't for all the people who spend so much time below SPACE. The next version of KSP will have a new model, so don't worry too much about the current one. Why not go to SPACE instead?

A wonderfully simple idea that probably wasn't as simple to code as it sounds and adds a very neat touch. Change request: disabled mode indicator for my 'emergency reserve' battery. Blue, since the other primaries are in use, or dimmed?

Squad nicely demonstrates the difference between marketing and useful support - and that they're a marketing company first. Marketing is all about getting the message 'out there' to all sorts of different communities: using complete twitter, face-slap book, didn't read it and every other channel you can think of to reach people who wouldn't otherwise visit your official source. Support would centralise the information first, then advertise its availability. You need a company that's concentrating on its current customers for that though.

Yes, I've tried career mode. It holds my hand by telling me what I have to do. Hand-holding doesn't mean "easy", it means "do this". Explosions, hyper-graphics and other eye candy do not make good gameplay, just as popcorn doesn't make a good meal. Yes, gamers will probably put A flag on every planet/moon, if they don't stop once the tech-tree is unlocked. Then they'll stop because they "won". Putting it together - the more structured and directed a game, the more it appeals to the mass audience because it tells them what to do in order to "win". The very concept of "winning" in a non-adversarial game is counter-productive to long-term replay value and community though, in that once done, it's done. If I build a fleet to "win" KSP it'll always work. The replay value, for geeks, is doing it better next time - for a given (and user-selected) value of 'better'. That's something the geeks will stick at, not gamers dedicated to graphics. Change of subject - Another vote for Homeworld, it's a forgotten treasure :-)

Hello before the pub. Advice; 1. Getting to space is easy - 69km+. 2. Getting into orbit so you stay in space is harder - read tutorials. 3. Start with small vehicles and simple missions. 4. Sandbox or science mode is much better for learning. 5. See my signature for ship designs.

I am fascinated by someone who makes 2 genuine posts and 5 that are necros of threads from last April. A suspicious mind (like mine) would think this was a bit of 'search-engine optimisation' shennanigans.

NINJA'D ? By almost a year! This is the third thread today you've dug up from last April - are you on some sort of mission?

"Procedural" in game terms means making up as you go along instead of being fixed, yes :-0 Without it KSP would have store height-data for every square meter of Kerbin, the moons and other planets, for instance. With it the major features and heights are defined and stored but then the programme 'fills in' the rest when it needs it. For Mun, major craters won't come or go but how whether a particular spot is flat or not will do. Actual height should be within a fairly tight margin, depending on how broken the terrain is anyway at that point.

Early-adopters will be predominantly geeks who find the new stuff earliest. Such geeks will want to know how the system works, will practice all aspects of how it works now and watch the way it develops. They work together, to develop findings and publish instructional or exceptional documents and videos. *At some point most programmes are handed-over to gamers instead of geeks. *They want defined progress, 'score', hand-holding and instant-gratification because games aren't meant to be hard work. *They work alone, post "I WON THE GAME" documents and "Let's play", look at me!, videos. *Gamers are a majority and pay a lot. That's why software companies make pretty explosions. *They move-on early, having "WON" enough and seen all the explosions they want. As this happens the geeks will complain that the programme is being trivialised, becoming more of a 'game' than a 'simulation'/'world', and that "young players these days just don't know what it was like when we were new" (haha). After the 'game' fad has passed and the programme gone out of fashion (which happens to any programme eventually) the geeks and retro-gamers will form the tail of users, mulling-over the finer points and publishing more arcane 'guides'. This is an observation I first made about Second Life, but which I also think applies to KSP. Obviously Dwarf Fortress is avoiding any appeal to gamers by just being too damn awkward to use - so it only has geeks. The more a software company tries to convert a programme to attract a mass-gaming audience the more it annoys the existing one. On the other hand, it makes more money doing that. Long-term 'success' might have geeks still playing your game 10 years after it was released - but companies can't wait that long to recoup their costs.

Nanananana, can't scare me! Huge pictures, slow broadband, capped limit = takes a minute or so to see each picture, so I can't.

Thank you - that's the most I've laughed in a couple of days. It's a good enough challenge to set yourself, if you like, but there's really absolutely nothing realistic about it anyway, so you might as well use anything KSP allows. There is no real model for any part of such a mission and no-one in real life would design that way even if they could, because it's such an inefficient way to do things.

You create this thread THREE minutes after your other 'show your photos' one is locked! Photos -> http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/24533-Show-off-your-awesome-KSP-pictures! Ship Designs -> http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/20-The-Spacecraft-Exchange

To answer your specific questions: -No, otherwise no-one would ever use them. -By i) designing a 'plane that flies well in atmosphere, ii) has it's centres of lift and drag behind that of mass at all times, iii) also happens to make it to orbit and back. IE: - Build a plane first, make it spaceworthy second, because atmosphere's the difficult bit.

I have absolutely no idea what this means either, but I'm pretty sure that it isn't anything to do with the subject. Still trying to find out the difference between 'recoverable' and 'reusable'.

Nope, I don't think I understand what you mean either. What does "100% reusable rocket" refer to? Recovering a vehicle in KSP destroys it, with funds returned for intact parts depending on how close you are to KSC. Every vehicle edited in or launched from the VAB/SPH is "new", KSP does not have a concept of old parts.

As I always understood it the round-trip, land and re-orbit, dV was about the same as a Kerbin launch. Harder to land in practice because there's no atmospheric drag but easier to launch from because of the lower gravity (and no drag).

It's taken more than a year and probably nearly a couple of thousand hours but yes, I'm starting to burn-out too. There's still a lot I would like to do with KSP but memory problems are just proving too frustrating. Reduced to just MJ and KAC they aren't as bad but I really want PF and SCANSat back!

It is done at last! Final 0.90 update complete - although I must note there are only 34 vehicles, so I must change the banner some time. Links to the PDF, stock ship .craft files and hi-res pictures in the OP as usual. I may get around to updating the text in this thread or just delete the BB Code version - does anyone use it? Apart from the problems I've been having personally and with KSP I have to say knowing that all this will be rendered useless by the changes in version 1.0 has really sapped my will to continue. Anyway, as mentioned before, this is the last time I'll publish this in this format - with the release of KSP everything will change.