Great General Kaboomsky

Holy karp. 94 million worth of radial chutes? What does that even look like??!?!

This. Please. Seriously, shut up and take my money. Also, is "How hard could rocket science be anyway?" trademarked? Was always my favorite KSP slogan.

Generally speaking, I love the cinematics. Half the reason I'm playing KSP instead of orbiter or something more "realistic" is the little green guys themselves. Seeing the cinematics just gives my imagination more material to work with when I imagine Bill reaming Jeb for breaking the engine off their Mun lander. That said, I'm also totally with the group that doesn't like the last one. Cartoony explodifying violence is fine, but the image of the fireball after detonation and the screams of the crew after the parachute malfunctioned also gave me the faint queasy feeling that a few other commenters have mentioned.

Implements of war? No. Not in my save, at least. I prefer the problem-solving and the exploration. I get enough earth-shattering kabooms to keep me chuckling along the way without the need for weaponry. I understand that actual space exploration is often motivated by the military, but if we are going bring a military element into the game, I'd rather see it in the form of contracts to place imaging or communications satellites into orbit, launch the K-37B for a test flight, fly high-altitude passes over other continents with imagine equipment aboard, etc.

TAC Life Support Deadly Reentry Dangit! Mechjeb Kebal Alarm Clock After that, I GREATLY prefer playing with: KSP Interstellar KW Rocketry Stage Recovery Kerbal Attachment System (and KIS) RemoteTech

Actually, yeah. A lot of the time I kindof like them. I always felt that my missions (in stock,) once they reached orbit, were too safe. No software glitches, not leaking fuel tanks, no "Houston we have a problem" moments, etc. I made it my goal to take the KSP glitches in stride, and just assume they were the result of something gone wrong in the mission. That said, since Ippo and Coffeman put together the great Dang It! mod to introduce random failures to the missions, the KSP glitches have become slightly more annoying to me.

This was my first Mun landing in a nutshell, except for the part where I also hit the mun first with lateral momentum, broke my "landing fins" went somersaulting across the Munar surface and barely landed in a semi-upright position so I could get back to orbit at all. Good on you for only taking 10 minutes after the rage-quit to get back to the game. I think it took me a week to cool off.

I'm not a great engineer or anything, but when I was first playing the demo, I know I had trouble with the front-end of my rockets not being heavy enough. As the cliche goes, I was trying to throw the dart backward, with all the weight to the rear. This inevitably causes the rocket to go all topsy-turvy once you build up some speed. Shifting weight forward helped immensely. If that's not your problem, do you have a gimble-capable engine or active control surfaces on the first stage? While it is fully possible to build a stable un-guided rocket, its really helpful to have some steering capability in the beginning. You should totally be able to make orbit without building anything crazy, even with the demo parts. One relatively long first stage with a more powerful engine to get you up to altitude and gain part of the necessary sideways momentum and one relatively short, stubby second stage with a more efficient engine to build up enough lateral momentum to circularize the orbit. I think I tend to use 1 LV-T45 "Swivel" engine with two FL-T800 fuel tanks for the first stage and a LV-909 "Terrier" engine with a FL-T400 fuel tank, a decoupler and a 1-man capsule for the second stage, but there are many possible ways to arrange a successful orbiter. Also, sounds like you're already watching them, but Scott Manley has some great tutorials. Many happy launches!

While I don't think KSP has caught up to Civ III or Sim City 2000 in terms of the sheer number of hours I have put into it, it has made an IMPRESSIVE run at it, considering the comparatively short time that I have been playing it. Its easily the most entertaining game I have piked up in the past 5 years or so.

While the new panels caught me out once or twice (thankfully just inconvenience, not disaster) the biggest challenge for me has been engine overheating. The "Twin Boar" engines are generally my go-to for boosters and first stages on my heavy-lifters, but even with wing-bits stuck all over the central core, I still end up circularizing at about 1/4 throttle or "kaboom!" I'm not sure that I necessarily "like" or "dislike" the heating issue, but it certainly has changed the way I play. My payloads are more realistically weighted and more aerodynamic, and I have noticed that my ascent path has had to change drastically in order to build up as much speed as possible while still benefiting from atmospheric cooling.

I'm pretty sure it was a strip from the XKCD web-comic where I first heard the name. I thought, hmmmm, landing on the moon in Kerbal Space Program, eh? Should probably check that out. Now, KSP owns me... I totally blame XKCD.

If this is a brain hack, then I've been full-on Kerbal-zombiefied at this point. :-p

.17 at the latest. I think it was .15, since I seem to remember quite a long time of thinking "Gee, what this game really needs is the ability to dock on orbit!" and I'm pretty sure it was the space-plane parts that got me to actually buy.

Nope, you're not alone. I totally play them as (mostly) friendly rivals. Jeb makes the first orbit of Kerbin. Val makes the first munar flyby. Jeb one-ups her by landing and leaves a "take that Valentina" message on his flag. Val completes a Kerbin 3 contract (orbit of Mun, Minimus and Kerbin) to stick it to Jeb. Jeb launches into Kerbol orbit and returns. Val lands on Minimus and carries out a 3-surface-observation contract, leaving taunting messages for Jeb on each flag. Etc. Maybe I'll stick them together on an interplanetary mission soon. What could go wrong? ;-)

Thank you so very much for working on this! Despite the "controversy" I have felt like random failures are a badly needed par of my game, and I really like the model you are playing with here. (Also, it might finally give me a reason other than my own stupidity to include my spare part kits via KAS on my manned missions.) I have no idea how hard it would be to implement (I can barely muck around in a config file, much less actually mod) but have you thought about adding continuous degradation into your mod (for applicable parts obviously)? I have always wanted RTGs which actually ran low on power generation over time or solar panels that were degraded through micro-meteor strikes and needed to be replaced now and then. Anyway, with that unsolicited request, I’m going to gleefully run off and play with what you have finished so far! Thanks! -Kaboomsky