Duke23

I haven't really played since .24 came out because, well, I got frustrated with the new career mode. It wasn't the game's fault though it was my fault for not fully understanding how contracts work, and trying to do a bunch of them at once. Well today I started a fresh stock career save and took it slow, and I've gotta say it's a little refreshing to start over from scratch after a couple months of break. After a while in a save I get to the point of "Hmm, what else can I do?" even though there are literally thousands of things I could do if I just had a better imagination. My rockets have looked pretty funky since this whole contracts thing, trying to do weird things while also advancing my scientific career. And it feels weird to build minimal like this. Anywho... So I made this ugly thing and then promptly "crashed" it into the water, but my goo pods (the only thing I really cared about) survived. Then I made this other ugly thing that surprisingly, actually worked. But I didn't get to do my last test (a decoupler) because I had a derp moment and the (fully fueled!) SRB I hauled to orbit for the relatively lucrative test got fired off while I was pointed prograde, and I ended up on an escape trajectory without enough fuel to stabilize orbit again. Then I took an orbital rescue mission (complete with probe core) but Jeb snuck onto the ship before launch and I didn't notice until the other dude was knocking on the airlock trying to get in. So, frustrated, I kicked Jeb out and deorbited with the poor stranded guy. Then I immediately sent up another ship (with a probe core and EMPTY cockpit), picked up Jeb, and headed to the Mun. Everything went better than expected since I was trying a relatively small build to get to Mun and back, and I was starting to get worried before I made the transfer burn. It was a very smooth landing and I think it will all work out alright but I am still a little concerned about return fuel. If I take off and go straight for a nice aerocapture maneuver at Kerbin I should be fine... I think. As I said, it has been a little while since I played and I don't have those handy dandy Delta-V calcs this time.

Yes, but it's "supposed" to be 10 years I believe? I've never gone more than about 2 years without either checking up on or updating one of my flash backups and for the most part those files are already in multiple places to prevent any weirdness. Things like old pictures, old writing stuff etc that's impossible to replace. I haven't had any issues *yet* with leaving them laying around but it's usually one drive that gets upgraded periodically as the files grow or storage space gets cheaper. I think the first one I used for that purpose was something along the lines of 64 or 128mb but now I'm just showing my age a little All this paranoia is pretty much traced back to the fact that I lost a lot of irreplaceable data back in about 2003 when I toasted a hard drive, I was much less careful before that. That reminds me I need to update all that stuff for the last few months worth of stuff... It never ends, I'm just going to go sit in the corner and pull my hair out.

You all bring up good points. I may take a little of all this when I go for this upgrade - I think I still want to do a RAID 1 setup and two sets of disks for the "Oh crap my disk just blew up" protection but also continue using the 3 disks (3tb, 1tb, and 320gb I think) that the data is currently on. It still has room to grow but #1 I'm wasting USB ports and the smaller disk is old but still seems to be in good condition so I leave it alone usually. #2 my 3tb disk has that stupid head parking feature so it is racking up an amount of wear and tear that I'm not going to be comfortable with in about another year of use. I can handle a scheduled integrity check much easier than pulling a disk out of my drawer to sync everything. All this really hit me when my 500gb disk decided to go squirrely on me and I barely got the data transferred off it in one piece before it became unusable. Does anyone know if I can do my two separate sets of mirrored disks with one RAID controller or should I just use software / two dual enclosures? Sigh, I do remember the days of using CD-Rs for backup. Or DVD-Rs. Either of which were a perfect recipe for something to go wrong right when you need it. I have always been fond of using flash drives for the really important stuff. They fail too but in my experience they have the courtesy to do it while you're writing data and be pretty obvious about it.

Well hardware failure is my biggest concern. In my scenario it won't be running an OS or anything and if the data does become corrupted it probably happened before it made its way to this setup in the first place, and even if it did happen after I might not catch it before I update a backup manually. Once the data goes to this setup it probably won't be modified. I was hoping to have this all pretty much hands free until a disk fails which I could promptly replace. I thought this is what RAID 1 was for, and would it not detect corruption the same way it would detect a bad sector for example and make the appropriate corrections or at least notify me? I don't know anything about RAID really so I'm trying to learn. What do you consider a "real backup?

I have a question about RAID and similar methods. Basically I need something like a RAID 1 setup but two of them. I want to have two mirrored 4tb disks and two mirrored 2tb disks. So the question is can I accomplish this with a 4 bay hardware RAID enclosure, or do I need two dual enclosures side by side? Or would it be easier (and cheaper) to just get a regular SATA -> eSATA / USB3 enclosure with no RAID controller and use software (what software?) to mirror on the fly, and hopefully only show 2 disks instead of 4 under My Computer. Sorry if that's a little confusing, I'm just trying to figure out the easiest and most cost effective way to make sure my important data is crash proof. I don't want to overcomplicate things with RAID 5 or anything like that if don't have to. But I may have already overcomplicated things by being so paranoid about data loss. Right now I'm backing up the most important of the important on multiple disks which is inefficient at best and not all inclusive. Thanks in advance for any insight.

I made my home computer download .24 while I was at work and finally sat down to play... It's AWESOME.... *drools* So I made my first launch just to grab a tiny bit of tech. WHY GOD WHY

Well a challenge is nice, but if you go from what we're used to, to a game where you have to keep really close eyes on your funds or else you'll go broke and can't do anything, could be devastating. I like the idea of contracts and funds, but I don't want this to be a NASA Budget and Economy simulator either, I want to build some cool rockets and do fun things. To answer the OP I think it won't change my approach much. If it's worth it I may recover debris from orbit since a couple of my designs tend to leave large liquid booster assemblies in LKO if I don't plan ahead... If it's worth it I might send a tug up to bring some of it back down. I think some of the SSTO designs I've come up with may do well on some smaller contracts like tossing up a satellite or testing equipment, so that'd be interesting to compare to a multi-stage rocket. I guess I won't truly know until I play around with it a little. The way I look at it is the more money I can get back from each launch, the bigger and more obnoxious rocket I can build for the next one.

Definitely better to tell us. I'm here because I'm bored and having a drink or 10, others are here with their noses touching their monitors chanting prayers to the kraken...

Wait, didn't we already know it wasn't "today?" There was a post earlier that I lost in the fray which said "it won't be today" with special emphasis on the time it was posted... or something like that.

I've been trying really hard not to jump on the #HypeTrain but this is killing me now. I'm going to distract myself by buying a new tablet... haha

No joke, I swear if I sneeze too hard I get a bad gateway error

I would sleep strike with you guys but I have to work tomorrow so yeah...

Oafman, you should consider making a video when that convoy arrives at Jool. I'd definitely sit down and watch that logistical nightmare, lol. Guess I won't have to worry about landing my plane now. Earlier we had a pretty bad storm and the lightning was striking close to my house and making my monitors shake, so I shut down my computer with KSP paused mid-flight in the background. I'm debating whether I'll try it again with or without changing the time I launch. I imagine it deleted everything since I was at about 18km and throttled up when I quicksaved.

From what I understand there will be enough variety in the types of missions (6 basic types I think Rowsdower said?) that you can certainly avoid specific missions or even types of missions altogether and still be able to move forward. They are randomly generated so you shouldn't ever "run out" of missions, although if you were to ignore all but one type for example I imagine it'd get repetitive pretty quickly.

Holy kraken bait Batman. That is awesome... I've seen people do some some crazy things around here but to do that stock with no clipping or intake spamming (well, you know what I mean) that I can see is very impressive. I still haven't managed to make a single stage to Mun and back spaceplane and my SSTOs generally carry 2-6 Kerbals.

By the end of the year? :\ As nice as that sounds, I want one soon (article I read states they'll be out by Christmas and in full force some time in 2015). And there's no guarantee that the devices which pop up around its release will be what I'm looking for including price... I have to say I can't wait for that one, and if it's "that" good then I'll trade up. Err, sell the one I end up getting and buy that one, maybe not in that order. As much as I like the idea of waiting for a better piece of hardware to come out, I've been breaking myself of that habit because there's ALWAYS a better piece of hardware about to come out. Matter of fact, apparently me buying something is pretty much the best way to guarantee that the upgraded version comes out sooner. That and it takes a couple months to see what percentage of the units are defective in some stupid way (see below). I pretty much just decided against the Asus tablet in the past several minutes. Apparently, about 35% of them or more have digitizer problems within a month or two that are related to a number of different problems (drivers, leaking displays, bad solder points, bad cables, etc) so it kind of makes the integrated pen pointless and I'm a bad gambler. That's the only reason I gave it a second look, the Dell one just isn't integrated into the tablet body. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. Maybe one of those Broadwell tablets will have an integrated pen with a functional digitizer and I can grab one

Integration? Some of them can use keyboard docks or mini-HDMI ports if that's what you mean and with an OTG cable you can hook pretty much whatever you need to it. As for the weight, my GTab3 weighs around 11oz, and the DV8P weighs around 14. I'd say it's worth the extra weight, speaking before I get my hands on one. I always thought the GTab was lighter than it looked so to speak. I like Android tablets but for the price I couldn't help myself from gravitating toward this, just because I "can" run full blown Windows programs. For the most part I will probably use it no differently than I used my Android tablets, but what about that one time when you're out and need to do something only a "computer" can do? I think that's what makes these stand out. I'll be able to do what I need to do without opening the app store and praying that someone wrote one that can do what I need or want. FTP programs, light graphics / sound / video editing, small games, making a bootable flash drive, etc. It could never replace a desktop or even a laptop, but it will make a darn good effort to get you by in a pinch. I'm not a fan of Metro on the desktop myself but it's perfect for touch. I think the OS itself is a step in the right direction, not including the cloud integration they're trying to push. I really liked the way the OS ran. It just felt quicker and less bloated, have better memory management, and I liked the new task manager and file copy dialog. I've said it before, I think there should be an option on your first boot to run "classic" (Windows 7 theme) mode or "regular" 8.x mode, for people who don't adjust to the new flavor well or just like the old look for a particular application, rather than dumb down the whole system. I haven't looked into the differences between 8 and 8.1 so I can't comment on that one yet, but I really hope they don't go the Chromebook route or anything crazy like that in the future. I'd have to disown Microsoft for that one... My computer must be fully functional offline. Sure cloud is nice for budget machines like the DV8P because it's cheaper for the manufacturers and therefore us to put less memory in them, but cloud can't replace a good old card slot and it's slow as molasses for anything that would actually warrant storing remotely (for me at least). Maybe I'm just paranoid but I don't like the idea of broadcasting the contents of my computer to the internet for some intrepid hacker to stumble upon. Edit: I just read an overview of the 8.1 and its update, and from what I read I think it's a pretty good idea. It seems to allow the best of both worlds and keep the oldschool folks happier while not leaving out the new bits. Thanks for that. As someone who is casual about video editing, free is speaking my language. And if I get good at it or need to do more I can always go the paid route that doesn't involve selling a kidney. ETA: Well crap, now I found out about the Asus Vivotab Note 8, so I'm having a debate with myself on which to get.

I like that idea. I mean I hope they aren't excessive (for the "crapping up LKO" reason) but it'd be fun to do a few of them, and have them stay. I usually launch a couple satellites anyway, even though I don't use a mod that requires it, just for the sake of roleplaying.

Virtual machine here I come! lol, kidding (I think) and I've never been much of a Mac guy, I much prefer Windows for my main machine and Linux for messing around. You are right, the price isn't bad in the grand scheme of things. But as a person who only does actual video editing rarely and shoddily for YouTube videos for fun, it's a bit much. I might just have to stick to VideoPad for now unless I just have money burning a hole in my pocket. Camacha, what's your take on this Windows 8(.1) tablet phenomenon? Personally I keep thinking it's about time ever since the Surface Pro came out. Hoping this Dell I'm looking at will live up to my expectations of it -- the practicality of Windows, the portability / affordability of an Android tablet. Windows 8 only makes sense on a touchscreen, and a tablet is just hard for me to resist anyway. I've been fascinated with them ever since I got an HP TouchPad during the big fire sale and put CM10 on it. ETA: It has to be a step up over the netbooks of the last few years. Haha, that skin pack is pretty good. More like something I'd do to a friend's computer just to confuse him.

lol, this. Or go for the dare then if I fail it miserably I'll grind for some extra cash to spend on the next dare.

I've only captured a Class A and B asteroid but I usually clamp onto it close to center as possible then unlock the pivot and use RCS to thrust away from it, with the idea that it will center itself. It kind of works, and on one of them I also had to manually adjust the ship before relocking the pivot. Also I try to keep the throttle down to a point that the ship's SAS systems can compensate for the difference, or burn in bursts. I imagine I'd need something a little more sophisticated for a larger 'roid.

Unless I'm missing something Final Cut Pro is Mac only? The only Mac I have is a boat anchor. This stuff seems really expensive. But thanks, I'll look into it.

That's fair enough. Do you or Andrew have a recommendation for an editor that supports this stuff, or just the ones he already listed? I'm by no means an expert at video editing but I'm trying to learn some of it, I have been using VideoPad to meet my basic needs (waiting to get smacked lol). I either export "okay" x264 mp4 and upload it, or export a giant avi then run it through Handbrake with my customized settings that usually take a while.

Ah, I've been meaning to try the video acceleration but I heard it can reduce quality a bit so I stick it out with my CPU whenever I do video editing so far. That and I usually use Handbrake for my final product and I haven't seen an option for that yet. Apparently the Atoms are getting much better. I haven't seen a good side-by-side comparison yet but I've read that the older ones were about 15% of an equivalent i3 (I think it was i3? Maybe C2D back then) and the newer ones are around 60%. They definitely seem to hold their own especially when you consider the reduced power draw. From the videos I've seen of the V8P it appears to be pretty snappy unless you're doing something it wasn't designed for anyway like running modern games. I almost bought an HP netbook with one of the old N-series Atoms a while back and I'm glad I didn't after messing around with a similar one (Acer or Asus I can't remember) that my friend used to have.