merendel

On the other hand if you mount some fuel supply and a solar panle or two you could put the ship on an orbit where it wont ever encounter mun/minmus and burn it till it just bairly escapes, run your test, and then retrograde enough to recapture. when the poodle eventualy comes up agian for that test you just give spend a few dV to put it back on the escape for the test and slow back down and skip the expense of another launch. I've actualy considered building a rig that has most/all the engiens on it and seting copies of it in various orbits to do those tests. Hard part is geting it balanced enough to launch with all those engiens.

I think the only halfway feesable place you could make a ringworld would be around gilly. you'd still need mods to do it as it has a diameter in the ballpark of 30km as I recall. YOu'd still need one beast of a computer to pull it off as that would be tons of parts. Think lazor systems can boost the physics window up to 90km or so which would at least allow you to attempt the build, even if it would probably make even wackjob's computer emit the blue smoke agian.

Yes wave is doing cost rebalancing but I wouldnt expect KSPI to get significantly cheeper unless wave changes his mind. Personaly I think his take on balancing is a tad on the extream side and I manualy edit the parts down to somewhat more sane costs. With the prices as they are in his version I'd never fork over the cash for launching KSPI equiped craft, I'd just go install extraplanetary launchpads and build reactors in space after mineing resorces. I understand the delima particularly considering the power of the upgraded componants and lack of a good way to set a good price for upgraded vs unupgraded componants with the way the mechanics work. I apreciate the work he does, I just dissagree on the price but thats something easy enough to fix on my own.

If I had the time, inclination, or knowlage to actualy code up a mod (tweeks to parts dont count thats easy) I'd probably not make a mod that added parts or significant new mechanics. I'd try to make a mod that allowed a player to force various nodes to be visible despite KSP hiding them to reduce clutter. Close approach possition nodes in particular are very twitchy if your not already very close to dead on hiting the orbit of your target. This gave me no end of hairpulling moments trying to intercept moho. Being able to turn on equatorial AN/DN for your current orbit would also be rather nice.

Sure, I'd probably go establish a long term moon base to chill out on. Close enough to return in an emergency and ping signals off satalites for internet access(even if its high latency) but far enough away that the crazy crap politicians try to pull wont effect me much. My rockets, even the large ones have a better survival rate than the RL space programs. Missions fail all the time but always in a recoverable way (aka got stuck in LKO cause transfer stage broke on seperation, easy to get down in a pinch)

Was anybody else wishing that they would just go to map mode so we could see what the orbit looked like? And also whats with this 3 hour coast phase... learn to timewarp already

Ironicly I dont actualy use that 5 for RCS toggle all that often. As I tend to have my left hand on the rotation keys at the same time as I'm useing the RCS just in case I need to correct for off ballance thrusters I end up useing R and T for SAS and RCS toggles. I do have the hotkey there and use it on occasion it just ended up being one of those great ideas I had while setting it up that didnt prove as useful as expected.

I leave rotational controls alone, I think they are fine as they are. I do however compleatly scrap the RCS translation controls and move them over to the numberpad. the physical placement of the keys they chose for RCS always drives me batty but there are other important keys in the area that I'd rather not move to fix it. I use 8,2,4,6 for up down left right, 5 for toggleing RCS and 7 and 1 for accelerate/decelerate. Spatially very logical for me and it also leaves my right hand closer to the mouse if I need to adjust my camera.

Even for a manned mission it could be useful depending on where you were going. If it can be scaled up and if we can get something with sufficent energy density to power it it may be slower off the block from LEO but could thrust the whole way to the target (towards it at first then turnover halfway to slow down) and get there faster than a conventional chemical rocket with any sane quantity of fuel. once in orbit even tiny amounts of thrust can pile up over time to get something moveing really fast.

Funds are the Root (√) of all evil. Gathering too many Roots (√) will summon the kraken, or at least let wackjob build something big enough to do so. We must stop gathering them before its too late I just call em funds or roots simply because the first is what squad called them and the second is what they used as the symbol for them.

oh boy your probably not going to want to repeat the Teamwork idea if your going far/DR. Many people dont know how to design something that will fly with FAR Even my designs get a bit lazy when I dont have it installed. Usualy will still fly just not optimaly.

True you cant attach the lander to a thruster directly. I assumed it was a given that if you wanted to hang a rover under a lander you needed to design the lander with at least 2 thrusters attached radially around the center line of the craft.

Bit of a necro? Anyway you shouldnt need to do this. If you can manage to right click on any portion of the docking port to bring up its context menu and select decouple node it should release the decoupler from it. pieces do not attach solidly to docking ports like they would to any other stack node, they spawn with the docking port clamped onto them. you can always disconect them from the docking port you just cant reattach non dockingports after the fact.

You can put a stack of cubic struts in the center of the rover or even just attach the decoupler to an RTG in the center as shown here. nice thing about useing an RTG is your going to need a power sorce for the rover anyway. This is a 2 man design but you could always put a single seat in front of the RTG if desired.

While its fully possible to play compleatly stock I can only really handle it for so long before I at least upgrade to what I call Near stock. There are a few mods that dont add parts or change game mechanics in any way but are quality of life improvements that are hard to do without once you have them. Most of these fall into the catagory of interface tweeks or information mods. Enhanced navball- Lets you move/resize the navball and displays radial and normal markers on the navball. Kerbal engineer redux - Gives alot of information about your craft and orbit in a configurable window. Some you'd have to do a bit of math to figure out stock and others it just puts the info all in one place. Simplifys mission design as it gives very good dV estimates and burn times for stages. Precise node - Gives much more control when makeing nodes. The base node system works but click and drag is clunkly for fine manipulations to hit an exact orbit/transfer. Kerbal Alarm clock. Alows automatic shutdown of timewarp based off alarm conditions you set. No more zooming past that maneuver node because you timewarped too high. Those are my core mods that I always install just because of the quality of life improvements they provide and I consider them my near stock pack. I also tend to have a full moded install as well but the skys not even close to the limit on that one, only ram usage. Technicly kerbal engineer does add a couple parts to add its funtionality to a ship but I often use a 5th mod, Module manager to just add KER to any command pod/probe core and delete the parts.

I like scott manley for the intresting science tidbits he sneaks into his videos. Unfortunatly lately he's been spliting his time between too many different thigns and it seems like we only get 1 or 2 KSP episodes a week at best. I'd also give 5th horseman an honerable mention. he tends to ramble a bit but his videos often end up very entertaining. he also releases vids like clockwork so I know I'll always have something to watch with my morning coffee.

for a 50 ton payload to orbit that does not sound to bad. I made a moho landing mission useing low ish tech, no nukes, whole mission had a pricetag of about 170k including the launcher to get it to orbit. the payload being lifted to orbit consisted of about 2 orange tanks of fuel 2 poodles a lightweight lander and a T800 with a 909 for a capsule return stage. Not a lightweight launch by any stretch, think it was somewhere in the 550 tons range on the launchpad. Personaly my path to cheap launch vehicles is solid boosters. particularly those big ones. If you put the right amount on you can prety much ride those all the way up to the start of the gravity turn with only enough throttle to give you a bit of gimble controll for steering. Do it right and you can just about ride terminal velocity all the way to burnout and have that burnout happen in the 8-9km range. perfect time to ditch the solids and start the gravity turn. solids are dirt cheep compaired to a similar lifting capacity of liquid fuels for the early part of a launch.

If your talking ion's I'd buy that but you'd need some seriously anemic TWR to not be able to slow down. I normaly hit the SOI at 3-4k orbital velocity. If I aimed for a very low pass that gives me around an hour or so to cross the SOI. If your ship cant bleed of 3kdV in an hour youve got seriously more patience than I do as your willing to accept a miniscule TWR. I recently designed a ship that took jeb to moho and back without useing nukes. Transfer and deceleration stages actualy used poodles of all things. Ship wasnt much more than a standard pod siting on a small fuel tank with a 909 on the other end by the time jeb got back but he was able to carry 3 goos and materials out there along with the other science packages.

I'll try your new compile soon as I to was haveing some weird issues. Some parts would fall through ships or fall off ships. The small reactors were particularly bad. I was trying to launch a new station module with a small nuke reactor instead of other power methods and the ship would suffer a spontanious dissassembly at 6km. Another ship out in solar orbit had its reactor just fall off when I switched to it to perform a manuver. Swaping out the reactor on the station module for conventional solar pannles allowed it to launch although there wasnt much else from KSPI on the thing. To be clear these issues were with your 24.0 compile after .24.1 update dropped, haven't tried your new one yet.

Even if they meant their first born child why would you even want to take them up on that offer? Why take on all the responsibility, time commitment, and expense of a child without even the benifit of the fun part of makeing that child? Seriously I can have more fun makeing my own than accepting someone elses as payment. Folks really need to come up with a better way of enticeing work out of other people.

in additon to this park a kerbal on each planet/moon you go to. Any time a plant the flag mission comes up just EVA and plant one and get back in his ship. Easy coin. Leave a probe with a reuseable science part (gravioli good universal one) in orbit in each SOI. When asked for a science report just run and transmit, you get credit even for a 0 point return. agian easy money. Landed on kerbin part tests are easy just probe+part, stage then recover (drain fuel if its an engien test so you dont move) Some other tests can be a pain so look at them before you take it. some require special approaches such as a strait down burn from orbital velocities to get the right speed for the required elevation and your aiming for a very narrow window. some of those just easier to ignore.

I'm useing alot more solid boosters instead of asparigus stageing but thats about it. Generaly boosters get me up to a bit past gravity turn range. Main lift stage goes up to LKO or just short of it. Lift stage either keeps PE in atmo or enough fuel to deorbit and recover on parachutes. The only difference there is the parachutes and me actualy bothering to follow it down for the refund, previously I just deorbited the spent stages and ignored it.

While yes you can use TAC FB to cheat you can also use it to simulate storage of valuable resorces with out the excessive work of haveing to dock a fueling craft with every new launch or recovered craft. For AM in particular I setup an AM containment tanker at KSP. When I'm about to recover a craft that has a supply of AM I note how much and use TAC to add that to the tanker. Similarly when I want to launch a craft with some AM I add the desired amount to the ship and subtract it from the tanker. slightly cheaty but its mostly just saveing me alot of bussy work that should be handled by the ground crew anyway. I could recover it all by hand without TAC but like I said, its busy work I can do without. I'd rather have an automated storage system than a way to buy AM. The stuff is rather OP and should be very expensive. The problem is if you make it as expensive as it should be you can just recover a small farmed amount and have the funds for thousands of huge conventional ship launches. If you give it a cheeper value to avoid that now its too easy to just run a few contracts to buy the stuff and just skip collection. I just dont see a good way to balance the price to avoid weird situations like that.

nope still prety bleh.

Might be difficult to get accurate prices on some things. Its not like you can just order up some UF4 online. Argon and lithium sure, that would work but fissable materials generaly cant be had on the open market. You might also consider compairing the prices of H2 xenon and whatever mono prop is (hydrozeen?) as a sanity check. Its entierly possible squad made up numbers for game balance reasons that have absolutly no resemblance to RL prices or ratios of said prices.