Torquemadus

Modern mission plans for sending humans to Mars try to avoid the use of space stations altogether. Early mission plans for missions to Mars, such as Werhner Von Braun's Die Marsproject and George Bush Senior's Space Exploration Initiative, required all of the propellants and consumables used on the mission to be lifted from Earth. This required on-orbit assembly of a massive interplanetary spaceship dubbed "Battlestar Galactica" by it's critics. The plan requires a massive Earth orbiting space dockyard. Some variations also factor in a huge Moon base as well, so that oxygen made from lunar material can be used as propellant for the giant spaceship. Due to limited consumables, the mission only allows a stay on Mars of a few weeks for the crew, who also lack significant provision for surface mobility. The SEI version had an estimated cost of 450 billion dollars. The alternative method, known as , is to launch spacecraft directly to Mars on heavy lift boosters comparable to the Saturn 5 (or modern equivalents). In-Situ Resource Utilisation (ISRU) is used to produce propellants and consumables on Mars. The crew are able to stay on the surface for one and a half Earth years. During which time they have access to long ranged surface vehicles, powered by liquid fuels produced on Mars. Total programme cost has been estimated at 30 to 50 billion dollars spread over a ten year programme.NASA have produced design reference missions based on variations of this plan. The upcoming ISRU feature should allow missions of this type to be flown in KSP.

He only needs to activate the BACC via the staging sequence. It doesn't matter whether the BACC has been used earlier in the flight or not. The staging sequence can be edited in flight to "activate" the already activated part. The contract isn't clearly explained, which misleads a lot of new players into thinking that they have to lift the part to the required situation in an unused state. My method lifts a burned out BACC to the required orbit and then "activates" it to complete the contract.

Don't worry! We're sending you BACC To The Future! This design burns all seven BACC boosters limited to 70% thrust as a first stage. I've tried to avoid using any parts you didn't show in your pic, so I haven't used any struts. BACC boosters burn out too quickly, so I thrust limit them for a longer burn time and add enough to ensure a decent thrust-to-weight-ratio at launch. I use sepratrons to (hopefully) achieve a clean staging event, delaying the ignition of my second stage until the first stage is clear. Six out of seven BACC boosters are dropped, with the last remaining booster carried to orbit as payload. At this point, I've now lifted an empty BACC booster into orbit, with fuel to spare to manoeuvre it into an orbit with the correct parameters to complete the contract, whatever they may be. The next step is to edit the staging sequence so that the BACC booster can be "activated" when the correct parameters are met. The fact that I've already burned out the BACC is irrelevant. By editing the staging sequence, I can "activate" it as many times as I like. You mentioned sepratrons, goo pods and the LV909. I'm not sure what you intend to do with those, but for demonstration purposes, I brought those up as well.

Standard RTGs used on most probes produce 300W and weigh 60kg. Programmes to develop small space nuclear reactors have existed in the past. (As have programmes to develop Nuclear Thermal Rockets). Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct plan shows a mass allocation of 3.5 tonnes for an 80kW nuclear reactor used to provide power for the ISRU chemical reactors used to produce consumables on Mars. By comparison, it also allocates one tonne for a 5kW solar array for each spacecraft used in the plan. In his book Entering Space, he suggests use of a smaller 30kW reactor to provide power and nuclear electric propulsion for an outer solar system probe. He doesn't specify the exact weight of the probe reactor, but he predicts it would allow payload to be doubled and data transmission to be increased one hundredfold, while also powering active sensors that could increase the amount of data that could be gathered by a similar amount. Increasing the science payoff of a mission by one hundred times is not to be sniffed at! NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission advocates development of a solar electric drive to move the asteroid. This drive would then be used to push large cargoes to Mars. The relative benefits of ARM are currently being debated. This drive is obviously a lot bigger than the ion drive we currently have in KSP. If such a drive were to be developed IRL, and subsequently added to the game, players would have to provide large quantities of electrical power to operate it. Large arrays of cheap and heavy solar panels would suffice in Kerbol's inner solar system, but would be useless in the outer solar system. We don't yet know the precise details of the upcoming ISRU feature, but I'm expecting it to be used to justify the existence of bases and stations in the game. It would make sense if the hardware is heavy and requires a lot of power to operate. A small nuclear reactor might make an ideal power source for a base in the outer solar system. Outer solar system exploration involves covering enormous distances. If Squad wanted to be realistic, they could reduce the transmission rate of antennas in proportion to the distance from Kerbin, meaning that the transmitter would take longer to send the transmission and use more power. This would make it desirable to bring a high power transmitter for outer solar system mission. There could also be scope for adding energy hungry active sensors to the game.

We haven't really encountered the need for a nuclear reactor yet. The main reasons for using a nuclear reactor are to power a base, power a nuclear electric drive, or for any high power applications in the outer solar system. A lot of proposals for ISRU at a Moon or Mars base require the running of chemical reactors to produce fuel, consumables, and other useful commodities. Depending on how ISRU works in KSP, it might be very handy to be able to bring along a compact power source for use at a base to power the required hardware. In the outer solar system, the power requirements for transmission back to Earth are considerable, due to the huge distances involved. This means that probes such as new Horizons can only return data at painfully slow transmission rates. The limited power provided by RTGs also prevents other high power activities such as the use of active sensors, including ground penetrating radars and lasers. This would enormously increase the amount of data that could be gathered and returned. A reactor could also be used to run an electric drive at the same time. The Kerbol system doesn't have much of an outer solar system yet. Hopefully this will be addressed in a future update!

Compared to some of the other manoeuvres I end up doing, putting satellites into specific orbits has been pretty easy. Figuring out how to rendezvous with a stranded kerbal was much harder. I've often found that the game regards the contract as complete when I haven't finished neatening up my orbit to my own satisfaction. Apparently, the organisations that post these contracts aren't as fussy as I am.

I think that Squad should implement a stock version of Olympus Mons. If they make the mountain bigger, everyone can have a slice!

I'm pleased to be able to say that with a few rare exceptions, I've been able to enjoy a stable and bug free experience in KSP. For those rare occasions where something did go wrong, I loaded my last quick-save and carried on. I play on hardcore custom difficulty, but I have no intention of attempting an "ironman" save anytime soon. Just because my solar system doesn't get eaten very often doesn't mean that I'm happy letting my solar system and Career Mode save get eaten infrequently! Don't tempt the Kraken!

KSP will remain in development until the 42.0 "You're not going to like it!" edition. Fortunately, there's a good restaurant there!

Squad have advanced KSP to the point where it matches the vision they had for the game when they set out on the long road to develop it. The reason why Squad are using the 1.0 version number is because they are ready to begin evolving the game beyond their original vision. The 1.0 version of KSP is only the beginning.

The Kerbol system needs a decent main asteroid belt. We've already got a Ceres analogue (which Squad may need to update after the NASA encounter). We also need analogues for Vesta and at least some of the big "flying mountain" asteroids. There are a lot of opportunities for interesting places to visit. There are a variety of irregular "potato" shaped bodies. There are contact pairs. Some of the bigger asteroids have been found to have smaller asteroids orbiting them! There wouldn't be any harm in allowing players with a sufficiently upgraded tracking station to be able to detect moveable ARM asteroids in the main belt. This would allow players to clutter their asteroid belt with lots of smaller bodies if they wish to do so. Jool currently offers gravity assists to an outer solar system that doesn't exist. We need analogues for all four gas giants. Jool and GP2 aren't enough. The real gas giants have very complex systems of moons and captured asteroids. They also have large numbers of "Trojan" asteroids orbiting their L4 and L5 Lagrange points. KSP doesn't support Lagrange points (they're on the what not to suggest list), but it could support Trojans. Placing a single Trojan at each planet's L4 and L5 points would offer an easy way to simulate some of the Lagrange points by the back door without messing around with physics. Instead of orbiting the Lagrange point, orbit the Trojan instead! Additional smaller Trojan asteroids could be added as "moons" of the main asteroid at each point. We need a Kuiper belt for end-gamers to explore. The Pluto/Charon system is by no means the only example of a Kuiper belt dwarf system, and that shouldn't be the case for the Kerbol system either. Some have eccentric orbits that take them far away from the Sun towards the edge of the Oort Cloud. The Kuiper Belt has the additional advantage of a shorter development time, since it is already being spelt with a K anyway, negating the need to invent a new name of it! (For the record, as far as Pluto/Charon is concerned, I voted for Cerberus (Mass Effect 2), not Vulcan, but we ended up with Kerberos. There wasn't even an option to vote for Kerberos! I'm not sure what the Illusive Man would have thought about that! BTW, there's been a recent movement to have Neil deGrasse Tyson declared as the IRL Illusive Man!) Finally, we have the Oort cloud. The IRL Oort cloud extends roughly half way between here and Alpha Centauri. Obviously, anything beyond that belongs to Alpha Centauri's gravitational SOI, not ours! Travel times from here to the Oort cloud with conventional propulsion are considerable. Let's hope Jeb remembers to bring enough snacks! If missions to Kerbol's outer solar system are going to be modelled, we're going to need a small nuclear reactor. Solar power isn't going to work in the outer solar system. Energy requirements to transmit data from distant worlds back to Kerbin will be considerable. Nuclear power will be needed to power transmitters, operate electric propulsion systems, and run ISRU chemical reactors.

I voted yes. It seems clear from Squad's statements that the KSP we will have at 1.0 is the KSP they envisioned when they started out. They have also made it clear that they intend to fix all of the known bugs. Provided that they are able to achieve these two things, then they are well within their rights to declare the game "done". With the initial development of KSP completed, Squad can then move to fleshing out the game with new content. The Kerbol system needs a decent main asteroid belt, multiple gas giants, a Kuiper belt, and for good measure, an Oort cloud for end-gamers to explore. NASA's upcoming encounters with Ceres and Pluto are likely to generate a lot of enthusiasm for dwarf planet exploration among players.

Due to my fixation with hardcore custom difficulty, I usually focus on making my payloads smaller, not bigger. This is my Kestrel direct ascent lander, launched by one of my Kerbooster shuttles. It's the largest lander I've used since Project Krapollo in my earliest KSP days. I was messing around with it in 0.25 to see if the Mk2 parts were any good for use as landers. It uses frictionless wheels, and small amounts of rocket thrust where needed, to travel long distances over the Munar surface. It performs far better than any conventional rover I ever designed. Importantly, it's quite heavy, so it doesn't flip and bounce about when I drive it at fairly high speeds. The two FL-T400 tanks contain the reserve fuel needed to return to Kerbin. Take off from the Mun is achieved by using a hill to "ski jump" off the surface.

KSP is my most played Steam game on my gaming PC, so although it didn't cost all that much to buy the game, I think that I need to factor in at least some of the cost of the PC! However, I'm now at 1352 hours on Steam, so the price per hour is still quite low! Not bad for an Early Access game!

I test fly my fly-back stages to ensure that they are capable of runway landings. Since they are meant to be launched vertically as a shuttle, I could do a vertical launch for the test flight. However, I find it more interesting to have the stage perform a runway take off so I can assess how it flies as a plane. Since the stage recovers to the runway, it feels a bit stingy not to pay for the fuel. Once I'm satisfied that the stage flies properly as a plane. I save it as a subassembly for vertical stacking. If I waited until the first orbital flight before testing the fly-back stage, I might have a nasty surprise waiting for me when I try to return to the KSC! In such a case, I'd then have to redesign the stage, then re-stack it in the VAB, then perform another orbital flight, then have another go at returning to the KSC to see if the changes worked. Even with the revert button enabled, that's still a lot of messing about!

I tend to generate some debris in very early career, when mass and part counts are very limited. I usually allow these spent stages to remain as "historic" debris, acting as memorials to my early spaceflights. I also tend to leave satellites in position after contract completion, unless I decide to re-task them. All are capable of parachute recovery if I wish to do so. However, I like the idea of space around Kerbin being busy with "traffic". It adds a touch of realism.

If you're prepared to experiment with the custom difficulty sliders, you can make the game seriously challenging. The reason why players are finding Hard difficulty to be a grindier version of Normal, is because they aren't pushing the difficulty far enough. Hard mode is too easy. Here are the settings I use:- I begin with zero starting funds. I have to use advances and rewards to build up enough money to get to orbit. Most contracts earn back barely enough money to cover launch costs. Through inventive planning, I can find ways to complete multiple contracts with a single launch. Cutting the cost of launches is another important consideration. I often make a fuss on the forums about how much I rely on clusters of solid rockets as cheap first stages. Setting funds penalties to 200% (the same as Hard) dramatically slows the rate at which I can upgrade my buildings, since I'm paying the same as Hard, but earning far less money from contracts. In many cases, grinding for funds is not an attractive solution. It often makes more sense to find ways to get around limitations than grind unprofitable contracts to pay for an upgrade. I then use the profits from those contracts to pay for the upgrade further down the line. A good example is the Tracking Station. I learned how to perform regular flights to the Mun and Minmus and back without patched conics, because it was less of an inconvenience to do that than it was to try to find the money to buy the upgrade. Once I had access to Kerbin's moons, I could start spamming survey contracts from polar orbit. I then used the profits from these to pay for upgrading the Tracking Station and other buildings. Once I had enough tech to launch satellites, they became a major source of income for me. Thanks to my low tech shuttle, I was able to keep launch costs to a minimum. I'm now preparing for the next big step: Launching interplanetary probe missions without upgrading the R&D building to tier 2. I don't have the patience to grind contracts at Kerbin's moons (although I'm turning a decent profit, so I could do so if I wanted to). I'd rather overcome the limitations of the tier 1 R&D through inventive gameplay than through grinding. The effort of grinding to pay for the upgrade is disproportionate to the benefit I can gain from learning to explore Kerbol's inner solar system without it. Given time, I'll earn enough money to buy the upgrade. Hard difficulty isn't hard. Since it isn't hard, it doesn't punish players very much for doing a bad job of running their space program. Therefore, players can grind their way past problems by working harder, not smarter. Playing on Hard difficulty encourages bad practices.

Two stage to orbit. All solid expendable first stage to minimise cost. Liquid fuelled re-useable upper stage.

The cost of the building upgrades is currently controlled through the Failure Penalties slider. Pictured below are two examples of the cost to upgrade the Launchpad to tier 2, with the Failure Penalties slider set to minimum and maximum settings respectively. Having set the cost of the building upgrades to whatever levels you require, you can then give yourself extra starting cash to buy upgrades at the start of the game.

The first thing to do would be to try a similar flight with un-modded parts to see if you can complete the contract that way. If you still can't complete the contract then I would suggest that you try again with a clean stock install. If that works, you could then perform some experiments to try to determine which mod is causing the problem.

I'm playing on hardcore custom difficulty settings, which means that I have work within very tough economic constraints while trying to raise large sums of money for building upgrades. My absolute best earner in 0.90 has been spamming of visual surveys and temperature scans above Kerbin's moons. Provided that the contract doesn't require me to land, I can overfly all of the required locations from polar orbit, with only a small amount of fuel required to change altitude. Contracts that require a landing can't be spammed, since the act of landing and taking off consumes fuel. However, I'm still able to combine those with flag planting contracts to turn a worthwhile profit. I get a good return from satellites though use of my low tech shuttle.

I've posted those pics on support threads previously. I haven't had any new occurrences since then.

I can confirm that on each occasion when I encountered this bug, quitting and restarting KSP and reloading my quick save cleared the problem.

Another point that needs to be raised is how better SSTO spaceplane performance will be balanced against the economics of expendable "trash bins full of boom" solid rockets in the upcoming balance pass. My current launch vehicle families make extensive use of fully expendable all-solid first stages, due to their low costs. Solid rockets are cheap, and are worth next to nothing when empty, which allows for guilt free dropping of spend solids after staging. Will solid rockets remain useful as expendable first stages in the next patch?

The game needs more solid rockets. The current SRB-KD-25K is too weak for lifting Shuttles, SLS cores, or large payloads of any kind. A decent Shuttle SRB would be very useful, and not without historical precedent. After all the NASA Space Shuttle launched with two SRBs, not dozens of them!