Francois424

I worked on another Interplanetary Ship, featuring a 3-configuration Main craft in the front (Re-entry, Low-G worlds, High-G worlds), the main drive in the center with the 12x 250kn Nuclear Engines, and the Miner at the back. This thing is in testing right now and needs more powerful RCS (Tweakscaling regular RCS Port to 4x size did not increase the force of the jets in any noticeable way), and unfortunately will need KAS mod. Without struts, this thing jus does not fly straight at all. This ship was possible because of TweakScale and Procedural Tanks, and tops off at 247 parts, struts included. It still lags unfortunately, which really reinforce the need for better KSP performance, but it is tolerable. - The fully assembled ship, fueled, does 9577 Delta-V (~30% more than my old 'Odysseus' ship of last month). Room for 7 kerbals (The 4 musketeers + 1 of each class as backup). (EDIT: Umm, looks like I forgot to put the 4-kerbal Hitchhiker on for the testing... Okay this version only have room for 5 kerbals... I fixed but not on the picture... Total dV drops to 9'504 so it's fine) - The Miner can haul 50k Ore from any planet/moon with 17% or less of Kerbin's Gravity (About Eeloo gravity) but can perfectly haul 25k Ore from say, Vall. Without any ore and fully fueled, it has 5'100 Delta-V. It can also operate without solar influx thanks to the 6 LFO generators, which will be useful in my exploration of the OPM mod comes KSP 1.1. - The lander in High-G configuration can handle Tylo with a TWR of 1.56 (1.77) and 4'450 Delta-V (with refueling capabilities on the surface). - In Low-G configuration it's Delta-V falls to 1'335 with a very good TWR far surpassing the Tylo lander, but no refueling. Good for anything as long as I can make landing+Orbit with the tank, if not I land the High-G variant. Pretty satisfied with the results... Ironically, Laythe proved more challenging than Tylo and required the 2 extra Mk-55 Thuds to be able to make orbit from the surface... added weight the Tylo lander did not really need but w/e. Picture of that 1863 tons / 3'000'000 kerbucks monster while testing in orbit (Front / side view) :

Although not as hardcore as you on the matter of submarine warfare ("Silent Service" and "Sub Battle (by Epyx)" on the AtariST about sums up my serious active years into the Submarine warfare), the problem of instant gratification you raised is a MAJOR ISSUE as far as I am concerned. My favorite MMO's where both trashed by it by reverting to "easy-mode" where gear/levels are irrelevant (And as a result, most of the crafting too) and you just fly in 100'000x time warp until the end-game and cannot appreciate the journey anymore (SWTOR / WoW). I can rage all I want on the subject, it's like a giant tsunami that rots anything it touches, it's quite annoying and keeps happening everywhere. I've noticed the trend in other games too, and since WoT and WoWS was brought up, you can see in these game that the balance is clearly borked to oblivion by allowing 3-5 inch guns to burn Battleships to the ground and having for example the Yamato's turn radius nerfed from 660m to nearly a KM because the impatient, instant gratification ppl could not sink her fast enough and did not want to learn strategies/teamwork to be able to (easily) take it down. If anyone does not get their action 'fix' from KSP which they find too 'Mundane' they can always go back to Call of Duty clones and Tomb Raider clones (which FF15 seems to be like... Urrrggh). And leave our "Prrrreeesscious" alone. Not every game is made for the same genre, but these days it becomes harder to put your hands on something unique with the market being what it is. A big thank you to the devs for making this game what it is and let it reap the glory where it is due. KSP is awesome and don't let anyone tell you otherwise... well until you get your first memory crash, but soon(tm) that'll also be a thing of the past !

I was under the impression that the new Inflatable heatShield was 2.5m base that inflates to 10m wide ? At least from the devnotes in question, that is what it sounded like. The idea is not bad per say, but I personally use a 1,25 heatshield for them, it makes decent all the safer.

Depends on the type of game I have started, but since (finally) installing Kerbal Alarm Clock, I tend to take the multiple mission approach. That transfer window planner that comes with it almost feels like cheating since I was totally eyeballing those since 0.23... Who knew my designs had that much Delta-V afterall? A year-trip to Moho suddenly allows me to fly Mün/Minmus missions, and manage a slow Ion probe to do a Jool-5 Flyby. Not that time is limited in KSP, but I hate it when the clock goes into the negatives (will this be fixed in 1.1 ? minor, but annoying). Yeah that's why I finally installed it.

I've often given thoughts on "what if" we could start on any body in the Kerbol System... Obviously having some kind of functional base then to reproduce the KSC. I agree that it would spice things up. I would start a game on Eve of all places (although jets would have to use LFO instead of just LF; until nerva anyways), and would make it a real challenge to launch into space. Another idea would be starting on Laythe or Tekto. Heck if you mod-in a Halley's Comet you could have your base there... it's ever moving and would be a real challenge to get anywhere (would require some more basic tech tho). I may actually do as you did later in 1.1, starting with barebones setup on another world just for kicks... Only use KSC for unlocking science/recruiting Kerbals (and hyper-editing their crew module onto my starting location), but never to launch stuff or supplies. If you don't install any LS mods then you should be okay. It would make a nice YouTube series now that I think about it. Too bad I don't have any recording software. Thanks for the idea.

^^ That Really is the real thing. Eversince 0.90, where I can't dip over 250 parts or go in yellow, or reach 350-400 and spend 3 seconds for every one second in-game... I try to limit myself to 250 parts. It really thought me a lot about optimizing my designs and about the importance of "TweakScale" (Mod). I also find myself editing new engines sometimes (made-up: say I need 30 engines for a total of 1800 thrust and 90 tons, I'll edit a mainsail to be 90t, 1800 thrust, and keep same ISP and total heat generation... BOOM saved 29 parts !) But I'll usually sacrifice a bit of part counts for lights, struts, additional cargo bays/RTGs, and looks.

At this point, having sampled Outer Planet Mods, seen new star systems in multiple YouTube videos, and having ideas of my own, I'd be happy to suggest that the OPM mod be incorporated into the stock game when 1.1 is out and stable. I was amazed how fast the mod's creator and helpers were able to churn out content and fixes to come where we are now. I've been out of the loop for a while but there where talk of making sure that the Pluto analog "Plock" receives an update pending New Horizons' releases of content (boy am I still waiting for an updated TV show with all the goodies. If I forego the OPM mod, then I would want the outer system to be an analog of ours (so Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto), maybe with Saturn having 7 moons. 7 moons is a lot, but it would make for a good challenge of a Saturn-7... Don't forget the Titan analogue (now you guys see why I wanted the OPM mod stock, in many aspect it really is what I want). Saturn/Uranus with rings, Uranus with an odd rotation/axis (if possible) and so on. I'd really want one of the Moons of Uranus to orbit close so that when looking at the sky, a shot like this would be reality if you had a base there : One very important addition that I really want, is Halley's Comet (Hakkal's Komet?) with a very similar inclination and orbital period/eccentricity, I would want that Comet to be of the largest grade "E" asteroid (perhaps a bit bigger), but never run out of resources like the current planets. Make it have a tail and with the volumetric clouds installed some haze similar to current Minmus'. The advantages of this comet are multiple. Upon starting the simulation, it should be at it's farthest from it's sun orbit, but as you progress in-game and do missions it slowly comes closer and closer. So you can take the challenge of going early, or wait for it being closer (possibly easier) later. I would personally love to build a Base on it, and watch as it races thru inside Moho's orbit all the way past Neidon's (Neptune) Orbit. It would make for interesting transfer windows if prepared long term. These ideas put aside, I find myself wanting a Gliese 581 system analog (the 6 planet version), maybe if KSP ever moves out of the Solar System mode and onto a multi-star system version. I personally lack the skill/patience/friends to put togetter a mod like this myself, but it's something I've been wanting for quite some time

Try to make a STOCK Jool-5 without ISRU (exception being replacing 4 parts by 1 (more powerful/same ISP engine), TweakScake*same reason, large fuel tanks, if needed), procedural stuff is good too, or welding Mod if you use it). Mods only for parts count sanity, which is even more required since 0.90. Or get the Outer Planets Mod, and try the same thing for a Sarnus-5, although ISRU is kinda necessary.. Right now I am designing ships to do both, but since I have little free time it's taking forever. Still the "Core/Cockpit" part, including all livng space and re-entry vehicle is ready, the Light gravity vehicle is ready, and the Tylo (or heavy gravity) lander is ready. Everything is modular so each lander uses pieces of the others (to a point). I only need to do the engine section and have a parts budget of about 120 (trying to stay under 250); definitely feasible, thanks to TweakScale and Procedural Tanks.

I've resisted the urge to ask that question so far... but the itch is getting quite annoying. *rubs hands* going to have so much fun with that one.

That's what I did, I added about 4 "small" LF/Oxidizer tank for 6000 unit of LF/Ox for that purpose.

I'm personally hoping that Unity5 + 64bits will speed things up and allow ppl to use 500-600 parts design like the earlier versions of KSP... if not more. Wishful thinking it might be but to be honest, without mods, it's kinda required. Otherwise Tweakable tanks/parts is strongly encouraged to reduce parts count. That being said, to me the best mothership is the biggest fuel tanks you need for it's propulsion stacked togetter (ring-shaped or star-shaped + struts so not too long) , and you want a 5k d-V burn to take imho no more than 10min @100% Thrust. If you eschew efficiency, you can go with mammoths with big tanks. otherwise you are stuck with 60 thrust nukes (lol) or 2 thrust ions (rotfl); meaning you need a lot of parts, which bogs down the game to a crawl. In stock KSP large motherships aren't very useful except for looks and kicks (Better send 10x small crafts rather than a 700+ parts big one). Modded is an entire different ball game, and I can understand ppl for going to that for large interplanetary missions. My 1.1 game will be modded I think, but only once I unlocked all science nodes. @glen.mack If you want a middle section like this that can be enlarge easily as needed and lower on part counts, just remove all side girders and use struts instead. Center of mass is no problem if you build your interplanetary ship around your payload in symmetrical fashion. .. just make sure you strut both sides together, and to the payload or just build your mothership to be High and wide, but slim, and attach your payload to the back. No need for bracers and girders, just a large docking port or 3 (for stability) and struts if you have KAS. There's many ways to do it, and it depends on taste more than anything else

Just attach the refiner + ore Tank (or 2 of them) Radially on a decoupler, use them to put landing gears and maybe more parachute. Just jettison them before of at the same time you take off. No sense bringing it back home and penalizing your ascent.

You may want to look at "The Outer Planets" Mod. It's extremely well done and maintained... There are other mods for this as well, but this is a good place to start.

That bug* is super annoying. I just cannot land anything big on Kerbin anymore because of this. It's like hitting a wall of wind that says: "Nope, you die...boom! muhaha" - At first I thought I had run out of electricity (nope) - Then I thought my craft was unbalanced (nope) - Then I thought that KSP was running out of memory (weird things can happen, but nope, not the issue) I gave up designing a pretty advanced lander because of this, and did not play for many days. The only solution that I found (today) and that seems to work everytime, is to bleed any and all lateral speed BEFORE you hit ~10'000 meters. I was testing my SSTO with 4 rotors, and if I aim retrograde and let my Rotors slow me down to zero and THEN slowly get down at around 50/100m/s it works, same craft if I do not let it slow enough will flip when hitting ~10k with almost total loss of control. So, this might be possible with some SSTO's and some finely built crafts, but try to slow down a 30 ton lander with 5 heatshields underneath it... not happening... so about 15-30° tilt and BOOM I lose some parts of my lander. * I have not seen anything acknowledged anywhere about this being a bug... But I had to give up on landing on Kerbin except small vehicles/capsules. If this is there in 1.1, I'm dropping atmospheric effect to 50-90% difficulty until fixed. It's a major pain.

And if anyone finds it OP they can just open the partname.cfg file and change it to say, 500 thrust. By the time you get it anyways you had to play (mostly) to the end-game of science.

Landing pad.... I just put my rocket on it to launch it.... BOOM ! I was like... wtf? then I remembered, destructible buildings now with new patch... riiiight. So I took the habit of putting bracers to hold my rockets in the air before launching; thing I rarely did before that patch.

Well, investing time into debugging (to perfection) certain ships is worth keeping them in the end. Barring a mod becoming not supported anymore, or a major change in the game, the design will be functional for quite some time. I have a launcher that uses 15 orange tanks in asparagus staging which I have debugged for like, 10 hours total (many iteration before I was satisfied), and to this day it is my most reliable launcher for Medium to slightly heavy payloads. Even with the newer white jumbo tanks and the new 1.0.x atmosphere, I still have not managed to exceed it's performance in that regard. These ones I name... that Launcher is adequately named the "Hercules". I also have my newest replica of Scott's Feather which I have tested extensively for the last 6-7 hours. Just yesterday I came to the conclusion that it is fully functional and ready to go. I'll most likely keep it but it's not stock and heavily dependent on mods. I had good rover design in the past but the game keeps changing and the rules too (infinite science spam -- then need a lab -- then only need scientist -- then you have ISRU) so it's harder for them to remain relevant for more than a game version or 3. But a Mün lander is a Mün lander and Tylo lander is a Tylo lander, some of the design never changes once you get them right. After 10 or so iterations of an un-modded mothership I *still* have not hit the jackpot... they are either too big(laggy) or too slow (not enough THR/Weight) or lack significant Delta-V (ie: 7500+), or then again too fragile/wobbly. You can be sure I'll keep the design once I get it right

have you tried F5 (save) / F9 (load) ? also if you are missing ship icons in map view, go back to the tracking station and make sure the station/ship/lander icons are selected otherwise they do not appear. If not no idea

How do they handle fine parts such as RSC thrusters ? or rather thin landing gears on a lander... or Fuel lines ? Oh so mods are not all compatible afterall... something to watch out for. I might try having something printed eventually... I would not mind a KSP ship on my desk to keep my Harlok's Arcadia company

Personally I actually think yes, but Kerbal Space Program is not an MMO, it's a personal game everyone plays in his or her own style. That being said, in order to keep the basic, un-modded game balanced, I agree with KerikBalm on the proposed Ion engines : 2kn(current, 0,625) - 8kn (1,25m) - 32 kn (2,5m) If anyone disagrees with the stats, everything is easily changeable into the files afterwards. Why do I think that a 2,5m engine should have 100kn, even Ions ? Because my mothership had 2000kn of thrust and it still took 30 IN-GAME minutes to do a 5k burn (or about 1h10min of my RL time). It was borderline what I can stomach. Now imagine my same mothership with say, 4 of these 2,5m 100kn ion engines... that makes it a 5h burn. Completely insane, lol. But that's just me. Again, number are adjustable after the developers introduces beautiful quality parts into the stock game, and who knows, 128kn (4x 2.5m) might be enough since I'll carry 5x less fuel. Looking forward to the future of KSP after 64-bits.

Today I worked on my "Scott's Feather" replica from @baconfortress's YouTube series (Tekto's episode). This was the Original : And so after not understanding I could not tweaksize parts even after installing the mods, I realized I did not need "Tweakable everything" but rather Tweakscale... And the most recent version, not the outdated one. So I started building, pausing, watching the YouTube video, take notes, resume building... Here is what I came up with : (Sorry that last one is dark as I was looking from under it). So I only added all the stock science experiments and 2 ladders to climb on top to collect said science. Current stats are as follow: 77 parts, 15.4 tonnes, 2200 Delta-V, and 39400 electricity to power the propellers. Unfortunately they do not produce enough thrust to lift 'Scott's Feather' at Kerbin, but should not have any problem on Tekto when 1.1 finally hits. Mission accomplished ! Again a huge thank you to everyone who helped me gather all the mods I needed, and of course to Master BaconFortress. Happy Holidays everyone !

@Pthigrivi Thanks, I found it looking for KSP related stuff... Someone was asking for something like this on Reddit and I would love it too. There is one that 'kinda' looks like it in FireSpitter mod, but it's not as clean/beautiful. It would also bring a stock 2-man 1,25 pod, which is missing at the moment. If any modder reading this thread and want to do it in the meantime, be my guess.

I was testing my Minmus rover like there was no tomorrow. Then noticed I was rolling around 70m/s (small plan wheels) and heading on a 35% slope. I held my finger on "H" and before you know it I was in Minmus orbit ! Not like I planned it, but I figured, why not. I know I have an awesome rover for 1.1... assuming wheels keep the same rigidity vs speed vs suspension.

Kerbal alarm clock can help too. You pick "transfer" from where to where (say Kerbin-Jool) and it will tell you your window is in X days. Then you do Jool-Eeloo and so on. It's great for planning !

When you start seeing mach effect (while haze) pull down and right to give your pod/ship an angle... It will decelerate faster allowing you to pull chutes sooner. Drag chutes if you have them helps tons. Good luck.