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Good afternoon, intrepid Kerbonauts! Lots of stuff to talk about today! As many of you know, a couple of new bugs were introduced with last week’s v0.1.3.0 patch. The most significant of these bugs relates to a loss of atmospheric drag (and physics in general) when capsules are decoupled. For the first time ever, we issued a hotfix to correct that issue yesterday morning. Yesterday’s v0.1.3.1 hotfix also contained a fix for a VAB bug in which fairing editor UI elements were drawing on top of one another. We discovered after yesterday’s hotfix that people were unable to launch the game outside of the Private Division launcher. This was not intentional, and has been fixed — due to a configuration error on our end, we accidentally included Steam’s built-in DRM. KSP2 is DRM-free, just like KSP1. The fixed update was pushed to Steam this morning. Sorry for the headache! We’re testing a second hotfix (timing TBD) that corrects the blurry navball issue. And because we’re sneaky little devils, we’re also doing some testing around a fix for the SOI transition trajectory bug. If these fixes prove stable and low-risk, we’ll release a second hotfix. Fingers crossed! The work that’s gone into the SOI transition issue — number 2 on our top-ten most wanted bugs list — deserves a special mention. Engineers David Tregoning, Mark Jones, and Shalma Wegsman put in colossal efforts to both track down the cause of the issue and to craft a solution. This one has been a long time coming, and it’s great to be able to knock such a big item off the list. The credit for the fast turnaround on all the latest fixes goes to a well-coordinated joint effort between engineers, production, and QA. We’re still learning as we go, but things are feeling good. Bugs: The Next Generation Based on the Bug Reports subforum, these are the community’s 10 most-upvoted bugs: Orbital Decay [25 votes] Incorrect Maneuver on Inclination Change [10 votes] Cannot Change Craft/Vessel Name in Tracking Station [9 votes] AIRBRAKES Deploying on Roll [9 votes] Camera Resets Position Map View [8 votes] Graphic Glitches on AMD [8 votes] Engine Sound Effects Not Playing [7 votes] Cannot Change Symmetry While Holding Strut [7 votes] Center of Mass/Thrust/Pressure Vectors sitting on VAB Floor [6 votes] UI Artifacting [6 votes] Note: Navball Blurry [18 votes] and SOI Trajectory Line Issues [18 votes] have been left out of the above list since we're considering them for the second hotfix. Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit bugs in the subforum. Even if you don’t have a new issue to report, your upvotes help us determine the relative priority of the bugs that have already been posted. While we investigate the bugs above, two other non-feature items also feature in our top ten: Rockets are still too wobbly SAS causes runaway pitch oscillation for aircraft in flight Lots to do! Thanks again for submitting such detailed and well-documented bug reports. It’s going to be a busy month! Art Director Kristina Ness AMA Did you catch our Art Director’s AMA yesterday? She was asked lots of interesting questions, many of which ranged well beyond the domain of art. She gave fantastic and detailed answers, and if you missed the stream, it’s definitely worth watching here. With the help of streaming-wizard Dakota, she even got to show off some visuals as well! You can find a transcript of the AMA here as well. Thanks, Ness! KSP2 Steam Sale This is the second week of Private Division’s 20% off sale for KSP2, which ends on July 13th. If you’ve got any friends who you think might enjoy the last little bit of heat-free reentry during Early Access, now’s a great time to tell them about the sale! Weekly Challenge Last week’s Jool 5 challenge produced some of the coolest, most ambitious craft designs we’ve seen in KSP2. Check out this absolute unit from DarlesChickens: Or this beauty from Razorback: And here’s a unique one from Tr1gonometry: We know that in the Wobbly Rocket Era, missions of this kind can be extra challenging. Kudos to everybody who braved the bugs and slipped the surly bonds of Kerbin regardless! This week’s challenge? You’re putting on an air show! Build a maneuverable stunt plane and show off your fancy flying skills. Buzz the tower! Under the bridge! Do some barrel rolls! To get specific: Primary goal: Fly an inside loop, an Immelmann turn, and a split-s turn Secondary goal: Fly an outside loop, a barrel roll, and a hammerhead stall turn Jeb-level goal: Fly under the R&D Bridge as fast as you can Val-level goal: Fly under the parking garage bridges (from the water), under the R&D bridge, and then back through the parking bridges Tim C-level goal: Fly a loop arouund the R&D bridge so that you pass under it twice in one maneuver Don’t forget to wear your G-suit — you’re about generate some wing loads that’ll make your crew chief very grumpy! While your screenshots are always welcome, video capture will be the best way to show off your maneuvering prowess. Good luck! Summer Changes Now that summer’s here, with all its vacation-related comings and goings, I’ll be letting other parts of our team handle forum posting for a while. In the coming month, you’ll still see the following on the forums: Bug report updates More AMAs Challenges In addition, we’ll be uploading more gameplay clips to our social channels. I’ll still be lurking both here and on Discord, so you’ll see me in the comments from time to time. We’ve got a lot of good momentum coming off the last update and we’re already making great headway on the next one. I’m looking forward to sharing our progress with you soon.

I'm working on a patch that will add fire storms (I asked him how to do it, pretty straight forward in that regard) and eventually fire tornados to Moho (there was talk of him adding in tornadoes & hurricanes, I'm just going to make them fire-like if possible). So patching all the planets in OPM by an experianced planetary modder (I'm not) shouldn't be too hard. Apparently Auroras are also on the list to be developed, it will be quite a mod once fully released.

I love seeing the thought process behind design but, and I mean no disrespect, it's not like we have any shortage of "here's the stuff we're planning"-type posts. The issue that people on these forums tend to have is that they aren't seeing the results from all the design talk. I think what would be most cathartic at the moment is hearing from engineers, so we can see exactly how these designs are being implemented. I think that ties into why people are upset over not seeing gameplay footage and whatnot. Like, it's all well and good to see mock-ups explaining a design, but we've had so much of that since release while seeing the actual nuts and bolts has been very scarce. I hope you (though, more specifically, whoever the people are who decide what information is released) take this as some more constructive criticism. The game has been in development for, let's just say, a while. It's been released in some form for almost 5 months. So I just don't have a lot of interest in more posts about art or design. That stuff is all fun but I've also seen creative teams, startups, Kickstarters, etc, spend so much time on pre-pro and planning but, when it comes time for rubber to hit road, nobody knows what to do next. In this case, I guess that'd be the engineers, so that's what I've been craving lately.

There's lot of interesting concepts out there for radiators and I would certainly like to represent more stuff than just linear things. Look up Curie Fountain radiators for example. Cool ideas! I am definitely no stranger to making nuclear engines of lower power create heat, and I can say with some certainty that it isn't fun (can probably dig up a few pages of arguments from one of my older mod threads, haha). You need a big gameplay bonus to saddle the player with the negative results of heat production, or it feels like busy work. The studies the SWERV is based on also effectively say that the math works out if you keep the Isp below 1800s or so, and the engine's heat generation is fully covered by the exhausted propellant, and while I'm a little skeptical, it's not like we've ever built a functional closed-cycle gas core reactor to check. That being said when these capabilities come in, we'll definitely figure out what plays well, and what appropriate trades to make a player try to work in. It might be that the SWERV is a good place to introduce a player to the concepts of having to add a little cooling for a powerful engine. In addition to what's said in the devlog, it might be worth highlighting a few things Conduction 'resolves' effectively instantly on any significant timewarp unless you are using a thermally isolating piece of kit. Your vessel just tends to a specific equilibrium - one that results in everything being fine if you have enough heat rejectors, or death if you don't. It is more math for the same result. KSP1's conduction model was... interestingly used. The two places you'd run into it most in average gameplay was reentry, where the tools you used were heat shields and service bays, which actually had special modifiers to NOT conduct effectively (or eliminate flux altogether). If you run conductive physics only the vessel that's in focus, you've now created two different thermal paradigms, and a player has to understand what context their ship is operating in to predict their regime. Both regimes should operate in the same way. If your fission reactor is running at 3000K, yes, you will probably bleed heat to things beside it. However, your reactor has probably melted down now and you've got way larger problems. Those problems are the ones we want to focus on. From my previous employment and analysis of these kind of problems, that aligns with mission-level reality. Specifically Systems that are thermally vulnerable are thermally isolated, and tend to be very vulnerable (+/-50 K is the highest range I've seen between difference between instrument death and survival) Environmental conditions are far more important than other spacecraft components. Two macroscale components next to each other don't affect each other at anywhere near the same scale. Both are affected by the local environment before either (this isn't strictly true for the microscale, for example an imaging device increases in temperature while it takes pictures, which could bleed to the other side of the detector array. But even then, we'd thermally isolate them and then supply external cooling or specify a duty cycle for cooling off) I've got some ideas, but the first iteration of this system definitely focuses on cold = good, hot = bad. Thanks! It's important to not go to deep, but also represent it as a real challenge. Good questions! Kerbals don't produce any heat, but they do participate in the simulation. So they are an object when outside of their capsule that can be affected by flux, and have a temperature increase. They'll be thermally squishier than parts, as they should be, so that having things like thermally resistant rovers might be fun. I can't really talk about that too much right now, stay tuned! Yeah this is one of the big pain points of a high resolution system. That goes into player UI tooling. We have solutions in mind, but have to see exactly how you all use the system and where the pain points are. Your comment about inputs and outputs is exactly right - we look at it as making sure you balanced the I/O. We assume the kerbals build their capsules correctly and that they know the heat exchange piping better than you do! That would be a good goal, I personally don't love its looks though, so it'll be reluctantly Flux and temperature have to be tracked per part. We assume that radiators added to a vessel include the piping for a high efficiency heat transfer system, because well, we do that with electricity and fuel flow. It's a similar level of detail. Yes, I took a ton of lessons learned here to heart when we were building the concepts for this out. It's important to make a distinction between element complexity and system complexity, because that's a trade you are often making in any system. If you make a system out of high complexity elements and plug it into a high complexity system, that's scary. It's very challenging to design, implement and particularly, test and tune. Complexity isn't necessarily good, and though reality is complex, representing reality through system complexity isn't always good. A nice self contained example is how parts in KSP1 have heat tolerances in the 1-2 thousand K - though the system is more complex at the part to part level, the result of the complex interactions creates a need to balance out heat spikes with unrealistically high heat tolerances. The core requirements for this system have to cover more user stories than KSP1, and I'm definitely aware that in doing this, I'm always going to break someone's workflow, or create something some players won't like. In this area, we think that serving stories that are completely unavailable in KSP1, like coherent heating from systems, tracking of part heat at high timewarps, and simulating heat items on vessels that aren't in focus, are more important than that. I don't think that's actually wrong. If you have excess heat in space, you can solve it by one of two ways: add a system to take heat off (let's call that vessel architecture) or don't go into that situation in the first place (let's call that mission architecture). That's what we get here. We have situations where you solve a problem with vessel architecture and a ton of heat rejection equipment, and we have situations where you solve a problem by changing your mission. The latter is pretty wide, but that includes things like flying skimming reentries to bleed off speed so you don't need a heatshield, or building your colony near a water body so you have access to easy water cooling. The essence of this is making sure we are representing the right problems, and making sure the right tools are there to use them Hey, that could be a airless planet you're talking about! The point is there though, and functionally, there will always be places where a system will not represent reality. In even more places, a system will not be plannable. Lack of plannability is bad. The example there is pretty interesting because when you dig into it, you need to know a lot of variables. How long is the day? Is the colony ever exposed? Is there orbital eccentricity? What happens if a tiny edge of the colony is exposed? Even if you ignore atmosphere dynamics, radiator re-emission, etc, it's a really hard problem!

The writeup explaining the system is excellent, however the nature of the system and some stuff left out are clear problems: You're trying to tell me this is more complex, yet all you talk about is how it is more simple. Telling me how the sequel improves over the original is a main selling point, and whilst you tell me there's more elements, at the same time those elements are handled in a simplified way, in what's certainly a regression. Another thing that it fails to address, that seems to be too easy a conclusion for readers to come to: how is the heat system not entirely solved by just "add n radiators or heatshields"? Specially now that radiators are procedural parts. Your "shadow of a mountain in a sun-grazing planet" colony example is probably the worst one, since it clearly ignores atmosphere dynamics (hot stuff makes air hot, should saturate radiator output). When. Yes, it becomes more important and more glaring of an issue with each passing day. Re-entry heating was promised as a release feature in the media event, then as a coming soon 143 days ago.

We're in the same boat. While an interesting dev insight, this also leads me to believe it's still in concept phase, which would have been fine if this dev insight would have been released 1-2 years ago, but today it just angers me to think I paid almost full price and only now I see core mechanics are being in concept phase !? I'm pretty sure it wasn't even the slightest hint in interviews, announcements and communication pre-launch at the fact that KSP2 EA will launch without re-entry heating, and that it will be included with the science update which itself will follow towards autumn '23 if we're lucky. I don't know who thought a core mechanic like re-entry heating could possibly come bundled as a milestone update. It only leads me to this example of why this is a bad practice: Why was is it so hard to be upfront about this before launch, "hey, these following features that KSP1 has [insert bullet points], will not be there at launch and they will follow in more than half a year, maybe towards the end of the year, as a rough estimation." I can only say that this is "winging it" or ill intent. Rather than make a quick buck and get more than 50% negative reviews, it would have been more beneficial for your reputation, if you care about it, to have less people buy it initially (which would have no surprise between asking price and what they get) and then more people slowly buy once you EARN their trust by clear communication and clear development goals with deadlines that are being met. There, I said it. Deadlines. Being able to talk about concrete deadlines separates people that know what they are doing from the others.

CHAPTER NINE: DISORDER ON DRES “FORCED to?” gasped Bob. “How?” “It was Val,” sobbed Irpond. “I don’t think so,” Bob disagreed. “I was videochatting with her when Wally’s battery died.” “She threatened my mother,” explained Irpond, holding on to Bob. “She said that if I didn’t do what she told me, she had friends back on Kerbin that would kill her.” “That… doesn’t make sense,” sighed Bob. “We have spare RTGs buried under the surface, why steal Wally’s?” “Val said that Wally got in the way,” said Irpond. “I don’t know why, but she was very specific.” “Well… now that you mention it,” started Bob, “I did plan on sneaking him into the Clivar battle site. However, the only other person I told was… Sheri.” “Don’t you see?” said Irpond. “Val must have TORTURED Sheri before she killed her; that’s how she knew about Wally.” “Do you know why she had YOU steal the RTG and not someone else?” questioned Bob. “It… was probably because she knew Wally would recognize me and try to hit me,” realized Irpond. “Why you? Why did she threaten your mom?” “I never told you my mom’s name, did I?” said Irpond. “Her name is Misty Kerman; she used to work as a scientist in the program’s early days.” “Misty Kerman…,” said Bob. “That name rings a bell, but I can’t remember from where.” “She lived in Woomerang,” started Irpond, taking out her kPad. “Before I was born, she was accused of killing an engineer named Debra. Even though the courts figured out she was framed, people still treated our family like criminals.” Bob then read the headline. JEALOUS SCIENTIST ACQUITTED “Jealous?” wondered Bob. “Why was she jealous?” “The cops said that she was jealous of Debra having the man SHE wanted,” explained Irpond. “That man… is my father.” “So… Debra dies, Misty’s acquitted, marries that guy, and they have you,” Bob figured out. “You got it,” said Irpond. “I still don’t see why Val would pick YOUR MOM as a target,” said Bob. “Mom has been involved in MANY scandals since,” started Irpond. “A big one was when she… shot Dad. Even though the cops figured out it was self-defense… some people STILL disrespect her… especially in Woomerang.” “Hey, I remember where I heard Misty’s name before,” announced Bob. “You do?” “Yeah, my parents told me never to go near ‘Misty’s House’ when I was a kid,” explained Bob. “They said the house was haunted, but I didn’t believe it; like ‘life-threatening pathogens’ was any better.” “Huh… did you ever try to go near it?” asked Irpond. “My little brother and I tried once, but we chickened out before we even got on the porch,” said Bob. “Years later, in eighth-grade, Bill – who was in tenth-grade at the time – built a suborbital rocket for his toy spy car to get him a visual.” “Wait… you’re the one who set my house on fire, aren’t you?” realized Irpond. “It wasn’t me,” said Bob. “Bill said that… uh oh.” “What is it?” “Bill said that he lost contact as he was re-entering Kerbin’s atmosphere,” started Bob. “Theoretically, Bill did NOT account for the extreme temperatures and aerodynamic forces associated with re-entry. The intense air resistance broke off the antenna, cutting off Bill and causing the rocket to lose control. At the same time, the debris caught fire during re-entry and was still hot by the time it entered the lower atmosphere. As a result, the hot debris crashed into your house and ignited with something flammable… starting the house fire.” “So… it was an ACCIDENT?” gasped Irpond. “Seems like it. I hope everyone was okay,” said Bob. “Nobody got hurt,” said Irpond. “Thank you for explaining the craters in the walls.” “I didn’t think Bill had anything to do with it… and neither did he,” added Bob. “I mean, I called him after I heard about the fire… but he told me he lost control mid-flight. He then mailed me a disc, showing me proof that he couldn’t have done anything about it. I thought it landed in the ocean or some clearing.” “Anyway, Val threatened to not only have her friends kill Mom, but to make it look like either suicide or self-defense,” continued Irpond. “Not only that… she threatened to frame Mom for murder for good measure.” “Val would NEVER do such a thing!” shouted Bob. “Wouldn’t she?” interrupted Irpond. “There’s a big cover-up going on here, and Victor’s at the center of it… and where he is, his LITTLE SISTER is close by.” “No… it’s not true,” gasped Bob. “Use your head, Bob,” said Irpond. “You know it’s all true; everything fits perfectly.” Bob then took out his kPad after it buzzed. “Sorry, it’s Bill,” said Bob. “I gotta take this.” “I’ll leave you alone,” said Irpond. “I gotta… fix the relay.” She left Bob alone as he walked to his quarters and unlocked the kPad. Bill @Bob, @Val, you there? Jeb Relax, @Bill. It takes a while for the signal to travel, and they may be busy. Bob I’m back, @Val’s not Jeb What happened to her? Bob She got drunk and is now in sick bay. Bill Drunk? Why? Bob I dunno. Anyway, what did you want to tell us? Bill Anyone know anything about Moonjet 79 (Dres)? Bob Nope. Jeb How could I forget? @Val always complained that something was off. Bob What you mean? Jeb The pilot was a student of hers. Bill Wait, @Jeb, you know about the Moonjet 79 crash? Jeb Yes, the pilot was texting and flying – Val INSISTED it was foul play, though. Bob @Jeb, don’t you do that? Jeb Only when I’m waiting for my burn WHILE IN ORBIT – or when MJ steals my job. Bill Val may have been on to something. Bob Moonjet 79 was hacked when it crashed? Bill Seems like it – the probe core and black box were destroyed, but several witnesses and probes took pictures. Jeb Nah, I’m pretty sure the pilot was texting WHILE she was flying. Bill So, we think. The on-board engineer claimed someone hit her over the head from behind; the next thing she knew, she was in sick bay. There were also bruises on her and the pilot – the doctor couldn’t tell if it was BEFORE or DURING the crash. Bob Before? Bill If it was sustained during, big deal. If BEFORE, then one of them is a SABOTEUR. Jeb Are you sure? That pilot wasn’t even in an EVA suit when she died. I mean, I may be crazy – but I am not THAT stupid. Bill @Jeb, was the EVA suit dispenser working when you crashed? Jeb Yeah, why? Bob Back up, WHAT happened? Bill Harriet (pilot) – DOA (no EVA suit) Alva (engineer) – in coma (EVA suit – survived) Danlong (scientist) – unharmed (EVA suit) Witnesses took pictures of a drill sticking out and moonjet losing control Bob How did Harriet not get an EVA suit? Did the dispenser jam? Bill Hard to tell with what was left of it. Bob Maybe that was sabotaged Bill Highly unlikely - With a code that long, any alteration will require countless follow-up adjustments – which may require another test run (and no “accidents” like that since – until Jeb’s crash) - If the dispenser WAS hacked, odds are all three of them would have died (unless they brought their own EVA suits with them) à same case if it was mechanical sabotage - Danlong’s and Alva’s suits were fine when rescue crews arrived. - None of the survivors mentioned anything wrong with the dispenser Jeb They checked the pilot’s kPad - she was definitely texting. Bill While it was crashing? How could she not notice? Jeb She probably got complacent and used MJ. Bill Then how do you explain the bruises found only on two of them (one dead, the other in a coma)? - The third came out okay Jeb Like you said, they could have also gotten them DURING the crash. Bill Or BEFORE, but yeah. Then how do you explain only two people getting EVA suits? Jeb Maybe they forgot to install the suits before taking off. Bill No, they didn’t. The accident report came with a pre-flight checklist – 6/6 self-assembling EVA suits loaded in the dispenser. And JEB’S was working fine, FYI – and program alterations are risky. Even one small overlook can cause the whole thing to not work. Bob But Jeb and Agaden weren’t on that jet. Bill Unfortunately, without the virus that affected Moonjet 79, I can’t exactly say what the differences are – or who was targeted. It’s more likely that the name and ID numbers were changed in the “targeting” code – nothing major (not like the code for a suit dispenser) Bob I’m guessing it was the engineer – she should have known how to fix the moonjet in case something went wrong. It also gives her the knowledge to sabotage it She then knocked HERSELF out to throw off the investigators. Bill I’m leaning towards Danlong (scientist). - If it was Alva, then who slugged Harriet – and why did Danlong not even mention a fight in her report? - Alva said she couldn’t remember who or what knocked her out? - I find it hard to believe that even a dumb pilot would text and fly while THAT many things went wrong. Jeb Yeah, even the alarms were working in my crash. Bob Maybe Alva attacked Harriet, but Danlong fought back and tried to get everyone out. Bill You bring an interesting point, @Bob. Then again, why didn’t Harriet get an EVA suit? Bob Maybe it was that blow to the head that killed her. Bill Her autopsy said that space killed her – but you’re probably right. Danlong probably thought that blow was fatal, then fought back when Alva tried to kill her. But why bother saving Alva, or even not disclosing the crime? Jeb Danlong has some serious explaining to do. Bob So does @Val. Jeb Why her? Bob Because, @Jeb, you said that Harriet was Val’s student once. She probably knows something about WHY she was killed - My gut says that Harriet was the intended target (why else didn’t she get a suit)? Bill, DM me. Jeb If 79 was only a test run, 314 was the main event – that virus was sent to Bill-and-I-know-who from Laythe, and he had no idea it was meant to kill her (same case for the poison) Bill As soon as @Val sobers up, ask her to use her high-level clearance to see if Danlong or Alva are on Laythe (or at least were at the time of AGADEN’S death). If so, then we probably found Agaden’s killer – and Gus and Linus’ blackmailer. Bob made a mental note to approach Val after she was sober – which would be in a few hours. Then again, he thought that Val would be less capable of lying while she was still drunk. She may still be incoherent and her mind fuzzy, but that would inhibit her ability to concoct a convincing cover story right on the spot. “I’ll definitely wait until she’s sober to talk about the student,” thought Bob, “but… everything else?” He then got a text from Bill. Why’d you want me to DM you? Remember that time in 8th grade (you were in 10th grade at the time) you launched a rocket at Woomerang to spy on Misty Kerman’s house. Sorry, but I don’t know any Misty Kerman. She owned that “Forbidden House” everyone talked about – you called me once about it after you stopped by my school to test a rocket booster. Oh, now I do. You also accused me of setting a house on fire. Because your rocket DID start a fire. How? I lost contact with the rocket during re-entry, so odds are it missed the target completely. A seminar with Werner – who came by to visit Baikerbanur soon after that – made me realize that my payload broke apart and was most likely disintegrated during re-entry - Pieces of my rocket were also found IN THE OCEAN months later. Some of your pieces survived and hit the target How do you know that? Misty’s daughter works here – she described craters on the wall when it burned up. - Most likely caused by debris that was still hot when entering the lower atmosphere. I KILLED MISTY? You killed nobody. Looked up the fire on Oogle – you were right. Misty Kerman and her daughter were out at the time – but didn’t see anything. They probably arrived some time after the debris hit. That’s weird, because the fire department pinned it on a faulty furnace (why did she even have a man-sized furnace anyway?) It also took you 21 years to figure out I caused it? I thought it was a bad furnace too, until Irpond told me about the craters just now. Why didn’t they find the craters THEN? They were looking for clues on the floor or lower walls – not rocket debris. Come to think of it, it’s also possible that the debris triggered an ALREADY-MALFUNCTIONING furnace and caused IT to burn the house down. Irpond is Misty’s daughter, right? Yes. There’s something else. What? I have strong reason to believe that Val’s a murderer – and Wenpont was FRAMED. - Sheri’s killer is a woman – and Val had more than enough motive to kill her. - She had access to the Zeus’ emergency systems before the asteroid hit – and her big brother’s on Laythe. - She and I frequently visit each other’s quarters – it’s possible she got my combination. - She forced Irpond to steal an RTG – WALLY’S. NO WAY! I’ve known her since elementary school. You did; I never met her until Basic Why would Val commit multiple murders? Or even want to steal Wally’s RTG? I personally designed the crates for the spare RTGs on Laythe – she could have just stolen one of them. To protect her brother’s secret – that he committed mass murder. - Sheri and I were investigating before she died. - I planned to sneak Wally into the Clivar battle site. - Wenpont was on my side – Val must have framed her to get one more person off her back (and turn me against Wenpont) - The Zeus was probably to throw us off – and Val had her brother pilot the asteroid while she evacuated. Is that why you wanted DM? You don’t want Val to see this? Yes – and to talk about the rocket incident. Can you hack into her KSP account and get the personnel files? Why do you want ME to do it? Right now, I don’t know who to trust on Laythe. I can try, but odds are I’ll get flagged and stopped. If the SOI IP address is different from her assigned location, then Mission Control will find that suspicious. - E.g. “How did Val log on from Eeloo while she’s supposed to be in Jool?” - Either she’s AWOL or someone hacked her. On second thought, maybe I can try and talk her into giving it to me. At least I can log on from Laythe. How are you gonna do that? Simple: ask her while she’s still drunk. She won’t even remember we talked. Still have no idea WHY was she drunk? Still no idea. Okay. What are we gonna do about the fire that I caused? You could email Misty and tell her it was an accident – you didn’t intent to cause any damage Actually, if all went well, I would have crashed through her ceiling window and deployed the recon car after landing. - Not that it matters now. Besides, unless Misty’s an active-duty kerbalnaut, I can’t get her email address. I’ll get it for you – and I’ll try Val’s password, too. Bob then switched off his kPad and ran out of his bunk. “Irpond, you there?” “Yeah,” she answered, getting off her own kPad. “What’s up?” “Can you get me your mom’s email address, please?” he asked. “Why do you want it?” she questioned curiously. “My friend wants to apologize for any damage his faulty rocket may have caused,” explained Bob. “Wait, he’s waiting UNTIL NOW to apologize?” “We BOTH thought it was a faulty furnace until you told me about the craters in the wall,” said Bob. “Plus, Bill thought the remains of his rocket ended up in the ocean; some parts of it were found there months later.” “Mom thought it was an angry mob, but the cops didn’t think it was arson,” commented Irpond. “Apparently, it was neither; it was just a HEAVILY FLAWED rocket.” “I dunno why the cops didn’t see the craters either,” sighed Bob. “[email protected],” said Irpond. “That’s mom’s email.” “Okay,” said Bob as he wrote it down on his kPad. “Hang on… didn’t you say that your mom was in KSP?” “Yes, but she’s retired,” explained Irpond. “Whatcha gonna do now?” “Trick Val into giving me her password,” said Bob. “No way,” gasped Irpond. “Why?” “If she IS guilty of the Laythe crimes, I want the evidence to nail her,” started Bob. “Also, we need to know where Moonjet 79’s survivors are right now.” “Moonjet 79?” said Irpond. “Why do you want THAT? I’m pretty sure Harriet was texting while flying.” “Yeah, well, Bill thinks it was sabotaged,” started Bob. “Also, Jeb said that Val told him that Harriet was a student of hers; maybe she crossed paths with the killer.” “Okay, so how are you gonna get the password out of Val?” “Simple, talk to her while she’s drunk,” answered Bob. “Depending on what she ate and how much she drank, we only have a few hours before she’s sober enough to keep her mouth shut.” “Why bother when I can access Val’s account RIGHT NOW?” bragged Irpond. “Wait, you know Val’s password?” “Password, phhbt,” scoffed Irpond. “I can get us in her account and find what you want.” “Wait, but… I don’t feel right about this,” sighed Bob. “Please, you’re going to ask A DRUNK WOMAN for her password – and that woman committed murder, just like her brother,” said Irpond. “If you ask me… hacking is nothing compared to all that.” “You make a compelling argument,” said Bob as he got another idea. “I’m still gonna talk to her.” “About what?” “Maybe she knows something about Harriet that’s not on record AND wouldn’t tell while sober,” explained Bob as he headed over to sick bay. “Halt,” ordered a guard. “Identification, please.” “Bob Kerman,” said Bob. “I’d like to speak with Admiral Val, please.” “Hang on,” said a guard, verifying Bob’s identity with his kPad. “Lucky you, you’re a designated friend; proceed.” “Designated friend?” wondered Bob. “Hey, we can’t just let any visitor in here – especially if the patient is a high-ranking kerbalnaut,” explained the guard. “I mean, DON’T tell me you didn’t fill that out too.” “Whatever,” said Bob as he approached Val’s bedside. “Hey, Val.” “Hey, Bill,” replied Val. “Bill?” wondered Bob. “Bill’s on…,” he stopped himself when he got another idea. “on duty to make sure YOU’RE okay.” “Wanna hear a secret?” slurred Val. “Okay… whatever,” said Bob, hoping it would be something juicy. “I’ve had a crush on you since high school,” confessed Val. “Weird,” said Bob, “I thought you liked Jeb.” “Jeb, PUL-LEASE!” sighed Val. “If I ever married THAT hunk, I’d die from a plane crash within a week.” “Okay, so you had a crush on Bill… I mean me,” said Bob, remembering that he was still pretending to be Bill while Val was intoxicated. “So… lovely lady,” he started, trying to sound smooth – Val giggled, “what’s a firey soul like you doing in a cold place like this?” “The drunk said I was guards,” answered Val. “She is,” commented Dr. Melinda. “Her BAC is 0.12.” “Hey, a…least I drivent did,” replied Val. “How’d you even get alcohol anyway?” wondered Bob. “The high-ranking personnel bring it for special occasions,” explained Dr. Melinda. “I’ve gotten too many of those while stationed here.” “I hope to heaven Jeb didn’t get any,” said Bob. “Anyway, Val, try to remember a student of yours.” “Could you be specific?” requested Val. “I have A LOT of kids… students.” “Just one, Harriet Kerman,” said Bob, activating the voice recording app. “She died in a moonjet crash a long time ago, but you said that… uh oh.” Bob quickly picked up a bucket as Val threw up. “You said that her jet was sabotaged, and that she DID NOT text and fly.” “This may take a minute,” said Val. “My head’s a little fuzzy.” “Maybe this was a bad idea,” sighed Bob. “Ah, yes,” said Val. “Harriet was SUPER-focused… had a father who died in a plane crash.” “Where was the crash?” “I dunno, but I think it was… NOT off Kerbin,” recalled Val. “She never once texted or used Chirper while she flew. Heck, I even got her off Photogram when I saw her model… hang on, bucket please.” Bob quickly caught Val’s vomit in the bucket before she continued. “And I thought MALE catets were stupid.” “Note to self: don’t tell Jeb about her Photogram,” said Bob. “Any reason why you think she was murdered?” “Insurance fraud, DUH,” sighed Val. “I seriously doubt that,” started Bob, “but still a good idea to check Harriet’s life insurance policy and our program insurance policy for off-planet moonjets.” “Hang on, that’s not right,” said Val. “Someone got jealous and SHOT HER DOWN!” “It wasn’t shot down,” said Bob, then Val tugged his uniform. “Kiss me, Bill Kerman,” Val told him. “You may not get another chance.” “Come on, come on,” said Bob, but his lips were already touching Val’s. “Man, I’m so telling Bill… I mean… I got another one ready.” “You do?!” gasped Val in drunken excitement. “GIVE IT TO ME!” “But first, you gotta give me something,” smirked Bob, his eyebrows going up and down. “I’m all yours.” “I just need the password to your KSP account,” said Bob. “The one with the high clearance and everything.” “Why, Bill? But… it’s MY password.” “You’re gonna be stuck in here for a while, and we need to find a killer FAST.” “A killer?” gasped Val, getting behind Bob. “Protect me with your life, my love.” “I can’t wait until you’re sober again,” sighed Bob. “Password, please?” Val sighed. “Wolverines suck, with one z, all caps.” “HEY! Our football team’s been UNDEFEATED for four years straight now,” replied Bob, but Val grabbed his shirt again. “You got what you wanted, sweetie… now PAY UP.” “Fine,” said Bob, trying to imagine Val as Sheri. Even though she was dead, he still felt guilty about kissing Val. “Man, you are such a good kisser,” commented Val after 30 seconds. “Where did you get so good?” “Sheri,” sighed Bob. “Sheri? I thought she was girl’s Bob-friend,” said Val. “Uh… Bob and Sheri broke up for a bit,” lied Bob. “She then got back together with Bob before I was sent to Duna.” “Please, tell me somethin’,” said Val. “Who was your crush in Baikerbanur?” “First, you gotta tell me something,” said Bob. “Ooh, playin’ hard-to-get,” said Val. “You’re on.” “Did you kill Sheri Kerman?” Bob hoped that the answer was no, but he wanted the truth immediately. Val then leaned in closer and whispered in his ear. “I did… NOT.” “Oh, then were were you about… 30 days ago?” “How should I know, it was a long time ago.” “Uh… thank you,” said Bob. “I had a crush on…,” Bob tried to think of a convincing name and get out of sick bay as soon as possible. “Sally.” It was the name of a physics student he dated in Woomerang before Basic Training. “Ha ha, of course you would,” said Val. “You were SUCH a nerd back in high school.” “Eh, how did you know Sally?” asked Bob. “She was in Woomerang.” “She was in my ladies cadre during Basic,” explained Val. “I was the first woman to make it to space and live to tell about it – ME!” “Eh… okay,” said Bob. “Well, I got… engineering stuff to do. So, you stay here and obey the doctor’s orders to lower your BAC.” “Call me!” said Val as Bob departed sick bay. “How’d it go?” asked Irpond. “Perfect,” said Bob. “Anywhere we can get some privacy?” “Try my room, Val’s probably bugged YOURS,” suggested Irpond, and the two of them headed to Irpond’s room. “Neat,” complimented Bob as Irpond locked the door. “So, I got Val’s password.” He then asked Irpond to log out of her own KSP account and onto Val’s using the password he gave her. WOLVERINEZUCK “Wolverine Zuck?” wondered Irpond. “No, it’s supposed to be Wolverines Suck,” explained Bob. “The irony is that the Badgers have been sucking WORSE lately.” “Welcome, Queen Val,” a lady’s voice said as access was granted. “We’re in,” said Bob. “We’re in your account, Val,” bragged Irpond. “Warning: your account is currently being used by another device.” “You mean THIS device?” said Irpond, producing Val’s kPad. “You stole Val’s kPad.” “Technically, she dropped it. And we’re not stealing it, we’re PROTECTING it from an intoxicated owner.” “Good point,” said Bob. “Now, let’s see what we have here. Orders, missions, crew rosters… here we go. Personnel lookup.” “Who did you want to look up?” asked Irpond. “Harriet Kerman,” said Bob, and a file popped up with a picture of a female kerbal in a pilot’s uniform. Name (Last, First) Kerman, Harriet Sex F KSP ID 93473 Specialty Pilot Status K.I.A. Last Assignment Dres - Killed when Moonjet 79 crashed Last Training Officer Kerman, Valentina (Admiral) Pre-Basic Education Baikerbanur He then clicked on Harriet’s name, and found her date of birth and date of death – which coincided with the date of the Moonjet 79 crash. There were also links to Harriet’s transcripts, her psychological and physical screening reports, and her mission reports. Basically, he had access to everything Harriet did during, and some of before, her time in the Kerbal Space Program. “Awesome,” he gasped. “What now?” wondered Irpond. “We need to find out who would want to kill her and why,” explained Bob. “Even if Moonjet 79 was just a TEST RUN, why leave her to die?” “I think I can help with that,” offered Irpond. “To not leave any witnesses.” “Witnesses?” gasped Bob. “You mean that she was killed to KEEP HER MOUTH SHUT?” “Yes,” said Irpond. “You said it yourself, 79 was only REHEARSAL. If the pilot lived to tell about a MALFUNCTION, everyone will know it was hacked and then 314 would have flown just fine due to the countermeasures taken.” “If 79 was rehearsal, and 314 was the main event… 79 must have been a lucky chance, while 314 was picked SPECIFICALLY… which means our killer HAD A PARTNER,” concluded Bob. “But who?” asked Irpond. Bob then turned on his own kPad and looked back at his chat with his friends. “Can you look up Alva Kerman, please?” requested Bob. “Huh, it says here she’s an ex-pilot who got fired for freezing the runway and using it as an ice rink for the supersonic jets,” said Irpond, feeling confused. “That doesn’t sound right,” said Bob, looking at the personnel file. “It starts with an ‘A,’ not an ‘E.’” “My bad,” apologized Irpond, fixing her mistake. “A-L-V-A Kerman’s an engineer at the space center right now.” “Wait, she’s on Kerbin NOW?” gasped Bob. “She clocked in to her job at the SPH four hours ago,” added Irpond. “Look, they even logged her time card.” “Jeez, Val’s clearance ROCKS,” commented Bob. “Was Alva ever on Dres?” “Yes, she was,” answered Irpond. “She too was involved in the Moonjet 79 crash, but claimed she was… hit over the head.” “I know SHE didn’t hack Moonjet 314,” Bob said. “She’s most likely to know how to work the moonjets HERSELF, and she would not have enough time to get from Laythe to Kerbin right now.” “Laythe?” gasped Irpond. “The ‘orders’ to sabotage Moonjet 314 and kill that cadet,” explained Bob, “came from Laythe – THIS BASE, in fact.” “Oh, no,” said Irpond. “Even so, I’m open to the chance of MORE THAN ONE killer at work here,” continued Bob. “Now, let’s see what we got here. Alva Kerman was at Nye Academy before Basic, then she was sent to a new airport on the Mun.” “Ha ha,” chuckled Irpond. “How can you have an airport if there is no air?” Bob laughed with her. “I asked myself the same thing,” said Bob. “Turns out, her assignment coincides with when KSP made its first working SSTOs.” “The moonjets?” wondered Irpond. “No, those planes later used for orbital surveys above Kerbin, fly-bys of the Mun, and mainly flying through Duna,” explained Bob. “How do you know all that?” asked Irpond. “I rode in one of them,” said Bob, “when Sheri and I were on Duna. Plus, Bill and Val both have subscriptions to Spaceplane Monthly.” “Nice,” said Irpond. “Alva then flew back to Kerbin and worked at restoring the Island Airfield before she was sent to Dres,” continued Bob. “She stayed there for a few years… before she ended up in a coma from the Moonjet 79 crash. After she woke up, she filed a request for a reassignment back home.” “Hey, Bob, you got a text message,” said Irpond. “What does it say?” wondered Bob. “Danlong did it,” read Irpond. “Let me guess, BILL sent it,” said Bob, and Irpond nodded. “He thinks the scientist did it, but my money’s on the engineer.” “What makes you say that?” asked Irpond, fluffing her hair. “Alva inspected Moonjet 79 the day it crashed,” started Bob, showing Irpond a detailed job list. “As she also got in-transit training on how to deal with moonjets, she knows the ins and outs of how to sabotage it.” “You got another message,” said Irpond, then Bob unlocked his kPad for her. Did you get Val’s password WOLVERINEZUCK Nice. Here are the reasons why I think Danlong is the killer - She didn’t mention any malfunctions or alarms going off in her report à Jeb’s crash DID. - She didn’t even mention a loss in cabin pressure, which happened in Jeb’s crash (and, most likely, hers). - She also could not explain how Alva got her bruise à she claimed Alva “passed out from panicking.” - Why did she make no effort to fix the jet’s trajectory? It was equipped with MJ if, by some unlucky chance, she didn’t know how to at least ADJUST HER PERIAPSIS (if she could) Bob still thinks it was Alva. Who are you? WHERE’S BOB?! >:( Irpond Kerman (F – engineer). Bob’s using Val’s account right now. Sorry. I don’t expect other people to answer Bob’s DM. His kPad sends a “Busy,” notification whenever he’s driving or working on his next science project. Plus, a whole bunch of crazy things have been going on around our solar system. Right now, I don’t know if I can even trust Val. Bob says that Alva “knew the ins and outs” of the moonjets before her assignment on Dres. Not the software; she was the mechanic. P(physical damage) >> P(bad software) - Which can lead to physical damage How do you know she wasn’t lying? 1) More people have died from the following than bad software: pilot stupidity, flawed designs, unmaintained/broken hardware, hard landings, botched takeoffs, et cetera 2) Even if a software malfunction occurs (they caused 1 in 45 moonjet incidents), it will most likely result in physical damage – THAT needs fixing. 3) Unless there’s a software engineer within the SOI, Mission Control will send precise instructions with corrected software. Also, she worked in Aerodynamics – the PHYSICAL aspect of planes Wait, how do you know her? I met her in an e-convention once – we’re subscribed to Spaceplane Monthly magazine “Huh, I think Bill’s right,” said Bob. “Alva’s training did NOT involve the software in the moonjet – just the physical nuts and bolts.” “I’ll tell him that,” said Irpond. “Also tell him Val has a crush on him,” added Bob. “Wait, Val has a crush on Bill?” asked Irpond. “Well… hard to tell since she was intoxicated,” confessed Bob. “Yet she was able to accurately give you her password,” said Irpond. “Ew, what’s that smell?” “I… had to kiss her to get her to talk,” answered Bob. “I pretended to be Bill when she mistook me for him.” “Oh,” said Irpond, resuming typing. “I think you’d better look up Danlong.” Bob says he thinks you’re right. Alva’s in-flight training was just “nuts and bolts.” No surprise. Usually, in-transit training for new vehicles does NOT involve extensive software – especially at the time she would have made it to Dres Where did she start from? Kerbin. Okay. Another thing: Val told Bob that she has a crush on you (not Bob, you). - And Bob pretended to be you to get her to talk à even kissed her One other thing: only Mission Control and the manufacturer can see the full operation code - Tell Bob to check for digital thefts that happened before the Moonjet 79 crash - Also a good time to see if Alva was involved with the manufacturers and/or the personnel that dealt with the moonjet operation software Don’t be surprised if you don’t find anything, though – I seriously think DANLONG did it. Bob thinks that the saboteur on the jet WASN’T ALONE. You mean a partner-in-crime? Yes. I was thinking the same thing. Assuming Danlong is not a whiz with computer hacking, somebody else must have asked her to review her virus’ performance from the inside (everyone else kinda did the outside) Any of them on Laythe now? So far: - Harriet’s dead - Alva’s on Kerbin - We haven’t looked up Danlong yet. If NONE of them are on Laythe, the saboteur DEFINITELY had a partner who IS. “Okay, Danlong Kerman,” Bob began. “A level five scientist from Woomerang – go Wolverines – who worked as an intern in Mission Control before getting a full-time job in R&D. She then… huh.” “What?” “It says on her file she then quit and worked in Baikerbanur at the police crime lab,” explained Bob. “After quitting THAT, she decided to enlist in Basic. She then went to Eve to make the explodium… less explosive and more propulsive. She was later sent to Dres, and… she’s STILL THERE.” “Drat, NONE of them are on Laythe,” sighed Irpond. “But their cohort IS,” said Bob. “We’d better talk to that scientist.” “If she worked in a crime lab, she must know how to manipulate the evidence and cover her tracks,” added Irpond. “I’d better email base security.” “There is no security,” elaborated Bob. “Dres has been the lowest on the interplanetary colonization budget since we reached across our solar system. Heck, even Minmus is getting more cash than Dres.” “So, what now?” “We’d better go there ourselves and find out what went on,” said Bob. “Better talk it over with the guys first, since I’ll definitely need their help.” “But isn’t Val, like, in charge?” wondered Irpond. “Not until she’s sober, and even then Bill and Jeb are on another planet further away from Dres than we are,” explained Bob. “In the meantime, I’d better email Roger about Alva in case she knows… strange.” “What’s strange?” “Danlong was accused of extortion at least FIVE times after Basic,” started Bob, “but the complaints were soon dropped.” “I’d better tell Bill that,” said Irpond. “Also tell him NOT to tell Jeb that we broke into Val’s account,” added Bob. “Why, is he Val’s boyfriend?” wondered Irpond. “No, he’s terrible at keeping secrets,” answered Bob. “One time when Bill tried to test an SSTO prototype, Jeb said, and I quote, ‘Just so you know, I did NOT burn up the cockpit and cause the to crash into the ocean. I also DID NOT go full throttle when you said not to.’ I mean, COME ON!” Irpond laughed. “Only his rich dad could keep him in the program.” “The weird thing is Jeb doesn’t seem to appreciate it,” remarked Bob. “From what I hear, Jeb and his dad are estranged.” “What, estranged?” gasped Irpond. “Mom and I chat ALL THE TIME.” “It’s a miracle if they send one email EITHER WAY in a 60-day period,” sighed Bob. “My little brother’s in prison for illegal genetic experimentation, and even we write each other more often than Jeb and his dad.” “What was he doing?” asked Irpond. “Rob was experimenting with kerbal cloning,” explained Bob, and Irpond laughed. “What’s so funny?” “Bob and Rob,” she told him. “Bet your parents got the names mixed up A LOT.” “Last I heard, they’re working to get him released,” added Bob. “All Rob was going for was reducing the death rate for our testing crews.” “By making expendable substitutes?” “Exactly,” sighed Bob, shaking his fist. “If I see another one of those bureaucrats, I’m going to strap him to a supersonic plane flying full throttle.” “Ooh, burning him to death,” said Irpond. “Over 75 percent of SSTO-related deaths are directly linked to atmospheric overheating ALONE,” Bob mentioned. “Not only will our REAL pilots be safe and ready for other missions, but we won’t have NEARLY as many grieving friends and families. STUPID POLITICIANS!” *You’re right, something needs to be done about this ergregious breach of progress,” agreed Irpond. “Just as we need to get Danlong,” said Bob. “Can you check the Transfer Window Alarm Clock, please?” “Okay,” said Irpond. “It says the next Jool to Dres window opens in… 12 years.” “12 YEARS?!” gasped Bob. “We need to get there NOW!” “At the optimum position, it takes at least another six to get there,” added Irpond. “I think I’d rather get shot than live the rest of my life in transit trajectories,” commented Bob. “I hope Jeb and Bill have better luck.” “What makes you think they’ll get you to Dres before the next transfer window?” wondered Irpond. “Or, better yet, before Danlong tries to make a run for it?” “I’m more worried about the transfer window timing than Danlong fleeing,” said Bob. “It says here that she applied for permanent Dres residence… 307 days after the moonjet crash.” “Was it granted?” “Yes,” said Bob. “Now I gotta ask Val to do all this again.” “That’s SO lame,” said Irpond. “You already have her password, why not just tell her YOURSELF?” “Because I don’t want her to know I broke into her account,” explained Bob. “Even if she WAS guilty of murder, that just means I’m a terrible friend.” “Wait, what do you mean IF she’s guilty?” “I asked her if she killed Sheri, and she said no.” Irpond gasped in surprise. “And you believe her?” “She was honest about everything else, including her password,” started Bob. “Normally, she would take it to her grave even with Bill. Plus… she was singing – sometimes literally – while drunk.” “DANG IT!” cursed Irpond. “I… seriously thought it was her. I KNOW she’s hiding something.” “Something’s definitely hidden, but I don’t know if it’s VAL who’s doing the hiding,” said Bob. “Victor, definitely.” “So, what’s our next move?” asked Irpond. “It’ll be YEARS before we can go anywhere.” “Stop the search before we go too deep,” said Bob. “If we gather too much now, Val will know we used her clearance without permission.” “But everything we need is RIGHT THERE.” “Then what, freeze our butts off before the next time we can leave Jool’s sphere of influence?” argued Bob. “If we left now, we have two major issues: delta-V, and transit time.” “Well, we gotta find this killer before she strikes again.” “I can ask Mission Control to talk to Alva in case she knows something about Danlong or more about the crash,” suggested Bob. “We can also try to look for the killer here.” “Wait, are you talking about Sheri’s killer, the Zeus destroyer, or the moonjet hacker?” wondered Irpond. “Hopefully… all of them.

I was curious about other people's perspectives on fairings, either stock or addon. I personally only use KW Procedural Fairings, because the stock ones horrify me with the lack of smoothness and the way they basically implode upon jettison, not to mention the current bug they have. KW is a go-to with every install. If I do anything unmanned, the payload absolutely has to be under an Egg-Shaped clamshell fairing. This is all personal taste, and has to do with my love for aesthetically-pleasing rockets. Sorry if this is on the wrong topic, I just figured it's not about any specific addon. What's everybody else's take on fairings?

Don't you mean "original coders" or "people who were there at Star Theory"? Because I think people who came after are also real coders. But besides me ranting about semantics and assumptions you make on the code, the subject was about the AMAs. The last AMA was from Kristina Ness which join the company one year ago and it was pretty interesting. I have no doubt that engineers (even people that came recently) have a lot to tell. I mean by this time, they have learned what other people do or did, so they can answer things that they didn't code themselves directly. Even Mortoc who came a little before release seems like a very interesting guy. I don't know about you, but personally I have a lot of questions to ask them. I would also like plenty of dev diaries, even small features like orbital tesselation are so much interesting (maybe it's just me, I also liked the GDC talk).

JARVIS has emerged! I should note that the original Actively-Cooled Heat Shield System and Vehicle Including the Same patent by Stoke, establishing the concept of an engine which uses heat from an actively-cooled shield to circulate the coolant, was filed in August 2020 and claims priority to a prior filing from December 2019, and Stoke's Augmented Aerospike Nozzle, Engine Including the Augmented Aerospike Nozzle, and Vehicle Including the Engine patent was filed August 2021 and claims priority to November 2019. In contrast, Blue Origin's patent above was filed in July 2022 and claims priority to December 2021. So Blue Origin seems to be solidly behind the patenting curve here. Even Stoke's most recent Annular aerospike nozzle with widely-spaced thrust chambers, engine including the annular aerospike nozzle, and vehicle including the engine patent, despite being filed in April 2022, claims priority to April 2021, predating all priority by Blue Origin. I'll post more over in the Stoke thread, but I did note that their latest patent includes a depiction of a non-axisymmetric heat shield which would provide lift during re-entry at 0° AOA, although it's unclear how that would interact with the aerospike expansion in vacuum. One of the nifty things about BO's patent is the "plurality of scarfed nozzles" depicted around the heat shield: As Elon Musk has pointed out, one of the reasons that aerospikes suffer is that the primary challenge in rocket engine nozzles is getting the exhaust to go DOWN, and aerospikes aren't great at that. Actually angling and "scarfing" the nozzles into the heat shield like this will make the recessed nozzle surface present a more consistent surface against which the exhaust can expand, reducing intramolecular cosine losses, and it also protects the engines more directly than Stoke's design seems to. An element very similar to Stoke's design (and potentially grounds for a patent infringement battle) is that "The heat shield may be actively cooled [and] The heat shield may include a cooling circuit configured to dissipate heat encountered during reentry of the upper stage." They also suggest "secondary fluid injectors" which may eject fluid (presumably from an open/bleed expander cycle exhaust) along with the scarfed thrust nozzles to help shape the plume, which seems to be the configuration depicted here: Later on they contemplate that the heat shield would "be constructed of thin face sheets separated" by spacers and that "turbine exhaust gas is fed directly into the space between the face sheets and exhausted into the space . . . inside the annular engine exhaust stream through orifices in the outer sheet." Using some sort of base bleed in an aerospike design is a well-known way to improve efficiency (for example, here). It looks like they are considering both a closed expander design (using numerous BE-7 turbine units) and an open/bleed expander design (using one or more BE-3U turbine units), depending on whether they use the base bleed or not. The patent explicitly states that their design saves development time by "repurposing turbomachinery (e.g., powerpacks) and thrust chambers designed for other engines" and references designs being created "for use in other space vehicles." Later on, it gives the non-limiting example of using "two BE-3U powerpacks" to operate the nozzles but notes that as many as five or more powerpacks could be used. BO contemplates that they could "power down some number of powerpacks and/or nozzles to meet thrust requirements" for certain aspects of a mission; this would require that the various thrust nozzles be plumbed to alternating turbopumps so as to keep the thrust vector consistent. They suggest a 23-foot diameter vehicle and a 21-foot-diameter ring of engines which creates, effectively, a single 21-foot-diameter nozzle. They anticipate a specific impulse of 395-425 seconds in one configuration, 400-420 seconds in another configuration, and 405-415 seconds in a third configuration; these configurations are not clearly differentiated. They anticipate that for the two-BE-3U-powerpack configuration, only a single powerpack would be used for vertical landing, with sea level thrust of "about 100 klbf" and throttling capability down to as low as 20%. They talk about each thruster producing 2000 lbf in some configuration but it's not clear how many thrusters they are envisioning with that thrust level. Given that the BE-3U is expected to produce as high as 160 klbf in vacuum, this would imply probably thirty thrusters plumbed to each of the two powerpacks.

Yes, he's being sarcastic. And to not deviate from the subject again: It's just vacation time, maybe they have just been doing bug fixing and they have nothing more to share, we still have the bug update status which is a nice addition in my opinion (Some people don't like Nate talk so maybe they're happy about that?)

The minimum for any space station is; comms - have an aerial on there So we can talk to it power - batteries and solar panels So the comms works! Docking port You can EVA crew between craft but you can't transfer fuel with an EVA Remote control of some form Even if it's crewed have this then you can transfer the pilot off the craft and still have control RCS and monopropellant So you can manoeuvre to dock A high efficiency rocket and fuel To de-orbit at end of life or for large scale orbit changes If you want it crewed then you need to add; Crew compartment (or lab) Cupola or similar control pod Otherwise they're jut passengers coffee machine After that it is just a case of what do you want it to do. I tend to build everything with two 2.5m docking ports so I can dock craft but not lose a docking port in the process.

Am I used to my worldview not being celebrated by popular culture? LOL Well, at least we don't have to worry about that for the near future. 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike Maybe if we're lucky they'll all get made redundant by AI. As a complete aside, I always LOL over the content filter here. My father fought the real pedants. The ones who almost conquered the world, not these lame posers that are prancing around these days. But for some reason I'm not supposed to talk about that. I could fill this thread with memes. But I like @Vanamonde, so I play nice.

You can do this with the CommNet Constellation mod. If you're not familiar with it, it allows you to set different frequencies for your antennas to use. Two antennas can only talk to each other if they're using the same frequency (everything uses frequency 0 by default) and relay satellites only relay between different frequencies if they have an antenna for each frequency. DSNs can talk to any frequency, but you can disable specific frequencies so that the DSN won't talk to antennas on those frequencies directly, only through a relay. Create a new frequency for the rover's use. Set the rover's antenna to the frequency you created. Set the DSN to not talk to the rover's frequency. You'll have to do it for the entire DSN, not just the KSC. Set at least one antenna on the relay satellite to the rover's frequency. Set the rest of the relay satellite's antennas to frequency 0 (or any other frequency the DSN is talking to). This way the rover won't talk to the DSN directly whatsoever, even if Kerbin is visible and in range. It will only talk to Kerbin via the relay. Keep in mind, however, that your signal strength won't be as high via the relay because multiple antennas on the same vessel only combine their power if they're on the same frequency and you'll need at least one antenna to communicate with the rover instead of the DSN.

For my money, the most useful/interesting IG content tends to be (in decreasing order): - Patch Notes - Bug status reporting and patch Predictions - Longer term dev work and roadmap development - Dev diaries for either of the above (far more interesting to have a deep dive but it takes more effort to create so typically covers less ground. Still more please if someone has the capacity and something really interesting to talk about) - Challenges and Community Highlights vaguely entertaining but I don't have much free time to engage with them ATM) - AMA (tend to be a bit short on new information)

The game goes like this. One user answers a question in the style of a politican be it Democrat or Republican, then asks another question which ue user after them answers like a politican. Please keep real world politics out of this. You can reference your home country, but no nationalism or excessive patriotism. Let us begin! ****** Q: "Mr. Senator, what are you doing this weekend?" A: "What am I doing this weekend? I can assure you, we, as loyal Americans, will all be doing something this weekend, be it fun, productive, or simply chores. I will be doing something this weekend, I can confirm to you that I will, just like every one of my fellow citizens." Q: "But what are you doing this weekend?" ****** You get the idea, right? Here goes. Q: "What would you do if you had a million dollars?"

So you can talk about KSP1, KSP2 is not so different from the first part This is easy to do when trained specialists bring the finished line, find suppliers, hire and train personnel. It's easy to hire Nertea and take a bunch of parts from him for the game You can learn a lot from squads in 6 years. I understand it is very difficult to add anti-aliasing, parachutes for kerbals and frame rate capping to the game. It would be understandable if the developers would have difficulty adding realistic physics, but even the banal things are still not done.

I'm having issues with the Kerbalizer and I am not sure where is the right place to talk about it.

Right now a lot of unity 4 based games like KSP, are converting over to Unity 5; and the ones that have done this already you can get a good idea of the performance enhancements. I just want to say I'm very hyped for the change. In some games (don't want to advertise) they have seen increases up to 400%!!! and are most likely just hype training it up. But does anyone have some more concrete evidence or want to talk about their experience with playing games that have updated to unity 5? that way we can have a better idea of how it'll affect KSP.

"But there is one fat minus, which is that the crew becomes completely dependent on technical vision. Yes, there are cameras and panoramic surveillance devices. But in the event of a complete blackout of the vehicle or damage to the sights, neither the gunner nor the commander has backup optical channels. Just as there is no way to lean out of the hatch and look around the area around the tank, the tower standing behind and the low height of the vehicle body will interfere. Although this is a question for all tanks with an uninhabited turret without specific reference to models " Yup. Good read... Thanks for that. It's funny... My son read about this development prototype and ran to talk to me about it. He's (of course) heard me talk about (and rant about) tanks and tanking his whole life - so he knew I'd hate it. (Imagine the glee for a teenager to torment his father!) Part of me thinks that there is no Effing way that any American Tanker worth his salt would allow the nerd designers to put into service some robotic death trap that further reduces the efficacy of the tank by eliminating a crewman and reduces the situational awareness of the commander - but I've also been wrong before. The unfortunate RU adventure in Ukraine has convinced everyone that Robots Rule and that Unmanned is Cool... I'm convinced the techno-cats are learning the wrong lessons.* *Wars aren't won by new and shiny toys but rather by hard and dirty boys --- Side Bar: I note Armata isn't playing. From experience... I suspect that this particular wunderkind is not going to prove to be wunderbar after being 'field tested' - should that ever occur.

Soooo... This little rant has come about after playing some RSS/64k career games but the points I make are also applicable (less so, admittedly) to a stock game. I've found the reliance on IRL engines in any realism overhaul games highly irritating. There are always niches that I really want to fill but can't because of a dearth of RL options (this is most notable with small engines, lander engines, and engines with poorly represnted fuels like methane.) To that end, I'd like to propose a (hopefully) reasonably easy to implement way that someone with some degree of modding ability might go about making a procedural engine mod as well as some game balance considerations. Each procedural engine would consist of two meshes, an engine housing, and an engine bell. Housings would be a fixed shape--just scaleable. Housings would also include any turbomachinery, pumps, etc. Only the bell would be procedural with 3 general options: surface, vacuum, and low-profile. Again, bells would be modified mostly by scaling. This offers interesting game design considerations. For example: -Low profile engines would have worse TWR and ISP (bells not ideally shaped, machinery compacted in awkward ways). -In RSS, choices of pressure fed, turbopump driven, control over the number of ignitions, throttleability, etc. -Integration with KCT and similar to reward desgning vehicles with a common lineage--each procedural engine would have to be discretely represented. -Balanced tradeoffs between TWR and ISP would be interesting ways to distinguish engines -Because stock is much simpler there's less need for a mod like this but if it's pretty enough there'll always be uses I feel like this is a relatively low-effort way of getting procedural engines without a really involved procedural system. The real trick is game balance.

unfortunatelly i dont think i can talk about the Hows to do it here, come to the KSP2MS discord server! we're more then open to help you there! https://discord.gg/ksp-2-modding-society-1078696971088433153 but about the parts JSON configuration, that is not yet as simple as modifying a file, you'd need to repack the files in unity, We on the KSP2MS are developing a ModuleManager a like for KSP2 tho!

The new MK I cockpit is awesome! Love it. I also love the previous version on the Mk I cockpit. For jets and planes the new Mk I is perfect. However, I would prefer to use the previous version cockpit for spacecraft/ space-planes. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Abh4j4L.png[/IMG] Is there any reason we can not have both at our disposal? PPPLLLLEEEAAASSSEEEE.

It was Ghostii, on the Discord in late April. yes it does! Nate is actually a huge fan of HOTAS, so it is something we talk about occasionally. I think it be after 1.0 though so that the majority of the issues are ironed out

I found the quote that @Turbo Ben was referencing on the Discord, from 24 April in the ksp2_general channel: yes it does! Nate is actually a huge fan of HOTAS, so it is something we talk about occasionally. I think it be after 1.0 though so that the majority of the issues are ironed out AFAIK while there have been other statements that full controller support is on the roadmap, this is the only one that has tied it to a specific point.