Back after a long time away

[corvustech]

The other day I suddenly missed my days as a kerbonaut in beta. I decided it was time to return to Kerbin and see what had changed since things went live.  Naturally, I did my usual.  I installed all the USI mods and KAS and KAC and scansat and kicked off a new career.  For fun, I didn't ready any patch notes.  Since like, 0.8.

First I noticed karbonite and KAS parts not where I thought they'd be.  Maybe they unlock later.  Wait...Val?  There is a woman as crazy and suicidal as Jeb?  Nice! 

Taking a screen shot using F12 I discovered simultaneously that aerodynamics now matter and that they can be tracked.  This explained quickly why my usual early game orbiter barely broke atmosphere.  I thought this was fine until Jeb discovered that those pretty re entry flames actually have meaning now.   

I checked tutorials after this.  I used to be to Mun in a couple of launches and now I'm several flights in and still not orbiting.  The tutorials I found seem out of date or insufficient.   Any recommendations on mods and all of these physics surprises? 

[Evanitis]

2 hours ago, corvustech said:

Any recommendations on mods and all of these physics surprises? 

Welcome back to KSP!

As you noticed, atmospheres got more realistic since you weren't around. One of it's results is trickier re-entries. Hitting the lower atmo with high speed usually has explosive results. That's not a problem if you are coming down from a low orbit in a shallow angle, as the upper layers eat enough speed. But careless suborbital flights, or interplanetary aerobraking without a heatshield will be painful.

The atmo change also means your most ideal ascent profile will no longer will be 'upwards than turn right' as in some earlier versions. You can start a proper gravity turn now after a few thousand meters.

 

And mods? Dunno, whatever you feel missing or want more of. Some people prefer parts, others go for more planets, better textures and visuals, contract-packs,autopilots, more readouts, subtle improvements of stock mechanics, added realism, etc. Though unless you have some supercomputer, avoid installing mods you don't really need. KSP runs in 32bit at the moment, so it can't really use much ram.

Though Chatterer and Kerbal Krash System are my favorite universal mods - they'll bring much fun regardless of the rest of your setup of how you play.

And unless you computer was considered a potato even years ago, add Planetshine and Scatterer - those improve visuals greatly for the cost of no noticable performance loss.

Edited March 10, 2016 by Evanitis

[Kerbin vonKerbal]

The "go vertical until 10km up then pitch 45 degrees" method no longer works. I do a gravity turn starting at about 50-100m/s. Avoid fairings as well, they're bugged in that their drag point is forward of the actual nose tip.

 

My go-to mods every time is KW Rocketry, Tarsier Space Tech, Chatterer, and EVE. RemoteTech even, if I'm feeling squirrely. 

[Kerbart]

Thanks for the laugh. I assume you've recovered by now from all the changes. I've always played (since 0.18 so not that early) as if the things that didn't matter did matter—no sudden 45° for me, always going for what seemed “realistic” re-entries to me. To be honest I still don’t know for sure what constitutes a realistic re-entry, but traversing a quarter of the globe in flaming ball of plasma seems more realistic to me then entering the atmosphere at a 90° angle coming in at 3000 m/s, open the chutes at 500 AGL with a blistering 35G and have the crew still smiling after landing. As a result, the various updates weren't that game-breaking to me.

To be honest, I'd play without any mods first, to get a feel for “the new game” first. Maybe add non-part mods and none-physics changing mods first. KAC, chatterer, DPAI, etc. And then start adding back the mods you're used to, a couple at a time.

[AbacusWizard]

If you haven't already noticed, you should know that KAS has been split into two mods: Kerbal Inventory System (KIS), which provides kerbals with the ability to pick up and put down parts (although now only engineers can attach and remove parts, and only if they have tools to do so); and Kerbal Attachment System (KAS), which has all the winches and grappling hooks and so forth.

[corvustech]

Thanks everyone.   I haven't gone into the visuals mods yet, but I've got the USI suite and KAS/KIS and SCANsat all back to life.  

I've discovered flying aircraft is actually *easier* than it used to be, but rocketeering takes a good bit more work.  "Moar Boosters" isn't always functional anymore, either.  I had one design which kept burning up in the atmosphere trying to leave, going beyond the temp threshold for the Mk1 pod.  I ended up fixing this by adding weight, using two adapters and one of the mid-size gray fuel tanks in place of the smaller tanks you get in the early game. Easily the first time I found it easier to get a ship up to orbit because I added weight, much less that weight being fuel.