Ohai

[Joel Dryden]

So, I got KSP during the "Steam summer sale" and have since spent an absurd amount of time on it, neglecting pretty well every other game I have.

Was a bit hesitant at first to get mods at all, but have since used the mapping sat, Kethane, B9, etc.

First few rockets were not payloads, just the usual capsule, fuel, rocket maybe a parachute and launch, many a kerbal have died, but as things clicked, I've been getting probes/rovers I've constructed onto other planets (Saw some of the pre-made rovers, haven't tried any, anticipating them to be in-compatible with the new update, that is hopefully around the corner, nay for not being able to use Kethane possibly, but yay for R&D etc.

I've seen quite often, most rockets are within 30-600 (Rather ambiguous I mean, small stage rockets for a single sat to massive multi stage rockets for a few probes/rovers or a whole/part station) parts and about 5-800T before launch, I've just been wondering, around what ratio is best for launching payloads, I usually see people in here throwing up 300T rockets that can do ~50 payloads. a small probe is generally 1-2T, a chunk of docking station seems to be 5-15T, etc.

What is the most simplistic while rather massive rocket you've made.

(I get you can make a rocket cost less than 20K while being able to get a 1.5T payload into Geo-Orbit no problem, just wondering how often people generally try get payloads up that are over 100T or is it better to stick to less than 40T or so pay loads/bases/etc at a time?

As I've only been at this game for a couple months/weeks really I imagine this is rather terrible, but it would be nice to see how you guys fair, or to get any pointers. A few I've thought of, that are rather obvious, instead of launching an entire Mun base/mining rig in one go, without docking/refuelling during the Kerbin-Mun surface trip, do it in sections. But the point is, to try launch something over 100-150T that can get itself to the Mun (or potentially Duna) that is all the one vehicle.

Total weight on Launch: 666T 290 parts

Total payload weight: 160T

Total rocket base weight: 506T

TWR at launch: 1.34

Contents of payload:

One large docking station centred on the top of the craft, as well as four standard docking ports on the fuel tank reserves. It fits about 20,000 fuel of Oxi+Liq combined, another 17,800L or so of Kethane.

12x 150L Kethane tanks

10x Radial parachutes

4x Gigantor XL Solar Array

4x 4000L Kethane tanks

4x 360L Liq/440Oxi fuel tanks

4x Z-100 Batteries

2x Z-400 Batteries

1x 720L Liq/880 Oxi fuel tank

1x 750 Mono prop tank

1x Communotron 88-88

1x Communotron 16

This thing is able to get to a 70-80K orbit with 3.5K Delta-V left, then burn to the Mun and re create a stable 100K orbit if you do this bit efficiently you can land as well, without needing to refuel but the margin for error isn't good, unless you're Jeb then you can just jump out of the rocket if anything goes wrong and land safely while the whole thing explodes, not that that's ever happened.. Landing is more advised than this, because minerals and stuff to mine and the drill doesn't work well in pieces.

Not to segue randomly but...

How do I go about putting pics of it up, don't have the option on my account.

Also, have to this, this is one of the most promising games I've seen, in regards to Dev-Community interaction, how the community itself interact, the biggest "flame war" type thing I've seen really, is when people talk about weather or not to use MechJeb, and some people say they use it for everything and others are against that, etc, but it's never bad (Anti Mech-Jeb here, vote JEB2013, help him keep his job before the robots rise up) just cause I never got to using it, plus kinda enjoy docking/landing everything, plus the SAS already seems like enough of an auto pilot, I was playing for a few hours before realising that was there and then everything became so much easier

The games ambient musical scores don't really ever get on your nerves like some can sometimes, if anything the game is too open ended/enjoyable, leaving you planning/plotting what to do next, spending hours building/testing craft, but that's what you want/part of what makes it fun

Really looking forward to the future updates to KSP, really keen for the Career, like the idea of being limited until you make a progression. Would go well with the future "possible" weather updates, clouds and shiznet, different atmospheric pockets of pressure to cause destabilisation, etc. Even the glitches aren't too bad, you could pretend the nav balls screws out sometimes because of overheating (which would be cool if implemented, like distortion of data/visuals if you heat up/get out of range of some signal sat for navigation or it itself get's damage, solar radiation, etc. All really promising.

Another thing, to add to this giant clusterfrak of text, are there any mods that change how the part models behave, by that I mean, rather than vaporising, they go through deformation stages, so if I was to go too close to the Sun, I'd see my ship/sat crumple up/bend and break and not the weird wobbly bending things do in KSP when you forget struts.

Anywho, end pointless rant/

That jumped all over the place. Sorry for my English, I'm a little high.

[Capt'n Skunky]

Happy Launching!

Arrr!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager