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The only thing thing that I care to see in .24


Wesmark

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The only thing that I want to see in .24 is an end to wobbly rockets. One moment It's flying straight then, BOOM, it starts to wiggly horribly and either throws off the orbit entirely or breaks up. They way connections work in KSP is that there is one point that connects to another point(very weakly) and that holds it together which is not good for keeping large things together. Please make connections more stable squad.

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If you're sick of stitch-strutting and other such idiotic, computer-melting nonsense, get this:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55657-0-23-Kerbal-Joint-Reinforcement-v1-6-Properly-Rigid-Part-Connections-12-29

I don't play without it if I can help it. It dramatically reduces the part count on any larger craft to quite tolerable levels.

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...do not make unrealistic big rockets....

You realize that the S-IC stage of the Saturn V is 10 meters in diameter and 40 meters tall right? That one single stage is quite a bit larger than most of the rockets we build in KSP.

Now consider the entire Saturn V. 110 meters tall and 10 meters in diameter versus our 2.5 meter diameter 30 meter tall rockets. It suffered catastrophic structural failure 0 times of 13 launches. Our rockets are unrealistically TINY and they have difficulties. The ones that require massive bracing are actually only approaching the size of a real launch vehicle.

The joints do need to be stronger. Also can someone explain to me why the Cubic Octagonal Strut appears to have the strongest joints in the game (I commonly mount LVT-30s on radial Cubic Octagonal Struts without bracing) while the Rockomax 64 fuel tanks struggle maintain stability even with proper bracing? This seems a total reversal of what should be true.

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You realize that the S-IC stage of the Saturn V is 10 meters in diameter and 40 meters tall right?

You realize that the S-1C is a single well supported structural piece and not a bunch of separate building blocks glued end to end right?

Our rockets do not require massive bracing. You just need to think about the structural forces at play.

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You realize that the S-1C is a single well supported structural piece and not a bunch of separate building blocks glued end to end right?

Our rockets do not require massive bracing. You just need to think about the structural forces at play.

Please read the rest of my post because it seems you did not.

Now consider the entire Saturn V. 110 meters tall and 10 meters in diameter versus our 2.5 meter diameter 30 meter tall rockets. It suffered catastrophic structural failure 0 times of 13 launches. Our rockets are unrealistically TINY and they have difficulties. The ones that require massive bracing are actually only approaching the size of a real launch vehicle.

The joints do need to be stronger. Also can someone explain to me why the Cubic Octagonal Strut appears to have the strongest joints in the game (I commonly mount LVT-30s on radial Cubic Octagonal Struts without bracing) while the Rockomax 64 fuel tanks struggle maintain stability even with proper bracing? This seems a total reversal of what should be true.

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All this talk of structural stability makes me think Harvestr ought to discuss consider making Ferram's Kerbal Joint Reinforcement part of the stock game. "Moar struts!" is fine a punchline to a joke but the stock attachment physics is seriously wonkly. KJR makes things MUCH better, and by eliminating needless struts it helps keeps part-counts down from many craft.

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1. Many users request "random failures" because "it is more realistic" and "realism=fun". Personally I'm not from that school on either statement but if you are, consider this a feature and not a bug.

2. Rocket science is not supposed to be easy. Engineering in college is one sad journey of discovering how real life throws you lemons all the time. Materials fail to meet your expectations in the most inconvenient and unimaginable ways possible; part of what makes it hard is finding ways around it.

3. If it were easy, it wouldn't be fun.

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Materials fail to meet your expectations in the most inconvenient and unimaginable ways possible; part of what makes it hard is finding ways around it.

One of my biggest disillusionments in college lo those decades ago was discovering how much metallurgical engineering is still basically trial and error. :P

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3. If it were easy, it wouldn't be fun.

After you've strutted every large rocket to hell and back for the last three versions, knowing pretty much exactly where such struts are needed and eschewing certain stack parts because they will fail (Large SAS, I'm looking at you <_<) while suffering through slideshow-esque launches because of the additional physics calculations all those extra parts need, you tend to redefine what "hard" should actually be in the game. For me (and others, I assume) wobbly rockets aren't hard, they're tedious.

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You realize that the S-IC stage of the Saturn V is 10 meters in diameter and 40 meters tall right? That one single stage is quite a bit larger than most of the rockets we build in KSP.

Now consider the entire Saturn V. 110 meters tall and 10 meters in diameter versus our 2.5 meter diameter 30 meter tall rockets. It suffered catastrophic structural failure 0 times of 13 launches. Our rockets are unrealistically TINY and they have difficulties. The ones that require massive bracing are actually only approaching the size of a real launch vehicle.

The joints do need to be stronger. Also can someone explain to me why the Cubic Octagonal Strut appears to have the strongest joints in the game (I commonly mount LVT-30s on radial Cubic Octagonal Struts without bracing) while the Rockomax 64 fuel tanks struggle maintain stability even with proper bracing? This seems a total reversal of what should be true.

Well this rocket is much heavier than the Saturn V and is pretty reliable. The trick to building big rockets is to use the structural pieces to create hardpoints that take all the strain. Just sticking fuel tanks together isn't going to work, as it wouldn't in real life. Real life fuel tanks are about as strong as soda cans. Rockets have thrust structures that hold them together.

If they make connections stronger it's just going to dumb the game down a lot. If you want to play like that you can already use the cheat menu to make them stronger, or download mods.

What we really need is more performance enhancements, so rockets like this don't run at stupidly low frame-rates.

6sxQ2kg.png

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Just sticking fuel tanks together isn't going to work, as it wouldn't in real life. Real life fuel tanks are about as strong as soda cans. Rockets have thrust structures that hold them together.

Considering that the fuel tanks in KSP aren't "bare" by any stretch of the imagination, one could easily make the case that a fuel tank already has thrust structures and that sticking two together should constitute a complete structure because in real life you wouldn't strut two small tanks together, you'd build a single engineered piece that did the job well. KSP is anything but realistic in that regard.

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Considering that the fuel tanks in KSP aren't "bare" by any stretch of the imagination, one could easily make the case that a fuel tank already has thrust structures and that sticking two together should constitute a complete structure because in real life you wouldn't strut two small tanks together, you'd build a single engineered piece that did the job well. KSP is anything but realistic in that regard.

In that respect it would be nice to see a huge stock parts expansion right before 1.0 perhaps. I know, new players overwhelmed, blabla.... Just have a button in the VAB that says "Show Advanced Parts" or something. I don't think that would even be necessary if they get the Career mode working as a tutorial. I'm looking at things like Shuttle parts, better 0.625m parts, > 2.5m parts, etc. The fact that you have to strap several 2.5m cans together for larger payloads just highlights the fact that stock lacks the parts to build realistic rockets with heavy payloads. I can only assume it is SQUADs intention for us to assemble large payloads in space over multiple launches given the scope of stock parts. And as for KJR, I've been using that since it first got uploaded. In fact, I think I'm using one of the first builds still. Am I missing out on anything special in a newer version I wonder.... Oh well everything is running fine on my end ^_^

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Strutting is for pilots-only the same flying is to builders-only: A tedious, repetitive process. This is just to use that 8-years-old-worthy argument "BUT IT IS TEDIOUS" of yours against you.

For a more valid case: Structures should be perfectly wobble-less until someone decides to do something out of the logic, like attaching a huge weight on an asymmetrical way or going over the weight tolerance of a part/group of parts.

Finally, remember (and I'm looking at those of you that use the "But they are parts glued together") the parts are supposed to work when glued together, they are parts made to build a rocket, so they are supposed to have the strength to hold a rocket or part of it without acting like spaghetti.

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I have no objection to the "floppy joints" part of KSP; for me it's part of the charm and the challenge of the game. (Those arguing about realism do need to take into account the multiple structural failures in the early days of rocketry... Corporals and Vanguards and SRBs, oh my...)

-- Steve

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Considering that the fuel tanks in KSP aren't "bare" by any stretch of the imagination, one could easily make the case that a fuel tank already has thrust structures and that sticking two together should constitute a complete structure because in real life you wouldn't strut two small tanks together, you'd build a single engineered piece that did the job well. KSP is anything but realistic in that regard.

Well we get prebuilt stuff to work with. A real fuel tank is engineered out of hundreds or thousands of parts.

The point I was making is that the structural parts in the game are stronger than many others, so if you want to build big you've got to use them..... and avoid the weaker connections like sticking stuff to orange tanks radially. It's kinda hard to see with my rockets because I hide everything, but look at how many structural pieces whackjob uses on his rockets to make sure they're strong enough to fly.

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