The Grand 0.25 Discussion Thread

[Red Iron Crown]

so has anyone noticed that the thrust for the Turbo Jet Engine is weaker than the Basic Jet Engine? can anyone explain this to me?

The basic jet's peak thrust is at 0m/s, the turbojet's is at 1000m/s. If travelling at the low end of that range the basic jet is more powerful than the turbojet, it's not until significant speed has been accumulated that the turbojet overtakes it. Could that explain your observations?

[RocketPilot573]

I just found out something new about the KSC menu: You can right click on buildings to repair any damage even if it is still operational. It will also list the varying degrees from damage by "Light," "Moderate," "Critical" and "Out of service." For example, if you destroy 3 out of 4 of the structures around the launch pad (but not the pad itself) then it will be fine, but destroying all 4 of them will render it out of service, even though the concrete pad is untouched. Also the tracking station can still work with one dish broken, but wreck 2 dishes and it's dead.

[ShadowZone]

Hmm... got mixed feelings about 0.25

- Exploding buildings.

Yes, they are fun to mess around with. But then the Launchpad implodes from the weight of my rockets, it's no fun at all - especially if you haven't unlocked the clamps yet (those help). I often launch 4000 ton vehicles with payloads of 200t or more. Like this for instance:

-New Plane Parts.

Now this is really cool. I love the cargo bays. My KR-71 Whitebird now has a hidden VTOL engine. Great looks on the new parts as well. However... I used a lot of wing parts as "decoration" on some of my deep space cruisers, including the now no longer existing flaps. Well they look like crap now, but that's the risk of early access / alphas I guess

- The economic stuff.

I really don't care about that. I want to build stuff and use it. So all the effort put into that may appeal to some players, I just stick to sandbox or science modes.

- Crew Transfer.

Oh I love this! Transferring my 32-man crew to my deep space cruiser was a chore before this. However... it seems like hit and miss. Sometimes the cabin or compartment I want to transfer my crewmember to is highlighted but nothing happens when I click on it.

- Crashes galore.

Sometimes I cannot even launch the game into the main menu without experiencing a crash or two. Yes, I use some mods, which may be the cause, but there are no incompatibility warnings and everything worked fine before 0.25 - or at least to a certain degree. Just before writing this, I had 8 crashes over the course of 45 minutes. No fun at all.

- Features vs. Performance.

I am no developer... so maybe I misunderstand the entire process of creating this game. But I would really like to see more improvements on the basic performance instead of adding more and more features. I want my >1000 part ships to work smoothly and not to grind my rig to a complete halt. I managed to construct a 1300 ton fuel station in a stable orbit. I cannot use said fuel station because every time I want to guide a ship there and dock, my system throws in the towel. And I can run other high end games (things like Crysis 3 etc.) with no problem at all.

This is really my biggest request: Make KSP in such a way that it no longer requires the power of a Tianhe-2 to run smoothly.

So here's what I think: I love the rate of progress, I love the part improvements, I really don't care about the economic stuff and I still miss significant performance boosts.

Edited October 18, 2014 by ShadowZone

[Gryphon]

Up until now, I would launch and revert, launch and revert, until I got a working spacecraft. Sure, plenty of stuff worked the first time, but it wasn't a big deal if I, say, left the staging messed up and didn't notice.

On my first 0.25 Hard Mode attempt, I killed three Kerbals and pretty much ran out of money.

I started over and now I am playing more carefully; I am testing big ships with an unmanned launch first, to make sure they can actually make it to orbit safely. I am also avoiding launching ships that use all or most of my budget. Oh, and my first ships to the Mun and Minmus? Unmanned.

(I should also note that I am playing with TAC LS, FAR, RT2, Deadly Reentry and T-7 Tech Tree, among others. It's not just hard, it's REALLY hard. I've thought about using Real Fuels, but I'm holding off on that.)

[Godot]

You could think about using Kerbal Construction Time.

This mod for the one thing makes your rocket building take time ... for the other one it allows you to simulate your launches (revertible, but thesimulated flights cost a small amount of money and don´t accomplish anything)

Another mod would be Simulate, Revert, Launch which coencentrates on the ability to do simulations.

Both would be mods that make you simulate starts without having to rebuild your rockets.

[Gryphon]

Like, WHOA!

I just watched the feature video, and now I have to add Kerbal Construction Time and Stage Recovery.

Thanks, Godot!