My PC is a 7 year old laptop that I would describe as “ailing”. It was pretty low end when I bought it so I seriously doubt it will run Kerbal. (I might download the demo to find out though).
Kerbal is pretty CPU demanding, especially when there are lots of parts involved. Usually when making space stations or huge rockets with lots of stages.
I think that’s more the game’s limitations with multithreading and 64 bit systems making it seem that way.
So in one of the best internet mashups EVER, Scott Manley is on Giant Bomb playing KSP :D
In the space of about a week, I’ve gone from, “I’ll just noodle around for a few days,” to, “9-launch Munar exploration program.”
Munfling 1: A ground-based lab, landed on the mun by skycrane.
Munfling 2: A Munar lander with science experiments, which will be used for suborbital flights to various parts of the Mun to pick up results from different parts of the Mun and ferry them back to the lab.
Munfling 3: A supply/shuttle lander, with a ton of fuel capacity, to refuel the science lander, and eventually to transfer fuel between the orbital station and the base.
Munfling 4: A refueling rover, with a dorsal-mounted fuel tank and docking port, to transfer fuel between the shuttle and the science lander.
Munfling 5-8: An orbital supply station, with room for fuel and extra docking ports, for refueling the shuttle, and a tanker to top it off.
Munfling 9: A crew transfer vehicle, to bring a new crew from Kerbin and return the old one there.
So yeah. As much as I’ve been liking Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, I think my time is probably going to KSP for the next few weeks.
I got my son interested in this. He loves all things space. Damn this thing has one of the worst interfaces I’ve seen on any piece of software. Is there a ‘better UI’ DLC planned?
Anyway, we’re trying to complete the 3rd and 4th contracts in career mode. How do you do a specific location survey?
Depends on the conditions. So what happens is when you take that contract a location will show up on your map. If it is terrestrial (Kerbestrial?) then it will appear over the location. As you fly it will also indicate you are entering the region. All you need to do is meet the altitude/ speed requirements and have the proper research module on board. It can be tricky, but shouldn’t present too much difficulty for most sub orbital. Eventually I created a science plane, one that I could turn on the stability, crank up the speed to max, and it would fly stable. This allowed me to get most surveys under 100,000m without designing a new craft. I’d recommend you do the same.
Updates from the Fishbreath Space Exploration Co. Mission Control Center: the Munbase is coming together, although the mission sequence has not been quite what we had planned.
I started with Munfling I and Munfling II, the science lab and the science lander. Unfortunately, once the lab had touched down on the Mun, I discovered I’d forgotten to attach an antenna. Oops. After Munfling II touched down, Munfling I-A took the pad, and landed on the Mun on a much less sloped part of the target crater.
Unfortunately, that less-sloped part was a good three and a half kilometers from the original, non-functional lab, and the labs land with non-reusable skycranes, so no moving. To get all my Kerbals in the same place, I launched Munfling IV next, the rover. The delivery system deserves an aside: rather than futz around with skycranes or actuators or anything, I put the rover (which is an FL-T800 fuel laying down, with wheels and a docking port on one end) on a lander vertically, then added a stage on top with some RCS blocks and reaction wheels. Hit the rover decoupler, flip it down onto land with the thrusters, pop the top stage decoupler, and voila: a rover on the surface.
Anyway, Munfling IV revealed another problem: I hadn’t tested the science lander’s refueling before landing it on the Mun, and I found I hadn’t accounted for the weight of the rover pushing the landing legs down. The lander has to very slightly take off to make the refueling rover’s docking ring attach. A Munfling II-A will be required, but hasn’t launched yet.
Munfling III came next, but a staging mishap knocked off the transmunar engine, so the shuttle lander used about two-thirds of its fuel reserves to get to Munar orbit. Munfling V, the orbital station core, is en route, but I had to strip some docking ports for weight reasons, so I’ll have to stick them on another launch (Munfling V-A).
Further, I’ll need the crew transfer vehicle (Munfling IX) before the first tanker (Munfling VIII), because I have too many pilots and not enough scientists on the Mun, and science is the ultimate goal here.
So, for those keeping score, here’s how my 9-mission plan, originally numbered 1-9, looks like it’s going to pan out:
Munfling I
Munfling II
Munfling I-A
Munfling VI
Munfling III
Munfling V
Munfling VI
Munfling VII
Munfling V-A
Munfling IX
Munfling VIII
Munfling II-A
There’s a reason the saying is ‘It’s not rocket science’, where Kerbal Space Program inhabits the opposite end of that spectrum. It’s Dark Souls for science nerds.
Between KSP and Factorio, science/engineering nerds should be very, very happy. ;)
Personally I don’t have a problem with the UI, but for what it’s worth, version 1.1 (due soon) boasts a revamped AI. People who’ve seen it say it’s a significant improvement. The biggest feature of 1.1, though, will be the move to 64-bit, multithreading, and improved performance. A nice thread on UI and performance improvements here:
I just watched a few random 1.1 streams from here and the UI doesn’t look very different at all. If marxeil is finding the UI terrible now, he’ll probably still find it terrible? :) Though it looks like they’ve made it so that you don’t “click through” the UI, which means you no longer build random bits or trigger random things when trying to interact with a text box on a mod.
edit: Also, if you look at about 5:00 in this stream you can see that the game still suffers from brain dead design of having players intentionally “getting science from the launchpad”. And you can still have only one IVA at a time. ARGHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh. Some things in life show so much promise but are so crap at the same time.
Still, it also highlights the improvements in the UI in that the right click menu not floats properly and you can actually see it, even if you have a really long ship etc.
It’s not just that the UI is not clear with the information it’s supposed to provide, it doesn’t adhere to simple UI conventions.
I opened a window for the science goo, and couldn’t find any way to just close it. My son told me I need to right click anywhere on the screen. WTF, what happened to the x at the right top corner?
Well, we are talking about rocket science here.
“We use a non-standard UI not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”
I honestly don’t understand what some people expect out of the UI in video games. I understand when people complain about the interface in Dwarf Fortress. But like, KSP isn’t a study in the world’s most mind blowing interface design. It’s a game about making rocket ships. What world do you live in where every bit of software you use has a flawless jaw dropping UI that gives you a massage while you’re using it like some of you seem to expect? Yeah, it’s a little rough around the edges in a few areas, but it’s still FAR better than it used to be. And they’re still working on improving it.
Seriously though, if you are just getting into KSP and blasting off into space doesn’t divert your attention from criticizing the interface, this probably isn’t the game for you. :/
I don’t get the issue here. Getting science from the launchpad may seem a bit odd, but I am pretty sure “science” is done from every launchpad a bunch of times before an actual launch occurs. This has never bugged me. Well, toppling your rocket over and rolling it onto the lawn is maybe a stretch, but… It is a video game. You can get the same science experiments on Kerbal as any other planet.
Exactly, just think of them as calibrations. Testing the equipment on a known value. It’s actually a super important thing to do!
Hey guys, welcome to Kerbal Space Program, a game about building rockets.
First mission:build a useless pod, climb out, hang off the ladder 10 cm above the ground and take a “mid air” reading. Then walk around the complex getting random EVA readings from important locations such as “the crawlerway” or “the astronaut complex”.
I think the actual “game” in KSP is completely unbalanced and ill-designed. The fun of playing is from the sandboxing, the actual campaign is pretty terrible. Getting science around the launchpad kills to theme of the game, is completely nonsensical, and most of all breaks the “balance” of the game in the early rounds. You can unlock large amounts of the tech tree without ever leaving Kerbin. In a game about reaching for the stars, it pushes you hard to not even bother.
I’d prefer it if it took a BTSM style approach, where to get the first few nodes unlocked in the tree you have to build simple, sensible little rockets with limited parts.
Speaking as someone who really, really enjoys the added constraints of career mode—of having to pay the bills by taking space tourist missions, or launching satellites, to fund my grand Munar exploration plans—I find the opening game is as sandboxy as you make it. I didn’t do random walking around on the pad for science: suborbital flights, the starting contracts and world record attempts, and fixed-wing airplanes were all feasible ways to build up a science reserve to get into space more properly. As an added bonus, playing it that way forces me to make grand attempts without quite the technology to do so easily. (My first Munar landing involved a twelve-engine booster comprising three of the small-size liquid fuel engines and associated fuel tanks, because I hadn’t unlocked Rockomax-size parts yet.)
Some of us expects the UI to be good :)