So, you know you have an addiction to the game when you show up to work and in the middle of a meeting, realize a rover design within your mind and have to jot down notes so as you don’t forget!
So I’m trying out thrust plates mixed with asparagus staging. My first observation is that these plates exert much more force to the center column upward, generally where the rest of your ship is. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it has made obtaining orbit rather difficult as I’ve watch several ships I’ve implemented this to completely obliterate due to the amount of force now being placed at each joint when pressing the throttle closer to full (never more than terminal velocity). “Duct Tape” doesn’t appear to be working much because they snap first. Granted, I was using an 8 rocket thrust plate setup. Reducing this to 6 has allowed me to achieve orbit, but uses considerably more fuel than some of the other staging setups I’ve used. To be fair, the setup is more stable at the rocket level, but I fear it puts too much of a strain on the stuff I’m trying to get out into orbit.
I’ve been having boatloads of fun with KSP lately and am getting prepared for the next .22 update that should be released within the next couple weeks as SCIENCE will now become incorporated with gameplay.
Here’s a couple screenshots:
Burning into Eve
Landing Capable Large Long-distance Probe or LCLLP for short
KSP just grew to Version 0.22 yesterday and Career mode has now been unlocked (though still very Alpha). It’s nice actually, because it forces you to take limited resources to acheive some of what you may have thought were simple goals, provided you had the parts you wanted. With Career mode, these are much more difficult to obtain (You are probably not going to space today) but you gain more parts as you progress through obtaining SCIENCE, the intangible currency of the game gained through performing experiments and taking reports throughout your missions.
Through my career journey in KSP, I’ve had more rockets deconstruct mid-flight and explosions galore than I’ve ever had. That said, I would have expected a Remote Controlled module to become immediately available rather than only having a 1-Kerbal cockpit available first up. I mean, you’d want to make sure your rocket works first before throwing a Kerbal in it, right? Especially since you are at least 5-6 missions away from obtaining even the simplest wings for stability.
Anyway, check it out. If you haven’t bought this, pick it up on Steam, install it, and geek out. You won’t be sorry, except maybe for all of the life you’ve now devoted to obtaining orbit.
A life not devoted to obtaining orbit may be a life wasted.
An interesting review of KSP. Some of the comments are well worth reading, too.
I am at this exact moment trying to arrange my own somewhat unconventional review of KSP, with assistance from both Squad and NASA. Fingers crossed that it comes together!
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I love this damned game! I’m a serial Kerbal killer though LOL
I’d love to see this. Be sure to let us know!
@Severine, had any fun with the RAPIER yet? I just messed with it a few weeks ago and I’m stunned at how useful they are. Granted, my spaceplanes still cannot obtain orbit as of yet. That and it takes FOREVER to get them to the appropriate altitude to try. No quicksave ability in atmo really hinders my desire to continue trying*.
*At higher altitudes, planes get really finnicky and, if your wings aren’t placed appropriately, you’ll start flipping around like a pancake.
I haven’t played it in months, just haven’t had the time. I may do some tomorrow when I’ve scheduled in “Spontaneous Game Play”. Still trying to get into this whole “not working” thing.
Apparently Multiplayer is something they ARE going to work on this year, according to PC Gamer, which is funny because the devs have always said that it was something they didn’t want to pursue, evar (So stop asking!). Apparently one of the modders who created a multiplayer provided a good proof of concept and they’ve decided to listen to players and supporters and move forward on the idea. .24 should be a neat release. I’d still love to see a 4-to-1, 3-to-1, or 2-to-1 coupler made. Much use could be made of this!
Well crap. There’s a plugin for KSP so you can hook up an Arduino to it. You can basically create your own custom controllers and instrument panels in the real world. Sigh… guess I’ll have to break out the soldering iron this weekend.
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Thread necromancy!
A company is now offering to 3d print your Kerbal space ship:
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Pricing? This could be cool, but I’d prefer it to be somewhat cheaper.
I wasn’t impressed with their turn-around time, either.
I see that KSP has been nominated for a ‘Golden Joystick’ Award.
I looked at the list of games and categories and only recognised two of the entire list. I am so not a game player!!
Re-entry used to be something I didn’t worry about. They’ve changed that. Now I’ve got to math/science my way through a YouTube to get an understanding of just how I’m supposed to re-enter the Earth’s…err…Kerbin’s atmosphere.
Has this been changed? It’s been a loooong time since I’ve tried to REALLY do anything with KSP, but if they’ve fixed it so that you have to watch your alpha during re-entry, I am super-excited 
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They’ve definitely made changes in the last week. Re-entry heating is factored in, and I believe your approach vector has something to do with it now. I haven’t dove back into yet as I’ve been swamped at work but it looks good.
On a completely different side note, No Man’s Sky is out in less than 2 months!