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Super Wabbit · Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 2:57 pm Post subject: The perils of Mods

So I learned a very important lesson. Be careful which mods you use and when you use them. I had been playing around with space planes and the B9 mod. I successfully launched several planes to orbit. A lot of the earlier designed didn't really have enough fuel to do much else so I left them in orbit until I could get a refueling plane up there.

I then installed Ferram Aerospace mod. I built a nice little tanker space plane, flew up to one of the stranded birds, refueled and was able to return the new space tanker to KSP without incident. I then switched back to the freshly refueled space plane and attempted reentry. Yeah, the aerodynamics were completely off as it was designed for the stock KSP model and not the new Ferram mod. So that plane crashed, killing a Kerbal. Now I have to go rescue those other guys since I can't trust their crafts to be flyable after reentry.

Dynamite Dan · Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 3:04 pm Post subject:

Yeah, ive stayed away from ferram for that reason.

I was going to try the Deadly re-entry mod, but then i remembered i sometimes return from a moon at a 90* straight into the atmosphere angle about 5-6000m/s and rely solely on the low atmospheric drag and spoilers i have installed to slow me down.

Super Wabbit · Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 4:06 pm Post subject:

Ferram is actually pretty good. It makes better decisions on what causes drag. I've noticed it is easier to get into orbit and you're not penalized for adding nose cones to your craft.

Finger · Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:57 pm Post subject:

Mods can be a great enhancement to your game, but as you said, be careful. I found that adding mods and parts packs mid career can break certain things or just make the game a little less fun.

Ferram Aerospace can be a humbling program to use if you think you're hot stuff designing stock planes. So when you finally build a ship that can exceed mach 2 and climb above 20km you feel like you've accomplished something.

Rewards from FAR are most noticeable with rockets. Vertical ascent was never so easy. Nosecones make a huge difference (Manley did a demonstration video on this) and reduce the number of additional boosters and pancake type rocket setups.

One note on a mod that I've found almost mandatory for my setups is Kerbal Joint Reinforcement (KJR). Parts of your rocket that should be firmly attached to one another have a tendency to slide around or break completely during heavy thrusting. KJR prevents the need for ten struts for every part by increasing the joint strength. It's not like the welding mods that turn two parts into one by perma-welding them. It just increases the bonding strength, and parts can still detach and "sudden and permanent disassembly" is still a possibility.

One mod, that can barely be called a mod, you will get used to easily is the Enhanced Navball. It's designed by one of the guys from Squad and was intended for inclusion with the game in 0.19 but for some reason got put on the back burner. Basically it puts the maneuver node symbols on your navball with a ghosting effect. You may have had trouble figuring out which way to turn to find pro/retro grade or a maneuver node because nothing was visible on the navball. This puts a faint image in the direction to that point. It even adds a retro-target node.

On the cutesy side, is Chatterer. It does nothing practical but it adds radio chatter, background ship noises, and even background music to set the mood. Even Quindar tones for those that remember the Apollo program.