It doesn't really seem intimidating really, but I can see how it could be. I played a bit of the tutorials it seems pretty straight forward and nice and in-depth but logical all the same so it seems like it should go well for me. I will definitely delve into the demo more the next few weeks and hopefully get a lot out of it it, I'll let you know how progress goes. Thanks!

I'm an idiot who did find it intimidating but thanks to a lot of you I've gotten through that and I wanted to thank all the people who didn't kill me for pestering them with inane PMs. :P

The game really opened up for me when I accidentally ejected my pilot at 8000 feet and watched him take five minutes to fall, disintegrating on impact. Clearly the designers put a lot of effort into the design of that colossal screw up which means they expect and want you to fuck up constantly; that's how you learn! XD

You're using mechjeb ?

Rumor says kerbonauts have very, very strong helmets. Try landing on the head next time (if you care for that specific kerbal's life).

Made a new severe overkill rocket for Duna with the nuclear engine right at the top lander part. I'm a messy person so the struts are in a mess and the rocket looks crappy, LOL:
http://oi61.tinypic.com/r9mr74.jpg

I'm using Kerbal Engineer. Haven't downloaded MechJeb yet. Will be hilarious if the damn thing can't land on Duna coz the top looks too heavy.

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You can jetpack on the moon, up that jetpack speed and watch as your kerbals slam into the moon's surface upon landing and disintegrating as well.

Oh you think that's bad? How about having a successful landing mission on the moon after all that design/launch/flying stuff, going back to Kerbin thinking you had it all. Then realising you've ran out of battery power and didn't put solar panels or RCS on the command pod. Or worse, forgetting the heat shield or putting wrong parachutes on the command pod like Quill18 did, then having the command pod with all the Kerbals burn and explode in the atmosphere or come crashing into the ground at 160m/s. :)

https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/en/?page_id=17

You intend to land on Duna, or to orbit it ? More importantly : WHEN ? (also, overkill is not bad, especially if you decide to check out Ike too)

Also, as I said, I'm torn between installing a mod (to display delta-v) and keeping my KSP "pure". I can't solve the dilemma. I'm afraid that delta-v calculators make the game too easy, not "as it should be played", but, on the other hand, it is very mod oriented (like, "should be played with mods") and the proper way to play it is certainly with pages of hand-made delta-v calculations (better electronically skip that). Still, I fear of losing something with delta-v displays.

I think I'll just indulge in a few more catastrophies before installing it, but I eventually will. I like the fact that this "enigeering mod" is less gratuitous than "mechjeb", as it's more limited, and relies on devices/crew. It may be a good compromise.

Just completed the orbit around Duna and making it back to Kerbin. Drained my 11K ⌂V rocket to near empty which is nuts since you're supposed to make it there with just 8k? I need to learn more about orbital transfer efficiency.

Kerbal Engineer basically just displays total ⌂V for all stages or ⌂V for every single stage. Gives u good info as well as the Apoapsis and Periapsis while you're flying which is darn handy instead of going to the map everytime just to see the height. MechJeb however includes stuff like auto-pilot which some purists might consider cheating.
I've also installed Chatterer which gives the game some radio voices and beeps every once a while. I'll probably download the clouds mod in due time.

Yeah, I very much scrutinized your screenshot for the mod display. I'll certainly come to use it, it's not unrealistic to assume that kerbal engineers would be providing that info. Also I'm oddly reassured by your troubles, in the sense that this mod will not magically solve everything if I install it.

I'm currently landed on Duna, doing science (I have a dumb habit of sending labs to biomes I explore for the first time : it would be much more clever to simply send a command pod first, and only send labs on subsequent trips, gathering quick experiment data first instead of staying there for ages-long local research). But I'm a bit scared to attempt to return, I have no idea yet if I'll be able to. But as I'm still calibrating my rockets through trial-and-error, I'll have to do it before sending another mission.

[Update : Just enough to lift back to Duna orbit. It's, well, rescue mission time, I guess.]

I've been eyeing the clouds and chatterbox mods (but I wonder if the latter fit with the kerbal look). I also admire those who go full earth-scale mode, I'm not ready to leave smurfland yet. I've also considered seeking a mod to deploy solar panels collectively (like we do for landing struts and lamps), but I just realised that "action groups" should solve that. KSP itself has features I haven't explored yet, so it may be early for mods.

I also haven't found a way to save properly (as opposed to quicksaves) without having to go to the space center and back. Maybe there's a mod for that...

With all of these mods that are being done, I wonder if the developers themselves are working on an extensive list of things they want to include/update. Like was said, some of the things seem like they should be being provided by the engineers/displays and it shouldn't be a guess/something you have to spend so much time calculating because, realistically, you'd have that stuff more quickly at your disposal. Maybe they intend to implement a bunch of elements that are also being done with 3rd party mods more in line with their vision? Any idea what to expect from the developers on any level? I've not looked into it at all.

I want better flags! :D

Mostly rumours, but somewhat precise ones : http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Planned_features

Dev quote : "I'm a big fan of engineer and we might need something similar ingame in the future. We're not big fans of the player getting big advantages at zero cost, though."

You can [url=http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:Create_custom_flags!]make your own flags[/url] !!

(I haven't yet, though.)

Far out.

Thanks. :D

You can choose quicksave slots by hitting Alt-F5.
I'm inclined to download the maneuver node input mode for KSP. So you can just hit buttons to up or down prograde, retrograde, normal, anti-normal direction values with precision without having to drag the damn sliders in the map screen and overshooting all the time. I find that more of a UI flaw so it's still pretty good for me. Heh