(Part 2) Best products from r/KerbalSpaceProgram

Thanks for the kind replies! My son will be super excited about this.

I got a lot of help via this great tutorial:
Geekcrafts costume Tutorial

But I opted to start with this helmet (and a lot of foam and duct tape):
via Amazon

Here are a few more pics BTW.
KSP costume

EDIT: To the kind person who sent gold today: Wow, many thanks!!!

Thanks! Here is the acrylic. I used whiteout to get the sharp contrast. Good luck and if you want keep me updated on your progress. I love to see other peoples work. Always feel free to ask questions.

Depends on if you want a simple joystick, brent1123 mentioned one.

Or if you want a HOTAS System, meaning a joystick plus a throttle control. That's going to cost a bit more, but it certainly feels nice. I only have experience with the Saitek X52 which is great, then there's a cheaper one with the Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas X people seem to like.

I'm a fan of my old copy of Fundamentals of Astrodynamics, by Bate, Mueller, and White. It was, by far, the cheapest textbook I purchased for my Aerospace degree (~$7; Amazon has it for <$3 used) but it is one of the primary texts in the field--most other texts wind up referencing this 1970s book. I seldom reference it anymore, though. FoA primarily focuses on how to calculate the motion of a spacecraft. It covers the Patched conics approach, various basic maneuvers, and interplanetary trajectories. It also covers how to figure out the orbit of an object based on ground measurements as well as perturbations--how things like uneven gravity, solar wind, and magnetism can affect an orbiting craft.

I also have read some of the AIAA edition of Space Vehicle Design, but it is considerably more expensive. It goes over more advanced concerns for the design and operation of practical, real-world space craft. If you have the coin and are interested in such things then you could pick it up. I've found the AIAA editions of Aerospace books to be well written in general. That book is only really worth it, though, if you have enough money that you won't miss the $70+ to buy or if you need it for your degree.

I've also had some luck with MIT Open Courseware, but I don't see much on aerospace that would be terribly relevant to KSP.

As to the Vall anomaly I'll hazard a guess... The KSP dev team is probably avid Sci-Fi readers and one of the greats, Jack McDevitt wrote a series of books (The Academy Series) were a pro-generator race littered worlds with constructs like that.

Won't ruin it for you all encase you want to read it, but its a great series by a great author.

http://www.amazon.com/Omega-Jack-McDevitt/dp/0441012108

I'm personally running a somewhat older version of the ASUS RoG laptop you have linked there. I am on an I7-3630 with an 670MX w/ 3GB gfx memory and I actually tend to strain my GFX card before I max out my CPU. That said, it seems to run fairly well as long as I keep the in physics range part count under 200. With the laptop you have linked there I'd expect you to get better performance in general, although I'm not sure how much having less dedicated GFX card memory will affect things -- probably run up against other limits before that became too much of a problem.

I personally bought my RoG laptop because I was looking for a desktop replacement that I was theoretically portable -- I'd never use it in my lap, as it would probably give me 2nd degree burns (I use an elevated laptop stand to keep it nice and cool on my desk http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JE7CMG) -- I've never had any major gripes with ASUS products and they've served me well. I don't have any significant experience with MSI, I think I owned one of their graphics cards 9 or 10 years ago, don't remember having any issues with it.

KSP 1.1 should be coming up later this quarter or early second quarter, and with the newer version of Unity it'll be using it should open up the road map for a more reliable 64 bit version of KSP later this year -- at that point you should see a lot of people pushing past the 4GB RAM limit.

What I'd suggest, is if you can find a local shop that has comparable MSI and RoG laptops in stock, that you go and check them out in person and see if one or the other "feels" better to you.

Hoep that helps!

Let me plug those books (Larry Niven's The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring) as excellent reading for anyone interested in "hard" (or, more realistic) science fiction. Be sure to read The Integral Trees first, as The Smoke Ring is a sequel.

Already having a rudimentary understanding of orbital mechanics from KSP will make them a lot easier to follow. :)

Alright, here we are. I know if these are not the best prices and like you said you aren't going to be buying for a month or so anyway, which I agree with. get to know the parts then find deals for those specific ones if you can. I don't know how to do the pc part picker page so this is the best formatting I can do:

$189.99 Processor Intel Core i5 4460

$359.99 GPU EVGA Geforce GTX 970

$84.99 Motherboard MSI B85-G41 ATX Motherboard

$80.99 RAM 1x8GB 1600mhz Kingston HyperX Fury

$79.99 HDD 2TB Toshiba 7200 Rpm

$114.99 SSD Crucial MX100 256GB Solid State

$44.99 PSU EVGA 500W

$34.99 CPU Fan Dynatron K17 CPU Cooler

$49.99 Case Cooler Master ATX Case

$107.22 Monitor 20" ASUS LED Monitor

$69.95 Keyboard Adesso Mechanical Keyboard

Total comes to $1218.08 USD unless I forgot to add something. That should be roughly $1353.42 CDN. I'm not sure if you wanted a mechanical keyboard, but I found a cheaper one. You probably know what you're doing with keyboards though, so if you don't like that one it should be easy to find one you do like. The mobo also gives you 3 more RAM slots to upgrade as well as room for another GPU, if you want to get a little crazy later on. Plenty of room to expand and change.

This machine will crush a Potatostation 4. Obligatory /r/pcmasterrace shout out.

Yup! I can also highly recommend this book! It has a lot of the information that's not in Failure is Not an Option: http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A73BSR4?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

Edit: By that, I mean a lot of stuff he alludes too when he talks about how Low, Mueller, and so forth did a ton of politics and stuff. But it's actually interesting politics and talks a lot about the astronaut geology program which I found fascinating! Also a ton of stuff on the lunar decontamination stuff and more. It's quite good.

These were the 3 I picked up.

This one seems to be the most popular, probably because of it's publication timeframe, 1971. Not too early, not too late.

This is an earlier textbook and is considered a classic at this point. Still useful.

While less popular (and more expensive), I found this one to be my favorite. Hard to say why, some combination of layout, examples, and teaching style. The fact that it was also published in my lifetime, unlike the other 2, might have something to do with it as well in terms of language, etc.

But take /u/The_Mother_of_Robots advice and don't do it. This is a slippery slope thick atmosphere in a deep gravity well. There is no Lagrange point, just the abyss.

So what would be some good CPU's to base a build on?

The i7-6700K @ 4.0 ghz for LGA1151 architecture -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B010T6DQTQ or i5 alternative

The i7-4790k @ 4.0 ghz for LGA 1150 architecture -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KPRWAX8 or i5 alternative

and the i7-2600K @3.4 ghz for LGA 1155 architecture -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004FA8NOQ (Can't be bothered to find an i5 alternative).

I'd love to see a proper break down of FPS for difference CPUs

Edit - see a great response from /u/randonneur16

$11.53 on Amazon. I have exactly these USB speakers. Their minimum volume is a bit higher than I'd like but other than that they're perfectly adequate.

If you want to use your own speakers, get a USB sound card (about $8).

Wikipedia is a useful free starting point. In particular, you want the rocket equation, the vis-viva equation, and Kepler's 3rd law

For textbooks, I like Fundamentals of Astrodynamics. Scott Manley has recommended Orbital Motion in the past.

I had a feeling it was a 775. This is actually what I was hoping for. Below I've posted a link for the same one I'm running, the 7500 at 2.9 GHz. It's available new for around $50 or refurbished for usually around $10 (I'm running refurbished and it runs like a champ). Definitely worth a shot and it'll keep you current system more relevant until you can upgrade to your new build.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0030H0MSA/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A3OAVT332E3QNP&psc=1

Pentium K for the win: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-G3258-Pentium-Processor-BX80646G3258/dp/B00KPRWAZQ
Currently have mine clocked at 4.7 ghz. Runs KSP like a champ.

My dream project is to create an Arduino powered controller using two of these.

I've got that exact book and this sitting on my nightstand. More books are on my desk too