Roastduck

Then the best you can hope for is mods. fortunately for us, Squad has always been mod friendly. I haven't played stock since my first week with the game back in .23, so I definitely see areas where the stock game could be better, but it makes for a wonderful framework to add onto

It sounds like what you want is something closer to Realism Overhaul (which has TestFlight, and incorporates some of the new-tech mechanics you're describing) than the current stock KSP. You basically want a complete redesign of the game, which isn't likely to happen since the game is no longer in alpha or beta testing

Before the expansion, 25% of the nation's LNG passes through here. It was suggested that there could be an LNG terminal constructed. If that happened, then there would be infrastructure in place there for other companies to establish terminals, which would definitely impact the local economy. Not saying the LNG would up and leave, but its presence here would be lessened.

Last night in my RSS/RP-0 save, I accidentally sent an early probe interplanetary. It was supposed to go into a highly-eccentric polar orbit, get space-high science, then live out its life as a communication satellite. At the very last moment of the burn, it hit escape velocity, so I also managed to get science from space high over the sun!

Something tells me that Russia's diplomatic relations with China and Mongolia are NOT analogous to USA's diplomatic relations with Mexico. I live in SW Louisiana, where we have two or three major LNG expansions underway. Please do not take away one of our primary industries ;P

I think any story mode should be contingent upon contracts and the tech tree. Let's say you unlock a few things, and you complete a contract and put up a station that consists only of a makeshift docking hub, a command pod, solar panels, and an antenna. Then you unlock the hitchhiker, and the game is like, "Hey, you have this station that seems kinda cramped. you should add on some larger living quarters." So you do, and the game rewards you in some way (maybe a higher rate of new recruits in the astronaut complex?). Then you unlock the mobile science lab, and the game is like "Hey, why don't you add this on so we can do some science?" So you do, and the game rewards you in some way (maybe slightly reduced science costs in R&D?)

This is what I always do. I put a pod up with 3 radially-mounted satellites, Ap at KSO altitude with a period of 4 hours. Get to Ap, circularize to a period of 6 hours (or whatever the day length is now), deploy, drop period back down to 4 hours rinse and repeat

I was so afraid of where this topic would go when I saw the title, but I have been pleasantly surprised

I think KSP would have the most impact on high school physics classes as kind of an end-of-exams project. At least in America, science and math can sometimes be taught in a very abstract sense. "Here's this equation you need to know, but we're not going to tell you what it's used for." Physics, though, has a lot of equations with very real consequences if the variables are off. "Here's the Tsiolkovsky Rocket Equation. Look what happens to the d-V as we change this or that variable." With KSP, you're able to receive instant feedback on the results of these changes. One goal I had set for myself recently was to design a rocket in Realism Overhaul that would put a satellite into geosynchronous orbit, but calculate and plot all the orbits by hand. I think this is something a good AP Physics class could pull off in the 4-6 weeks between their exams and the end of the school year.

I thought "scope complete" meant the infrastructure for all systems would be in place, not game modes?

I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, or ever how to search for it to see, but I had a great idea while playing tonight. My problem with the in-game node info is that it always calculates based on the last throttle level used. But usually while I'm doing some wizardry with the node, I will forget where the throttle was, so the estimated burn time number is typically useless for me, and I have to do the math by hand (ugh). Squad should add a small pip, or some other GUI element to show you where the throttle was right before you last hit 'X' what do you guys think?

EVA reports while on Kerbin often remark on how useless EVA suits are when on Kerbin

The off-center CoM isn't an exclusive to lunar pods. All it does is provide lifting body characteristics on reentry, allowing for more control over your descent, which is useful for reentry from ANY mission. If you're having that much trouble getting it into orbit, you can always follow the instructions earlier in this thread to edit the cfg to remove the offset

Career mode is just sandbox mode with limited goals provided to you. Now that you've completed the tech tree, you're really only limited in play by your own imagination. Just do what you did before 0.24/0.23 came out!

The main problem I see is that what was once just part of a launch stage, intended to be discarded to increase TWR on the core stage, is now payload. On top of that, you have to add the equipment to clean it (because that stuff is toxic, yo) and fit it with lab equipment. I think it would be much more efficient to just launch a separate, dedicated lab module