Kerbol Solar System, Futureistic Tech Tree and some New Parts

[Stelum]

Hello everyone! Just a disclaimer before I write:

I know game development is hard (I'm part of a game dev team myself) but I love giving suggestions and feed back, so that's why I post a lot in this section :P. My suggestion today is to improve the Kerbal Solar System a tiny bit today, and other things that I think would be awesome in the game.

• Add bigger asteroids that spawn randomly in Kerbol orbit (ones we can orbit, such like Bennu and comet 67P) The gravity there would be enough to have Kerbals walk on it.
• A sample return capsule to return experiments without returning the full craft. It would be a 1.25M part, with a parachute, the space for 2 experiments, and a little RCS for orbital corrections.
• Add another star system to the game, one very far away. (It doesen't have to be a big star system, but maybe a Binary with 2-3 planets and a moon of some sorts.
• With the new star system you need a warp drive, or the ability to go at a percentage of the speed of light. It would take a fairly long while to get there, talking an upward of 20 In-Game years, depending of course on the speed you're going.
• The Kerbals have invented the warp drive, and can go to a new star system, that means more science, and wasted science is...well wasted, so adding more futuristic parts such as very high reliability high ISP engines, with one major downfall, but isn't one so bad that makes the game unplayable. More powerful solar panels, etc. etc.
• Underwater Exploration. Seriously, water is cool and all, but we need some sort of boats and submarines, as well as some underwater easter eggs and geography. As in, maybe theres an underwater trench on Laythe or something.
• Either Revamp or Remove Dres. It's an extra science load, but it's a fairly boring dwarf planet. Make it have more geographically appealing features. I know there is a mod that revamps dres, but it should be in the base game.
• Give Rovers and Space Stations a purpose apart from experience and vanity. You could make it so that Kerbals will perform things better in EVA while experimenting in space stations. Rovers could be able to explore certain kinds of areas better.
• Make space stations have maintenance. I'm not the type of person to make things super realistic (although I do like a little element of realism) but Space Stations are not realistic at all. Space Stations should occasionaly have problems that would need to be fixed, like an oxygen leak or something. If not fixed, the space station segment will break off. A little bit of micro-management would be nice on Space Stations, even make it toggolable if possible
• IVA in command seats, or a first person mode.

One other suggestion that people would like to be implimented but doesn't matter if it's not, is EVA'ing inside your bigger Capsules and Crew parts. It's not important, but it would add a nice little feature to the game, for giggles.

 

Anyway, thanks for reading and let me know what you think. Also Squad, you're doing awesome work, and I wish you all the best!

 

[RatchetinSpace]

I really like some of your suggestions and I really don't like some others so I'll go through what I agree with.

For starters, the sample return capsule is being added to the game in 1.2, so no worries there.

Bigger asteroids would be cool to add, although as we know from Gilly, they don't have enough gravity for Kerbals to walk very well, that is reserved for the larger objects.
Underwater exploration would be a seriously cool thing to add, I think just a few buoyancy parts and a revamp on the underwater visuals would be enough, as well as some ocean related Science experiments.
I agree that we need more incentive for rovers and stations, and stations should require some sort of maintenance. I think a station should gain Science as it is crewed in orbit, and the location and orientation of the orbit determines the amount of Science gained over time. The Science gains can run down over time so you have to keep visiting the station to replenish the supply of experiments and keep the science revenue coming.
Finally for my positives, I do think that some more IVA stuff would be good.

I really don't like the idea of a warp drive, it goes against the sort of kerbal-realism involved in the game. There are mods which add warp drives and they don't really belong as part of stock in my opinion.
This also applies to the extra star system. While it'd be cool to have a binary star in the game, in practice this is an impractical feature for a space program game which obeys regular orbital mechanics and simulates more-or-less the operations that real space programs undertake or could in theory undertake.

Why not add one or two more planets to the current system instead of making a whole new star system? Then there are more distant and difficult destinations to explore while still staying in the realms of Kerbal-realism.

Finally, I disagree with your thoughts on Dres. If you've done a thorough mission to Dres you'd know that Dres is home to a massive trench, several kilometers deep and a very interesting geological feature indeed.
Along-side this, Dres is the only celestial body where Asteroids spawn in orbit, meaning you can refuel in orbit there. Overall, I think it is the fact that it doesn't look all that interesting that is meaning few people visit.

[IronCretin]

10 hours ago, RatchetinSpace said:

I think a station should gain Science as it is crewed in orbit, and the location and orientation of the orbit determines the amount of Science gained over time. The Science gains can run down over time so you have to keep visiting the station to replenish the supply of experiments and keep the science revenue coming.

The MPL already does most of this.

[sdj64]

Lots of these would make great contracts, especially-

big asteroids - should appear rarely and a contract should appear with them to take a surface sample, or mine a certain amount of ore from them.  Spawning in weird orbits like comets would be awesome for more challenge.

underwater - survey contracts for Kerbin and Laythe that require you to be under a certain depth below sea level.  I think that all parts should probably be less buoyant too, so you don't need tons of ore tanks to sink a submarine.

rovers and stations - there are already sort of contracts that find landed vehicles and ask for science from the nearby area but they could work better, detect if the vehicle has powered wheels or is labeled as a rover in the tracking station.  There could be maintainence and supply mission contracts (deliver x units of supplies to the station or base) but maintenance should not be mandatory unless you have a life support mod.

 

Moho, Dres, and Eeloo are kind of uninteresting because they are alone, IMO.  Dres could get a ring where the asteroids appear or a moon like Gilly (or both).

My favorite suggestion for science labs (forget who said this originally...) is that science labs should let you transmit experiments like goo and materials with the same value you would get for recovering them.  Get rid of the data shenanigans, they're easily abused.  Also give them a kerbal physiology study or something, since that's a lot of what is done on the ISS, effects of being in space on astronauts' health.  That experiment shouldn't be able to be transmitted.

[ZooNamedGames]

No interstellar until we have a Mann on another planet in a different solar system. 

KSP is supposed to mimic past and current space programs. Interstellar travel is still conceptual at best with work started but barely made. The most advanced you can go intentionally in the game is colonies and they're weak in comparison to reality as it isn't suited for that level of the future.