Tweeker

From the press event a few weeks ago, here is a mock up of China's planned moon lander. They are planning to use what they call "staged descent" It looks like the descent stage will take the lander most of the way to the surface, then be jettisoned. Then the lander will land {duh} and ascend after the mission.

Depends on how deeply you want to get into that aspect of the simulation, a Civilization style map for each planet? {remember Empire of the Fading Suns} But I think you could still have a celestial body level of unlocked project progression available via a series of structured contracts such as: 1) survey the Mun, 2) land on the Mun and return, 3) Build a habitat on the Mun, {which would require resupply missions} 4) build a farm colony on the Mun {which would reduce the amount of resupply require} 5) build a mine on the Mun {which would further reduce the amount of re-supply} 6)build a factory on the mun, with a VAB and launchpad {allowing rockets to be built on the Mun. Do a similar progression on Minmus with ice mining and fuel refining in place of building rockets. Then once both those are up and running unlock a orbital assembly yard around the Mun or Minmus, or both.

That tusswork tank reminds me of the N-1,

I remember the Kethane mod quite fondly. Maybe one way to use what we know as science in KSP1 is to use it to unlock abilities at each planetary body. Retrieve 500 science from the Mun to unlock ISRU at the MUN. 1500 to unlock a Mun habitat, 5000 to unlock an assembly facility on the Mun. And so on.

I played a game once where I did no science, other than the science you get from "return of a ship from "XXXXX""

Since Science is next up on the roadmap I'll repeat a suggestion from the past. Untether the tech tree from "science", it is not sensible for the the "science" that you get from Mun rocks, or taking temperature reading to result in better engines, fuel tanks batteries Etc. A much better system would be to earn "research" or some other resource based on milestones like launching your first rocket, reaching the upper atmosphere, reaching orbit. In addition to these milestone that were in KSP there should be new ones such as burn 10 tons Methalox, burn 100 tons Methalox, Keep a Kerbal alive in orbit for one day, accumulate 3600 seconds of runtime for "XXXX" engine. Gaining "research" or "engineering" in this way is not only more realistic it fits with the learn by doing ethos of the game. In this way even failed missions earn new knowledge.

While this is funny to watch, I'd be quite disappointed if I'd paid $50 for this sort of experience.

Short and wide, Like a hockey puck.

More like clippy and Navi had a baby.

I wholeheartedly second this.

By the engine looking like, and being described in a similar way to a particular engine that burns a particular fuel. What engine does the Vector look like? What engine is it titled similarly to? What fuel does that engine burn? It doesn't take thousands or hundreds or even tens of hours in KSP to know these things, or to make the connections.

The problem with the new engines they are adding is they haven't fixed the legacy engines from KSP1, and are just slotting new engines in around them. It's adding to the root problem, rather than seizing the golden opportunity to make these changes inbetween KSP1 and KSP2, We can see from the previews that many of the engine have similar stats to KSP 1, @mcwaffles2003 even made a chart showing the specs of KSP1 vs KSP2 engines. So it's not speculative to say that the engine stats are very similar to KSP 1. Honestly I'd have rather they rebalance all the legacy engines they're moving from KSP1 to KSP2 than to add new engines.

The argument is and always has been the same, the engines they've chosen to put in the game are simulacra of real world engines, just as the planets are simulacra of real world planets. Kerbrin is blue and green with oceans, mountains, and other biomes similar to Earth. The Mun looks like the Moon. It would be no different than if Duna were green and someone said it should be red. They've done something with the Vector that is obviously not right, and they should fix it.

Either solution would be good, Fix the vector, or remove it from the game. This is the worst of both worlds, the Vector is in the game but it's obviously wrong. You can use it to build real-esque looking space shuttle, but it both because of the fuel it burns and the performance of that fuel, so it end up breaking the illusion.

Not glossing over the other things, but point out that they've done something wrong that needs to be fixed.