autumnalequinox

Yay! Was checking in and saw the update! This is like the life support mod of unmanned spacecraft and I love it. Makes mission planning so much more involved and prevents me from spamming those "collect science in space of x" contracts since nothing lasts forever! Thanks for the hard work going to try it out now.

By the gods thank you. I was wondering why I couldn't get it to work. Cursed quotations! And my crashes just like became suddenly very rare. I don't know why. I've only had one VAB crash in weeks of play when before they were semi-common with symmetry. It seems the further I get into career the less frequent they become. Also: Built new rig and moved game over. Fresh win 7 install, fresh drivers, fresh everything. Went from crashes during staging, VAB, etc to increasingly rare. Not sure why.

I'm with alot of other posters. Both are great games. I tend to play KSP for longer, more obsessive streaks then Minecraft, which I mostly play in spurts. Both games I mod into oblivion. What's common to both is that they are both power fantasy games for myself. In minecraft I can start as a lone survivor and build an entire fantasy/steampunk nation of my dreams (my mod choices allow this). In KSP I can start as a haphazard collection of green people and build an entire space program of my dreams (also mod choices). Then there's 7 Days to Die, my other fav sandbox. There I can be the zombie apocalypse survivor of my dreams. And let's not forget Paradox games where I can mold history to my desires. And Civ. I think there's a theme here. But of all the games, KSP has truly taught me the most. I don't like looking too hard at other people's creations (unlike minecraft). Instead, I research RL space missions for inspiration, learning a ton on the way. I never knew as much about launch systems until I played KSP. Or orbital mechanics. Or the internal workings or NASA, the lives of the Apollo astronauts, or the deep histories of the Russian and American space program. Unlike Minecraft, KSP has expanded my knowledge base in ways no game ever has (with the exception of said Paradox games in regards to history). It's a game I wish existed when I was younger because it would have changed my life. So that's something.

ALL OF THIS. Or something similiar. I would love "areas of interest" that may or may not have cool stuff. Essentially sub-biomes. Each world gets x amount and a world seed so some areas have nothing and some have something. Each area is more detailed then surrounding terrain, with possible animations (volcanoes, etc). Bonus for science multiplier (+20% or +50%) if there are goodies there. This is something sorely missing from the game that would be awesome in the next few versions. A bit more fun then the stock easter eggs and it gives a good reason to really, really explore. Tie it into the anomaly system or make them their own biomes, whatever works the best. Also: The option for randomization. Allow the player to set number of planets, type of star, and other parameters. The only thing that stays the same is Kerbin. Do something along the lines of Space Engine and generate a solar system within those parameters. It would never get boring. Never!

Damn this is an awesome idea I generally play like this by myself in career. My time is so tight otherwise I would totally dig this. Good luck and post the Space Race somewhere so us spectators can enjoy it!

As far as Venus goes I know it's currently debatable whether it had oceans at all. There's been evidence both pro and con for them. We would need some extensive surface exploration by a mobile rover of some sort to find out. And for Titan that's probalbly true. Unless after formation it swept up additional material. And by "warm" I mean something far below freezing but perhaps a short time where the temperature is high enough for only a mildly crusted over ammonia-water ocean. Maybe something that interacted with the atmosphere before finally solidifying. Essentially a cryogenic version of Earth's early "lava oceans".

I probably shouldn't have fixated so hard on aliens and terraforming. It was just a convenient way to create a potential "observer" to this much more habitable early Solar System. It's more a hypothetical thought experiment and less a realistic possibility. I just wanted to talk about how any outside observer would see our Solar System at about the 1 billion year mark and how interesting it would be. Actual aliens affecting our Solar System's history/formation in Deep Time is far beyond the realm of evidence for me, personally. I'm not saying it didn't or couldn't happen (or couldn't happen in the future) but I find it unlikely.

Early geological history will always be riddled with speculation. Nothing is concrete and nothing will ever be certain. But regardless, we have some good theories and let's assume the ones most favorable to water/pre-biota are correct. There is something I've been trying to pin down and thats the time period of our Solar System where alien explorers would find a sort of "maximum habitability". I don't mean actual life but I am talking about thick atmosphere and surface water. I suspect it would be about 1 billion years after formation (give or take ALOT). 1. Venus would still have oceans and it's atmosphere has not yet become the deadly blanket of CO2 yet. Sure, it will be warm and rotate slowly but beneath the evaporating oceans and mean surface temperatures over 100C there could be something going on under those evaporating oceans. 2. Earth may already be inhabited by primitive life, depending on the theories (especially Cool Early Earth). Either way, it has a thick atmosphere and significant oceans. 3. Mars may still be partially habitable as well. It may possess a large northern shallow sea, volcanic activity, and an atmosphere not yet lost to space. Some explorers, looking for a new home, may see this Solar System and think "JACKPOT!" now there's some easy terraforming (or xenoforming) for our oxygen breathing, water-loving, carbon-based hypothetical aliens. Even Titan may still be relatively warm, retaining much heat from it's formation (and plenty of radioisotopes still going) and have some H2O-ammonia pools on the surface. This is just a prediction of my own, however, as we still aren't sure if Titan was formed from Saturn's disc or from a series of impacts. If impacts, this makes a warm Titan more likely (at least for a short chunk of geological time). Sure the sun is cooler but greenhouse effects and residual energy are helpful in this situation. It's an interesting thought to truly see through time and realize that we truly live in a different place now vs. then. And in the future, as the sun swells, the Outer Planets may be home to a new type of (temporary) habitability as Titan, Europa, Callisto, and even Pluto thaw for a few hundred million years! In fact, we may be situated in the least habitable period of our Solar System's long history and future! If anyone else has backgrounds in planetary science/geology or an interest feel free to chime in. This could all be wrong, after all I'm not a scientist I just read alot.

So I used to have alot of old books. I collected stuff from my grandparent's house (they gave me tons of science books, many dating from 1920-1960). In addition they had some cool old Silver Age comics (long since lost), but I digress. There is one book I remember. It was a guide to the Solar System written in the 1930s. It was just so interesting and had very well done planetary artwork. I remember Mercury being depicted as a blackened, volcanic hellscape with no atmosphere but copious lava flows and lava seas. Venus was (rather ahead for it's time) depicted as a hot, dry, wind scorched desert planet with vast fields of yellow dust and wind carved rock formations. Mars, of course, had a large section discussing seasonal blooms of greenery and the possibility of surface water. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING was known about the outer planets. I don't even remember if Jupiter was discussed as being a gas giant or not or simply a large, mysterious world with a thick atmosphere. Oh and the moon was seen as being so EPIC with sweeping rock formations, mountains, and valleys. More of a dead terrestrial world then the cratered Selena we know today. Anyways I always thought these old, pre-space age views of the Solar System are simply fascinating. I can't see to find any of this old artwork on the internet (if it's even here). I know many of the planets in KSP are modeled on old, pre-space age views of the planets of our Solar System. I enjoy seeing how our views have changed as we discovered more and more and wonder how many of our current ones (even after space probes and exploration) are wrong. It's like slowly peeling away a veil and replacing more and more speculation with hard evidence. If anyone has access to old (and I mean OLD) space art, let me know. I want to see the volcanic plains of Mercury again and maybe take a dip in the carbonated seas of Venus? Hehehhe

Yea you aren't really playing KSP if you don't house rule it. I do sometimes put one of those tiny DERP life support bags in storage for emergencies. I then attach it to the ship (if things get bad) and use it attached (that is, until it runs out, then goodbye crew). Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. I don't do any "attach, reattach" stuff. I just look at it as an emergency supply kit.

Awesome that's a great summary of the USI warpdrive! I use nearly all the USI mods and have been eyeballing that one but was a bit intimidated by it. I figured it was definitely not a "magic bullet" since that's not RoverDude's way. The whole 1 hour RT "burn" scares me a bit. I'm so impatient I've wasted precious delta-v just to slap on more LV-Ns so I don't have to wait! But this seems worth it to see some awesome sights. What somebody needs to make is a wormhole network for Galactic Neighboorhood. Make it a challenge to reach it and enter properly (gravity gradients and other fun stuff with bad approach vectors). I think you have inspired me to give it a try though on a day off when I have time to burn, pun intended.

My vision for another KSP (a remake I suppose) would be built on a dedicated engine (I mean look at Space Engine, and that's just one person) with more complex physics. I want a strong foundation built but fundementally the same game. Strong framework for mods. Essentially, I would like to see veteran players (those with coding experience and many of the modders-turned-devs) rebuild the game from the ground up for strong performance, graphical updates, and stability. Let us do the rest of the work. Basically, I would like to see Unity tossed aside. Oh and the only stock change I would like is some randomness to the Kerbol system. World seeds that move planets and moons around and make each game a totally new experience of discovery. I mean, that's what really draws most of us here (I still avoid exploring every world so I don't see it all yet and I've played for years)

Since I finally got all my mods arranged and 1.1.2 playable I have been lucky to get more then 6 hours of sleep a night. Somebody help me.. Even worse is when I have to be at work in 30 minutes in the morning and start playing up until the 25 minute mark. ::shakes fist::

I tried it too but then I checked out Magico's Science funding and combined it with State Funding and BROKE (when it works, still very beta) and just kind of gave up on contracts and strategies entirely. Both feel confining. But yes Strategia is definately onto something. I'm going to wait until it's fleshed out a bit more and then start a career using it along with Science funding and BROKE and try something different. I just hate contracts more then anything (I take them for extra $ but prefer grand visions over "do x to x over x". I do wish there was a stock system that had broad strategies that generated contracts instead of random contracts. Like you choose a few strategies and just get contracts relating to them in a progressive fashion. Even stuff like "Commercial Space Launches" that gives you the "launch sat to x" type things for $ that get progressively more intricate. We need a bigger sense of progress that still let's the player decide how to go about it. Something like the World's firsts but more integrated together.

So pretty. You really make me want to try Galactic Neighborhood. I'm waiting until I finally complete a full career with just OPM and stock system.

I'm not exactly sure myself. I can't find the old article I read months ago about iCubeSats. I think so far they are just working on the thruster system (which had some impressive delta-v using carbon dioxide I think). I believe they are intended to be used in small "fleets" so I suppose one could be a dedicated relay to the Deep Space Network. I know the upcoming InSight Mars mission is using cubesats as relays but obviously they aren't communicating directly to Earth.

Hopefully soon some of those high delta-v iCubeSats will allow small groups to launch interplanetary exploration missions on their own in the future. I would love to be able to start a "club" with a $1000 buy-in where a few dozen people can run their own little mission control with their own tiny probe. Distributed exploration, hopefully un-tethered from political nonsense.

I believe it was BROKE. That was the last one I installed. I know Magico is working on it right now.

So sorry I just found a fix. I was changing the status to "Active" when I should have used "Crew". I fixed it. Also got Notepad + for that.

I added a mod (and subsequently removed) that changed all my active Kerbals to Unowned. Like a dumb dumb I forgot to back up my save beforehand. I tried manually editing the Roster but it just corrupted the save (which thankfully I did back up this time). The Kerbals still exist and are listed in the debug menu. Any way to restore them to active status safely? Or safely edit the file? Any help or suggestions appreciated.

Thissssssss. If only. I always inevitably create my own STS system in KSP. Heck I'm doing it now. Yes, it's not as "exciting" to standardize everything and build what amounts to an Interstate Highway System in space. But damn, we were just sooo close. That and Project Orion. I always wish instead of all the exo-atmospheric nuclear testing we had just launched a pair of Orion ships. It would have produced the same fallout and they could still be up there today (or helped expand our knowledge to crazy levels). But I am a firm believer that private spaceflight will soon step up (as it already is) and bring the force of the market to get us into space in a way governments cannot. Once we make it profitable to be up there and can create a real economy in space (as in, extract resources to be used out of our gravity well) we will finally be in the future. There was no way politicians would ever be able to pull this off. We (as in regular people, aka the market) are what's needed.

For me CTDs have become very arcane and quantum in nature (as in, I can feel them coming and observation "seems" to affect them). I can go a long time before I see one. The one thing I do notice is if I do something during a lag spike (they happen on long intervals) that triggers it generally. But switching the game to my new rig with clean OS greatly reduced them. The game is totally playable now and I make sure I keep a "Backup" file in the VAB in case I do get one.

Same here. And each career game my "legendary Kerbals" have different roles. Jeb is Alan Shepard, the first into space and the crazy test pilot. Val is cool under pressure and flies the first long, complex missions. I don't see her as a backup and I like to switch it up sometimes.

Same problem here. Take your time. Moving is tough stuff: have to do it myself in a few months (yay!).

This. Yea I already went through the U4 to U5 upgrade with my other fav game 7 days to Die. It was rough for about two versions but now the game is gorgeous and smooth like butter goodness (and very little physics lag).