jonr

Maybe some people finally got their wish of having part(s) that randomly fail. Just no one expected SQUAD would decide to restrict the random failures to scientific instruments...

I never really paid much attention to the temperature reading before but at least according to Commissioner Tadpole's screenshot the temperature has to be measured in degree's celsius. The kelvin scale does not use the term degrees, something is just 273 Kelvin and not 273 degree's kelvin and so would not get the little degree symbol to the right of the temperature shown.

I managed to get distracted and not stick a Mun landing and burned through a bunch of fuel, that happens, this particular one was going to rescue some Kerbals from a Mun base that had no function. Due to the poor landing I ended up being just a few Dv short of being able to take my Kerbals back home to see their loved ones and sadly none of the kerbals wanted to volunteer to push. Having recently read The Martian (you should absolutely read this book if you get a chance!) I had the thought that much like in the end of that book, sorry for the spoiler here, it would be neat if a high level engineer could strip the ship down a bit. Being able to have the engineer lighten the load to get those few precious Dv would have been awesome. Ideally the engineer could have stripped off a few non-load bearing radially attached fuel tanks, maybe the landing gear after I retracted it, some solar panels, any science parts, or any part that is not load bearing. I would guess game logic wise this would mean being able to have the engineer remove radially attached components and while it sounds easy in my head might be incredibly complex to code.

I think a couple small modifications to resources (electricity and possible fuel) could go a long way to make the experience more transparent for new players. I remember my first few flights having the controls go completely dead due to lack of power and having no idea that it was due to the lack of power. Just a couple of ideas to throw out that have probably already been beaten to death in other discussions. 1. Have a warning that goes up that drops you out of time warp when any resource gets below an adjustable lower limit with a default of something ~10% remaining. You can then tap into this 'reserve' by hitting an override. I'm guessing that this is a pretty common feature in most/any real space vehicle. Though I suppose kerbals do usually take a safety third attitude towards things. 2. Far less elegant of a solution would be to have an "emergency backup systems" part that you can attach that must be manually activated via EVA or just a button that would have a small amount of necessary resources.! Larger and more complex backup systems could also be found along the tech tree as emergency resources for a tiny ship are much different than for a larger one. Anyways the details for .25 look great! Thanks SQUAD!

I only started playing KSP a few days before .24 came out and for me I think Duna posses about the right amount of challenge after Mun/Minmus. I haven't actually made the trip yet but I've been planning a kerbaled flight out there for a bit. I try to only use warp when traveling between places so I think I started planning for Duna about 114 days prior to the transfer window and now it's ~74 days away which is pretty exciting for me and the kerbals. Since landing on the Mun and Minmus I've had time to work out the maths behind the transfer to Duna, design a new interplanetary ship that I feel would be acceptable for a few kerbels (4-5) to use during what will be around a 200-300 day mission to allow for transfer windows and test the heck out of ship designs by repeated Mum/Minmus missions which have allowed me to become a better pilot (no mechjeb, FAR enabled). Thanks to the time and testing I feel pretty confident that I can embark on a trip to Duna and Ike, visit each and return to Kerbin hopefully with all kerbals intact. I'm sure after I make the trip it'll seem easy but at least in my mind it's still a pretty exciting trip and a good step up from Minmus/Mun.

My apologizes for the egregious over simplification.

I'm guessing HotRockets/CoolRockets would probably not be a contender as they are more just modifications/refinement of existing functionality.

I'm a bit late to this thread but am also rather new to the game and at least I found it instead of starting yet another thread! I wanted to weigh in that I think this is a brilliant idea! I had the same thought the other day after spending hours repeatedly modifying, launching, testing, and reverting, ... a vessel I plan to send on my first Duna mission. I have FAR installed and the blasted thing kept coming apart on Kerbin reentry which I felt would be a bit too exciting for the brave and probably tired Kerbals after a year long mission, they will deserve some rest and not explosions. I think everything I thought of has already been touched on in this thread: * Simplifying the graphics, wire-frame etc.. so that you don't get any of the excitement of the real mission. * Being able to enter parameters such as I want a gravity well that is x deep, with an atmosphere y density and put me at an altitude or Pe/Ap of z,z1 and maybe having the ability to select a biome from a list of biomes you've already explored. The only things I might throw are : * Maybe each simulation could cost a very small amount of money/time to just slightly encourage a little risk taking. * The ability to save simulations. Be able to create a simulation called Mun and then have sub items under that such as Mun landing, roving, take off etc.. so that any new craft you build you can immediately load it into an appropriate simulation. I'm sure MechJeb would end up coming out with a plugin as well that let you automate your simulations and almost provide a kind of QC for new designs. In a lot of ways this, I believe, would make the game an even better simulation of how things work in the real world space programs. Even during the Apollo missions the astronauts went though extensive flight simulations to improve their ability to fly the contraptions as well as discover flaws in the design. These days I'd be amazed if anything flies without extensive computer modeling and testing first. It would probably be too much of a change but it would be neat if the VAB/SPH were structured a bit as if you were (and yes I see the irony here) building the vehicle in a computer, had a button to run tests in a simulator and when you were satisfied could have the system print out your fancy new vehicle via advanced Kerbal 3d printer technology. Of course you would also have the option to just have the ship created w/o testing. Though thinking about it now that's is too much of a pain. Just an extra button next to launch that brings you to the simulator building with the vessel loaded would be great.

I'm new to the game and just wanted to say hi. I'm not much of a gamer but ever since I saw the XKCD.com comic on KSP I've been wanted to try it out and finally took the plunge. I'm a 4th year physics major at the University of Washington and am intrigued by a video game where the wiki tutorials do not seem to be afraid to throw math around!