karolus10

I guess I'm picking up, but I always wonder why many (or even most) Sci-fi space ships had flight deck with windows like in shuttle, I guess it's pretty useless feature in any spaceship not designed to flying/gliding like a plane.

Probably my suggestion would be harder to execute than second throttle hotkey, but how about removing "cut throttle" all together and replace it with engine control similar to one available with action groups allowing to stop (X key, double tap could be added to avoid accidental shutdown) active engines and restart (X key also) the engines disabled by this command - engines that was disabled manually or never triggered will not be affected. This mechanic will make throttle and engine controls independent allowing for setting up any throttle setting before activating engines as well as making throttle more friendly with joysticks with physical throttle. Other benefit of separating throttle from engine START/STOP would be a possibility of expanding restart mechanics, where of various types and sizes of engines could had different "cooldown" before it could be restarted again and different restart capabilities - some engines variants could work only once (like basic variants of some engines and massive first stage engines), some would take small amount of fuel during recharge or could be turn on/off right away.

I use [tab] key for precision mode (caps lock annoy me) and had set up right shift and control for second throttle controls... Also I had forward/back controls in docking more switched to throttle keys. And I use keyboard arrow keys for camera control - it's faster.

For moon lander/orbiter (3 crew on surface and back) I had one simple, but effective design. This both (lander will go back to propulsion stage and spend lander stage before leaving back to kerbin) stages are more than enough to reach mun surface starting from 80km parking orbit around kerbin and came back to Kerbin.

One feature that could be a pretty big deal after creating basics under career mode would be a mission control and flight planning - pushing maneuver nodes one step further and adding environment (improved map view, maybe with simplified overlay, so you can see better surface on dark side as well as highlight orbital planes and geographic grid) and tools to plan missions including planning target orbits and maneuvers between them as well as good tool to stop (active pause or 0x warp would be very desired as well) and rewind time into future and past so you can figure out best orbits and launch windows by trail and error, before mission ever happen. Also this way you would be able to see by yourself how celestial bodies and ships move and change over time and in relation with each other as well as it could be also framework for KSC planetarium. EDIT_1: also I would be glad to see improvements in the editor (maybe other room that will focus on more detailed constructions and creating sub-assemblies for VAB), especially improving and merging action groups and staging stack - action groups had a lot of unused potential (like programming of simple sequences) as well as making parts actions interchangeable with staging stack like adding/removing some actions (that are pretty much like any other actions in groups but arbitrarily chosen as visible in staging list) from staging list or even making custom action groups/sequences that could only exist as an entity on staging stack.

Obviously i don't know anything (it's even too early to speculate) about multiplayer, but I don't think that it would be basing on competition between players, but cooperation... You can imagine working together in space (or EVA together like in moon-base alpha) with other players to achieve common goal with other guys giving you directions from mission control. also mission control could take responsibilities of a server admin and game master (bit like in D&D... "this mission it's going too smooth... maybe I add some unexpected failure") controlling the scenario and telling the story. Also cold war wasn't best possible source of motivation for space exploration, and history shows it failed miserably after it lost it's political value.

I guess that cargo version of dragon 2.0 (even with CBM) will be a good option as well if you can accept loosing the capsule on the way back, you can push harder with sending and landing one cargo capsule multiple times as you don't risk killing people during EDL. Same convention may later occur with launch pricing of reused falcon IX rocket, as multiple reused stages may be cheaper to rent for exchange that something can more likely (slight change, but still it has less liability in comparison to brand new rocket) go wrong.

No... You're not, and you forget about this one (no advertising, it's just good). Mods aren't bad ,but use them with moderation, m'kay ? Also I suggest to had at least 2-3 copies (beauty of DRM-free games) of the game on your disk, main one (stock or with reasonable amount of mods), modded one (place where you test all mod's you wish) and possible backup of stock game, so if you overdone with mods (many mods are changing the game in way it wasn't originally designed for ,so it can cause some issues), you can delete modded installation and quickly start over from new copy. If you are steam user and you use a lot of mods you can keep main steam game untouched (also this will let you avoid situation when new update "destroyed" your precious modded game) and play on copies of your game so you can try every mod you wish. I guess same process of discovering and testing mods it's a fun on it's own and it can provide entertainment for many hours. EDIT1: On windows, I tend to use copies of KSP in "saved games" catalog, of course it dosen't matter where do you store your modded KSP copies but this catalog dosen't get much love from players lately.

I think that this may be solved by adding RCS axis settings toggle-able like winglets and control surfaces now, but unlike control surfaces it would need 6 axis settings as we had to add both rotation and translation.

I think that Minmus should stay, but it could use some art pass and make it look more moon-like. From other hand it shouldn't look like mini version of Mun, so it's topography should be much different from a Mun.

From EVA related features I most crave for having an option of free control over your attitude (free rotation like with ships), auto-orientation may be useful sometimes, but often it's very limiting as you are forced to be oriented with orbital plane rather than staying in relation to ship. Anyway, free controls option combined with chase camera could made EVA's much better. Second thing on my list is ability to bounce off the ground when you landing after jump, this feature could be very useful on low gravity bodies as you could travel pretty fast by "bunny hopping" from the ground.

I agree, hub motors are rather troublesome and I was thinking more about having one motor per axle like in Tesla cars.

I must say that I don't see much future for Hydrogen use in cars, both for internal combustion and on-board energy generation. As much as fully electric cars aren't very viable today (but it's close future with improving batteries and super-capacitors) I think that hybrids with fully electric transmission (like in modern trains) are far superior to vehicles using internal combustion engine... You still use IC engine to spin electric generator (with capacitors as short duration power buffer to store extra energy from generator and braking), but it's more lightweight and optimized for it's purpose. Also you getting rid of gearbox and most of transmission as electric motors are connected directly to the axles (4 wheel drive would be rather standard feature in electric cars).

I would agree with that, but seriously, If someone is ready to take a challenge to spend 10'000 hours for improving your proficiency at KSP you will had enough time to learn (from books + some occasional playing from time to time so you still can tell that you play this game after all) basics of some real-life rocket science or computer programming if you want to make some mods or software of your own... I guess that in this specific case You could acquire some actual skills after being inspired/motivated by KSP. But playing same game for nearly a decade worth of free time of average adult will not do any good... games are wonderful but it's only only one of plenty things to do (moderated use) during free time and variety is always good. Also I think (my personal opinion) that playing a game with longer breaks (especially for KSP, as it may feel more fresh after you come back as it's still in development as well as You can came up with new ideas over time) is better than playing same game constantly as you may overdone and stop having fun anymore.

I would actually love to see programmable flight computers (also enhancing existing staging stack and action groups into one system) so you could design executable commands run by ships, probes and rovers (this could also made signal delay an feasible idea). If anyone here remember Colo-bot will probably know what I mean. As much as this feature could be incredible, I think that it's way out of game scope and implementation would take more time than it would be worth it. Also I would not mind to start career with basic unmanned probe and half meter (probe size) rocket parts that would be used to teach basics of rocketery(and not making reaching orbit easy when you start with sounding rockets) as well as give the player set of simple parts that would be logic origin of all parts in KSP, like fuel tanks, liquid rocket engines and thrusters and rockets with solid propellant. Also I see beneficial having regular jet engine technology (or even propeller) so player could advance and start with manned planes even before reaching space with first crewed mission.

I consider Mun as my favorite destination, It's not very time consuming and can still be moderately challenging and fun. So if I had a while (this is the hardest part of the challenge) to play KSP, mun mission is a prefect choice.

Agree, as much as I like KSP I would consider playing for 10k hours an massive waste of time... that's all.

Don't worry, diapers are a part of astronaut uniform... they might be useful as dragon will not had any toilet... also 7 people configuration is designed to ferry astronauts to bigger ship, so they aren't supposed to stay there for too long.

Ten thousand hours is quite a lot... for perspective entire year had only 8,760 hours... in practice it will take you couple years of playing, maybe more.

Touch screen displays are good enhancements of MDF's (good for quick selection or switching between instruments instead using keys around the screen), but obviously they don't use touch screen nor MFD keys and knobs to navigate trough interface or data entry ,but use keys and knobs on hand controllers (F-35 mentioned above is a good example of that) and other areas easy to reach by pilot rather than reaching to instrument panel what can be very tricky... in soyuz they can't even reach instrument panel during launch and they used glorified stick to press the buttons. Other question is how much control over mission crew would had at all and if they aren't just another payload. Anyway, I guess that it's too early to talk about dragon interior as they show only bare metal pressure vessel with mock-up seats and panel so it's still long way before we'll see a real thing.

Few tips for You: Choose "chase" camera mode (V key to change camera mode) - in this mode camera is always relative to ship so you will not be confused about controls. Turn targeted ship so it's docking port is facing north or south, this way it will always stay horizontal to the ground, making approach with nav-ball much easier. Be patient, take entire maneuver slow, so you will had plenty of time to plan your approach and make necessary corrections before something bad happen. this rule also apply to rendezvous - don't try to make transfer burn with direct encounter but aim at slightly lower orbit and locate yourself behind perfect encounter so you can make second transfer with very short burn or just RCS, and gently close to your target. After you managed to dock with stock game (you should try it first for couple times, it can be frustrating but it's pretty rewarding after you mange to do this) you may try to use NavyFish docking alignment indicator as this tool makes a difference like between day and night, it's not auto-pilot of any kind but it gave you all necessary information for docking. EDIT_1: Also if you are using docking mode for controlling ship during docking you may consider to use throttle keys for translation forward/back and W and S keys for translation up/down, this change in keyboard settings helped me quite a lot.

Well, I assume that RCS propellant in KSP can be considered as hypegolic bi-propellant (mono-propellant it's possible as well but it's not a very good idea) as different fuels wasn't implemented into the game (for example NTR's still use liquid fuel and oxidizer), and RCS stay pretty much untouched since it was introduced - back then "fuel" was a single resource for rocket engines as well. I call it hypergolic, because it's plausible that it's some imaginary hypergolic fuel mix are used now for RCS and maneuver thrusters.

I'm Actually a big fan of having (but maybe not set as default as it may be tricky in few engines configurations) roll control within engine gimbals, especially with twin engine clustering. RCS with tweakable axis (like with fins now but also with translation axis settings) could be very useful, so you could put RCS thrusters only for roll control in lower stage of the rocket. Also I would like to see OMS thusters and other hypergolic (AKA RCS fuel) engines of different sizes starting with LV-1 engines family, I guess that it would make a lot of sense to use such engines that way and made larger RCS tank quite useful.

I think that bigger diameter parts are beneficial as they allow to decrease part count, other thing is that introduction of life support/food/exercise requirements (that would be smaller than in real life because of arbitrary kerbal physiology and shorter time of travel in downsized kerbal universe) and habitation modules could made longer manned travel more troublesome as sitting on chair and eating some snacks all the way to the Jool is not as feasible like during free-return trip to the mun. Of course stuff like weather, realistic throttle and engines restarting, reentry heat, radio relays for probes or fulfilling mentioned crew needs (and many more) would add more challenges to deal with as well as means of changing difficulty level if this features can be turned on or off, so new players wouldn't had to deal with them when learning how to play a game.

I don't usually use mods, but this game aren't complete without this one, amazing work... like always.