Johan-c

I just had this random thought, what about having a multiplayer mode that takes us a little step closer to how real world space programs work? Say some friends and I wanted to play. One loves designing and launching spaceplanes, another the same for rockets. Yet another likes playing around with orbital mechanics, while another enjoys the field work involved in gathering surface samples and other science data. One might enjoy logistical challenges, i.e. designing stations & refinery systems for different operational situations, and getting help from some of the others to get the parts made, and launched to where they need to be? The timewarp problem doesn't go away, but it also doesn't affect everyone: someone building rockets in the VAB/SPH doesn't care what date it is in the game. Nor, actually does the guy gathering data from some remote biome. Though perhaps he cares how fast time is going by if he's counting down to launch his biome hopper or fire up his rover to go get some more samples from close by.

Thanks! Yeah I'll probably just get into the habit of quicksaving frequently in some way (like you suggest). Then at least the worst thing that can happen when reloading, is that I don't go back quite far enough.

I haven't even been playing KSP all that long, however I have been finding the quicksave / quickload feature to be the bane of my playtime. The intention of how KSP deals with saving the game in general, seems to be that the player should for the most part be unaware that saving and loading is happening and they should seamlessly continue where they left off, every time they resume their career game. So far so good, and it sounds like a really good principle to me. But then Quicksave enters stage left, and leaves some stuff on the ground that we can trip over. What I find myself doing, is using quicksave very sparingly, because having to think about quicksaving interrupts the flow of the game. Then occasionally I find myself up the creek with a tennis racket instead of a paddle (or, more literally - with an overturned Minmus lander and all my Kerbonauts stuck on board). So what do I do? I think "aha! I know, hold down F9 to quick load!". Except then, when I do that - I realise only after staring at the loaded scene in some amazement, that the last time I quicksaved was several hours (or even several days) of real-world game time ago. THEN, after poking around the interface with a growing sense of despair, I realise that there is no way to recover from this situation. If I quickload again - nothing much changes. If I go to the pause menu and "Load Game" from there, I find that my career save has been updated right after quickloading. There's no way out. I abandoned my first career game after losing nearly a week's worth of progress this way, and last night I had to re-fly a long complicated multi-biome science mission (to Minmus. This is where the lander overturned). So. As a player, this encourages me to either use quicksave constantly, or to never use it at all. I'm not sure either one was the intention. In any case, I'm pretty sure the diabolical corner case I've now fallen into twice in one week was not intended. Please fix it? (I have to say, one good thing that has come of this, is that when re-flying last night's mission I re-designed the ship to be about 5x better than it was... which was a nice benefit, but the real benefit was that my design process improved greatly. Instead of the usual "slap it together and light the candle", I did several uncrewed test launches and discovered & fixed 8 or 9 serious problems in the process. Still. Please fix it...)

Yes! How on Kerbin are you supposed to plan your stages design to match the mission you're working on? It makes no sense, and as it stands today seems intended to be frustrating to the player.

@pTrevTrevs I've been doing Munar surface expiditions to gather samples and the like, and I'm finding that even with 700+ liquid fuel (and matching quantity of oxidiser), I struggle to get back to my station (150x150km Munar equatorial) orbit. I had to leave a lander stranded on the surface because I went about 20 degrees north of the equator. The next iteration was a few tons lighter with the same amount of fuel, and is having more success - but it is still a little tight for my liking. Based on the screenshots you've posted, I've noticed that Aurelian seems to have very little in the way of fuel storage would you mind to tell me how much it weights? Actually what I'm after, is how much dV has Aurelian got and how do you achieve such low weight to get so much dV with so little fuel? By the way, I really like your plan with ramming a lever to flip the rover right side up!

Drive in reverse during the day, to get sun on the panels?

Are there any plans to tweak the atmospheric flight model? The way aircraft lose energy magnificently quickly by simply diving, is startling if you've ever piloted a real plane.

Here you go The "grand" station of St. Joseph, with a lander attached. I call the lander, the Marxist. So it's "St. Joseph and the Marxist". Because... it sounds like the start of a bad joke? Anyway the station is a science station, two hitchhiker cabins and a big fuel tank. A brightly lit Marxist Mk3. Mk3, because quite Mk1 crashed and burned, and Mk2 ran out of fuel and is nou standing abandoned on the lunar surface. Mk3. is several tons lighter with the same fuel load, giving it far increased endurance. The rover (dark, foreground) is a Labrador Mk1. So you've got St. Joseph, the Marxist and a Labrador. I dunno, this bad joke theme kinda works for me

Does this turn into a very low orbit quite quickly? I would probably get impatient about a third of the way through and speed up to orbital velocity, thinking that the fastest way to go around is to go around low and fast. And then misjudge rising terrain like I did recently on the Mun with poor Jeb on a high velocity EVA. We'll all miss Jeb. The memorial is next Tuesday, we couldn't find enough pieces to have a burial.

Hmm! You make some very good points. It does make me wonder though, might it be worth having a refuelling depot in LKO in an equatorial orbit? It could be topped off from either Marius or tankers starting from KSC, and would make interplanetary ascent stages smaller because you'd have to lift less fuel. Just thinking it through though, I'm not sure it'd be worth it. You'd add a lot more docking operations to your space program, and the benefit would be what, 10% less SRBs for interplanetary craft? Will do! Right now, I'm building one based on the requirements in a contract... I've not thought it through beyond just fulfilling the contract, so it will have 6k liquid fuel in it, solar panels and batteries as well as an antenna... but only a single docking port, and that is poorly positioned. Based on some of the features of Marius, I might just send up a module that has the purpose of adding more, and better positioned docking ports. Either way, at least I'll have enough fuel in Munar orbit to supply surface expeditions for a good while.

You have totally inspired me to build out a proper Munar base. Till now I've been taking contracts in career mode and totally letting those guide the development of my game. While this has led to what seems to me like fast research progress, it has also spread out my efforts far and wide - I have barely landed on the Mun twice, yet have some probes on their way to Duna and Ike (actually, two landers and a communications relay - I hope the relay has a powerful enough antenna to communicate with Kerbin...) I like your approach of building out the boundaries slightly more slowly, but be a bit more thorough about it. It's more strategic. For instance, once Marius is getting plenty of fuel from mining operations on the surface, might it be possible to lighten launchers taking off from KSC for other planets, by using Marius as a refuelling stop? I imagine it might be quite practical - it's much easier to escape Munar orbit than LKO.