Beeman

I think they said that type of thing isn't going to happen, though we all agree that it'd be hilarious and awesome. If I recall correctly(which I sometimes don't), they said the most we'll see is a type of 3D decal at impact sites. Probably be temporary, too, little explosion crater.

I doubt we'll ever see individual sheets of metal that you can weld to craft in orbit...well, maybe. I don't know, orbital construction via welding parts together as an extra-vehicular activity just seems a bit much to me. We will, however, be getting some type of repair tool part which you can open up with a kerbonaut and...I don't know, take tools out to do stuff with 'em. They haven't really explained how repairing or maintenance is going to work yet, but it's gotta be planned 'cause that's a HUGE part of real space programs, spacewalking to fix, install or repair things and doing EVA science experiments. They have said that we'll get a strut gun of some sort eventually. So that'll be cool. They might even refine that idea into some form of welding, who knows? Definitely not going to be in .23, though. Basic repairing or maintenance might get in at that point, but I feel like that'd be the currency update.

It might now, but they'll likely fix those types of issues eventually. As for the topic at hand, I'd be okay with plasma engines but I don't know about solar sails. I mean, maybe, but they're a bit quirky for a game like KSP. Then again, I don't know much about them and even so, they could make them function however they felt necessary, so long as it added some level of enjoyment to the game. So I guess I"m okay with everything up in this thread, more or less.

There's going to be life on Kerbin...like cities and things and they haven't exactly ruled out microbial or otherwise small, simple life-forms on other planets. Just nothing sentient. The goal is to be like Earth but instead of Humans, you've got little green dudes with massive heads zippin' about space and that seems to be the way most people would prefer it.

I'd really enjoy it if there were more like five tiers of parts, rather than three. Then we could have rust bucket lookin' stuff in the beginning, stuff lookin' like what russia was building in the sixties, stuff lookin' like what NASA was building in the seventies, stuff lookin' like what national space programs put out nowadays and finally stuff that looks like a lot of the concept art we've seen from national or even private space agencies. I tend to like gradual but really noticeable shifts in appearance in a game like this when you're progressing forward through tech. Makes me think of like Empire Earth or Rise of Nations. Just feels really good going all the way from spear-wielding lunatics to tanks over a long match(or career in this case). Especially when you look back on screenshots, videos or whatever might wind up being stored in the museum thing they'd talked about.

And that's why it'd be nice to have things like micrometeroids in a difficulty options menu...along with other such options, that is. Toggle them on if you like that sort of thing or toggle them off if you don't like that sort of thing. Or just disable that sort of thing in sandbox mode entirely. I mean, it's career mode that needs more depth and more challenge. Everyone wins and you don't have to hassle with mods to play the game more or less how you want it to be played. But that's a different topic that's also been discussed to death. Wee~

Yeah, I get the feeling that's their goal. Or at the very least, when we recover parts, we get a percentage of its cost back to spend on the next launch. Either way, it should be good. I mean, they really want the game to be like this big, elaborate space program simulator like tycoon games of old. So there's undoubtedly going to be all sorts of fun things we'll be able to do in career mode.

Meteor showers and even micrometeroid damage has been suggested before. I quite like the idea, truth be told. They could add special fairings or meteroid shields to protect your satellites and things. In spite of what leax thinks, this wouldn't fall under random failures. Random failures is like...my engine has a five percent chance to explode. Micrometeroids are an ever-present threat, especially in some regions of space. They're a HUGE real-world consideration for space programs, so I don't see why they should be left out of KSP. Besides, we're going to need more things for our kerbonauts to spacewalk and repair once we get toolboxes and what-not. Just having them fix wheels and parachutes is a little drab. I'd like to have them actually maintaining parts as well, just like real astronauts need to. Maybe have them cleaning solar panels or fiddling with wires to keep things in tip-top shape. KSP can always use more depth of gameplay or just more things to do in space and with your crafts~

Fairly certain that this is planned. Reusable parts or crafts are a major consideration for real-world space programs. They already have a recover option, too. But since there's no currency involved just yet, it doesn't really do much besides deleting debris. But the way it's supposed to work, if I recall correctly, is if you're recovering a part very far away from KSC(but still on Kerbin), recovery isn't as valuable as if you were recovering payloads and parts closer to the space center. Kind of excited about that.

They seem to consider most of the stuff we've got in-game right now to be placeholder. Like, they said KSP is going to be a massively iterative process. Everything's they add is going to be reworked at least once. Granted, they've already reworked all of the rocket parts once or twice, but there's no saying they'll never do it again, especially now that they've got some more artists on-board. I wouldn't be surprised if they overhaul the models AND textures at some point, though it'd probably be long after career mode. I mean, they've never updated any of the spaceplane bits, so I think those are the next already existing parts we're going to see get a visual(and probably functional) upgrade. Someday, anyways

We kind of have something like that, the multi-couplers or whatever they're called. I don't know what parts they've got planned for the future of vanilla KSP, though. I guess we'll have to wait and see

Clouds and weather are planned, but it's probably going to be a long way off yet. There's bigger things they need to get done first, like career mode.

Well, don't be so offended by it. I mean, this isn't the first time colonization or alternate game-modes have been discussed. Career mode is already in development and there WILL be some level of colonization, though I don't think they've quite figured out what all they want to do just yet. They might even hold off on some colonization mechanics for an expansion, they'd talked about that before. The reason threads get shot down so quickly is because things like this have been discussed to death in a variety of different angles and potential implementations. Since the average forum user isn't exactly new to the forums, it's a bit tedious to see people suggesting the same stuff over and over and over. So just try not to be offended when people say your suggestion's on the do not suggest list, even if the list is a big vague, you can almost guarantee that your idea has been suggested before when people are pointing out that there list there.

The rate of development is actually quite fine, regardless of what some people seem to think. They're certainly faster than some bigger studios at pushing out content and updates on a regular basis. Games like MWO, Firefall, War Thunder and many others come to mind when I start thinkin' about speed of development. Compared to those, this small handful of people working on KSP are really powering through updates and making major progress every update. Granted, it takes anywhere from one to three months per update, but as an example, MWO puts out one, maybe two mechs per month and it took them over a year to get things like ranked matchmaking and 12v12 matches stable enough to play. Compared to that game alone, KSP is kicking butt XD Just relax and take it easy. KSP has already made lots of money for SQUAD and the developers and will continue to do so. There's no need for a kickstarter campaign...and I think people would react negatively to it at this stage of development anyways. So just enjoy what we've got and look forward to the next couple updates like the rest of us(or most of us, anyways). Wee~

Well, they had talked about crew training before, so maybe their outfit markers will change based on what you've got them trained to do. Or maybe they're going to implement full-on uniform customization like a bunch of people(myself especially) would like to see. Either way, it should be good

This is a fairly old suggestion, having new ways to navigate the parts menu. I'm not sure what the devs have planned in that area, but they're probably going to tweak or fully redesign a lot of the UI elements. Maybe. Either way, there's mods that let you sort, group and organize your parts as you see fit. I used one of 'em for a short while, though I forget which. It was pretty good stuff.

Pretty much all of this stuff has been suggested quite a few times in the past. Granted, that doesn't make them bad suggestions, just a bit redundant. That said, they're undoubtedly going to add more rover parts at some point but for the time being they've got bigger fish to fry. That gigantimo fish being career mode, of course. The test track thing has been suggested before, too and I've always thought it was a good idea. Could be little bumpy areas, ramps of varying length and inclination, rocky/unevenly bumpy areas and so on. Would just be fun, though with subassemblies right around the corner, I think a rover/payload assembly building might be kind of needless since you'll be able to build things with mirror symmetry in the spaceplane hangar then load them as a subassembly into the VAB.

I remember Harvester mentioning something like adding the kerbalizer into the game...but he was sayin' that it'd be somethin' they work in way later. It'd probably have to be limited, too 'cause some of the options are a bit silly, like having a keyboard or whatever. But the badges thing has also been suggested recently. I quite like it. I also like when people suggest customizing uniform colors, the uniforms themselves(though in small ways, nothing too complex), rocket colors(like the DoW army painter) and so on. More depth of gameplay and more customization are always, always welcome additions to a game like KSP and I'll always support suggestions for such things

There's actually been plans by the developers to have other solar systems as an endgame kind of goal. There's supposed to be a couple of them that're like...well, like the Kerbol system. They're always the same every time you start a new game. But beyond those, there's supposed to be procedurally generated solar systems. You get to them using some kind of FTL warping, which the developers also talked about at least once...though very briefly. That was, of course, after you discover those other solar systems with your observatory(or orbital telescopes or something). Of course, that's all subject to change. I think a lot of that stuff, when they'd talked about it, was just them thinking out loud(on the internet >.>) so who knows what's going to make it into the game or how it's going to be changed by the time they get around to working on such features.

As mentioned, it's most certainly a planned feature already. You're going to use the observatory at KSC to discover planets and things before you go trying to send probes and such there. They'd even mentioned using it to discover nearby star systems, as you suggested. The planned endgame was, of course, FTL warping to other solar systems that you'd discovered via the observatory. What I hope for(and many other people, I'd imagine) is that we can expand the observatory mechanic by dropping orbital telescopes into space, like we do in real life. That'd be fun. More things to do is always good for a game like this.

This has actually been suggested loads of times. Better organization in the load menu and being able to use folders or categories when loading ships or parts or whatever. I've even seen the snapshot idea for crafts so's you know which is which if you've got a lot of similarly named vessels or haven't used them in a great while. I expect they'll implement something along those lines at some point. At least, I would hope so.

I kinda figured out the fuel transfer thing on my own accidental-like. Otherwise, there's the wiki that shows all the controls and what-not. That said, they're probably going to change the way you do fuel transfers and things between parts, so complaining about how it works at the moment seems a bit silly to me. Right now fuel transfers are a pain in the neck to deal with anyways, 'cause it's so imprecise. Even knowing how to do it, I rarely utilize it

They're going to integrate the kerbal spaceport directly into the game at some point. So, while some people like myself might prefer having KSP more integrated into Steam and having Steam Workshop functionality, we're essentially going to get it in the end even without Steam. So yay~

The developers are strictly against random variables causing parts to fail or what-not. The closest thing I could see them implementing would be maintenance, where parts lower in efficiency over time, requiring spacewalks to boost them back up to maximum performance but even that is probably against their wishes. Imagine poppin' out to clean the solar panels on your big, huge space station, though, every so often. Might be a mod someday, though. Maybe >_>

There was a pretty good discussion about something like this recently. Kind of. It was about a chalkboard or whiteboard or something like that, kind of like the one they used to plan out Apollo oh so long ago. Here's the thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/43440-Mission-Control-ChalkBoard?highlight=chalkboard There were some good ideas in there, if I recall correctly. They could even implement text bits in a written-lookin' font like comic sans or something for working out rough calculations(perhaps an in-built give-or-take addendum to your numbers) for figuring out the rough requirements for burns and things.