RatchetinSpace

Most of the planets/celestial bodies need a terrain upgrade, and this is certainly one of them. I'm all for it!

I would like to see both, higher quality and new planets, but I wouldn't hold your breath. New planets/moons haven't been added for 3 and a half years despite many posts about it. From what I've heard, they stopped development because most players never even leave Kerbin's SOI. Its a shame, because I'd love to see some REALLY distant worlds. Gas planet 2 and the 'fake gas giant', which was discussed way back when (super high gravity and thick atmo), and I'd love to see rings in the game. I'm in full support of adding new planets and improving their terrain, I just think its unlikely we'll see new planets soon, if ever. (We shall see with 1.3)

I think this is in the minds of the KSP devs, I just think its low priority for now. If and when they get to adding cities to Kerbin's surface, then they might add airports and different launch sites. For now, just use Kerbin-side, it does the job well and allows the devs to work on some more needed features.

What cubinator said. The way gravity is simulated just prevents this from working. How about, to simulate lagrange points, you fly a spacecraft out to pretty much that perfect orbit legitimately, and then use the cheat menu to tweak your orbit so you never fall out of sync with the body of choice. You can use the KSP wiki for orbital information, then you just have to adjust the position of the craft within the orbit. I know it's not ideal but it will get your crafts in the orbits you want.

Until a few weeks ago, the PC version hadn't gotten an update for 3 months, and was filled with game-breaking bugs. Get your facts right before going and raging at Squad.

If you're trying to do an efficient rendezvous with Jool, but outside the transfer window, you can have to wait a solid 20min of full time acceleration. I use bettertimewarp at the moment but I think we need one more dial for sure.

What if we did this: Load a craft in the wind tunnel, either via the KSC screen or as a button inside the VAB/SPH When it loads your craft is loaded inside a wind-tunnel like it is being launched, however it is unable to move within the chamber. You can fire-up the engines and indicators (like those toggleable with F12) show acceleration in m/s2, and the total burn time and delta V of said stage. You can also test staging. The wind tunnel would have toggles which adjust to different planets and altitudes. You can only access these toggles if you have taken the relevant measurements with Science modules (pressure readings in Eve's upper atmosphere for example would unlock the Eve's upper atmosphere setting). The toggles could toggle pressure, speed and gravity, to simulate any scenario you can think of. Using the wind tunnel would take only a fraction of the funds of launching a real rocket, allowing players to test their designs before launching them for real. Of-course, a wind tunnel would not test a craft to its full extent, but it would give the players a rough idea of what to expect, as well as crucial information like Delta V, Thurst to weight raito, etc, as well as allow players to test their crafts in simulated other-worldly conditions before sending them there for real. Just a few thoughts, I think a wind tunnel would be tricky to implement, however the game would benefit greatly from its addition.

Yes Yes Yes! The current model looks a bit robotic, lets get an updated one please!

Certainly I think fuel dumping is something that should be possible on Jet/plane parts. As for the water, its a cool idea but the water system (if there will be one) is not really implemented right now, so I think any changes to the way water works would come with that update. Still neat ideas though!

I play almost entirely sandbox mode, but I like the whole idea of gathering and building an archive of science. Could we make the R and D lab open in Sandbox so I can see which experiments I have done?

Absolutely awesome! Love the ambition! Keep up the great work guys!

I know clouds have been brought up a lot on this forum, but I think clouds are only half the story. Weather is often a determining factor in the success or failure of space missions or aircraft flights, be it on Earth, or at the destination. 1. Wind - Wind plays a big factor when taking off or landing with aircraft. High wind speeds and storms also cause hazard for re-entering spacecraft, and for spacecraft wishing to launch. 2. Clouds - Clouds add a layer of uncertainty to approaches, as it is more difficult to judge where your spacecraft will touch down, (especially on a planet like eve where there would be very thick clouds). It'd also add nice aesthetics. 3. Rain - Again, mostly cosmetic, but adding another level of depth to the planets you are visiting. Every day is the same on the moon, but Laythe storms would add a different perspective to the mostly barren moon. 4. Storms - Storms would combine all of the above, not freak hurricanes which destroy ground bases (although poorly built ground bases or top-heavy landers might topple) but still a deterrence from landing. Weather is something which is closely tied to aeronautics and space, and I think I'd be a loss if KSP didn't implement some form of weather system. PS: No mod I've seen has successfully combined all of the above. I've seen Kerbal Wind: And I've seen EVE: But these two do not represent a fully functioning weather system.

1. A volcanic moon like Io 2. A moon with thick clouds and lakes like Titan OR a moon with thick clouds where it snows with high winds on the surface. 3. A moon with water gysters and tectonics like Triton, Europa or Enceladus 4. Some more asteroid moons which Shepard the rings, much like Prometheus and Pandora. 5. An oval shaped moon like Methone 6. Possibly a moon with a moon (I'm hesitant to say this because there's no example in our Solar System, however a big enough body far enough away from the parent could harbor a small asteroid moon) Of course, I think the game needs an overhaul in terms of atmospheres. I think we need clouds, wind and storms that actually effect the flight characteristics of spacecraft, that'd add much more variation in the current atmospheres and also allow greater expansion on future added atmospheres.

I think you need to change the name of the gamemode to "realistic".

It's possible that the last of the celestial bodies have been implemented, we haven't seen any new ones since 0.18.2 Personally I'd like to see two more planets and moons to go with them, one ringed gas giant and either an ice giant, or a "super earth" with large gravity and a dense atmosphere. Yes

A revamp of all the celestial bodies in the solar system, including the addition of clouds and weather, including wind and rain. This sort of thing has been missed from the game for a while. Why don't you add a survey KAL 9000? Put up the most requested suggestions and get people to vote on them.

I agree, paid expansions are good in proportion, and they will extend the life of this game by providing funding for future development of the game. There are some issues with expansions and free updates should (and will judging by squad's information) remain a thing. I'm looking forward to what they come up with. Ideas for paid expansions? I would buy a weather and planet improvement pack, which increases the detail of planet's surfaces with things like volcanoes, geysers and more highly detailed ground, and adds atmospheric details such as clouds, rain, wind and storms. That would, I think, be worth paying for, and for those who don't want that level of detail or who's computers can't handle it don't have to have it.

I got stuck in a similar cycle (a while ago), trying desperately to get something into orbit. If it made it that far it generally had little to no fuel left and I couldn't get it anywhere. I ended up in a cycle of sending things to eve and parachuting the probes (and unfortunate Kerbals) to the surface. I eventually got bored and gave up for a few months. I came back after being inspired by a few tutorials and implemented them into my game. It worked out well. I still take breaks from KSP sometimes, but I still regard it as my favourite game. If I were you, I would stop watching giant space station videos and watch some tutorials instead, basics of building and launching crafts. Once you get a basic understanding of the more efficient ways to design and fly your crafts you'll have a much better time getting into orbit and landing. If all else fails, design a spacecraft with WAY too much fuel, just to give you some space to make errors (no pun intended).

I'm having the same issue. If you want you can download the full zip file from the ksp store, but I did that and my game stops loading half-way through the loading screen when I boot it up. I hope these issues don't continue through to the release but I guess this is why we have prereleases.

This sounds cool but it goes against the whole idea of a loading screen. The loading screen is to allow time for the game to load all the parts and plugins installed in the Game Data folder. If you want your craft to appear and be animated on the loading screen, you'd have to load all the parts and animations first, at which point the game is already loaded and you can start playing. So yeah, can't really see this being practical.

The celestial bodies in general need a revamp. Kerbin is pretty good, but could do with some more features like volcanoes and river deltas. In the real solar system, the Earth is not unique in its interesting and varied terrain. All of the planets and bodies (besides most asteroids maybe) have interesting geological and meteorological features. I think the bodies in the Kerbol system should be the same in that regard.

I do like this idea. Make it work for Vall and Minmus and the ice sheets of Kerbin and Laythe.

I really like some of your suggestions and I really don't like some others so I'll go through what I agree with. For starters, the sample return capsule is being added to the game in 1.2, so no worries there. Bigger asteroids would be cool to add, although as we know from Gilly, they don't have enough gravity for Kerbals to walk very well, that is reserved for the larger objects. Underwater exploration would be a seriously cool thing to add, I think just a few buoyancy parts and a revamp on the underwater visuals would be enough, as well as some ocean related Science experiments. I agree that we need more incentive for rovers and stations, and stations should require some sort of maintenance. I think a station should gain Science as it is crewed in orbit, and the location and orientation of the orbit determines the amount of Science gained over time. The Science gains can run down over time so you have to keep visiting the station to replenish the supply of experiments and keep the science revenue coming. Finally for my positives, I do think that some more IVA stuff would be good. I really don't like the idea of a warp drive, it goes against the sort of kerbal-realism involved in the game. There are mods which add warp drives and they don't really belong as part of stock in my opinion. This also applies to the extra star system. While it'd be cool to have a binary star in the game, in practice this is an impractical feature for a space program game which obeys regular orbital mechanics and simulates more-or-less the operations that real space programs undertake or could in theory undertake. Why not add one or two more planets to the current system instead of making a whole new star system? Then there are more distant and difficult destinations to explore while still staying in the realms of Kerbal-realism. Finally, I disagree with your thoughts on Dres. If you've done a thorough mission to Dres you'd know that Dres is home to a massive trench, several kilometers deep and a very interesting geological feature indeed. Along-side this, Dres is the only celestial body where Asteroids spawn in orbit, meaning you can refuel in orbit there. Overall, I think it is the fact that it doesn't look all that interesting that is meaning few people visit.

I opened this topic expecting to see the usual B9 aerospace and Outerplanets complaints, saying they should be stock(Not hating on those mods but they wouldn't do to be directly added). However, the mods you've mentioned here all have a place in the game in my opinion. KSP is lacking in Station and Base parts especially. The only problem I can see is the surface experiment mod requires KAS and KIS, and I don't think those mods in their current form are good to add to the game (Again, not hating, I actually use these). Even if Squad didn't add these directly, they could take great inspiration from them, especially the base systems.

Weather, Volcanoes, possibly Earthquakes. They don't need to make permanent changes to the landscape like their real counterparts, they can make temporary ones which dissolve away after the event has ended. And I keep on saying it, but I think KSP needs this level of depth on its celestial bodies. I do feel your concerns, and I think it should be toggleable, but events like these could be avoided. - For instance, volcanic eruptions could be avoided simply by choosing to land away from volcanic activity, at the expense of potentially gaining Science from said volcanism. - Weather could be avoided by getting into orbit before landing haphazardly on the surface. Then you could wait until a storm passes before dropping your probe in, or alternatively hope that the storm isn't so bad that you can still pull off a landing, maybe implement weather satellites which can monitor wind speed and you can determine how likely your lander is to survive. Once landed, weather would be of little concern until taking off, though there would always be the risk of a particularly unlucky storm. This is true for real space programs as well. I'm in two minds about having Earthquakes purely because I don't know how they would work in-game and they are rarely a concern in the real world of spaceflight. Most celestial bodies are devoid of any strong tectonic activity. Overall, I'm all for randomly generated events, as long as they're realistic.