Sof

It is my experience that a well designed rocket in KSP is rather stable, even without many (if any) struts. In any case, it is a lot better now that it used to be. The rockets definitely shouldn't wobble when stationary on the launch pad. There is a limit to how much you could reduce that by before just letting anything with an engine and fuel get into orbit, but structural weakness shouldn't be due to bugs.

Yes to making the spaceport a bit more user friendly and a bit less spam. But as others have said, there are KSP forums on Reddit, 4chan and steam you can use too alongside this one.

Yes, that would all be really good to implement. What I meant was having medals and ribbons pinned on each kerbal, that you could see on EVA or watch them in buildings, is too far. A list of accomplishments in the astronaut complex would suffice imo.

I think medals and ribbons are going a bit far. Give them recognition in the right places, but Kerbals should be treated like our astronauts. Everyone remembers the first man on the moon, and we all remember our first Kerbal on the Mun. People don't get medals for orbiting Earth.

I got the terms mixed up a little, but my main point remains true. What I believe OP meant by no atmosphere is that there is no opportunity to aerocapture around Moho, which otherwise makes orbital rendezvous with planets in KSP much easier. No real mission has yet used aerocapture in the same way, which brings me back to my original point of why the lack of atmosphere on mercury wasn't the reason it had fewer missions.

Even though Duna is the Mars analogue, that doesn't mean it hasn't got a magnetic field.

You can reduce the delta-v needed with a slingshot off Eve. All of my "successful" Moho missions have ended with a suicide burn and no chance of returning. Also, in response to OP, I don't think that NASA or any other space agency has used aero-braking to get to Mars or any other planet. Mercury's lack of atmosphere isn't the obstacle.

No reason why Duna can't have auroras. Mercury has a weak magnetic field. 1% that of Earths. While it was surprising that it had one at all, the fact it is so weak and that its exosphere is so tenuous means that it doesn't have aurora.

Due to the way aerodynamics work in the game, you often don't need to have escape towers even in "hardcore" mode. Simply hitting spacebar repeatedly and your capsule will fall off with all parachutes intact no matter the speed or direction of your rocket.

All planets with magnetic fields and atmospheres. No real way of judging which planets in KSP have magnetic fields, so just assume any with an atmosphere and a decent rotation.

That's the thing. Kerbal Space Program is about little green spacemen in a game. KSP is their version of NASA. And while NASA is technically in the "business" of building colonies on other worlds, it isn't in the mining business. Some mission ideas do have the requirement of refuelling on other planets, but they aren't going to go and strip mine Mars and sell the rocks. IMO, colonies in KSP should simply require power and then have special bays like the science bay, but the kerbals grow food in them. Everything gets recycled, otherwise its going to be a nightmare tracking which colonies need to go out and "mine to stay alive".

Yes, but chances are you know what it will be roughly and set accordingly, and if its a refuelling station you're docking to, then you can assume your tanks should be more or less empty. Either way, using the COM when the fuel tanks are set to empty is going to be a closer to the actual value than a full tank. I never thought of doing this if I'm honest. Glad to pick up tips from this thread.

Nose cones are useful in FAR modded games. Otherwise they are just there to look pretty and don't really do anything other than act as a place holder for when Squad gets around to adding realistic aerodynamics.

Made a spaceplane, and flew all the way to Laythe (not under its own power, it had a booster stage in orbit) Fly around on Laythe for a bit then decide to go and land. The chosen beach turned out to not be as flat so the end of the "runway" is uphill. Nevermind though, I managed to land it and come to a complete stop... then start rolling backwards, APPLY BRAKES!!! Plane pivots on its back wheels and bumps the engines slightly. Both of them simply drop off. No explosion, no nothing. My plane bounces back onto all 3 wheels and the engines are lying perfectly still behind it, both resting on their nozzles. No way back into space

There are no minus Kelvins. The temperature system just isn't implemented properly.

Moho The sun is too big :S

Probably you making mistakes seeing as 5000m isn't even that high to begin with. Are you just flying straight up?

People do stuff in video games because they can, not because it makes sense. But that is beside the point. If Squad want to make a meaningful career mode, then the resource gathering (of which science is just the first) can't be spammed and shouldn't be a grind. There needs to be a logical progression in difficulty and reward. The fact that you end up back at sandbox in this current alpha version is neither here nor there. The complaints are legitimate so they should be addressed now while the game is still in an early build.

But would that work for labs that have been landed on a moon or planet as a giant rover driving between biomes? There would need to be a way for it to detect the g-force.

It depends. I've built rockets that have landed on the furthest planets with less than 100 parts at launch. I'm sure it is possible with much less. (I did have all the science stuff on) But you will miss out on some things if you can't get higher part counts. Its hard to build space stations or land rovers with few parts. Test to see how many hundreds of parts makes your game unplayable. Anything less than 150 and I wouldn't recommend it.

Hmm, I don't know. How about waiting until tomorrow when it comes out?

I'd prefer it if the resource system would be like the proposed NASA plans for manned missions to Mars. Some ideas use fuel made on Mars to fly back. I wouldn't want KSP to turn into interplanetary mining corp. The resources needed to "build" rockets are manufactured on Kerbin by companies you have no control over. The funding for your missions comes from the same place NASA's budget does. Not by selling 50000 tons of blutonium.

Taking mining equipment on every journey is inefficient. It would be sensible to build a remote controlled mining base on planets or moons and then transfer the fuel over to the manned return missions. Overall less fuel and therefore smaller launch vehicles=more money

I do anyway just to get rid of all the old mods and such that muck around with the new version. I like to try each new version completely stock before the right mods update themselves

Exactly. Obviously rocket fuel and oxidiser have different densities and thus volumes. You wouldn't be able to simply replace the mass of one with the other in the same space. And it would be pointless anyway. If you don't get the ratios right, then you run out of one before the other. There are no possible circumstances where it could ever be advantageous by any means to have more of one than the other.