My list of immersion features for KSP Career and Sandbox

[TeeGee]

Here are my tips on how to keep the core spirit of KSP intact while giving it some more features that enhance the immersion and wow factor of the game:

Give the player an avatar Kerbal. This avatar is the director of the KSP and you can name him whatever you want.

The campaign should start off with a car pulling up to the center with your kerbal inside, and you are given a tour of the center with Von Kerman. The previous director had an "accident" with one of the rockets and you were recruited to replace them ASAP. As a result, new safety features need to be put into place to prevent any more "accidents" from happening and to improve and inspire the rest of the kerbal race for space exploration. 

Your first job is to allocate budge for R & D and launches. Gathering science should NO LONGER be the only way to unlock new parts, but it can be used for a boost to funding and engineers. Parts require 2 things, money and engineers. And as oppsed to being able to unlock and use a part as soon as you can afford them, the parts should be researched that requires TIME. The more advanced the part, the more time it requires to research (and thus more funds). Science gathered from missions can be used to attract and hire newer engineering teams that can make the process go by faster and cheaper. 

SCIENCE SHOULD NOT BE A CURRENCY TO UNLOCK PARTS. I thought this was a silly idea since it was implemented. 

For example: Lets say you gather science from Mun on an EVA and return it to Kerbin. The science you gather is complied into your space programs science reputation pool, which in turn unlocks better engineers who want to work for you. At the beginning of the game only the craziest and dumbest engineers are part of your program staff but as you get more scientifically reputable smarter engineers start applying to work for your program. ANY engineering team can start research on a part in ANY part of the tech tree BUT it would take more or less time depending on the skill of the team doing the research. YOU SHOULD ONLY HAVE a limited number of teams, each with specific skill and knowledge level that impact how quick it takes to research and develop new tech. 

ONCE the part is built, you need to TEST IT at least a couple of times to certify it is usable for rocket craft. We as the player DON'T have to actually test the part BUT we can watch the test if we wanted to in the testing facility. Each part that we test has a chance to fail depending on the engineering teams safety record. If the part was a rocket engine, it needs to survive ignition, burn for x amount of time, gimbals in all axis (if it has gimbal ability) and survive shut down. IF a parts fails, it costs money and requires re-testing. In order to test a part we need a new testing facility. We should also be able to upgrade this facility, further improving the safety stats for each part we test. Once the parts passes testing, it is green lit for use on our rockets in the VAB.

Engineering teams should have the following characteristics:

- stupidity

- safety

- efficiency/speed

- SALARY (per unit time)

Our space program should have finite engineering teams with their own salaries, and finite slots to research parts. Engineering slots depends on our level of science facility.

Tech tree needs to be overhauled. No more progression. It should be cut up into Engines, Structural, Tanks, Utilities etc. You can research ANY part you want at ANY time. The problem is that the more advanced the part, the longer it will take. Your program becomes a BALANCING ACT of funds spent on R & D, salaries for engineers and launches. If you start your program with crappy teams and start research on the KS-25 engine, all you're gonna do is spend a lot of money and TIME on one engine part. Your goal should be to develop simpler parts that allow rocket launches to gather MORE science to attract BETTER teams to research better parts FASTER, SAFER and THUS CHEAPER.

Continued....

[TeeGee]

VAB:

Once your parts are tested and pass inspection, they are available for assembly in the VAB. I could go on for pages on how the parts in KSP look like garbage but I'm going to refrain from discussing that.. for now. 

First, stacking parts just like normal BUT once you've finalized the rocket stack, you are able to WELD the parts together. Once you weld the part, the attach node disappears and the part becomes ONE piece. In my version, once your rocket is assembled and you are ready to launch, click the WELD button and the attach nodes in your rocket become visible. If you click on the nodes, that action welds the part together AT THAT NODE. Welded sections make the rocket stronger and also decreases the part count. Depending on the size/level of the VAB, you can only weld a LIMITED number of attach nodes together. 

Radially attached parts cannot be welded to the core part. IF the radially attached part has an attach node it is able to be WELDED in its own stack.

The reason I want welded parts is because I am tired of seeing wobbly rockets. Struts should ONLY be used to anchor radially attached parts, not to reinforce core stacks. 

New part: Fuel IN ports. Rocket tanks are transported to the pad EMPTY, thus they should be fueled on the pad (which is why all of those tanks exist around the pad). Adding a fuel port to tanks allows the tank it is attached to to be fueled. If the tank is welded to another tank, the capacity of the parts are SUMMED into one tank when we right click on the part. Once our rocket is moved onto the pad, fuel lines from the launch tower (I'll cover this in a second) should be feeding into these ports. Once we open the fuel ports, fuel starts to fill up our tanks. Same thing happens with fuel crossfeeds. If you want to allow crossfeeds between tanks, they NEED fuel ports. Not only that BUT a fuel line can only allow a finite amount of fuel in per unit time. Thus if a rocket booster requires a fuel flow that exceeds the fuel lines flow rate, the engine will starve and not run once its main tank is depleted. 

Launch towers: Ok we absolutely NEED LAUNCH TOWERS. A rocket stack cannot launch without one in real life and thus nor should it be ignored in KSP. We need launch towers for many, many reasons: transport crews up to their Command pods, fuel tanks, provide umbilical power, stability, comms, maintenance etc. Towers should be built IN THE VAB as part of the stack in this manner: once the rocket itself is assembled, we have one last part to attach to the bottom, the launch pad. The launch pad has a fire trench, legs, and sound suppression water system built into the flame trench. Once you attach the launch pad to the bottom of the 1st stage rocket cluster, a procedural generated launch tower should appear from the pad like the launch clamps usually do to the height you want. At the top should be the crew ramp with white room that leads to the CM (if you have one) attached to the elevator shaft that goes all the way to the ground of the VAB. The flame trench is also procedurally generated depending on the size and number of boosters on your stack. Example: If I have a core booster with 1 big engine and 2 side boosters with smaller engines, the launch pad should have 3 trenches that are generated depending on the size of the engine, one for each engine. Each with their own sound suppression system. 

I recommend that for the BOTTOM MOST STAGE for every rocket with ENGINES attached, ONE node should appear directly center and bellow the final core engine cluster to allow for attachment of the launch pad. Launch clamps should automatically appear and attach to the rocket once we've finalized the tower height. 

Fuel: Easy. If we have attached fuel ports on our rocket that are facing the launch tower, fuel lines AUTOMATICALLY come out of the tower and attach to them in a 90 degree fashion from the tower. 

Build time: I've always liked kerbal construction time so I'm going to adopt its strategy for building rockets. Once you are satisfied with your stack, the top green button should not longer say LAUNCH but BUILD!!. Once you click it, it will ask you if you are sure? Click yes and the VAB will dump you outside and the VAB will be temporarily INACCESSIBLE until the rocket has been built. Build speed depends on the VAB level. The time it takes should be AT LEAST a week. The option to fast forward to completion should obviously exist. Every unit of time spent building, costs money. If you stop building, the parts that have already been assembled will go into storage until they are needed for another launch. Parts that are recovered are ALSO stored here, providing incentive to reuse your rockets/planes as much as possible. BOTH THE VAB AND SPH have VERY LIMITED space for rocket storage. THE SPH can hold up to 9 craft in storage while the VAB can only hold 1 complete rocket at a time. For this reason, it may be a good idea to keep planes in a hanger near the runway as opposed to wasting space in the SPH. The completed rockets cannot be stored anywhere else other than held temporarily in the VAB until they are launched. I like this idea because that means that the VAB is devoted to ONE rocket launch at a time, like in reality. 

Roll out: Once we have built our rocket, we should have the option to roll-out. Once selected, we should see the VAB doors open, and the crawler with the launch pad and rocket stack emerging out of the VAB doors slowly. We should be free to watch the rollout in its entirety OR skip it entirely. Once the crawler reaches the launch site, it sets the pad down and rolls away back into the VAB. This is SOOO important of a feature to me because it is the big reveal of our design. Once at the site, we have the ability to fuel, man and launch our rocket at our discretion. 

Launch: First staging should be the open fuel lines for fuel. Second staging is retract crew ramp, third stage is sound suppression water system, fourth is engine ignition, fifth is clamp and fuel line release etc. 

Continued...