[UNOFFICIAL/FANMADE] 0.17 Discussion Thread 3

[Trebuchet-Launch]

I've constructed a monster booster I call the Mother Of All Rockets (MOAR) which puts about 180 tons of junk in orbit per MechJeb's stats. I'm fairly certain I can do blind idiot missions to Duna with such a beast. Of course, I plan more elegant missions, but it's nice to know brute force is an option.

EDIT: And 76 tons on a solar escape orbit. Wow!

Edited September 16, 2012 by Trebuchet-Launch

[Ekku Zakku]

I want to see pics!

[Trebuchet-Launch]

I attached a shot of it on the pad. It's assembled from a mix of stock and NovaPunch parts. I'm actually fairly certain I could build something even more ludicrous. The community spacecraft exchange is going to have some real monsters, I think, for planetary missions.

[AD-Edge]

Quicksave is your friend.

Yeh quicksave is a nice safety-net to have.

I look forward to there oneday being a 'hardcore' mode though, one of the many KSP related things Ive been thinking about lately. There would be no quicksave, and there is no 'end mission'. Every crew you launch has the potential to die then and there on the launchpad, or a million miles from home. All with no way to save them or revert back to a previous save in the event that something goes horribly wrong. Youd certainly end up valuing your best pilots/astronauts more, and probably end up only putting them on rockets that have been tested and are safe enough for the more major missions. And rescue missions would suddenly be much more stressful and demanding, not to mention everything becoming more rewarding (in the event that things go well!)

I imagine this could be a setting for the single played 'campaign' mode. It would certainly be interesting to see if the Kerbals became more 'embedded' in the game experience too.

As in youd have stats for each of the Kerbals back at the KSC in some building which dealt with the hiring and training of Kerbals and keeping track of their career details. Perhaps you could even give them medals as well.

'First kerbal on the Mun', 'First Kerbal on Duna', a medal for visiting a large amount of moons/planets in a lifetime, a medal for bravery - saving 'x' Kerbal lives during rescue missions and so on.

You could view a summary of the events of a Kerbals life, whether theyre still alive, retired or KIA.

[AviatorBJP]

So, I have a quick question about the .17 update. I found KSP when in was already in .16, so I am unaware how I need to treat an update. I see the "check for updates" feature, but do I need to delete my persistent file and/or .16 mods? Will it restart my saved game automatically?

[Exclipse]

I don't think updates affect your current save game. However this one adding new planets might be different.

[Ekku Zakku]

I look forward to there oneday being a 'hardcore' mode though, one of the many KSP related things Ive been thinking about lately. There would be no quicksave, and there is no 'end mission'. Every crew you launch has the potential to die then and there on the launchpad, or a million miles from home. All with no way to save them or revert back to a previous save in the event that something goes horribly wrong. Youd certainly end up valuing your best pilots/astronauts more, and probably end up only putting them on rockets that have been tested and are safe enough for the more major missions. And rescue missions would suddenly be much more stressful and demanding, not to mention everything becoming more rewarding (in the event that things go well!)

I imagine this could be a setting for the single played 'campaign' mode. It would certainly be interesting to see if the Kerbals became more 'embedded' in the game experience too.

As in youd have stats for each of the Kerbals back at the KSC in some building which dealt with the hiring and training of Kerbals and keeping track of their career details. Perhaps you could even give them medals as well.

'First kerbal on the Mun', 'First Kerbal on Duna', a medal for visiting a large amount of moons/planets in a lifetime, a medal for bravery - saving 'x' Kerbal lives during rescue missions and so on.

You could view a summary of the events of a Kerbals life, whether theyre still alive, retired or KIA.

Wow, I love this idea...

[Darston]

Yeh quicksave is a nice safety-net to have.

I look forward to there oneday being a 'hardcore' mode though, one of the many KSP related things Ive been thinking about lately. There would be no quicksave, and there is no 'end mission'. Every crew you launch has the potential to die then and there on the launchpad, or a million miles from home. All with no way to save them or revert back to a previous save in the event that something goes horribly wrong. Youd certainly end up valuing your best pilots/astronauts more, and probably end up only putting them on rockets that have been tested and are safe enough for the more major missions. And rescue missions would suddenly be much more stressful and demanding, not to mention everything becoming more rewarding (in the event that things go well!)

I imagine this could be a setting for the single played 'campaign' mode. It would certainly be interesting to see if the Kerbals became more 'embedded' in the game experience too.

As in youd have stats for each of the Kerbals back at the KSC in some building which dealt with the hiring and training of Kerbals and keeping track of their career details. Perhaps you could even give them medals as well.

'First kerbal on the Mun', 'First Kerbal on Duna', a medal for visiting a large amount of moons/planets in a lifetime, a medal for bravery - saving 'x' Kerbal lives during rescue missions and so on.

You could view a summary of the events of a Kerbals life, whether theyre still alive, retired or KIA.

SECOND! I like the idea of mission failure having consequences, and mission success has rewards. Like the more missions a Kerbal has flown the more experience he has so the better he pilots the ship. But if he crashes and dies you loose all the training and experience that he had. I agree that this would make rescue missions of trapped skilled crew members much more stressful/demanding, but if successful a very rewarding endeavour. Also would be cool if the Kerbals could get injured not just killed in a crash, then they would have to spend time in the KSMC (Kerbal Space Medical Center) recovering for a time before you could use them again. The worse the crash the worse the injures (up to and including death) and the longer they have to recover. However not sure this would be that viable if people could just speed up time until the injured Kerbals got out of the hospital. Would still be a cool RP element though.

A second thought about Kerbals getting exp/skills. Having a really skilled/experienced crew could not only make them able to keep the ship more stable like the SAS & ASAS, make the ship better and easier for you to control, and also make your ship more fuel efficient. Added to this could be the need to have a crew with good enough skills to even get to some of the other planets. Then maybe if they come back from a successful mission some of their experience they learned can be added to the training program for new Kerbolnauts still in the KSA (Kerbal Space Academy), that way if you do happen to crash and all of your most skilled crew dies you don't necessarily have to start over from scratch. There could maybe even be a way to add training for failed mission as a "well that didn't work, lets not do that again" type thing. Because you can learn from mistakes as well as success, (especially in the beginning) But you can choose how much training to give a kerbal you recruit, the more they are trained the longer it takes before they are ready. I also think that a freshly trained Kerbal no matter how much training he did is not equal to another kerbal with actual experience. But what you can do is make it so they are ready to attempt more dangerous missions without having to do all the small stuff first.

Now for a third thought. From the looks of it there will be a budget/resource system in the game at some point. I have a few Ideas about that too. First off training takes time, time costs money, so the higher you train your Kerbal in the Academy the more it will cost. Then once you have all these well trained and experienced Kerbals, you actually have to pay them to go on missions, the more training/exp the higher their salary. Also if they get hurt it will take money to heal them, the worse they are hurt the longer they stay at the med center and the more you have to pay to keep em alive until they are full healed.

(Sorry for rambling, I just keep getting Ideas. Might be the sleeping pills I took just before reading the forums as I am getting into bed.)

[Darston]

Wow, I love this idea...

I also love this idea!

[RavingManiac]

Anyone know if jets will work in extrakerrestrial atmospheres? They wouldn't in real-life due to lack of oxygen, but it's possible that they will in KSP for gameplay reasons.

[Exclipse]

Depends, as Venus which Eve is modeled after does have an atmosphere the jet engines would work in. Only a portion of it though. I believe it is 50km to 70km above the surface that venus has an "earth breathable" atmosphere.

Of course above that your engines won't get the oxygen they need and below that the air would be to hot/high pressure/wrong gases.

[Rickenbacker]

Yeah, a 'hardcore' mode would be awesome, with auto-saving regularly (after each mission or more often) and no turning back - one save file only. That, in combination with some kind of skill and/or upgrade system for the crews, would really give you some incentive to keep them alive. Check out the new Xcom in October for an example on how to do it right (yes, I've played it ).

[Winter Man]

Just a thought: Would cyclers actually work in KSP? Because don't ships that aren't under your control ignore SOI changes?

[ModernArc]

I think the biggest thing I'm exited for is, 4 more planets, and 6 more moons! Can't wait!

[swiftgates24]

(Last edited by HarvesteR; 27th August 2012 at 15:29.)

Harv, I suggest you change that date to 16th September 2012 for all of our sanity

[rhn94]

You know what i'd like to see? Triple monitor & Dual monitor support so i can put my instruments and panels off to the side and i can take super wide screen shots .. that would be awesome

[LukeTim]

I look forward to there oneday being a 'hardcore' mode though, one of the many KSP related things Ive been thinking about lately. There would be no quicksave, and there is no 'end mission'. Every crew you launch has the potential to die then and there on the launchpad, or a million miles from home. All with no way to save them or revert back to a previous save in the event that something goes horribly wrong. Youd certainly end up valuing your best pilots/astronauts more, and probably end up only putting them on rockets that have been tested and are safe enough for the more major missions. And rescue missions would suddenly be much more stressful and demanding, not to mention everything becoming more rewarding (in the event that things go well!)

I imagine this could be a setting for the single played 'campaign' mode. It would certainly be interesting to see if the Kerbals became more 'embedded' in the game experience too.

As in youd have stats for each of the Kerbals back at the KSC in some building which dealt with the hiring and training of Kerbals and keeping track of their career details. Perhaps you could even give them medals as well.

'First kerbal on the Mun', 'First Kerbal on Duna', a medal for visiting a large amount of moons/planets in a lifetime, a medal for bravery - saving 'x' Kerbal lives during rescue missions and so on.

You could view a summary of the events of a Kerbals life, whether theyre still alive, retired or KIA.

I agree there should be a difficulty setting like this, though I think it should be called Kraken.

[AviatorBJP]

Yeah, a 'hardcore' mode would be awesome, with auto-saving regularly

I honestly didn't know about the quicksave... I guess I have been playing 'hardcore' due mostly to ignorance.

[calzila101]

well I'm mostly looking forward to making far reaching ships but what I've been thinking is they need to do some sort of weekly beta testing stuff, that would be cool

[LaydeeDem]

well I'm mostly looking forward to making far reaching ships but what I've been thinking is they need to do some sort of weekly beta testing stuff, that would be cool

They had that, but because this forum is filled with whiny 12 year olds, they stopped doing it because they got mad at the devs for letting them play a game in ALPHA (How could they be so horrible to give them early access to the game?) So now we have experimental being tested by those on the private testing team.

[Mode7]

I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of gravity slingshot I can get out of Jool. My first mission to Jool is going to be an unmanned craft to tour the moons and then get into an elliptical orbit and try to fling myself out of the system with a burn at periapsis. The way I understand the Oberth Effect we should see a much greater efficiency with such a larger body. If I can get the hang of this I think this will be my ticket to any future planets that are added beyond Jool.

Another issue with Jool could be radiation. If I am remembering this correctly Jupiter's moons receive more radiation from Jupiter than they do from the Sun. If it isn't an issue in .17 I could see heat and radiation problems being added to Joolian exploration in a later version. So as you descend into the planet's atmosphere you would be dealing with massive amounts of heat from friction, heat from radiation, radiation blasting the crew and/or equipment, and of course rapidly increasing pressure. With the odds stacked against you like that I think even Jeb would decline that mission. Maybe.

[jenskerman]

I'm not sure about the new status update; All the things with the green captio are already done, right? So they're almost done with 0.17?

[DeadlyPear]

Just a thought: Would cyclers actually work in KSP? Because don't ships that aren't under your control ignore SOI changes?

I'm pretty sure things that aren't under your control still do SOI changes, for example I can some debris in an extremely eccentric orbit that went a little past Mun orbit, and sometime the debris would get thrown off because of switching SOIs. The orbit 'lines' did seem a bit glitchy though, so it's best to test it out.

On Topic: Nuclear-Thermal Engines, that is all.

[Richy teh space man]

Harvester posted some updates:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/entry.php/108-0-17-Status-Update-1

[AmpsterMan]

I wonder what the Nuclear Thermal engines are all about and how they will work. Will they use Liquid Fuel? Will they be high TWR, low ISP. High ISP low TWR? 1m; 2m? It's really cool that they are adding new parts!

Also, double tap "B" for parking brake. GENIUS!