What made many (of my) missions in KSP feel same-y during the ending, and how (I think) it could be fixed

[KarolOfGutovo]

When playing KSP I always get annoyed at the small amount of pods. For traditional rocket capsules we basically only have 3 conical, 3 (identical) spherical and (that's a reach since it's designed for vacuum landers) one cylinder. What I would love to see is a large variety of crew parts, some steps in the right direction happened around the making history DLC, but KSP still had less diverse pod library than real life. No matter what rocket you built, it always had almost the same appearance at the end of the mission (unless it was an SSTO or something) once it finally landed. Having different cones of various heights, and small parts designed to be stuck directly onto the pods would make the game much more interesting, maybe parts for alternative landing types? In KSP 2 I feel like that will be an early game thing, but many KSP1 players relish in continually making their way from start to midgame just to repeat, so I assume that this part of the community would hugely appreciate being able to make their ships feel more unique in the closing minutes of missions when they are descending to the green, soft grass of Kerbin.

Similar for engines, giving more non modern-US style propulsion would go a long way to making people compete for the most stylish Mun landing without needing to use nontraditional mission profiles.Soyuz got me acting up tbh

[t_v]

So you want visual part variety? I think that is going to be a given, as we have seen several new size tiers with different shapes and different pods. Additionally, there will be a variety of new mission profiles to facilitate a diverse-looking cast of final stages. Lastly, visual variety for every mission is achievable with a bit of extra effort even in KSP 1.