BLUESTREAK

A few trips into my Apollo-a-like series of missions, I was taking my solar powered lunar buggy out for a spin on the surface of the Mun with Bob and... some other guy. I was just in the process of completing the last of Kerpollo 16's mission objectives (land, pick up samples, eva report, conduct high speed tomfoolery with new rover) and on my way back to the lander (a scant 100m away) when whats-his-name went a little too fast over the rim of a crater. Idiot. The rover rolled over, both Kerbals banged their heads, rag dolled and then point blank refused to get up. There wasn't enough DeltaV in the command module to make a landing and conduct a rescue that way, but I couldn't just leave them down there, so the CMP remained as the on-orbit incident commander whilst Kerpollo 17 was being scrambled with a crack rescue crew of CDR Jeb, LMP Bill and the CMP... Well, I forget his name too. Something Kerman. Kerpollo 17 launches, orbits, and lands within 200m of the crash site with no problems. By this time, night has fallen. Jeb and Bill EVA to find one Kerbal trapped in his seat, still rag dolling, and Bob standing next to the rover, simply staring at the black, star lit horizon. Neither move. Both are listed as rover debris. Despite successfully flipping the rover back over, neither can be persuaded to move. They just stare, blankly. Batteries failing on all equipment, CAPCOM reluctantly gave the order to abort; the Kerpollo 16 command module began its long journey home. A few simple words were said on the surface by Jeb and Bill, who were more than a little weirded out by Bob constantly staring into the darkness and the rag dolling fellah on the floor. Kerpollo 17 blasted off from the Mun, never to return, leaving the dead. Per Ardua Ad Astra, Bob and whats-his-face, your noble sacrifice will never be forgotten. Or, at least, it wasn't until I wiped the save game out of sheer embarrassment.

Yeah, pretty much that - KSP inspired "you will not go to space today", which was then adopted by the KSP community as a particularly kerbalish thing to say, unaware of its original inspiration. Perhaps I suck at explaining my thoughts!

What I like about this is that the borrowed phrase "you will not go to space today" - which has undeniably become part of the KSP vernacular - was therefore technically inspired by KSP in the first place...!

I'd love to, providing NASA doesn't mind waiting for me to finish my maths and physics degree, nor if they mind waiting a few years for me to get a visa, find a job, move to the US before applying for and getting American citizenship first. Much obliged. Although, joking aside, if ESA could hold off a couple of years before they start their next recruiting round, it would be very much appreciated...

Snacks. Next question.

As an idea for the gameplay mechanic, would it be possible to only be able to use the WASDQE etc keys whilst at or near the part model? In effect, the player is controlling themselves by pushing off the walls. Away from the walls (i.e. in the middle of the model) you are unable to input any control over where you're going (or how fast you travel) until you reach the next wall - you're still able to look about using the mouse, but unable to do anything else until you get to the next wall. Allow a "grab" function to stop yourself (in the same way that you can grab handholds on EVA) to stop yourself, kill rotation, etc. In effect, the player will have to think about were it is that they want to go and how fast, just like in real life!

KOS. I can do most things (although SSTOs are rather tricky and I tend to overplan interplanetary missions to the extend that I never actually do them) but KOS... Even writing a basic asscent code is nigh on impossible for me

Just saw episode 4 - the way you originally made those clipped rocket engines was to take the connector, add 3 large reaction wheels, flip them inside the connector, and then attach the engine to that. Voila, beautiful engines! As an aside, with the new aerodynamics, have you considered replacing the girders in the truss cage with wing boards? Stick a control surface on the bottom and suddenly it's more aerodynamic, more controllable and possibly just as strong...?

Good looking parts - will definitely download once I've finished my exams. One request, if someone is looking at the animation - may someone make the way that they unfurl a little bit more... Graceful? I loved these models in interstellar, but the way they just flopped out quickly always irked me a bit. A delicate part like that should slowly unfurl, so as not to damage it... But hey, that's just what I think. Good looking functional mod, will certainly download!

As a suggestion, a more immersive voice to use for the alarm would be a female Kerbal one. As Kerbish is Spanish, played backwards, it would be really easy to do - just get a computer synthesized female voice to say the words "sobrecalentar" (Overheat) and "advertencia" (Warning), play it backwards, and bingo - immersive computerized voice! (As an aside - in real life, automated voice cockpit warnings are usually female voices, as predominantly male pilots are more likely to respond psychologically to a soft female voice telling them what to do in a crisis)

Mother of god...! It's huge! You may want to look at the editing on that one - Dipping in and out of the video while I did some work, and I was certain that I'd heard bits of it before! Perhaps it might be an idea to use the truss system on the upper and lower wings, binding them together. That way, you could make them wider, stronger, and thinner - like a biplane - giving more lift, whilst simultaneously leaving space for a large tailplane at the rear, which would allow you a lot more pitch control. Failing that, build a tail plane on the end of a long girder system behind it; that would give you even more pitch control, but possibly at the expense of parts count. The wings would have to be MUCH wider if you did that though. The reason you're going to need that truss system is that the instant you try pulling up, the wings will peel back every time - they're not strong enough on their own - - - Updated - - - I just re-read my own post. Of course it's huge, what was I thinking?

Wow! Good vid; nice and easy to understand. I was recently looking at that civ population mod - the one with all those enormous biospheres - and thinking "no, there's no way I could ever get something that big in orbit, let alone land it anywhere" - and now, I have the germ of an idea... The foot design you have there is perfect; nice and wide. What's the biggest useful payload you coul put in orbit? I'm thinking complete Stanley Kubrick style ring stations here...

Land your biggest lander on something! Or build one - I'd be very interested to know how you get those massive legs to work and support things. Was intrigued by that strut/truss system you had going on there at the end - will certainly be using that... What's the maximum sort of load it can support?

If it hasn't already been mentioned, for caution and warning sounds I would suggest looking at Ippo and Coffeman's Dang It! mod. I mean... that mod is terrifying enough without the ship creaking and groaning as if it were in the grip of the Kraken itself. Throw in a dashboard of flashing caution + warning lights...

What do the different colours on the graph denote?

It's a shame that both the science lab and the Hab module couldn't both be horizontal, it would allow them to be used in both environments - both space and landed. Still, there's engineering ways around it, so I don't really mind. Cool IVAs though, looking awesome!

What about "Water"? Translates into every language, basic raw material of rocket fuel, ties in nicely with NASA's current search for the stuff. I was very surprised that they went for "Ore"... Ah well, it doesn't really matter what it's called, it won't change gameplay.

The ultimate question is "would this game survive first contact with the reviewers?" Sadly - and it really pains me to say this, as KSP is the most wonderful game ever - the answer is no. Not at this current point. It has beautiful potential, and the new additions are all that I could ask, but no. It will still have those bugs, and features missing, and that will kill it. Saying that there are all these wonderful plans for the future, backed by a great community just won't cut it with the reviewers. The game will get poor reviews - "A great Beta, but rushed execution and buggy" - and then people will stop buying it. As someone said earlier - No bucks, no Buck Rodgers. Without a fan base that would be willing to buy the finished game, KSP dies. There will be no add ons because none will be being paid to make it.

Excellent, good call by Squad! It's right and proper that they're in the game, and frankly the alien species can be whatever they want to define, because it's their game. Judgement is still reserved until I see the models, of course

And that's an interesting point on dimorphism. There should be some subtle way of telling the difference, and not just the fact that they don't have stage 1 male pattern baldness...!

Actually, yeah. Fair point on different shades if green. But the operative word "green" should be in there somewhere!

I'm going to stay with "Project Valentina" - we know that it's an important name; short of "Yuri" or possibly "Alan" there's few names as important. We should have one Girlbal in an orange suit - Valentina - and all the others in grey suits. No more, no less. No funny colours or anything to make them different. Just like everybody else! - - - Updated - - - (And their skin should be green and the hair black, just because, well... green and black IS kerbal)

So, Girlbals it is then! About time too

Having only listened to DUNA on the other thread, before being distracted for a few months - holy wowzers! This stuff is really good! Its come on leaps and bounds. Can't wait to hear the Mun! As a complete luddite, how do I get this stuff into my audio files if I download it? I need this in my game...

Mother of god...! Thanks for breathing life into this - Ippo, Dang It! is undeniably my favorite mod and probably adds more depth to the game than anything else. Was very sad to hear that you were abandoning development, but real life is more important after all so can't blame you - well done for starting such a superb mod. Coffeeman - Glad you're picking this up and running with it. When you say animations getting stuck - How do you mean? Things like cargo bays failing to open, undercarriage not coming down, that sort of thing? Also, would there be any scope to add in forces from leaking resources? Another area to possibly consider would be solar panels slowly losing the ability to generate power over years in space, as well as slowly getting covered in dust when on a planets surface - a percentage efficiency rating, which slowly decreases, as opposed to a binary functional/failure setting...? Anyway, sounds good! Once my assignments are over I'll definitely be giving this one a whirl!