passinglurker

Everything outside of the LFO tanks is a mess and a perfect example of squads neglect of the games art attests and game balance, but generally the consensus among non-realism users is that all tanks should use LFO's 9:1 fuel mass ratio because the average user wouldn't notice the difference in fuel mass fractions and thier impact on dv and would assume anything that doesn't come up how they expect must be a bug and not realistic fuel tank design. As for fuel volume ratios since squad has no consistency outside of most LFO tanks you are basically free to enforce your own standards if consistency is your aim. For example for the monoprop tanks in MoarMk1 I did +50% more units for a given tank volume (so if a Ft-400 hold 400 units of lfo then a monoprop tank of the same dimensions would hold 600 units.)

Blender is like the EMACS of 3d modelers its big and its weird but it can do almost anything given enough effort (Need to convert as dds to png and strip out the alpha in the process? Import kerbal .mu files? How about edit video? just to name a few surprising blender functions), but this powerful versatility could be its own undoing as you need a complex interface to manage all these tools. As a result some people tend to reach for more optimized tools for kerbals low poly modeling work like sketchup or wings3d before importing into blender or another large pro suite like 3ds max or maya for clean up and or UV unwraping. Zbrush though it should be noted that warsoul is the only person who goes that far. All the big name modders get by just fine without it so no one needs it to keep pace with the community.

@Balto-the-Wolf-Dog You probably heard it from here

Oh this is oooooold I gave all the model's to @CobaltWolf ages ago for BDB and he has since made better textures for the same mesh. He's got gemini stuff too

Energy: Wind turbines would only be useful on about 4 bodies (Kerbin, Eve, Jool, and Laythe (duna is too thin)) and without weather simulation it could easily become a perpetual motion device. RTG's don't scale up that big in real life they are for remote probes and rovers that run off next to nothing and so that's all stock is obligated to provide for. Whackjobing a big array of them is cool but that doesn't mean such shenanigans should be accommodated as it could easily lead to part catalog bloat. Batteries are also a case for part catalog bloat without a mesh switch feature. Geothermal isn't viable because most planets are geologically dead. Like wind turbines the role is just too specialized for stock. Wheels: cool but I shudder to think how the key bindings would work with so many degrees of freedom. Comms: that actually makes things easier as lasers offer greater range for less power than traditional radio. Failures: NO RANDOM FAILURES! *ahem* Having additional ways for parts to fail or break when you crash or are careless is acceptable but this game has an engineering element a random number generator or a breakage timer won't fly all failures need to be predictable, avoidable, and repairable by a cautious and engineering minded player

Energia had center mounted engines Space planes have thier engineering issues sure but they are not insurmountable. This thread is about the feasibility of reentering a space plane from the moon, and naturally people ask why you would want to haul a spaceplane or lifting body to the moon and back in the first place. To that I say it all comes down to a combo of what do you want to bring back from the moon (be it crew, samples, etc) and how limited are you on rocket diameter, but at the end of the day a spaceplane gives you greater down mass flexibility than a traditional reentry capsule so that is why you would potentially want to use a spaceplane. So with that logic exercise out of the way let's return to the topic at hand what sort of spaceplane could survive re-entry from lunar return velocities. Personally my money's on Lenticular craft (basically flying saucers with some winglets).

Not necessarily for example crewed dream chaser would launch without fairing or fins they pull it all off with atmosphere modeling and fly by wire. Unlike in the LUMEX days we have the number crunching power to pull it off. And besides bolt on stabilizer fins are a lot easier for ground infrastructure to handle than mega diameter rockets or you can always side mount your gliders shuttle style.

You can argue that but it'd be a silly argument a rocket the size of an advantageous space planes wing span would be silly big. Good luck getting the money for the ground infrastructure you'd need. A space plane can down mass more while launched from a thin and practical rocket that is why some one would want to haul one to the moon and back so the question becomes either do you need a big enough crew to fill that space plane, or what on the moon is worth hauling back?

A space plane gives you more volume than a pod for a given diameter making it great for returning with surface samples, large crews, apollo era artifacts, that strange ring shaped interstellar rotary phone buried under the ice on the moons south poll etc...

Ahem

Yes these parts often find their way into space planes so they should be made flush with their diameters

#lolkerbalz answer: kerbal rockets are denser than real rockets so that mass is already accounted for. Serious answer: It doesn't feel like cheating because squad never balanced the part stats. There is no plan or pattern to disrupt stock is a pile of arbitrary crap and as a result is a lawless wild west were any shenanigans go and any law is made by the subjective whims of the player. Take which ever answer you are most comfortable with

no don't give squad any justification to pull the console port shenanigans again, if you want ksp on the go just get simplerockets

@Benjamin Kerman the problem with "found by the side of the road" style parts is even if you accept them for early game these parts still need to be able to be used late game and there isn't really any faith that squad would implement a system to upgrade the appearance and description of early game parts as you progress so rocket parts need to be designed with all phases of play in mind, or in other words kerbals don't fly trash thier passion for space flight is to great to allow themselves to fly substandard equipment even when operating out of trailers tents and barns. Now with facilities there is a bit more wiggle room design wise because squad implemented and bothers to utilize an upgrade system for them so even if you start out of a barn surrounded by a collection of temporary shelters and that isn't to your taste you can eventually upgrade away from that (though this is no excuse for shoddy art on squads end production quality standards must be upheld in order to make design choices tolerable for those who disagree with those choices) @ZooNamedGames calling it "serious" is poor phrasing it's not so much that people want the art to be hyper realistic but instead that people want squad to take making the art seriously. In the past this #lolkerbalz style has just been a mask for cheap art, shoddy code, and not haveing to write useful parts descriptions. We can have it all both ways if squad would put the money and effort in. Parts can be both adorably exaggerated and hand painted while still looking like they were made by competent engineers with a few nods to technically accurate elements, part descriptions can give you accurate information about parts while still throwing in jokes, and facilities can start from humble beginnings without looking like they were thrown together from the unity asset store. there is no need for this silly vs serious nonsense everyone can be happy if squad is held to production quality standards.

the fact that the balance is so flawed that you would just blow past it is probably a contributor to this "rage". Carreer mode is very much incomplete squad basically said during the brief beta "we got the concepts of the features we want basically implemented so we are going 1.0 now we'll work out how they fit together later!" and then they never did because there is no quick buck sales boost in going back and polishing the game...

Balance wise the gap more exists between teir 1 and 2 so barring a through rebalance (that is sorely needed by the way) present teir 1 balance would become the teir 0 balance and new teir 1 would be some where below present tier 2

Assuming the shoe string nature of the early buildings doesn't prompt squad to model and texture on a shoe string as well I'd agree, and the idea that our goofy little green men are talented and enthusiastic enough about flying that they'd roll an early but still functional ,and sleek looking jet out of a wright brothers kitty hawk tent style hangar is pretty kerbal. The real obstacles are that squad hasn't shown interest in refinements and developments that don't generate an immediate influx in sales, and much of the player base now associates goofy, and shoestring with crappy quality, quick bucks, and lazy developers. It would take some doing on squads part to mend those old wounds.

um ok that's cool and all complexity isn't for everyone, but we haven't been talking about mechanics we've been talking about art assets and that is a place where realism and fun can cleanly intersect if it was allowed to. ___ As for the idea that there be a progression from clunky shoe string rockets to sleek high end rockets I say this works better for the ksc facilities than for the rocket parts them selves. Like with ksc buildings you'd need a way to upgrade the early game parts appearance, manufacturer, and descriptions to pull this off (so like starting out the mk16 parachute is found by the side of the road but by teir 2 some one like white owl picks up as the manufacturer for flavor reasons) or you'd lose some of the lego like interchange ability as you progress down the tree. This would be cool if squad did it but I honestly don't have any confidence that squad would put forth the effort to pull it off. It's hard enough just to try to convince squad to revamp in one direction alone never mind trying to get them to try and revamp in both directions simultaneously where's the quick sales jumping buck in that?

Well naturally there will always be diverging opinions like the debate about whether the mk1 cockpit should look like a learjet or a fighter plane, but it seems based on my observations that the best way to settle such design debates is to make sure whatever you make is very very well made after the initial knee jerk reactions that everyone has settles it will be harder for anyone stomache asking for a do-over after they've had time to appreciate the effort that went into it. I'll agree if squad actually took this and ran with it that trashy tropes are still a bad practice in the face of spaceplane parts and teir3 ksc, but if they do a good enough job and the two sides of the coin don't look like they come from alternate cartoon and toy universes then I don't feel like a debate over the schism would be worth having. Though it would be nice if they'd open facilities to art modding that'd render a lot of this debate moot.

Porkalike is true-stockalike. You see the the aesthetic of kerbal is fractured and made up of many layers contributed to by different artists at different times. Most of these layers are merely placeholders left over from the early development phases where they were made quick and dirty to fill thier role with the intention to refine and replace later. The artist Porkjet was the first to start this refinement process when he was contracted by squad to integrate his "spaceplanes plus" mod into stock and go on to add and replace a number of other parts as well. His work remains the highest and most consistent quality of the space plane and rocket parts in the game and as a result is the standard for ksp to follow going forward. As for bigger ion engines you'd need to get squad to look at ksp's neglected part's balance as it stands the ion engines are grossly unrealistic in order to compensate for both the lack of a long slow burn mechanic, and the arbitrary and lazily assigned poor mass fraction of the xenon tanks. If xenon tanks held more propellant for thier given dry mass ion engines could be rebalanced to be less unrealistically magical and as a result open the door to haveing larger ion engines without attracting too much attention to how silly they are balanced to make up for the lack of a long slow burn mechanic. Anyway in the meantime might I suggest @Nertea's near future propulsion mod? He strives towards the true stockalike style, and his consultant @Streetwind is a parts balance wizard.

As long as one can follow production quality standards, and some texture design references about AO and wear and tear the tier zero vab could be a beached nuclear submarine and the launch pad one if its launch tubes for all I care. But quality is indeed what is going on here people moaned at first but the new mk1 grew on everyone as the old craft files were replaced there is no arguing with quality. It is simply an unfortunate coincidence that the artists that gave us quality (b9, and porkjet) leaned towards "serious" and so that's what the user who want quality latch onto, but b9 and porkjet saw kerbals as talented craftsmen and engineers with a tendency to the occasional construction steam roller race and spontaneous launch pad dance contest. They thought you could have fun and see how spaceflight was really supposed to work at the same time, and what's so wrong with that? but I digress hey if you want things zanier then all you need to do is get squad to take making art seriously and give the same attention to detail to the barn that b9 gave to the tier 3 vab. You'll see when the initial reactions die down it'll be hard to argue against the fact that the artist did a good job.

Enough you keep trying to come back to this argument but goofy vs. serious isn't what this is about. The barn we saw was of poor production quality assuming squad can meet a sufficient level of production quality they can design it however they want, and it will ultimately be accepted. The dramatic overhaul of the mk1 cockpit from janky sci-fi anime cockpit to high quality leer cockpit is a good example of this and it could work in reverse if squad would just stop trying to use goofy as a mask for quick and dirty.

Oh spare me you guys know full well that the goat simulator genre fans among us and just as guilty of "vitriol" or have you forgotten how people whined when porkjet replaced hugo's janky anime mk1 cockpit with something up to his standards that was actually designed to make sense inside and out. The difference between these two sides (the goat simulator fans and the space simulator fans) is space sim fans want quality and you can't argue with quality. Quality can be broken down into objective metrics. Quality dictated that the leer cockpit stays and the barf barn goes. Whenever people have been hard on squad it's not directly cause squad was trying to lighten things up and make kerbals look funny or goofy it's because this goofiness has consistently just been used as a mask for grossly obvious corner cutting and pushing buggy product for a quick buck both in terms of art and code. (though by this point it may be a "where there is smoke there is fire" type reflex but squad did that to themselves trying to push krap past space fans) So show me a squad that won't put off finishing refining career mode, or revamping the rocket parts in favor of the latest get sales quick scheme (consoles, localization, minecraft adventure map maker dlc etc...) and I'll crack open blender and show you some quirky kerbal goofiness that doesn't look like kraken krap. (I'll model a barn don't think I won't! *shakes polygons menacingly*)

Indeed the astronaut farmer had a goofy launch barn and it wasn't trash. So there is nothing wrong with kerbals haveing a barn as long as it's well made

A purely chemical solution needs either mega rockets, or propellant depots and lots and lots of fuel flights both of which are unreasonably expensive without business case to be fostered outside of the government mars shot business, and developing those markets and industries to make that business case takes time. nuclear is straight out we can agree on that even if we can't agree on why. That leaves us with SEP, and Chem/SEP which can shrink the propulsion bus down to a size that can ride on existing and upcoming rockets at existing and upcoming flight rates even with the losses of haveing to use lunar orbit as a staging ground the efficiency from that point more than makes up for it.