SkyRender

I think you've got your finger more or less on the pulse of the problem, actually. Quite a lot of the problem with tech trees in general is that they are designed with the most challenging components available earliest, with the parts that you can actually learn the game's systems on hidden away a few nodes off (or at worst, at the dead end of the tech tree). It's a classic shortcoming of game design: focusing too much on the numbers and not enough on the balance between skill required versus rewarding pay-off. A proper tech tree provides options that are completely reliable at the early stages, but give somewhat sub-par performance. The nodes that follow give better-performing items that require more skill to get that performance. The thing is, the Terrier is an entry-level engine for what it does: it's a low-thrust-high-ISP engine with good maneuvering that's an obvious choice for an upper stage engine. Putting it on the fourth tier completely misses this fact.

The jet engines work fine. The main problem is the heat system: it's too unforgiving for spaceplanes. There are absolutely no reliable means of cooling, and the heat build-up ends up being completely stupid-fast as a result, going from 1000 to 3000+ in under 5 seconds even at mach 2. It's especially ridiculous when this happens at 0.01atm density. That's not how shock heating works!

I cannot help but notice that almost 100% of the successful spaceplanes in 1.0 use RAPIERs. That would fit with what I've noticed in my tests: they're the only jet engine at this point that can operate properly at high altitudes. Of course the basic jets are useless high up, and the turbojets (as I noted) pretty much either burn your plane to cinders thanks to the absurdly unforgiving heat system or just fail to give you any meaningful thrust at the higher elevations with no middle ground.

I find that part of the problem in adapting to the new system is that the turbojets in particular don't like to behave themselves. Your angle of attack now has a major impact on ram air intakes, moreso even than it does under FAR. They also seem to have sudden bursts of thrust when exposed to a stronger airstream. This can lead to situations where the exact same angle and speed, under different conditions of reaching it, can result in either rapidly losing power to the engines or pushing so hard through the air that your craft's front end disintegrates in a wave of unrelenting heat.

Huh! I'm impressed that it was something that amazingly specific, and even more impressed that it was tracked down so quickly. Thanks for the heads-up and fix!

Honestly, he did better than I expected...

I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to happen. After completing a series of contracts related to the Mun, I expected contracts for Minmus to start popping up as per usual. Instead, Pol of all places started appearing on my contracts list. The usual lot of contracts (plant a flag, transmit/return science data, build a base/station) started popping up as though nothing out of the ordinary were going on. Why do you suppose my Kerbals are suddenly so fascinated in Jool's speck of pollen that they'd favor contracts going all the way out there over visiting its bright-blue analogue in Kerbin orbit?

It's hard for me to judge KSP 1.0 harshly. I have seen games less stable and far less fully-featured make it to 1.0 before, and also seen those very same games grow into something far greater than they were at 1.0 as development continued. We're somewhat spoiled when it comes to this sort of thing, as we tend to expect a level of completeness and thoroughness of testing that basically only the most profit-healthy game developers can afford. I find that, with indie games (even popular ones), you have to accept that things are never going to be quite "just right", but that they'll also remain in active development long after the IPO (which is not true of most big-name titles, DLC and bugfix patching aside).

Most of the issues I've seen people have are related not to any actual problems with the game, but rather problems inherent in their design strategies. The whole "capsule flip on re-entry" one being a prime example: those of us who didn't use FAR and/or DRE before this didn't know that keeping center of mass on the re-entry component towards the heatshield end was critical to not burning up. A lot of us also aren't aware of the very real risks with letting the components beneath your capsule act as a makeshift heatshield: heat transfers through them up to the capsule, just like in real life. The reason heatshields even work is because they're ablative (ie. they keep their energy contained), ergo the heat does NOT transfer through them. These are lessons that a lot of us have to learn the hard way, there's no getting around that. As someone who already learned those lessons from FAR and DRE, I don't find them anywhere near as trying as other players will.

Hey, I like the update well enough. Most of the issues I take with it are pretty marginal, oftimes even petty. It's my favorite KSP update yet, and that's saying something.

Not particularly underwhelmed, but slightly disappointed about some things. Certain bugs I'd hoped would get fixed did not, and some new issues that have popped up as well. For the most part, however, this update is quite solid in my book.

It really makes no sense otherwise. Why would you be unable to get acknowledgement of your accomplishments simply because you didn't file with the KWFS beforehand? That's now how world records work. More to the point, it can and will cheat many players out of a huge number of rewards for exploration, particularly with the new stipulation that you have to get two craft to rendezvous in low-Kerbin orbit before you can get any contracts involving landing on the Mun (let alone exploring Minmus or the solar system at large). Paying homage to human space flight progress is fine, but players being free to do things their own way without fear of losing out on a ton of rewards simply because they didn't do their best imitation of human space flight progress is a big part of the promise of KSP.

I'm not really liking how certain contracts only come up in fixed order. Why do I have to perform an orbital rendezvous around Kerbin before I can get a mission to circularize around and/or land on the Mun? Does not compute. I mean sure, that matches human space flight progress better, but it limits players new and old alike with rather arbitrary requirements which ultimately just cheat you out of a lot of funds, science, and reputation if you decide to do things any way but the "expected" way. Definite suggestion for 1.0.1: make all of the World-Firsts contracts into auto-contracts. It makes zero sense otherwise. "Oh, you landed on the Mun already? We expected you to rendezvous first, so you don't get squat! Sorry!"

Or you can just click on the Store option. That takes you to the same page.

And just like that, the site is live. KSP Store users rejoice!

Loved the new KSP 1.0 trailer. It's on the Steam store page for KSP if you haven't seen it yet.

At this rate, we may well get double the posts of the 0.24 hype thread. That would be impressive.

Wait, is something happening today? Why didn't anyone say something!? (Kidding, kidding...)

We'll just need a new conductor for the end of the journey. Any candidates?

Oh, is this still going? I popped off to have breakfast a few pages ago. Dunno why I expected it to slow down at 3000. Misplaced optimism, perhaps? Anyway, 25 to 75 minutes to go.

Even though I don't recommend doing it, this song will probably be relevant for quite a few people here today:

That's half the fun. It's like the countdown to midnight that keeps restarting every 10 seconds because nobody thought to bring a digital watch!

This thread needs more hype boosters. That might be enough. Wait, no, scratch that, we need more. Where's Whackjob when you need him?

I dunno about anyone else, but I slept just fine. 7AM's not even particularly early for me to wake up. Goodness, so much hype...

Only 771 more posts before we match the 0.24 hypetrain thread. Counting this post, 770. Can we make it!? The preview streams for 1.0 seem to have boosted us quite a bit, but that's a lot of ground to cover...