SkyRender

Add me to the list of people eagerly awaiting the 0.25 compatibility update. Hooray for TAC Life Support!

Always prototype a new spaceplane design in a Sandbox file (or at least one that lets you revert to SPH). Figure out the problems, fix or compensate for them, and when you have the vehicle figured out, only then should you try to fly it on a save with no reverting.

I do love the Custom option, verily. Though the Administration Facility can and does completely undercut any science or reputation limits you set if you set up campaigns to convert Funds to rep/science. The scale conversion is just too massively in favor of science and reputation in those cases and it undoes the difficulty quite succinctly.

I've noted the contract refresh bug in 0.24.2 as well, actually. It's just less obvious since it was far more rare that you would get zero procedural contracts after you cleared out the first four non-procedural ones. You can watch it in action if you decline procedural contracts, in fact: unless you decline one of the "seed" contracts (which ones are seems random), you won't see any new contracts pop up. But once you decline (or complete) a "seed" contract, suddenly the list properly refreshes and new ones are generated. Even then it's still buggy; I did a mass-decline recently to test it, and ended up with fewer and fewer procedural contracts showing up, culminating in only 4 procedural and one non-procedural contract on the list where before there had been 9 procedural and one non-procedural.

Part contracts can occasionally be a bit buggy in how they spawn. Sometimes you run into the issue you have, where they just don't show up for whatever reason until you've done a bunch of stuff. It's likely supposed to be tied to reputation, except that I've seen saves with sub-25 reputation earned having part contracts become available, while a game with 100+ reputation earned doesn't get part contracts to show up for ages.

The difference is kind of hard to see up close. To wit: here's a shot of the Mun from 0.23 or so: And here's a shot from the surface of the Mun in 0.25: The difference becomes far more apparent at a greater distance:

I've noticed that the Mun's surface texture is different now, much like the grass around the KSC. Before it had a sort of grainy look to it, now it kinda looks like a gray variant of Duna's surface texture.

Career on Hard is definitely an interesting new ballgame. Though at the moment strategies make Career mode potentially a complete cakewalk no matter what you set it to.

Hard mode definitely gets a lot easier once you have craft in permanent orbit around Kerbin and the Mun that can collect and transmit science (even if it's valueless science). With a funds->science strategy at 25% and spamming the "transmit science from space around Kerbin/Mun" contracts that constantly come up, you can pretty much break any difficulty setting this way. The only real factor is how low you set funds/science rewards, and thus how much time it takes to grind out the contract spam to max the tech tree and then convert all incoming science to funds as a kicker.

I made a custom Hard one for kicks. Only differences: 0 starting funds, can quicksave, can revert from launch. I didn't even need the quicksave one, as it transpires, because even with those kind of limits, strategies can break the heck out of any difficulty curve.

So I've been toying about with strategies, and have quickly discovered that they can be quite the game-breakers if employed properly. To wit: I set up a simple Research Outsourcing plan at 25% funds to science as soon as I could reasonably afford it, and suddenly discovered that I never needed to go anywhere to collect science ever again. Even low-end contracts with that setup give you a solid 50 to 100 science, and the absurdly valuable ones (my favorite being "launch an S3 KS25x4 on a sub-orbital trajectory"; can do!) can give you as much as 3000 (!) science cumulative for completing them. That's just at 25% funds to science, mind; you could easily max the tech tree in one uber-valuable contract if you had it at 100%. (Just make sure you can afford that tactic, as it's more than a bit risky...) Once you have your tech tree maxed, that's where things get extra-fun, of course... Net 2700 extra science, then switch to the strategy that exchanges science for funds instead at 100%. Now all that "useless" extra science you get from your missions to other planets and moons becomes cold hard cash.

It may look like a toilet, but that's actually part of the astronaut hazing ritual called the coffee strainer exercise. The details of this exercise are best left to the imagination, as the details are far more embarrassing than anything you can think up.

I think this works as good hype music too. The last half-hour or so of the thread certainly matches the end of the song nicely.

Doesn't everyone?

Trains are too slow. I'm gonna take the HypePlane instead. To space!

Just to note: SP+'s Mk2 docking port part has 75 monopropellant in it. If you pay careful attention in a few of the preview videos, it still has 75 monopropellant in it. So there you go.

The lab will really show its worth come the addition of more biomes in later releases. As I and others have already demonstrated with the Mun and Minmus, having an orbiting lab combined with an ultralight science lander that visits every biome in turn can really cut down on the overall cost of gathering science from a given body.

They did. Every strategy has a setup cost associated with it. You'd spend far more setting up that strategy than you'd gain from recovering a single distant craft. Strategies are meant for long-term gain, not short-term.

Aww, and I was hoping that Danny2462 would have something on offer for the media team. Shame, the destructible buildings are right up his alley.

There's another odd ladder bug that I don't think has been mentioned yet here: if a Kerbal on EVA has the ladder he's currently climbing retracted, that Kerbal will have all of his momentum relative to the body he's over canceled. The short of it is that you will have a Kerbal falling towards the surface below at an alarming speed if you try this. It can be a useful way to quickly get to the surface of certain moons, I guess, but it's definitely not supposed to be a feature.

I for one am glad to hear that biomes are coming to the other bodies in the game. It's pretty disheartening to go all the way out to another world and only be able to get one set of science results from the entire planet/moon.

I really should give Dres a little brother to keep it company at some point. And give Eeloo some space rock company too.

Didn't stop me. Go for it!

Generally a part that you want to see added that isn't purely aesthetic over stock parts adds some form of new functionality. Ergo suggestions of features is where to go with that. Though do take care not to suggest something that's on the "do not suggest" list just the same.

Oh my results for this are going to look terrible... 3 years of playing KSP and having no mishaps at all would be something of a miracle, especially given how many hours I've logged. Only rarely do I embrace my inner Danny2462 and purposely torment Kerbals, at least.