Kerano

I use offset the most, rotation occasionally. Re-root not often, but when I do use it I'm mighty glad it's there - makes stuff like building a rover to fit inside a cargo bay massively easier when you don't have to start building at the docking port.

Heh, awesome. Looks like the rocket managed to pretty much kill its horizontal and vertical velocity just above the surface, but the lack of hydraulic fluid meant it had no way to right itself to a vertical position. Hence the sudden increase in horizontal velocity just before "touchdown". Can't wait to see their next attempt.

Fantastic update. Looking forward to seeing how the new aerodynamics model turns out. Some kind of tool to estimate how well a plane will fly inside the hangar would be invaluable. Even knowing about the center of lift and mass buttons, it sometimes takes me hours to tweak a brand new design to fly as well as I want it to. Pleased to hear that cargo bays and nosecones will have an actual purpose. You mentioned balancing this with the desire for crazy ship designs to still be able to fly though (albeit inefficiently). Maybe one way of achieving this would be that instead of penalizing non-aerodynamic designs, they could fly similarly to how they did in the past - but aerodynamic designs would get a bonus in terms of reduced drag. Not sure how this would work out in practice, but it sounds good in my head anyway. Nice that lift will be proportional to velocity squared, should make for more fun flying at high speeds. You may have already discussed this, but regarding contracts - it seems a good idea to at least give a "taster" of them in the demo. Maybe limit them to only generating on Kerbin... possibly the Mun and Minmus, definitely nothing outside the Kerbin system. And only use a subset of the contract types - definitely rule out asteroid redirect, probably bases and space stations, maybe satellite delivery. At a minimum level you could just have part tests and perhaps Kerbal rescues. Hints of SpaceX related parts/missions in the future, perhaps?

Thanks for the detailed derivation K^2, that's very interesting indeed. I think I'll go with the 4gH/v_t estimate at least as a first approximation for atmospheric delta-v costs in the model I'm planning in Matlab. Better to start with something relatively simple and see if it even vaguely resembles a reasonable answer. So, thinking it through a bit more... for a given body of mass M and radius R, g will be a constant. To a first approximation H should also be a constant, assuming the mean atmospheric temperature and mean molecular mass stay roughly the same while we're pumping particles in/out of the atmosphere. So for a very simplified model, atmospheric delta-v should be proportional only to v_t at the surface. The first question, then, is how to model v_t in a simple way as we vary the surface pressure (and radius) through a wide range of values. Any suggestions here would be welcome. Thinking through the factors in the equation for terminal velocity... Mass of the spacecraft on the surface will depend on the delta-v required to get back to orbit, which we're trying to solve for. Could be a slight problem due to the circular requirement, but running through a couple of iterations to get a ballpark figure might work. Surface gravity is a constant. Surface air density is proportional to surface air pressure, we just need to assume a temperature and a mean molecular mass of the atmosphere. Projected area of the spacecraft I guess can probably be fudged based on the total mass of the spacecraft - maybe proportional to the cubed root of spacecraft mass? Drag coefficient is complex and obviously needs some sort of fudge factor simplification to proceed, but I'm not sure what sort of values might be reasonable across a wide range of surface pressures (and gravities). I'm guessing C_d ~ 0.1-0.2 for rockets on Earth? But I presume that would change with a thicker or thinner atmosphere. Any advice? - - - Updated - - - True, but there's a limit to how big a parachute (and/or how many parachutes) you could realistically fit on a descent stage without running into design problems. An arbitrary cutoff point might be a good idea to simplify the situation - maybe limiting parachutes to making up no more than 10% of the descent stage mass. Sure it's not necessarily that useful to optimize for delta-v. Nonetheless, I think it's interesting as a thought experiment - and worth at least a simple modelling.

I believe the formula is supposed to take into account both gravity and atmospheric drag losses. At least, that's what some of the folks quoting it in the past have said (most of whom are on this forum, based on a quick googling). I'd like to get to the bottom of this 4gH/v_t approximation though, because I can't seem to find any proof of it - whether rigorous or hand-wavy. The earliest reference from a quick googling seems to be by K^2 himself here, and it sounds like the guy who made the solar system delta-v map used the same equation without checking it or doing any sort of derivation. So I'd really like to know more of the details of how this equation was arrived at, and whether it is appropriate to apply to real solar system bodies or only KSP ones. If the equation doesn't hold up well in the real world, the solar system delta-v map on reddit probably needs a lot of fixing. In particular, on a body with a very thin to non-existent atmosphere (such as Mercury), v_t tends towards infinity, and the 4gH/v_t approximation tends towards 0. This does not make sense if the equation is supposed to take account of both gravity and atmospheric drag, since you still have losses due to gravity when taking off in a vacuum. So yeah, please post (or link to) the derivation. I can take the math. - - - Updated - - - I can see how takeoff would work, but I can't imagine that you could do safe landings reliably with that sort of setup. The slightest miscalculation or gravitational anomaly and you're splattered across the surface at near-orbital velocity. I'd much prefer to take the space elevator. The question I asked was about using basic rocket propulsion though. So we're assuming no fancy structures pre-existing on the body, nor any method of refuelling once on the surface. We can use parachutes for the descent if the body has an adequate atmosphere, but we have to bring all the propellant required for ascent down with us from orbit. That's the scenario I'd like to solve for. - - - Updated - - - I was being conservative with the Duna landing - it's possible to land only on chutes, though for large payloads (50+ tonnes) it seems more efficient to do a short burn towards the end. Otherwise you're adding quite a high mass of chutes. In any event, the point is that Duna is much cheaper to land on than Vall or Moho, despite both being smaller with weaker gravity. In fact the total delta-v budget for Duna is only slightly more than for the Mun or Eeloo - both of which require around 650 m/s for descent and 600 m/s for ascent. That's a total of 1250 m/s, which is only 200-300 m/s less than the requirement for Duna despite the fact that it has a 1.5x larger radius, 2x the gravity, and is 4.5x more massive. - - - Updated - - - Very interesting. I agree that Mars probably is a bit to the left of the sweet spot - the atmosphere could probably be thicker to reduce that landing delta-v without increasing the takeoff delta-v too much. My hunch is that the sweet spot is closer to Mars atmosphere levels than Earth levels though - so perhaps somewhere around 0.1 atm of surface pressure would be optimal? Certainly somewhere between the lower bound of 0.01 atm and the upper bound of 1.00 atm anyway, at least for a rocky body of that size. What about for much smaller or larger bodies - how might the optimal surface pressure change, if at all? For supersized Earths? Moons like Titan, Ganymede, or our own? Asteroids like Ceres? Comets like 67P? My speculation is that smaller bodies will be better off with a slightly lower surface pressure (or possibly even a vacuum), while larger bodies would be cheaper to visit with a slightly higher surface pressure. But how big or small is that "slightly"?

While landing my latest mission on Duna, I got to thinking... if you could tweak any planet or moon's atmosphere, what surface pressure would make it cheapest (in delta-v) to land and return from?

The scenario: You have the ability to increase or decrease the surface atmospheric pressure on a given rocky body to any value of your choosing by adding or removing particles in bulk from the atmosphere. (Say it's several hundred years in the future, and the technology to terraform planets has been perfected. Or you're HarvesteR. ) The question: For a given rocky body of mass M and radius R, what is the optimum surface atmospheric pressure required to minimize the combined delta-v cost of landing and taking off to a stable orbit in a rocket? (No jet engines. Assume different sized bodies have similar density, temperature, and molecular composition. Assume a simple exponentially decaying atmosphere.) Let me illustrate what I mean with a rough diagram representing a reasonably large rocky body. There are no numbers here, this is just a sketch to show the concept. We're trying to find what quantity of atmosphere hits the "sweet spot" to minimize the total delta-v requirement to visit this large rocky body. We know that a rocky body with enough atmosphere is very nearly "free" to land on from a low orbit using parachutes. However, the same atmosphere which reduces the landing delta-v cost also makes takeoffs more expensive (remember, no jet engines in this scenario). Beyond a certain point, increasing the atmospheric pressure begins to increase the total delta-v cost of visiting the body. Let's take a look at some rocky bodies in the KSP universe with the current (admittedly rather soupy) atmospheric model to see how they compare on this scale. KSP Comparison #1: - Kerbin costs about 4550 m/s of delta-v to take off to a 70 km orbit, but is nearly free to land on. If we approximate 50 m/s to lower the periapsis nicely into the atmosphere, that gives a total delta-v cost for a Kerbin visit of about 4600 m/s. - Tylo costs around 2700-3000 m/s to land on (carefully) from a 20 km orbit, and about 2300 m/s to take off. Let's go with the lower end and say only 5000 m/s of delta-v is required for an ideal Tylo visit. Even with the optimistic estimate, that's still 400 m/s more than is required for a Kerbin visit, despite Tylo having an identical radius to Kerbin and only 80% of the gravity. So Kerbin is somewhere in the the "sweet spot valley" in the diagram above, though not necessarily on the "sweet spot" itself - probably somewhere to the right of it, given the current soupy lower atmosphere which makes takeoffs more expensive than they need to be. KSP Comparison #2: - Duna costs about 1400 m/s to take off from to a 45 km orbit, but the landing is mostly free with a decent number of parachutes. Let's say 50 m/s to deorbit + 100 m/s to slow down just above the surface, for 150 m/s of landing delta-v. That means Duna's total delta-v cost is 1550 m/s. - Moho and Vall are both smaller than Duna (250/300 km vs 320 km) and have lower surface gravity (0.275/0.235 g vs 0.300 g). Nonetheless both require around 1000 m/s delta-v for landing and 950 m/s for takeoff, for a total delta-v cost of 1950 m/s each. That is 400 m/s more than is required for a Duna visit, despite Duna's higher gravity and larger radius. Duna is definitely in the "sweet spot valley" with its very low delta-v requirement. My suspicion is that Duna may actually be very close to the "sweet spot" itself - perhaps a fraction to the left. The atmosphere is just thick enough to make a landing almost free, but not too thick to make the takeoff more expensive. Back to choosing the atmosphere for our arbitrary rocky planet. Now, I'm aware that the ideal atmosphere for minimizing total delta-v (at least with the current KSP 0.90.0 model) would probably look something like a step function: nice and thick next to the surface, then straight to vacuum a short way up (say above ~1 km). Real atmospheres decay exponentially though, so let's not cheat our way out of that requirement. The scale height of an atmosphere determines the rate of exponential decay of pressure with altitude. For the same surface pressure, the atmosphere will be thinner (and the vacuum of space closer) if there is: - Higher surface gravity - Lower average temperature - Larger average molecule size Alternatively, for the same surface pressure, the atmosphere will be thicker (and extend further into space) if there is: - Lower surface gravity - Higher average temperature - Smaller average molecule size So for very small bodies, having an atmosphere - even a weak one - could actually be a disadvantage. The low surface gravity would mean the thin atmosphere would be dispersed over a wide range of altitudes, so to satisfy the "stable orbit" requirement you'd need to descend from - and takeoff to - a higher orbit, increasing the delta-v requirement. What I'd really love to see is a "heat map" indicating the optimal surface pressure required to minimize the total delta-v for a given rocky body radius, assuming a simple atmospheric model. (For KSP and for the real world!) My own speculation is that it might look something like this: The purple line indicates the minimum total delta-v requirement for that particular body radius - along the vertical on the graph. Note that this is not a line of constant delta-v, but rather a line connecting minimum values for total delta-v for different body sizes. (Remember we're assuming similar values for density, temperature, etc, between differently sized bodies.) It's possible I may be wrong with this speculative heat map - I haven't done any actual calculations, just a few quick thought experiments. In particular I haven't considered whether the purple line flattens out or continues to increase at the higher values of radius. And of course there aren't any real numbers yet. If you reckon you can improve on any of this stuff, please be my guest. To finish off, I thought it'd be interesting to look at a few bodies in the real solar system to see how they compare. I used this map for delta-v values. Real Comparison #1: - Earth requires 9400 m/s delta-v to take off to a low orbit, and is close to free to land on. Say 9500 m/s total delta-v including the deorbit burn. - Venus is also nearly free to land on (ignoring the damaging atmosphere), but requires about 27000 m/s to reach orbit. Total delta-v around 27100 m/s. Venus requires nearly three times as much delta-v for takeoff plus landing as Earth, despite the fact that Venus is 5% smaller, 20% less massive, and has a lower surface gravity (~0.9 g). It appears that it is more favorable in terms of total delta-v to have a surface pressure of 1 atm than 90 atm for a body of ~Earth size. (But would Earth be closer to the "sweet spot" if it had a thicker atmosphere or a thinner one? My hunch is thinner.) Real Comparison #2: - Mars requires about 3800 m/s delta-v to take off from. According to this paper, the Curiosity descent required about 300-350 m/s of delta-v from RCS and the skycrane. Let's round up to a total landing plus takeoff delta-v requirement of 4200 m/s. - Mercury requires around 3100 m/s delta-v to land on from orbit, and takeoff would require a similar amount. Total delta-v required is thus something like 6200 m/s. Mars is about 2000 m/s cheaper to visit from orbit than Mercury in terms of total delta-v, despite being 1.4x larger, 2x more massive, and having slightly more surface gravity. It appears that it is more favorable in terms of total delta-v to have a surface pressure of 0.006 atm than 10^-14 atm for a body of ~Mars size. (Is Mars close to the "sweet spot" for minimal total delta-v like Duna is in the KSP universe? It seems possible.) Real Comparison #3: - Titan is nearly free to land on, but requires 7600 m/s to reach a high orbit due to its thick atmosphere. Let's estimate the total delta-v including deorbit at 7700 m/s. - Ganymede requires around 2000 m/s to land on and another 2000 m/s to take off, for a total delta-v budget of 4000 m/s. Titan has very similar mass, radius and surface gravity to Ganymede - about 5-10% less for Titan in each case. Yet Titan has an atmosphere (surface pressure ~1.5 atm) while Ganymede has (almost) none. It appears that a near-vacuum is more favorable than a surface pressure of 1.5 atm in terms of total delta-v for a body of ~Titan size. (Much more favorable in fact, indicating that the surface pressure should probably be much lower than 1 atm to minimize total delta-v... maybe closer to Mars surface pressure?)

Yeah, good point... I had an almost perfect retrograde Ike satellite contract once. Couldn't maintain that one for 10 hours, let alone 30 days.

Why is the delta v for Eeloo slightly lower than for the Mun, for both takeoff and landing? Shouldn't it be slightly higher, given the larger surface gravity (0.172 g vs 0.166 g) and larger radius (210 km vs 200 km)? All the summary delta v charts I've seen list Eeloo as having a slightly higher delta v requirement than the Mun. Otherwise great data, very useful.

I use the old WASDQE hotkeys for almost everything. The new rotation gizmos are very handy when dealing with the finicky details of small stuff like rovers though. Adjusting ladder angles, wheel offsets, monoprop engine angles, and changing the root part to a docking port once the rover is done and I want to connect it to something else (e.g. a Mk3 cargo bay). Though I only use the new gizmos a small proportion of the time, they're invaluable when I do need them.

Very entertaining, well done! Definitely brought back memories of my first few times in KSP.

That's not true though. The way I originally encountered this bug was by simply refueling my Duna lander at my tanker station in orbit. The lander does not have enough delta-v to return to Kerbin without refueling, so docking to the tanker is mandatory - not optional. The only possible way to avoid triggering the exploit in this scenario is to launch a new tanker from Kerbin every time I want to refuel, which is wasteful of both funds and time. (Docking to any tanker which was launched from Kerbin prior to the date the current ship was launched will trigger the bug.)

KSP 0.90.0, no mods. Spacecraft orbiting Duna are registered as "on a suborbital trajectory" when the periapsis is above the atmosphere but below about 50-60 km. Contracts requiring an orbital station are not fulfilled until you raise the periapsis to above this level. I believe there is a similar issue with Jool, when the periapsis is below about 200 km.

Welcome back Squad! Sounds like you're all well rested and ready to get back into it. Great news! A few suggestions for simple balance tweaks: Admin - Balance Funds to Science strategy: ~750 funds to 1 science (currently too powerful) - Balance Science to Funds strategy: 1 science to ~500 funds (currently too weak) Contracts - Don't offer unprofitable contracts: Part test rewards in particular should at minimum cover the cost of the part plus a bonus - Increase most part test rewards by 5-10x to be more in line with Fine Print contract rewards - Gravity scans of Jool should pay out ~2x current value ($1,000,000+) - Satellite contracts in low orbits around Jool should pay out ~2x current value ($1,000,000+) - Satellite contracts in low orbits around the Sun should pay out ~10x current value ($2,500,000+) - Class D/E asteroid redirect contracts to other planets/moons should pay out ~2x current value ($5,000,000+) - Don't show class D/E asteroid redirect missions before at least one successful class A/B redirect mission - Don't offer asteroid redirect missions to a new planet/moon before at least one other contract has been completed at that planet/moon - "Explore new planet/moon" contracts should be heavily prioritized when appropriate conditions are met (I couldn't reliably get them to generate after Duna and Eve) Continued here.

The "unique part" idea is a pretty good one for satellites. In the case of orbital stations and lander bases though, it'd be relatively simple to complete a contract just by docking the unique part and little else to an existing spacecraft satisfying the other contract requirements. Then again, you'd still have to transport the unique part there from Kerbin and rendezvous after accepting the contract, so it's still an improvement on the current exploitable system. I'm personally not in favour of any loss of control of spacecraft following contract completion. I don't want to spend hours building and transporting a spaceship to a new planet/moon only to have the game arbitrarily revoke my control of it due to completing a contract. Sure it's not particularly realistic, but it's more fun if it remains as "my" spacecraft. What I'd like to see though is a variant of tater's idea: add an additional class of contracts called "expand station", which require X number of crew/modules/fuel mass to be added to a station presently in orbit around a planet/moon. These contracts would only be triggered if you had a station with a docking port presently orbiting that planet/moon. The station would have to not leave the SOI of the planet/moon before the contract was completed. I'd very much enjoy having contracts generated that reward me for interacting with my existing stations. There could also be similar "expand base" contracts for existing landers on different planets/moons. Maybe landing the required number of crew/modules/fuel mass within a certain distance of the landed base (2.5 km physics range?) would trigger the contract completion instead of docking, since for landed craft a docking port isn't necessarily going to be accessible for connecting new things to (depending on the orientation etc).

Yep, I've noticed that version of the bug as well - it seems to be a bit more commonly encountered. The difference with the "docking" version is that not only can you complete multiple contracts with the same ship which were accepted before you launched it, but you can complete newly taken contracts with the ship accepted after it has been launched - and do so indefinitely into the future. The easiest money from this exploit is probably in orbital stations (since they require no specific orbit) - simply dock one to an old fuel tanker, undock to claim the reward, then redock. Rinse and repeat. Only cost is mere pennies worth of monopropellant to push the station out and then back in a few metres.

Not sure if it's a bug or feature, but thought it was worth mentioning: There's a way to exploit docking to allow you to bypass the "build new ship" contract requirement. Effectively it's possible to use the same old ship to complete an infinite number of contracts all requiring a "new ship to be built after the contract is completed", provided the ship has a docking port.

KSP 0.90.0 career mode, no mods. There's a way to exploit docking to allow you to bypass the "build new ship" contract requirement. Three of the new contract types - deploy satellite, construct orbital space station, and build lander base - have a common requirement that the ship must be "new, built for the agency after this contract is accepted". This requirement can be bypassed by undocking the ship from a parent or older ship. In practice this means that if you have an old orbital fuel station to which you dock a ship that was previously ineligible for a contract due to not being "newly constructed", after undocking the ship will be registered "as new" and fully eligible to complete the contract. Another method I've used is to launch a satellite pre-docked to a mothership. The single satellite can then undock, complete a contract, redock, and repeat the cycle indefinitely. The only requirement is that the satellite does not contain the "root" part of the ship (this must be on the mothership). Effectively it's possible to use the same old ship to complete an infinite number of contracts all requiring a "new ship to be built after the contract is completed", provided the ship has a docking port. Of course this could be argued as a "feature" rather than a bug, but I thought I'd report it just in case.

On a more serious note, I find the most useful building to upgrade first is Mission Control. Going from 2 to 7 contracts means a lot more flexibility and a lot more money, which speeds up the process for all of the other building upgrades. After your first couple of missions, definitely consider investing in a Mission Control upgrade. The other tip I have on buildings is to always upgrade the Launchpad before the VAB - the Launchpad upgrades are both cheaper and more critical.

Been to all of them and back multiple times. I don't mind Moho as it stands, it's a nice challenge. Wouldn't mind if a few lava lakes were added though. Didn't like Dres much until I discovered the canyon, now it's much more fun. Still not as interesting as most of the other bodies in the Kerbin system, but not bad. Eeloo is fine with me. The terrain is perhaps a bit bland but the icy white colour is nice. Could probably do with a moon at some point if it stays as the Pluto analogue, or maybe some ice jets if it gets shifted to become the Enceladus analogue of Gas Planet 2.

I'll definitely second that. Would be very handy not to have to do it manually once you have an experienced pilot.

I like both Eve and Duna in their own ways. But if I had to pick, I'd choose Duna. Mainly because I feel that every ship I send out containing a Kerbal has to be able to return to Kerbin, so by its nature Duna gets a lot more frequently travelled than Eve.

Positioning a satellite in a low orbit around the Sun is extremely difficult but pays out as if it's relatively trivial. (This is on Normal difficulty.) Barely $250,000 funds for a mission which required 10,000 m/s of delta-v just to bring the apoapsis down after sundiving and plane changing from Jool. Probably close to 20,000 m/s of delta-v required from the launchpad on Kerbin, and multiple hours to achieve despite using 4x physical timewarp during most burns. Given the difficulty and required time investment, a more appropriate payout would be around 10x the amount given - at least $2,500,000 funds on Normal. Satellite missions in low orbits around Jool also pay out too low, and should reward at least $1,000,000 funds on Normal.

I find the suggestions forum difficult to read precisely because ideas are often spread - and repeated - across too many different threads. I've tried posting things individually in the past and they just get lost after a few days. I prefer having a single "to do" list I can link to, especially when they're (mostly) all pretty quick fixes. Each to their own I guess. And this bulletpoint-list style is me being concise by the way. I'm usually much more verbose.

Hi devs and fans, I absolutely love KSP - it's one of my favourite games ever made. I've spent over 1000 hours playing the game since I discovered it in July 2013, and it just keeps getting better with every update. So hats off to HarvesteR and the whole team for their brilliant work! Over the past few weeks I've invested around 100 hours into a stock KSP 0.90.0 career on Normal difficulty to get a good feel for the new update. (Hey, it's the holidays after all!) In the course of playing, I've noted down a few simple suggestions which I think would greatly improve balance and functionality of the game. I'm sure most of these things have been mentioned before, but I thought it would be nice to compile a whole bunch in one thread. Without further ado, here's my list: Contracts (functionality) - Auto sort: By closest deadline - Auto sort: By planet/moon association - Auto sort: By reward value - Auto sort: By contract type - Custom sort: Allow player to reorder contracts so relevant ones can be pinned at the top of the list during flight, and irrelevant ones stay at the bottom - Notify player about the maximum 15 contract limit or change it (level 3 upgrade is not "unlimited", if you have accepted 15 contracts no more generate until you finish one) Contracts (balancing) - Don't offer unprofitable contracts: Part test rewards in particular should at minimum cover the cost of the part plus a bonus - Increase most part test rewards by 5-10x to be more in line with Fine Print contract rewards - Gravity scans of Jool should pay out ~2x current value ($1,000,000+) - Satellite contracts in low orbits around Jool should pay out ~2x current value ($1,000,000+) - Satellite contracts in low orbits around the Sun should pay out ~10x current value ($2,500,000+) - Class D/E asteroid redirect contracts to other planets/moons should pay out ~2x current value ($5,000,000+) - Don't show class D/E asteroid redirect missions before at least one successful class A/B redirect mission - Don't offer asteroid redirect missions to a new planet/moon before at least one other contract has been completed at that planet/moon - "Explore new planet/moon" contracts should be heavily prioritized when appropriate conditions are met (I couldn't reliably get them to generate after Duna and Eve) Admin - Balance Funds to Science strategy: ~750 funds to 1 science (currently too powerful) - Balance Science to Funds strategy: 1 science to ~500 funds (currently too weak) VAB/SPH - Add at least one upgrade level between 30 parts and 255 parts Launchpad/Runway - Add at least one upgrade level between 18 tonnes and 140 tonnes Tracking Station - Add ship identification category: "Planes" Upgradable Buildings - Scale upgrade costs based on difficulty level: 0.5x on Easy, 1.5x on Moderate, 2.0x on Hard - Reduce upgrade costs by ~30% on Normal difficulty (I found it quite challenging as a veteran player, my brother as a relative newbie got stuck) Biomes - Consistent results when doing science high above a body: should always be "in space high above X" (sometimes you instead get "in space high above X's midlands/other biome", doesn't make sense when you've just entered the SOI and the planet is a few pixels across) Reputation - Make the asymptotic reputation system less obscure: List the "real" gains/losses from the missions (e.g. when you're at 900 reputation and get +100 from a mission you don't hit 1000 reputation) Parts - Bigger wheels - Bigger wings - Bigger jet engines Bonus - Gas Planet 2? Please feel free to add your own suggestions below.