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Hinges would be nice But a work-around, is thinking about the tools at hand. Maybe it takes extra trips and docking ports, to assemble a larger design in space because it doesn't fit inside any fixed-sized fairing. Or suffer the drag and use more boosters. Consider the scenario in Apollo 13, where engineers had to build an adapter for CO filters, out of the random parts at hand in the lunar lander and service module. That's the kind of creative thinking I like KSP to inspire. (We will still have that in the early career mode tiers.)

Nice ESA pics Bill Phil is referring to the pic on Procedural Fairings addon release page - which supports payloads "substantially" wider, my rough guess says it looks four or five times wider than a size 2 rocket body. What Procedural does is remove the building challenge of moving parts around on your payload and making trade-offs, perhaps playing a little "Tetris" - to only needing to think about Delta-V, and how many stages you might need to get it up there. You might decide to forget about the fairing, if none of the fixed-size ones are large enough, if you really want the payload up there as-is, and use "moar boosters!" to fight the new drag we will be getting. Yes, Procedural makes life easier and I will use them, if they are added. (Which seems likely!) But, I don't mind the extra challenge of making things fit within limits. In Career mode, KSP forces us to think about our builds very carefully, with the parts/mass/size limits of the SPH/VAB tiers. This mirrors some of the real-life concerns in rocketry. Fixed-size fairings are a continuation of that metaphor.

Maxmaps tweets and comments earlier in this thread. If folks want to think of 1.0 as "the real beta..." that's fine. But we can't pre-judge it, without seeing the result of the next month or two of development work. We have HarvesteR's list of goals and promise to address lots of bugs, Maxmaps tweets and this great summary and discussion of Maxmaps Squadcast comments. Squad built a large group of experimental build testers from the community for the last round of testing, and we can be sure they will all be tapped for 1.0, and I would not be suprised if Ted (QA lead) asks for another round of applications when the time is right. The 1.0 announcement is a surprise to us on the outside, but I'm certain they discussed many of the pitfalls that have been raised here, and will do their best work to be ready to face a new round of reviews. And at the end of the day if there are still some nasty bugs or missing tutorials, 16,000 positive comments on STEAM say "... I had a great time, anyway." KSP is already a success and making money, to the point Squad has promised to keep working after 1.0. KerbalEDU will put it in front of thousands of schoolkids, go beat that - other pure entertainment games! The future of KSP looks very bright.

People are pinning a lot of hopes on Unity 5.0, but, by the same argument put against KSP going to "1.0", Unity 5 may introduce some new bugs, and we should wait for 5.1... At some point, you have to call it 1.0, and Squad's decided to go with the most recent released Unity 4.6 branch. Maxmaps confirmed in this very thread a few pages back, that they are doing OK and are not going to pull a disappearing act, after 1.0. And HarvesteR wrote in his goals post for 1.0: Edit: KasperVld writes here (link): "There are definitely plans to update to Unity 5, though as always nothing is set in stone until it's actually released."

Some games in early access price themselves in reverse, and state up front that buyers are helping them develop their game. Then the price in release, is actually lower. I'm thinking of Planetary Annihilation, they were asking ~$100 at an early stage. And then there's Star Citizen... you don't have to buy $200 spaceships, because they will be available to earn through in-game effort once it's released, but they certainly make it possible to spend lots of money to help fund development

STEAM stats: Helpful customer reviews Recent Positive (16,776) Negative (277) How is some number of reviewers crying about 1.0 "game's buggy, dated graphics, features incomplete - stay away" going to compete with thousands of others replying "...but, I had a great time?" Still not worried.

I responded to that argument a few pages back. Fans of this game have so many hopes tied up in this project, that Squad can never meet everyone's expectations. They may review it more harshly than a complete noob that doesn't know what to expect, beyond what the ads say. I read what Squad says they are going to do, and if they meet stated goals, then they are delivering what was promised. We shouldn't let hopes and expectations that are over and above - drive harsh criticism. This is somewhat reminiscent of operating system flame wars: A lot of ppl use Windoze, but, savage it mercilessly at the same time. Its a platform that lets them do other things. Similarly, KSP has become a base platform for some great mods, but I don't want to forget that Stock KSP is what I started with and found interesting, and then continued with it to this day. (I started when ARM made news.) It will never seem properly finished in some eyes. HarvesteR responds to that, by saying 1.0 is just another milestone, and they plan to continue development. Stock Aero will probably not satisfy FAR or NEAR users, but, they continue to say they don't want to break the ability of modders to alter the game to their satisfaction. The future of KSP looks very good to me.

They are not shipping .90 tomorrow, and calling it 1.0. The Squadcast Summary here says "This release may take longer than previous ones due to the amount of content. A lot of rebalancing and bugfixing, a lot of parts are going to be buffed and a lot of parts will be nerfed." HarvesteR's goal-setting document mentions Bugs in bold, along with the added features. If you haven't yet - be sure to read both links

Re-entry will be harder on wings, under the new lift model - quoting from the replies to HarvesteR's Aero change article: Quote: Originally Posted by antbin Is there a reason that Squad is going straight to the realistic lift ~ velocity^2 ? In my FAR experience, this makes re-entry aerodynamic forces very very unforgiving. Is there a computational reason against some middle ground, like lift ~ velocity^1.5 ? HarvesteR - 14th January 2015, 08:58 Yes, it is true that V² based lift will increase the likelihood of unplanned disassembly on re-entry. That's always been an effect I thought wasn't present enough. Aircraft should be able to break apart from aerodynamic overstress, and now it seems this will be a more frequently thought about design concern.

This, or a limited version of this idea - would fit well with the "Barn" KSC first tier, that is expected for KSP 1.0. (IDK about balloons in stock. Maybe a really really weak one, just to go through the motions of a progression in flight technologies.)

KSP is getting great press exposure lately, and Kerbal EDU is out now, putting KSP in front of thousands of kids. Reviews referring to performance or bugs can be balanced against KSP's long series of updates and improvements. Money must keep rolling in, because Squad hasn't stopped yet. The 1.0 goal post is feature-packed! If Squad were really having problems, I think 1.0 would just be the stuff already promised: Aero, some bug fixes and a balance pass on .90. I voted Yes because... if they say they're ready, they're ready. Announcements like this don't come out of nowhere, I think many of the arguments being made here, were likely made around their release planning meeting table. HarvesteR says they aren't stopping at 1.0... I want more features and fixes like many of you, but I'm not worried about the future of KSP

@Bill Phil - "It's no longer a gameplay mechanic if you aren't limited in payload size..." I think that is why Squad resisted the notion for a long time, I'm kind of surprised to hear of this, I thought fixed cargo bays and now Mk3 was going to be all we got for shielding payloads in the new Aero. I hope they will be fixed sizes, because Procedural removes part of the challenge of thinking about payload design.

@Nikola7007 - Absolutely. "From these humble beginnings, sprang all that followed." I think some people stressed too hard on some graphical shortcomings in the "barn" preview pictures. Even what we have, is not that bad given the amount of time I don't spend, minutely examining every seam and object in the new KSC tiers... I spend my time trying to build better rockets and space planes, and treat mass, parts, and size limits of the early career mode tiers as an interesting puzzle to solve. The "barn" level will be another of many homages and references to our world's space program history, that are sprinkled throughout KSP. I don't think it will take too much effort to upgrade out of the new "barn" in career mode. Rhetorical question: How long did the average player stick with the first tier, in a .90 career game? Rebalancing for 4 tiers should make the new first upgrade require less "grinding" than .90 with 3 tiers. (1/4 vs 1/3)

Similar concerns were argued about Win8. They push using their online account for OS login during setup, which enables all kinds of cool app integration... and tracking scenarios, but it IS possible to use Win8 with a local account name and password. I did so, which cut me off from easy access to various free accessories from the Windows Store, which prefers their online account. I think I put the one I do have, in just once, so I could more easily get the 8.1 update. They've never bugged me to buy stuff But I think that's a fair price for "Free" - they should be able to do some marketing, at you. My experience has been good, so far.

Vaquero! Kerbals will taking off their helmets on Kerbin EVA's, and putting on cowboy hats

This is an awesome space rescue story: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/09/the-little-known-soviet-mission-to-rescue-a-dead-space-station/

@pxi - agreed. I thought Wolf3D was amazing when it first came out, it pushed forward on the wave of the first-person-perspective revolution. When its in motion, your mind fills in the pixelated gaps. Tech has improved so much that there is much less to imagine now... to the point where I played Wolf 3D all the way through, but (based on reviews with the predominate color being 'red' everywhere) could not play the graphic bloodbath that is in Bioshock Infinite. @*Aqua* - Microsoft would love to sell one to everyone on the planet. They have ideas for how it could help anyone, with "virtually" any task. But I have a feeling it will be expensive, its going to be a full-blown computer, with fancy cameras and optics. Go here for their colorful "dream BIGGER!" sales pitch and glossy video: http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us?ocid=MSCOM_HoloLensGlobe I love this dream... fingers crossed!

Nothing new here, I will let them have their marketing-speak, because the end result reported by journalists trying out the prototype, sounds quite good. The term "virtual reality" was used heavily, in the Wolfenstein 3D era. It's SO "you are there" REAL, right?

Great article on all subjects Microsoft here, with some nice explanation in the middle section, about how the HoloLens will construct images. Satya Nadella's Got a Plan to Make You Care About Microsoft. The First Step? Holograms

I set up chutes in a couple small groups, and then right-click on them to tweak their opening altitude, to stagger them and reduce shocks on crafts. 500 / 550 / 600 / 650. If the first chutes to open are attached to a central part that most other things are attached to, its less likely to wrench a craft apart.

I forgot to add that I run an image of my old XP installation in a VM, on Win8. The new UI is/was clunky, but, I spend most of my time in desktop apps, not looking at the start panel. The only metro apps I use are the weather thing and PDF reader. MSFT reacted to some of the complaints in the 8.1 update, made the desktop a default startup option, and added shutdown menu options to the "power user" [win]+[x] menu. I love the [win]+[x] menu...

Microsoft has been subjected to much criticism since the release of Win8, and they certainly wouldn't want to compound the public perception problem, with a press fiasco like "you said it was free when I upgraded, and now after a year you want a monthly payment or my computer stops working?!?!" I will happily take this free upgrade, with no such worries (I run windows XP in a VM, now long past "end of life," very carefully, and it still chugs along just fine.) Long-term, Microsoft makes money through windows store add-ons, and this amazing holographic thingy that will hopefully be amazing and not cost an arm + leg

Phil Plait, writing the many-years long-running "bad astronomy" blog now featured on Slate, has written quite a bit on the SLS. Check it out at this link. He points out the funding problem, and regrets feeling the need to say negative things about SLS. Top picture in the article is a wallpaper-worthy artist concept rendering of an SLS launch.

MSFT decided to skip '9', partly due to backwards compatibility with some apps that do a simple version number check on start, see the first number '9' and assume 'Windows 95/98/ME' and either fail to run when they would work just fine, (you can use compatibility options, to get these to run) or actually might run, and cause trouble due to changes in windows.

That's very slick. Looks like they are trying to beat Google Glass. When they combine the display with Kinect sensor tech, they can know where your hands are. Next, all software you want to use with it, needs to be hand-wave enabled