Kaos

If the technologies are far enough developed, the disadvantages of multistage would be bigger. I am not sure, where this limit is, but if you make the values for strength and Isp big enough, SSTO would be preferable, as the advantage of staging shrinks. Take for example a material strong enough that you could build a sufficient strong structure with a fuel ratio of 99.9%. One would gain merely advantage with staging, so why would someone go into the effort of staging then? With incredible Isp this effect would be even more obvious: Given a fuel that can be handled as well as todays fuels, but has an Isp of 100 km/s. You could build rockets with only 15% fuel tank which are fully reusable. What would staging gain then for reaching the orbit? Of course, slightly stronger materials oder slightly more efficient fuels would be first used to make non-SSTO more efficient.

In this height, the atmosphere rotates much faster around venus than the 116 earth days. I think it was something around 10 hours. So this disadvantage is not that big at all.

I think mars is a better plan for colonization, but I am not sure, about that. While I think that colonization of both of these planets (and of moon) are completely possible, I would rather construct manned research stations at all three locations, each with a crew of perhaps 6 people. Each of these stations should also conduct experiments of gathering resources locally. If some of these stations happen to succeed, we can expand it, eventually into a colony. If not (which I doubt, but nevertheless it is possible), we have at least some nice research stations. And I strongly believe that constructing these stations will result in general positive effects on earth. Partly, because we will motivate more people to study for a scientific degree. Partly because we can focus people on something else rather than war and money. And it will give us new challenges, which force us to develop new solutions, which can be useful in other situations, as well.

Escapedynamics also tries to build an SSTO. The downside of SSTO is, that they are quite inefficient, as long as the ratio of payload to structure is so small. This ratio can be increased by more stable materials, smaller celestial bodies to start from, or fuel with higher Isp. These superstable and lightweight materials are not developed, yet. From moon we started SSTO. The higher Isp is why companies as Skylon and Escapedynamics think, they can build efficient SSTO. All methods to get an Isp high enough and usable on rockets are considered experimental, that is why this is only used in current research and not in application, yet. If it will be some day, we will see.

I think, we can set up a system that is effective in many cases in as few as 5 years. On the other hand, I doubt that will will set up such a system in the next 30 years. A central aspect of such a system on the other hand is to track potentially dangerous objects, which is something, that is already done. Only with enough time remaining, such a system can work efficiently. So I see 3 different answers that represent a valid interpretation of my opinion to your question; two of these are not given as answer possibility, so I voted 5 years

I meant the elections, and a new presidency. The election might be in 2016, but the presidency will start in 2017. So if you mean the presidency, you should wonder whether it will make it into 2018. Just because the new president will be in duty somewhere in 2017, it does not mean, that the program will be stopped retroactively in the beginning of 2017. For the topic: Even if centrifuge modules might be more expensive, I would vote to add one. Or add the one that is standing around, because they decided to not include it in ISS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge_Accommodations_Module

Furthermore, in the article they just add cross-feed fueling, as it would make nothing complicated. To my knowledge no cross-feed fueling system with engines on both tanks (the source and the goal) made it to space, yet. I wounder since a while, why no one tried liquid fuel landable boosters with a strong structure, hence smaller delta-v. This is the design concept of the new shepard. Nevertheless I think it might be complicated to adapt and cheaper to design a new rocket; experience from new shepard might help, though. But to act as main stage, a lot of the rocket might need a redesign.

If there were clouds without performance reduction, I would not mind. But I also would not care

I agree in that this is better than the currently implemented version and that it is no perfect solution. But if I had a perfect solution, I would already have posted it In principle I like the advanced version with a percentage of (10 + 3 per star of scientist in it)%. That is for example with a 3-star and a 1-star scientist we have 22%; with two 5-star scientists it would be 40%. I also like how it makes no difference between the biomes, but I think ground and orbit should be treated differently. To get closer to the way science is done at the ISS one could add a contract type: Bring an ISPR to a science lab at position x (e.g. duna surface), let it docked there for some time (e.g. 16 days) and return it then to earth. But that mechanic would be boring alone, it would only make a nice addition. I would then limit the maximum amount of science that can be made in each region; these contracts can still give money if the science there is already finished (perhaps the money would also depend on the number of scientist stars in the MPL?). Last comment for this post: I did not need to read the "But...why?:"-section to prefer it over the existing system.

I think, the science progress, the contracts and so on try to give us a very dynamic story. It is not very storylike, yet. But it may happen.

I always hated the old atmosphere. I found it very counterintutive that a thin rocket does not gain any profit against a pancake. After my experiments told me, that this atmospheric model must be really stupid I searched the forum or wiki (do not remember which) until I found out, it was really so. This took, for me, a lot of fun out of the game. To make the aerodynamics more beginner friendly it would be a bad idea to revert to the old atmosphere, in my opinion. Even for player that do not care for realism, but for fun. Detecting that a craft turns against input commands and display a tooltip for why this happens would help much more, I think.

One of the problems with this concept is that the mirrors move away from you, hence the frequency of the light is reduced by every passing. This effect is not that big, but the main advantage of this design over just beaming light away is that the light is reflected multiple times, so you gain more impulse by these multiple reflections. And after all these reflections, the frequency is reduced by a big amount, at least if the mirrors move with a reasonable speed. And the reduction of frequency leads to a reduction of impulse of the light and this seriously harms the efficiency of this construction.

The list was not updated for some time, whereas the Falcon 9 landing happened recently. But it should go on the list, as it might turn out to be the most important space related event of this year (or not, if the plans of reuse fail, but I do not think so, there are not so much problems left open).

The other option is missing in the poll; besides: the "Multiplayer & Gameplay improvements" is a bit vague: It can depend on the personal opinion, what to call an improvement. And why is this strongly connected with multiplayer? I would go with more configurable game modes and with life support.

It is not hard, but sometimes time-consuming. So it would be nicer to do that automatic with the game in the background instead of doing nothing but to wait for a certain second and then click x. If one could even do that while the craft is not active, it would safe even more time of the (in my opinion) boring parts of the game.

You can already do that somehow. You can include stuff that will destroy your rocket (separators in bad directions, ...) and bind it to an action group. Explicit explosives would be nice, though.

It would be even nicer (but also much more complicated to implement, hence less likely to happen) if pilots could execute the next maneuver node, even if the craft is not active by then.

The most annoying thing in my opinion is that it is not possible to play with experience but without money. I already suggested a general solution half a year ago, but since you want a complete list, I will post a link here again: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/112320-unify-game-modes-for-greater-configurability/

I wondered whether these comments are meant as hint that life support is not so far away, as three messages mentioned snacks.

In comparable situations, I turn of SAS for a minimal amount of time, observe whether this has made the situation better and if so repeat until I stand on all legs. Then one can turn of SAS safely.

For compactness I write only about parts I wish for that relate to current implemented features and not for example to life support. Parts I miss for which I think, they might be simple to implement: electric propeller atmospheric oxygen extractor balloons/ballutes Parts, which may be more complicated: inflatable space tanks with better mass/fuel ratio; can only be filled, when inflated, explode in atmosphere or above 0.5g when inflated robotic parts (flexible joints, hydraulics, robot arm) Stuff that can be rigid connected to celestial bodies docking areas: Docking port with huge surface and compatible to some sort of landing clamps (for stations without the need for precise docking, or for planetary landing platforms; the claw feels so wrong in its ability to dock everywhere)

I like the idea in principal. But the wheel-system is completely reworked right now for version 1.1. So I am not sure, whether this would be still necessary then.

All the mods I tried with clouds made the game so incredible slow for me, that I oppose clouds as long as this is the result.

That would require to compute to some degree the resource production/usage for crafts that are not loaded, for respecting ISRU (other than the current way, compute everything on loading). But that should be included in some point anyway. I am also for this idea.

I find it highly logical that rockets are used before flight: So, we managed rocketry over 300 years before parachutes! So when longing for realism we should move the parachute to a higher technology level. But I would prefer to have a good space game that is also playable before you master it, so I would vote for keeping these things where they are. A configurable technology tree at game creation on the other hand would be nice.