Sky_walker

Oh yea, that thing is seriously annoying. Even more so as it's completely random. Sometimes when descending on a chute you can exit to EVA just fine - in other occasions you fall down to death. :/ No idea what's up with that, but it totally feels like a bug. For planets - yes. But for the moons? No way. You have more enough parts to land on Mun or Minimus after unlocking... what... 5 techs? 6? tops (seen people doing that with starting techs, though that's way too much of a stretch IMHO). No need to run through nearly quarter of the tech tree like you did there.

Use kOS if you want to run on that excuse. Otherwise it doesn't work. kOS is the mod that's closest to what real "autopilot" in rockets looks like. Good.... good. kOS definitely deserves more attention than it gets. Everyone only mumble about MechJeb over and over again as if it'd be some magical solution to make KSP more realistic, or whatever excuse they feel like using for today. Which, by the way, is funny in it's own way - that people feel like they need to apologise each time they run game with MechJeb.

I understand just fine what you said, and I still think that what scares people off most are aerodynamic failures. To quote you: "I think you mis-interpreted what I wrote by not reading it carefully and precisely." - I never said anything about aerodynamic failures being random. What I was referring to were random failures. As in "dang it" mod. 1. This would be solved by SAS 2. See Northstar1989? Told you that what scares people off from FAR are aerodynamic failures. 3. "absolute realism is unatainabe" - agreed. And lucky enough - noone asks for it. But there's much more that can be done to improve KSP while at the same time adding to the realism - see "how to improve KSP" in my signature.

Is it actually using velocity or you just presume that it's using velocity? I seen some speculation that it's using mass and mass alone for calculating damage.

I was asked to post it as a separate thread, so there we go: Currently contracts feel arbitrary and in many cases: "silly" as someone else put it, discouraging players from playing career mode. Obvious example would be a contract for testing stuff on a surface of Jool... but all of these randomly generated test parts contracts have no logical background while at the same time randomization makes them feel more like a grind taken out from MMOs than anything else. So here's my suggestion on how to improve the situation with test parts contracts: Generic idea: Contracts should be composed of two ingredients: altitude/location + speed Test in flight: [lower atmosphere / upper atmosphere] + [subsonic / supersonic / hypersonic] The range of altitudes and speeds would obviously vary depending on a body and atmosphere (as you know speed of sound varies with medium density) Test in space (also on an bodies with no atmosphere): [equatorial / polar] + [low orbit / high orbit / elliptical orbit] + an optional, specific case for (geo)stationary orbit, though note that not all bodies have it (possibly also Molniya orbit?) Test landed / splashed down: This is the most difficult one to get right. I'd propose making it biome-dependent and picking a pool of specific biomes with a generic intent of giving one common + multiple extreme environments. For Kerbin it could be: [KSC / Deserts / IceCaps / Water] For Mun it could be: [Midlands / Poles] For Minimus: [Flats* / Poles] *flats = any biome with "flat" in a name - should be easier to code in than creating groups of biomes (unless they already exist? I don't know). You could add "crater" in a similar way. For a tests of landing gears and wheels on a non-water surface: speed should be a factor (see: goals, point 4) Obviously parts should be a subject to the filtering, much like they are now, so that player wouldn't struggle with contracts that should be impossible to complete, such as landed on the sun/jool, splashed down on a bodies with no water (eg. Duna) or geostationary orbit contracts on a bodies that don't have stationary orbits (such as Moho), or contracts that don't make much sense, such as testing chutes while landed on the Mun or testing landing gears in water. Rewards also need to scale correctly, so that subsonic test would yield much lower reward than hypersonic flight. For parts that are activated through staging - (dry) mass could be a factor in assigning rewards. It'd be also good to lower the amount of contracts player is given for testing of a parachutes and decouplers - which right now seem to make up a vast portion of contracts while at the same time being super-easy and oddly pointless to accomplish (add contracts for testing of the scientific equipment replacing some of the decouplers in contract spawn frequency?) Goals: - Teach players something new through the contracts. In case of flight contracts - we teach them how sound barrier depends on atmospheric density and how difficult it might be to achieve certain speeds with large test cargo (note that this has a potential of offering a whole lot of additional challenges with reentry heat mechanics implemented into the game and a hypersonic flight tests) In case of space contracts - we teach them how different types of orbits are named and how to achieve them. In case of "landed" contracts - we teach them an accurate descend trajectories (exception being Kerbin KSC & Water tests left in the game as a way for new players to earn cash - these should be dominant especially in the very beginning of the research tree) - Minimize the grind Less arbitrary contracts mean that you have easier time fulfilling few of them in a single flight while also giving an interesting challenges in rocket design if player chooses to test few heavy/large parts to test in one go - that's also why the amount of contracts for decouplers would need to be lowered, as they are massless parts in KSP therefore being way, way too easy to test. (I'd prefer if player wouldn't see any contracts for massless parts). - Make contracts more logical You can't really make a backstory for current, randomly generated contracts to make them feel natural and logical in the game - therefore adding contracts described in more logical way using real scientific (while at the same time known to the wide public) terms would make them much more user-friendly and immersive. - Give people a reason to build rovers Contracts to test gear bays and rover wheels could (should?) be used as a perfect opportunity to give people a reason to build rovers and send them into a different locations/biomes. This would open a whole new set of challenges for both: new and old players and basically be a story on it's own. Additional suggestion: - For subsonic/supersonic/hypersonic contracts display a speed limits in a real time (so player could observe how it changes with altitude) and add an additional information in the contract description informing player about the relation between speed of sound and atmospheric density to make sure that player understands what's going on. (For example: "Kerbin upper atmosphere supersonic flights are easiest to accomplish just above 18 km, the higher you go, the higher the speed required to break the sound barrier due to lower atmospheric density") - For contracts with specific orbits - include windows for accuracy (eg. Kerbin low equatorial orbit should be circular (+-30%) between 68 and 250 km AP&PE with +-20 degree inclination) and an illustration in the contract description showing how orbit is suppose to look like. Additional, helpful hint could be a real time display of desired and current AP/PE/inclination in the contract description, though it is not necessary if a proper windows of accuracy are set. - Avoid spawning contracts for massless parts. It negates an important part of a challenge in the design and leads to rare problems with people trying to balance craft with mass parts unknowingly unbalancing them. And on unrelated note: - One "plant flag" contract per moon or planet, please.

Same here. Besides - I don't like how they break game balance (arguably more than patch 0.25 did)

Wasn't it a whole point of re-modelling these parts - to make them more consistent with generic parts? Cause it right now seems that these new stock parts are more compatible with B9 mod parts than any other stock components. Objectively speaking there's more to do in career WHILE going through the tech tree than before or after it - even solely for two reasons: playing with limited pool of parts is more challenging (therefore you put more work in bypassing the limits while at the same time not being crippled by lack of energy sources for interplanetary flights as you are before starting the tech tree) and you have fun unlocking techs - which isn't available once you're done with the tech tree.

Apparently it's not just Mun surface. Someone found that Kerbin desert texture got the same problem, and it's most likely not the only one. Someone also said that the Kerbin desert texture is just a Kerbin grass texture colored yellow and bugged o_O.

You don't need solar panels on a Mun landers either. Just a set of batteries. With LV909 on your rocket upper stage it's what.... 10 small cheap batteries? Or something around that to safely reach Mun with a probe and transfer science back. If you use one of the engines with alternators you only need as much batteries as it's required for Kerbin-Mun transfer, and you can easily make a round trip with Mun landing.

No... not even in a slightest. These two are completely unrelated. If anything - it's Crytek releasing CryEngine for free* - but even then I doubt it was actually what made them to choose selling the business. Either it's not really as profitable as they wanted it to be, or they want to repeat success of many other companies making their owners multi-millionaires through such sales. *T&Cs apply

Don't fly stright up. Make a turn all the way to 30 degrees, this way you'll have proper speed and altitude. But yea, some of the contracts are silly. Like testing stuff on a surface of jool.... or all of these super-specific tasks that are totally randomly generated with no logical reasons behind them. All these contracts for altitude + speed should be changed to the mix of [lower atmosphere / upper atmosphere / space above] + [subsonic / supersonic / hypersonic] or landed at extreme biomes [desert / polar / water] in case of Kerbin and similar bodies or [dark side / light side] in case of bodies with no atmosphere (for extremes in temperatures). Or something like that... anything to make it feel at least slightly logical instead of as a totally arbitrary random generator.

If KSP planets would make a logical sense - then perhaps this whole topic would make it too, but.... they don't, so.... it's kinda pointless thread, though mildly amusing.

Is that topic a Sandbox players support group? Cause it sure looks like one. Or Career is what makes KSP a "Space Program" game, not just space-themed virtual Lego bricks. But yea... your point of view is very... original. I for one would love to see parts from other space agencies, not just NASA, cause currently KSP looks like good... 75% NASA (in some parts they openly admit it, in other it's quite obvious once you seen the equivalent).

Well then. Facebook is next in the queue. Just imagine the announcement: Unity 5+ with mandatory social media integration in every game!

From Twitter: https://twitter.com/Maxmaps/status/520058187756888065 Perhaps I'm reading too much into that but it looks like they plan to announce features that will be in the game on 1.0 release.

I'm not even sure if we'll have it at all. I guess upcoming announcement of what they plan for version 1.0 will clarify that.

We've been going through this like... dozens of times already... but... what the hell: Please, make it happen. Can be by directly integrating DRE mod or creating your own version of it - I don't really care as long as reentry works like every new player expects it to.

Welcome to the club. Sit here, please. Cookies on a left, coffee in the corner. First huge breakthrough we await for would be for devs to implement rocket tonnage, thrust, WTR, and delta-V visible in a stock game. If that ever happens - then perhaps suggestion from this thread got a chance to be implemented.

Read this: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Gas_planet_2

Not true. Vast majority of it is actually to make game easier. It's been debunked few dozens of times already on a forum, just look at any of the topics devoted to the realism. Again: look at the topics devoted to the realism - people there give dozens of reasons why certain elements of simulation add value to the game and aren't just "accuracy for the sake of more accuracy". Things like that are a problem with game interface and... well... game focusing around "repetitive attempts and failures are a good thing" principle which devs promote over and over again. Well - guess what: it doesn't work for everyone, and example you gave is clearly one of them. You could easily have a "checklist" in the GUI that would show you what you could have do wrong, like having too low TWR, too low delta-v to reach an orbit, missing solar panels, lack of wheels on a spaceplane, badly placed center of mass, etc. Totally agreed. Sadly KSP right now does very little to explain itself and visiting forums and/or Wiki is pretty much mandatory. Ever since I bought KSP I joined forum and been posting for better GUI explaining people what's going on, cause the amount of hidden stuff and illogical quirks this game has is jaw-dropping once you know them all. But it seems like both: developers and hardcore players with years of experience in KSP are very much against it or any other major changes devoted to making KSP more logical and intuitive game.

What's up with this thread necro fest?

Not me (BTW: Looks like you're really, really unlucky with that patch :/ ) You mean textures on a ground or parts? If it's ground textures - they are and were poor. I doubt they'll ever include any high definition textures there. If it's for the parts - go to settings, try to untick/tick everything again, save, exit the game, run it again - it helped for me.

Totally agreed. I stumble upon so many bugs, including random spontaneous de-assembly, that there is no way I'd play ironman. No point wasting my nerves on a game riddled with bugs. Besides - even if by some miracle they'd actually fix all of them - KSP still doesn't have any of the tools required for planning long-term missions... like for example a basic Delta-V display - making ironman more of a mode for people with too much free time than anything else - at least in vanilla game.

Ironman mode = no quicksave/quickload. So you are certainly not playing ironman mode.

Career obviously. I use sandbox for occasional toying / testing some crafts, but that's pretty much all.