Sky_walker

Bread and circus. These are the needs and wants of majority. Always where, always will be.

Would it really be so much worse with lower power and limited "momentum" resource? They'd still be more effective per ton than RCS.

Ekhm... (10 char)

Baikonur? Check out Plesetsk. Hahaha

Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana (5° 13’ 56’’ North, 52° 46’ 32’’ West, or in google format: 5.232222, -52.775556) (edit: Wops, streetwind was quicker) It's owned by ESA and a French government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensemble_de_Lancement_Soyouz

Yea, they first need to study the space around comet to make sure that safe approach is possible. Then, once on a low orbit, they need to find a landing spot, and with a comet in that shape - it won't be easy: (spin period is ~12 hours - so not too bad)

Mountains, hills, shores, badlands.... I believe water also breaks up boosters apart if they're parachuted.

They're already assembling Ariane 5

They want to do it before 2030 with capable Angara rocket flying by 2020. Sounds very reasonable. And yes, they can afford it. They are in better condition now than USSR was during the space race, and similarly: their leader is oriented on leaving a great achievements after himself.

26th July 2014

Not from a balloon. Nowhere remotely close to the altitude we're talking about.

De facto competition is only between Russia and China at this point. I'd bet China. They got more money and make a quicker progress than Russians. ESA is not interested - they're full on with robotics. JAXA doesn't have a budget to pull it off. USA struggles with itself.

Not really Yes, they do Yes, they do But don't worry. They will release an image or two quite quickly anyway. They always do. They are more hyped on that than we are and they want to share their excitement too. They just try to balance that with their scientific needs. That's why they arrive so early. To track the whole process as it unfolds. That's why IMHO it's the most exciting mission to unfold in 2014.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Engineering/ATV_s_fiery_break-up_to_be_seen_from_inside Sounds great - for those disappointed that it will be an IR camera instead of regular one: It's hot plasma, so there won't be much color involved, it'll glow white. Image that ESA attached is misleading - there are not red flames going around. Here's more appropriate image: (Mir Reentry, 23 March 2001) Also an IR camera got an important advantage over one working in a visual spectrum: It can see much better through smoke.

Welcome to the club.

Only if your reputation will be low. And that's not going to happen. Lack of bankruptcy threat means that you don't need to be bothered with recycling as you'll always be able to get more cash needed to complete missions, so unless you're into doing a crazy whackjobs - you don't need enormous single-launch rockets to make it happen - especially because you can research every technology in a game by just flying around Kerbin and it's two moons which can be done by using cheap rockets and basic technologies just fine. From what we've seen so far - it looks like funds will be a no-brainier. Sure, more cost-efficient, reusable rockets will make it easier and quicker to move forward in a research tree, but apparently there will be nothing to stop your progression and mark it as a game over, so... no need to bother with that. If there would be some necessity to go to the other planets along with biomes being there and a risk of bankruptcy in a process if you're playing carelessly - then I would recycle as much as possible for sure, but in the game as we know it? Come on...

There will be no way to go bankrupt, so: no, it won't. I don't see a point being bothered with recycling parts if game always provides you with some more money.

Unless you find someone who has done it - forget it. It's too easy to fail. You want to have a results to show, not a rock strapped to the baloon.

You got your priorities wrong. no need for capsule (heating can be provided withouth pressuarized capsules) or scientific equipment (it'll just be a dead weight with no value what so ever). Spend money on a good camera (image quality matters. A lot) that allows you to trigger both: stills and video. Then make both: high quality images and a good video. it'll be by far more popular than crappy video stream from a keychain camera. Plus: you might actually hope for a press coverage if you'll have quality material from your baloon flight.

Noone said it should be a single mistake. All that was suggested was adding an end game if player repetitevly fails in achieving presented goals. It should be a chain of events that leads to the game over screen, not a single mistake like you suggest. and if you still can't stand it - play sandbox mode. Seeing that your main interest is in building up a persistent world - you'd be better off toying in a sandbox anyway.

That's a separate problem KSP got: no clue what to do with the game once player is capable of sending a return mission to any planet in the game. The end-game content just isn't there. But let's not mix topics

Sounds really great, though IMHO it looses a little bit of merit with time compression. People would just switch to deep space probe, compress time to maximum, and then switch back to collect all the science. Young adults these days are so used to being instantly rewarded that anything requiring them to wait is automatically wrong and they look for a way to bypass it - and KSP offers that way. So for them - you would only increase the clickfest, not decrease it, at least in a case of most of your experiments. Things like measuring impactors, barometer and nose cone array, or anomalies obviously don't share this problem though. In general though - It's still better then current system, as it makes you aware that you don't just "do science" (problem which appeared by the way of KSP cubesat - some got convinced by KSP that you can just pick some scientific equipment and "do science" (in that words) - lol) but rather you need to have a specific plan, these things take time, effort and preparations to actually get anything of value. Your system has that - and that's why I like it. Makes you appriciate all the effort scientists put in that more than a current instant gratification system.

Implement some good practices known from other projects like a roadmap or planned features list?! impossible. lol

I'm not a big fan of that. Dropping stages on parachutes is something that basically never happens in real life, yet alone: is applied to every single design. And what you are proposing will do just that: make people attach chutes to every single stage they're dropping. besides - do an in-game test of dropping some larger booster on a chutes - it explodes most of the time on a contact with ground.

There's also a magical balance between "fun" and "stupidly easy". Agreed. Sandbox mode is stupidly easy. You just pick the largest parts, strap them on, and bang! You're on the orbit in no time. That's how my first experience looked like in KSP and it felt almost like cheating. I went to campaign - and that's where challenge and fun begun.