Sky_walker

I doubt ESA would build a proof of concept craft and fund further studies if it'd think that it doesn't make a practical sense. BTW: Some people thought the same about harpooning into comets... which ESA is about to do this year. @1) depends on a weight and thrust they can generate. Getting high performance motors is not a problem. Size on the other hand - might be. But considering how small the lander is - it should be doable. ESA isn't trying to drop a new curiosity out there And major advantage of this system over dropping cargo with a rocket-powered crane is that you can precisely drop small cargo on a rough terrain without disturbing it much. @) It's a proof of concept craft. Not even a prototype. They won't be using SanDisc cards on a Martian dropship. I thought it's obvious....

FAR + DRE Procedural Fairings KAC If you want moar graphics: EVE DOE

Balancing is part of the testing they do in experimental stage. And there will always be people complaining about balance - even if it's mathematically and logically as optimal as it possibly gets.

It's a huge patch bringing two major functionalities into the game: Budgets and Contracts. No wonder they want to take more time testing it

That applies by far more to the stock areodynamics (pancake rockets, more boosters rule, etc.) than it ever did to fairings. Procedural fairings can have limits applied to them just fine. Word "procedural" doesn't stand for "infinite size". Whatever fairings are procedural or not - got nothing to deal with that. They wouldn't use fairings at all and just: add more boosters. Problem you have got very little if not nothing at all to deal with whatever fairings are procedural or not - it's all about aerodynamics. Proper aerodynamics would migrate unproportionally large or awkard cargo and proper aerodynamics would encourage orbital construction.

We don't know how budgets will work. R&D costs might already be simulated in the game... or not. IMHO you should wait with this suggestion till after 0.24 is released.

They work even if you're an advanced player At least: till KSP gets an aerodynamics model that doesn't suck.

Yep, I mean in stock too. There are fuel lines, struts and on-engine fairings (these that appear when you add decoupler on a bottom of an engine). Precedence is set and... it works extremely well with the game, never creating any situation "in which parts can be whatever you wish" like Vindelle_Sunveam implies. (and TBH: I can't see how he came up with that after trying procedural fairings - but in any case: a lot depends on a specific implementation and so far Squad got quite a good record in that).

Sorry to crush your hopes, but we already do have procedural parts.

Well done KSP at it's finest.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Technology/Dropship_offers_safe_landings_for_Mars_rovers 8 months, 3 research centers, and ESA got working proof-of-concept helicopter dropship for a small Martian rovers, hehehe. I like how they used commercially available components - from quadcopter down to the SanDisc memory card . Fancy sensors, clever AI, and they have a very nice sky crane. It will be nice to see a first man-made helicopter on another planet Seems like the guys making mods which add rotors and a capacity to build helis were up to something

I do video editing on dedicated computer, not a "gaming machine". Anyway - editing video on regular gaming PC is bottlenecked by hard drives and CPU+GPU processing power, not VRAM.

What not to suggest:

Vast majority of games are capped at 4 or less GB of VRAM, so it's not a problem.

There is no indestructible and inflexible material. All material is made of matter, even if your material would be made of quarks or anything else - it'd still be sucked in a black hole - in your example: it'd simply pull inside the ends that are sticking out of the event horizon.

You swap first letter of a random words with K and find it to be amusing.

Ekhm... it's not a cargo bay, it's an obscure hack around game mechanics that's suppose to look like a cargo bay but it doesn't work half of the time.

The further we go in development the less of a factor it becomes. Patch 0.24 will be a major milestone in that regard - after that there will be... might be areodynamics (depending if it'll require any changes to parts or not) and that's pretty all we know about in terms of a large changes that require maintenance of a whole parts repository. I don't see a point of it - if I'd like limited parts packs that I am suppose to use at my own risk and are not balanced well with the game - I'd download one of the mods. If they'd release proper, well-balanced, official parts packs, be it as a DLCs or Expansion Packs - I'd pay for it. If things cool down then it means people lost interest in the game - and then there's no point in releasing few more parts as it'll change nothing in getting them back to the game.

You summoned him! Truth to be said - in most of the games I actively track: they post details about upcoming large patches before they even enter the equivalent of your experimentals phase. Even EA kept people up to date with their first large Battlefield 4 update before it went in a testing phase, and I knew by far more about that BF4 update back then than I know about KSP 0.24 right now. Which is even more funny considering that I didn't even bought BF4 and read the info on one of the gaming websites. As far as I understand - SQUAD delayed 0.24 to finish off the contracts, cause they decided that releasing budgets alone was nonsense. This means that you should have enough material to make a lengthy post about how budgets will work for well over a month now. And considering that contracts are another huge feature that's coming in 0.24 - you should have a very good idea how it'll work, even if details are still a subject of change (kind reminder: noone, in entire topic, asked you to describe every tiny detail of contracts or budgets, so I don't see a problem with releasing a functionality description that omits details you're still talking about with testers, even if it means pointing that out in a specific fragments of the article, or putting huge [redacted] signs all over it) However if SQUAD does not know how their major, key feature for upcoming update will work after a months spent developing the patch then there's something fundamentally wrong with their development methods. I work for years in a software development industry and for me something like that would be totally unthinkable. Perhaps SQUAD should hire some independent reviewer to take a look into their development methods? Perhaps purchasing and reading some books on a topic would be beneficial? Heck: to be honest, if you need cash for any of these: I'd gladly support you. In either of these two cases - there's clearly a problem. Either with the way you Rowsdower, and all the other developers communicate with the community or (in a worse case) with the way SQUAD leads it's development.

I laughed. You can't even build a space shuttle (eg. no cargo bays) with parts KSP has. You are forced to rely on modders, and it's not only for parts but also most fundamental features like areodynamics.

There is so many great games out there that it's natural you eventually move on - otherwise you'll never see other worlds that possibly might be by far better. But on the other hand it's natural to come back to the old titles that you enjoyed when time permits it, and so far KSP has been a great fun - when I'll quit it eventually I will be back for sure

There are no outdated parts. There are just parts that YOU can't find a use for. It's your personal problem, not a problem with the game.

Oh, now that's nice link you have there Shame it doesn't show a changelog.... man can dream....

I found a bug.... ...but it looks pretty

Bottom of my medium and small rockets. Just to get a free boost little bit up - I guess I'll have to stop doing that when economy comes in and parts won't be free any more.... Sometimes I use these larger boosters to assist with lifting cargo that barely can make it to the orbit - as usually I need additional fuel to dock with my orbital construction yard.