Sasquatch_Punter

I use the claw, but imho only docking ports and kerbals on EVA should be able to connect the fuel systems of two ships. It would be nice to have fuel ports with lines that kerbals can drag around and attach to other fuel ports. There needs to be more to do during EVAs.

For launch stages I like practical, aerodynamic designs, so my rockets tend to look generic on the launch pad. In space is a whole other story, especially when I start building up stations. Then again, I used to play with a 2Ghz Core2 Duo laptop that was 6 years old... Building fancy-looking stuff was easy, but flying basic rockets was the only way to get playable framerates.

Craziest-sounding mission I ever attempted: taking a suborbital EVA report in Jool's atmosphere and returning the kerbonaut to my Laythe ground colony.

I just build a few research outposts around the Mun and Minmus, then pretend that they're performing offscreen while my major exploratory missions are in transit. What bothers me more are the asteroids. Who knows how many giant E-Classes hit Kerbin every year? Imagine how tedious stopping every one would be... Ugh.

I think it's also due to the way the wheel module handles surface geometry; riding over an edge onto a very shallow decline causes momentary "air", and the wheels end up bouncing around as they fight to regain traction. On heavier rovers the suspension is loaded moreso to both decrease this air and push the wheels into the declining surface, therefore you have better handling of edges. The problem is that this isn't all that realistic. Neither is the sliding that kerbals experience when they hit the ground at high speed; regolith isn't smooth, it piles up like sand and slows objects immediately.

@HvT The lunar landspeed record is currently about 5m/s, yet slopes still cause lateral slide when trying to drive straight on the Mun at that speed. The problem is that traction gradients aren't implemented very well; you can see this in effect when your rover takes a small turn and you have a sudden unexplained loss of traction, followed by your wheels catching the ground and flipping your 3-ton rover on its ass. A light, 1-ton rover should have more than enough mass to get traction on Duna, but inevitably they start sliding and the wheels start lifting off the ground. This isn't a small, isolated incident, either; the forum search turned up a bunch of threads about this exact issue. @RIC, I didn't hear about that. That's good news!

I'm not sure why, but every surface in this game feels like a skating rink. You crash, and your parts go sliding down a gentle slope for miles. Kerbals glide along the ground at high speeds instead of ragdolling properly. Even rovers can't handle more than 10m/s before their wheels start acting drunk... In all honesty, driving is one of the least fun and most annoying aspects of the game for me, when it could be so much more fun. Imagine driving high-speed rovers across Duna or even Minmus without having to contend with the sliding bug? Or wheels that are responsive to braking and never take 30 seconds to go from 10 m/s to 0. Imho the ground-related physics need love too.

LOL, good. Seems like an obvious addition.

I haven't seen this mentioned on here, but with the new mining/resource processing mechanics, doesn't anyone think the stock game should incorporate reattachable fuel lines for surface refueling? Something similar to what KAS does, since being forced to use docking ports on the ground can be fairly frustrating.

I still do it, but I'm smarter about it than I was. No more 2km/s vertical speed reentries on Kerbin. Honestly, I'm pretty happy about that. It makes deorbiting stations a lot more fun, too.

Simple answer: make your craft aerodynamically stable. Payloads and fairings that are as streamlined as possible, plus fins (preferably controlled ones) at the bottom of the first stage. The less aerodynamic your ship is, the longer you need to wait before starting your gravity turn. You know, it's really not that tedious. I have a lot more fun designing my ships now anyway.

Not really. It's more inline with harder difficulties in the early game, but becomes much easier after a few good missions. Hell, I play hard 100% of the time and can pretty well just breeze through it. Hard mode is set up to punish inefficiency, but for people who've already mastered efficiency it's a cakewalk.

It's a compromise between realistic and fun. The drag system is pretty realistic AFAIK.

Looks perfect to me. Just the right amount of distinction without being distracting.

+1 First time I've actually had to restart a career play through due to being beaten by hard mode. I barely orbited the Mun with tier 1 buildings before I realized that I blew the budget on tech I didn't need. Strapped for cash. Forced to get creative with basic tech because a renovated R&D facility costs over a million funds. No EVAs. No patched conics. No maneuver nodes. Can barely get enough science to unlock most basics because missions are 100% harder without all the nagivation aids. Can't even launch a Mun lander before upgrading the launch pad. You have to fight to survive in Hard Mode now.

It has to be said again: this update is just incredible. Hard mode actually feels hard now, and everything else... so awesome. Already a few hours in and only just scratched the surface.

What exactly is so wrong about the part limit? Lower tier building represents lower tier/inexperienced engineers. Less complexity suggests that your space program is less capable in its infancy, which makes sense.

That's how game development works, unfortunately.

I love the idea of having to scan with a satellite to uncover parts of the biome maps. Imagine a contract to map the dark side of the Mun?

Expansion. That's a big one. Currently career mode has no drive for expansion in the late game. After the tech tree is unlocked and you start hitting the 250k-500k fund range, the game starts to just feel like sandbox mode with contracts. Then, instead of expanding their space program, many players start a new career... because the strength of that mode lies almost exclusively in its early game progression. Things like resource extraction, expanded base/station operations, life support, and deeper money management are sorely needed for a richer mid-to-late game, IMHO. Simply stretching facility/skill/tech progression out to fill that space is pretty pointless, because it's finite no matter how many nodes you need to unlock.

The editor needed changes to fall in line with the new facility tier system. They had to rework parts of it and implement new ones (part limit comes to mind), and they obviously saw an opportunity to go in depth with it and improve overall functionality in the process. Ta-daa, rational thought ftw! I think I heard the tier system was going to be the last big addition before scope complete. So hopefully they'll be looking at the aerodynamics after Beta releases (since they've admitted many times that it needs work).

At the end of my 0.24 career save I deorbited a massive 400-500 part station with a couple of SSTOs docked to it. I was using a 3-man command module as an escape pod with parachutes and rcs blocks attached to it so after I deorbited the station I moved my pilot in there. Then I realized one of the SSTOs was still carrying two passengers, so I managed to move one of them over to the escape pod before the reentry effects started. About 20 seconds later, the station snapped in half. I undocked the escape pod and the space plane and fought to keep them within 2.5 km of each other as they were falling, then triggered the escape pod's parachutes and just spiraled after it with the plane, waiting for them to deploy. That plane was actually VERY maneuverable so it was easy to keep them relatively close to each other. Best part of that mission was trying to dodge the station as it was rotating. Even though it was chugging at almost 5 fps, it was epic.

That's what the other guy that I quoted was talking about, but I understand that everything is subject to change and design plans are rarely set in stone, as that's generally not how game development works. Especially when you factor in continuous feedback. They're on their way to implementing features that have been in their game plan for years. Some have been dropped, others are still a ways off, but they're getting there. I don't know what else to say.

Okay? I really don't see how the tech tree "deviates" from their design plan. It could definitely use some balancing, though.

If I remember correctly, the barn model was already much smaller than the current VAB, which I assume means they're planning on a size limit to start off. It's helpful to think of the VAB as a representation of not only rocket construction, but rocket design. With that in mind, the artificial part limit seems less like an arbitrary roadblock, and more like a way to simulate early engineering hurdles that discouraged convoluted ship designs. Think: did early space ships have tons of RCS thrusters, gadgets, solar panels, storage modules, boosters, etc.? No, because the engineers of the time were more interested in keeping everything manageable and streamlined for their specific needs. Using a general part limit allows players a degree of freedom while still somewhat holding them to the constraints of early rocket design. And, of course, the launchpad already has a mass limit, so a part limit for the VAB makes a lot of sense from a "cohesive design" standpoint.