fairytalefox

It's not alpha-beta-production. It's Minecraft style. SQUAD just need to clearly separate "snapshots" and "releases" (whatever they would call them).

Years ago I read a book in which a protagonist answers exactly this question, and I like his answer very much. The answer was: "Yes, he is me, but I'm not him".

It's exactly what I'm talking about. All the different LV-T30's I'm suggesting would be of the same LV-T30 family. The new ones will be better than old ones, though. Because it's just weird to launch my Eeloo multi-microprobe mission with exactly the same engine Jeb went out of Kerbin's atmosphere for the first time.

The actual problem is, the part set we have just won't work well with any tree-like structure. There are virtually no parts that render earlier parts deprecated and useless. We need them all even in the endgame. It is not how technologies progress - in the real world, we don't fly Vostok-1 spaceships anymore, and we don't put our state-of-the-art fancy communication satellites on the top of good ol' R-7's. In my opinion, what we need is multi-tiered parts. Like, LV-T30 (basic edition, heavy as heck and whatnot), LV-T30 Mk. II (less weight, better Isp), LV-T30 Ultra (the best of it's kind, maybe even gimbaled so we don't need LV-T45 anymore); same model, slightly different textures (or even different color decals over the same basic texture). At the beginning, we get or easily unlock most of the parts in their crappy versions and then gradually unlock the upgraded ones. This approach gives us a natural line of progression, which allows tech trees to be built in an easy and logical way. It also isn't that model- and texture-consuming, just more decals and cfg-files. It also provides us with (kinda) more parts (which is good for diversity) and less parts (which is good for not to be confused) AT THE SAME TIME.

This ROUND-8 thing. Why not both? Like, two different parts with the same model and different textures. It's probably not so difficult to implement. "ROUND-8X" sounds cool enough for me.

Well, in my particular case it seems more troublesome than useful, so I don't want and most probably won't do it. Thank you for your advice anyway, it's always good to know such things.

Thank you Mr. sarbian sir, with #422 unexpected staging doesn't occur anymore. Still can't rendezvous in one move, though. The autopilot just establishes some orbit not even in the target's plane. It probably just can't do it's work when launching from random location, or I'm doing something wrong. Never mind, Jeb Kerman is smart enough to do some things manually so it's not a problem. He's back home now, safe and sound, thank you again for your great creation, porkchop transfers rock

Houston, I've got a problem. A really weird one. I don't know if it's MechJeb's fault but it occurs when I use it. The problem 100% reproduces for me. http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=00814646842525635034 This archive contains my game save file, KSP's and MJ's configuration files and KSP.log. How to reproduce: 0. KSP 0.90 (32 bit), MJ #421 (#414 does this, too, I've upgraded it to the very last dev build but no luck), no other addons. 1. Load the game. 2. Via Tracking Station, go to "Laythe Lifter Ship", it's landed on Laythe. 3. In MJ's ascend autopilot, click "Launch to rendezvous" and "Engage autopilot". 4. The problem is: in about 30 seconds after liftoff, something triggers decouplers. All the autostaging options are turned off (either this or I'm blind). The decoupled stage contains loads of fuel/oxidizer. The problem does not occur if the ship is launched not "to rendezvous" but just to some orbit. I'm confused as heck.

"Inefficient" is just another pronunciation for "ugly as hell". /discussion

What about this: 1) No difficulty settings at all. Finances and science are tuned to something reasonable. 2) You start with Sandbox mode unlocked only. 3) Achieving X (i.e. flagging Eeloo) in Sandbox unlocks Science mode. 4) Achieving Y (i.e. getting Eve soil samples back to Kerbin) in Science mode unlocks Career. 5) Achieving Z (i.e. ... dunno... something really great) in Career shows you the final cutscene and credits. After the cutscene ends, you can continue playing. 6) Everything is moddable.

...and it would be very useful to know, wouldn't it? So we still need some form of artificial gravity, not immediately, though.

Can I ask you for some details?

Isn't this just a proposal? I don't blindly believe in everything Musk says. He is not a tech guy after all.

Nukelars are good when you want to bring 30+ tonnes of payload to Jool. You have to deal with putting, like, the whole big SLS rocket to LKO, most probably with refueling, multiple dockings/undockings etc, or you can just use one carrot tank, one LV-N, MechJeb and 45 minutes long burn (2x physical warp and alt-tabbing out of KSP recommended). Boring but relatively easy. Smaller payloads and/or easier destinations work well with conventional engines for me.

Exactly my point. Generally speaking, nobody knows if something really works or not until they try. It's the only reason we need science. So billions of investments would really help. Internet discussions involving professional (and amateur) gamers and students are much less reliable. There's a guy, Elon Musk, who probably can into space in the most efficient manner possible. Or maybe he cannot. He will be a new bill gates one day, or he won't. We'll see. You sir have the very solid point, too.

Well, being a multi-billionaire who knows how to build the best rockets in the world does have some disadvantages. I believe I could live with it.

I wish I really knew how to build better rockets. Rather than merely playing KSP, I'd found my own rocket company and become a bill gates of space industry.

I believe we already have something like such checkbox, it's called "sandbox mode". I think it would be enough to make existing restrictions to depend on probe core models / pilots' skills rather than the tech tree nodes, with some additional tuning maybe.

My most satisfying mission so far was bringing Jeb to Laythe and back in one piece. The last reentry was not like "home sweet home", it was more like "OH HOLY GOD WE'RE BACK CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS JEB WE'RE WIZARDS!" An Eeloo mission with a crew of three was probably more difficult but surprisingly way less entertaining.

The balance isn't broken, it's just not implemented yet

Yes it does, it's exactly what I said. Why so skeptical?

MSI Afterburner. Surprisingly it's free, can work with any hardware (not MSI only) and can capture DirectX windows.

Some people think KSP is like Minecraft. Minecraft has what they call "adventure mode", and there is a lot of adventure maps on the Internet. Maybe something like this...

Let's make things clear. Nobody thinks XP is a bad idea. We all love our Kerbals, we want them to progress. Nobody thinks giving Kerbals perks and abilities based on their XP is a bad idea. We all want our Kerbals to be something more than tinfoil dolls sitting in rockets. There are tons of possible perks and abilities for our Kerbals, some of them are kind of implemented by the devs in their internal builds, others are proposed by the community in this thread. Nobody wants them all to disappear. But as we can see, there are 2 (TWO) abilities MORE THAN HALF of the community is really pissed off of. And nobody even thinks these abilities are important. Some people just don't want them to exist, and they are many. I want to ask other people, those who voted "for": are you so really really desperately want these, like, 5% to be added to your Isp? Is it SO important for you? Or you maybe would be satisfied by reputation, science, money and other innumerable proposed boosts NO ONE objects so far? I know my English is horribly broken but I hope you've got the idea.

Boosting Isp or thrust is just stupid. More skilled pilots should be able to pilot BIGGER rockets. You want moar boosters (engines, passengers, docking ports, solar batteries)? You need better pilots. Best of the best ones can make anything fly. Also I think it would be good to limit the automatic probe cores in their ability to pilot things. Like, Tier I core can only work with up to X tons vessels and operate up to Y science tools. Tier II can do more, etc. And no "unlimited" cores: all really big missions have to be piloted.