Seio

It's to keep the weight relatively normal for stock kerbin. If engines are ligther then something else has to be heavier, and I think fuel tanks and fuel take up the vast majority of rocket mass.

Basically I want fuel to be heavier. Engines be lighter, and command pods etc to be lighter. How would I go about to add a filter to make engines 11.5% (engine weight*0.115) of their weight and increase both fuel/oxifider and tank weights by 20%(liquidfuel&oxifizer&tank weight*1.2)? Might make everything too easy, so then maybe a slider to increase the weight by everything, by say 5%, or even up to 10%.

Any tweaks for realistic settings for stock planets? I think it's a lot smarter to adjust settings based on Kerbins size, so we don't have to end up with 2 fps for a rocket barely able to get to LKO.

I don't understand all these suggestions for things like deadly reentry, FAR, life support etc, there are fully functional mods for those things... Why not want something that is actually going to add onto the game instead of just removing a need for a few mods?

Wouldn't this be fixable just by reducing your income? If you would reduce it to like 10-20% you might not be able to convert any of your funds to science... and you would maybe even need to convert rep into funds as well. At this point science is kind of pointless, but I don't really mind it, science atm is pretty useless... Since you have to buy the parts funds kind of becomes the real science (if you would turn down funds gain). Still though, you can just put a ship into orbit and endlessly transmit science around kerbin completely free with huge pay outs.

I haven't really faced any issues with the funds, and I play on hard. I've even made some horribly failed launches that cost quite a bit. Before I realized crew report counted as sscience, I decided to send up a very small space lab, in total it cost like 40k. First one jeb override the crew so I put it into orbit... Then I sent another mission to exchange the crew, only to realize I forgot an antenna, so I had to take the station down and send up a new 40k space lab. I've thrown away probably about 100-200k, I still have about 300k to spare, and I haven't even gotten as far as going to minmus (mainly because I'm lazy, and I wanted to actually have a space station with use). Anyway, I think science needs to be improved. The admin building is fine imo, it may need some fine tuning. The contracts are not too well planned, the testing parts in flight is just way too hard to complete with very little reward. But, the biggest issue is the "science in orbit around x" contract. I think a big improvement would be to have "science modules"... You start out with just a connector, or a core, that is needed, after that you can see potential contracts that needs specific criteria to be completed. So for example, to complete a science contract you can have the requirements such as: "core module" must be part of the craft "Science bay" module must be part of the craft 2 crew members must be stationed in the "science bay" You need to bring up "samples" to the craft (could be done as you start with a "science experiment" in your capsule, or just remodeled/colored 2HOT Thermometer that you need to dock onto the craft) Then you'd have several different modules available, and some contracts would require you to have several modules installed. With that you'd actually have some use for a space station, and it'd be a bit more of a challenge to gather science that way... Though, the contracts for those science contracts would need to be somewhat rare, and maybe progressively less and less until you haven't taken any of those contracts for a while (need to complete other contracts). The same thing could maybe be done for "base science", so that you have to set up a base on a planet/moon, and then have to gain samples from different biomes to analyze at the lab (so, a base needs to be stationed on mun, with X modules, and samples needs to be gathered from the biomes on the mun to then analyze on the mun base).

Well, the administrator building allows you to be very lazy... Just take 2 small ships, and send them to kerbin, mun (and minmus if you want), make sure you have solar panels and an antenna. Then you get one of these rep -> science in the administrators building, and so you get lots of science, money and some rep for every time you transmit a crew-report on stationary vessels around whatever planets/moons you want. But, you can scale that I suppose, with the difficulty changers... And I think it's better that devs spend their time on features, and maybe reworking how science works, and leave the balancing and proper contracts to modders.

I do really like those points, and allmhuran brings up some of the same things as well. So to keep it short, how science gathering would work Gravioloi detector and thermometer maps the planet or moon with temperatures, and gains science points for every "point" it scans. It would also give a visible map of "hotspots" to ana(l)yze with a kerbal or experiments like mystery goo and materials bay, for extra science. Mystery goo and the materials bay takes time to gather science, but has a maximum value that can be obtained for a specific altitude or biome (would need to remove "high over biome" zones though), having a kerbal on the craft would yield extra science; or be required to gain science from the experiments (I suppose the science lab could be reworked to yield even more science, for a deeper ana(l)ysis - close to what's yielded for retrieving an experiment). Altitude/photo recorders would be added, to map the planet for it's biomes, and gain science points for every biome discovered/mapped, and for every point of the body mapped: This would also make it easier to find the biome you want to grab science from. The atmosphere stuff is something I don't know much about, I've never bothered with it... but it could use the same system as the others. Same with the seismic data, I'm not too knowledgeable about how it works in real life. Basically everything would be based on the "ScanSat" mod, and/or the kethane scan mod, to see the different lay outs (temperature, gravity, biome) of the body you'd have a toggle to switch between them. What it would improve is more efficient and systematized science gathering, like you're setting up an actual space program. Kerbals needing to ana(l)yze the experiments over time would make use of having more than a couple of kerbals, as they're actually being useful. The tech tree needs a complete rework, so that it makes some sense, and gives you freedom to choose what parts you want to unlock, I think there was even a mod for it. Also, having "upgrades" for each part would be interesting, where you'd use science points, and potentially performing "experimental part" contracts, to "upgrade" the part, where an upgrade would give you a better ISP, a higher thrust, or decrease the weight of the part (nothing excessive though). edit: Seems a certain word collided with a filter.

KSP is a space simulation game with some RPG elements, it's not a hardcore roguelike game. I don't know of any RPGs or simulation games that has a "game over" in the basic modes, and so I really don't see why KSP should have it. The difference with KSP, and other RPGs, is that it takes hours and hours to play through (though there's no strict ending), so you can't just have a game over and lose the last 40 hours you spent in the game getting to the point you were, where as in action roguelikes the game is usually 30 minutes or a couple of hours long, so to get a game over in such a game isn't a big deal as you can simply start over again. KSP is also different than RPGs and really almost all games, it's a simulation game, you need to understand the physical mechanics irl, it's not simply about learning game mechanics. Getting your first rocket into orbit can take hours, if you're really new to everything about this it could maybe even take 8 hours. And after that you have to figure out how to get to the mun, and so on, it's has a very big and long learning curve for people who are new to physics and orbital mechanics. Also whoever said a 5 year old managed to put something in orbit... There's a very big difference about doing something yourself and being guided to something. That 5 year old would never manage to get anything into orbit if it played by itself, the reason it managed to put something into orbit was because it has a parent or a sibling guiding it to it. A 16-20 year old who plays alone is going to need to learn the mechanics from playing and come to an understanding, he or she won't have somebody guiding them to this (unless they decide to look it up, on youtube for example). Somebody mentioned earlier "government" and "private" space program game modes, which I think is a great idea, except with some differences Government space program mode would be like a campaign or almost like a tutorial. You get a set amount of funds to complete a specific mission, very corridorish progression, you get unlocks as you complete the mission, but maybe throw in some minor things the player can choose for themselves. The goal with the mode would be to teach the player to play the game, not in a sandbox environment where they can build ridiculously huge rockets, but instead a controlled environment with the possibility of hints, where the player is introduced to the orbital/space mechanics and the tolls and parts of the game (including tutorials for things like the nav ball, how to make maneuver nodes etc). Private space program mode would be like the normal game, or where you play in a restricted sandbox, or an open campaign, this would use the existing contracts (with it's improvements) and science mechanics. It would also have different difficulties, Easy (what it is now), medium, hard (much less profit, and generally harder, can get into a "you lost" state and need to load an older save), potentially where you can change the difficulty at any time, and then special game modes like "hardcore" (no quick saves, no revert flight (or like anything past 10 seconds), hard settings, but normal saves possible) and "ironman" (no quick saves, no revert, one save, permanent game over possible). Then you'd obviously still have the sandbox, for those who really just want to build things, have fun, and don't feel like the game challenges are worth playing anymore. One big issue with the current game though, and something that would be needed to be fixed for this contract+science system, is automatic saves... The game has to save every now and then so that in case you really get into a ty situation you can go back to where you were previously and attempt to not get into the "lost" situation you were in (although I don't think there should be a strict game over). This is a pretty good idea, though I'm not sure if it's just better to have a better system to prevent you from bankruptcy (save/load). I think this might be something that just sounds really cool, but when put into the game it's something everyone will just avoid, because it's simpler to load an old save file and not screw up again.