ThePan

I couldn't manage to dock something with the attach-o-trons in my career mode, they also didn't appeared to be magnetic. I tried loading and saving, turning SAS on and off, restarting the game etc. They worked fine in sandbox mode though. Has anything about docking changed in 0.90? (Do I need a certain pilot skill level, facility level or something like that?)

Good suggestion, I like that idea. You can finish the whole tech tree alone with mun and minmus. Scott manley managed to do so with just 2 launches.

These Ideas are probably better suited for a mod as they would noticeably increase the challenge and could lead to financial dead ends without proper planning. I really like the idea of economics in career mode. So far however I never really had to care about money in 0.24. I would love it to see economics becoming more complex and putting some pressure on the player. Steady outcomes: • You start with a loan and have to pay Interests for it • Daily Upkeep for rockets/satellites - a small percentage of their initial building costs. •• Less upkeep costs when landed on a planet • Salary for each kerbin hired •• Increased salary for kerbins that haven't been home for a long time •• If you can't afford salary affected kerbins refuse to work. • Upkeep costs for the facility Income opportunities: • Convert science points into money • Satellites / Stations orbiting a body To prevent unlimited money via satellites there should be a diminishing return for each satellite. Let's say a satellite around mun makes 100$ per day. Having two satellites would grant 150$ (+50) per day. Three would only grant 175$ (+25). (The diminishing effect doesn't have to be this drastic). To make it more interesting there should be different categories of satellites with different requirements. Let's assume two categories, science and gps. Science satellites would require a height between 80 and 120 thousand km. GPS satellites would require an apoapsis and perioapsis of 2868750 +/- 1 (geostationary orbit). Having 2 science satellites would grant you 150$ daily. Adding a GPS satellite would grant you 100$ and you would still get 150$ for your sciencesatellites as they are of different categories. More requirements would possibly make sense, for example having at least 3 gps satellites to get any money of them which are at least X km apart and media satellites only working when in orbit around kerbin. Or Science satellites having at least X° more/less inclination than other science satellites to count. If a satellite fulfills the requirements for different categories he might count for all of them. As you unlock more tech nodes you would gain more modules that you could attach to you satellites so that they can count for more and possibly more profitable categories (you might start with radio, mobile-communication, GPS, different Internet speeds, television broadcast, HDTV...) Satellites might also generate science points. I thought about Planets behaving like "goldmines", meaning that they can exhaust. Let's say mun has 500 science points and a satellite generates 2 per day. After 250 days it would no longer generate any science for you because you exhausted the 500 science points. More or better satellites would only speed up the time until mun exhausts but would not offer additional science points overall. Other: • Losing money instead of just losing repetition for losing a kerbal. • Unlocking tech nodes should cost money based on science points. Making the cost high would possibly be a good way to give the player a reason to grind money at the later stages of the game without him having to worry about not having enough money for parts/launches. How it might affect gameplay: You would at least in the early stages of the game be under some time pressure because of a steady outcome. That shouldn't be too drastic but it should for example discourage to just speed up time to constantly generate more contracts. For interplanetary travel you wouldn't just want to speed up time until you arrive but but do other launches while you're vessel is flying in the background. It also further encourages using probes as you save salary (especially for longer flights). Satellites and stations would become useful for both science and money, I personally really love setting up satellite networks or assembling stations. Balance: I think for balance reasons it might make sense to make the most important spending factor unlocking tech nodes. So far money only works as a limiting factor and in the worst case you can't do anything and if you have too much it just doesn't matter anymore. Increasing costs for the later tech stages could be a good way to make you grind and be generally more careful about money without having to fear too run out of it and not being able to do anything at all (which should however be a possibility if you are careless). Because of the constant upkeep costs based on building costs you would also have reason to built cost efficient to maximize profit, especially for vessels that are supposed to stay for a longer time in space (satellites, stations...). Also a difficulty setting is obligatory.