mattinoz

This sounds pretty great. Would say in terms of Kerbal tasks the or a future level of autonomous Kerbal the titles could make a good control over what each kerbal can do. So:-... Rookie: Ballast/Tourist - Sits in a chair tries not to freak out maybe learns something on the way. Kerbonaut: Can be delegated simple tasks under direction of a Commander or up. Solo in a craft would still be just ballast. Senior Kerbonaut: Can handle more complex or long running tasks as part of a crew. Can solo a player focused craft. Commander: Can solo craft without the players focus. Can Command a multi-crew craft with player focus. Veteran Kerbonaut: Can Command and Solo a craft without player focus to recreate previous missions flown as a Commander.

Something like chatter would be great for Kerbal Tasks... so as well random chatter for housekeeping, there could be specific chatter as a cue that Kerbals doing stuff as part of a mission, or training cues like reading off elevation during assent. Yet still in chatter Kerbal speak so it's not telling you what to do just that there is something to do.

The only time it seems matters is if your craft can't go on rails then you get a warning that you can't quit or even switch away without loosing progress. The final "Are you really sure" is already a good 6 clicks past that point anyway.

Yes Please... Oh while they are at how about a sleep button that when you restart the game it brings you right back in without half dozen click and waits. Edit: oh further while they at it. How about having a consistent location for the quit button. From memory no two clicks to quit are in the same location on screen.

Given the way technology is going I would have thought if an orbital shipyard was ever to be built it would be using a development of 3D printing. Maybe some complicated parts or a core of the part would need to be flown up to be integrated but most parts which are bulky and empty could be printed in space. Still means the dry mass of the ship needs to be put in to orbit some how but could be much more compact and streamlined profile. Don't see why similar couldn't happen in KSP design ship at the drafting office and be told you'll need 15 tonne of metal cord, 5 tonne plastic and 50 part cores that will need the ferried up to the space dock.

It would great the building progression promoted a sense of realism, not complete realism but at least an idea of the challengers a real program would face and what upgrades would expand the scope of the program. So take Tracking Station may not goes as far as line of sight on radio transmissions but could effect reliable transmission ranges both one-way and two-way. So that you need two-way for Kerbaled Missions and one-way for probes. First tier would start at two-way around kerbal one-way from the Mun. Second tier extends two-way to edge of Kerbin SOI and one-way to get a probe to Duna if well timed. I think the restrictions placed should be as much a clue to what to do next as they are a challenge on getting there. Agree there should be encouragement of multi-tasking but not Sim City style whole city reduced to rumble because you just left stuff to run.

Yep electric props would have some cool uses but wouldn't we also need some retractable wings to go with them?

couldnt they use something like bittorrent sync API no or limited demand for file hosting which could be covered in part by mod sites in return for better cheaper delivery for all. Plus if a craft or mod is popular you get lots of hosts to service demand. Mod updates could be spread quickly with little server spike. sure have client embedded in ksp and opt-in for players. Still given the small size of most file the client could have very aggressive bandwidth limit and still be very effective.

Like Xerox photocopiers the whole games industry just seems to ignore the last 20years of interface development. The bad fonts, massive buttons, chunk scrolling and inconsistent layout all remind me of a misspent youth.

It is odd there is a crawlerway but no crawler to go along it.

Could be one of the features with upgraded buildings.

This is why I think it should be a co-pilot system more than an auto-pilot. So every mission has a commander (player) kerbal but if there are more seats than you can fill them with skilled kerbals to handle various tasks for you. So as a task became valid it would popup as a button over the reliant kerbals window, hit the button to engage (or speak to command would also be cool). Some you could interrupt others you would initiate and have to wait to complete but the wrap speed control would always be in your hands. To me mechJeb gives the flight range of skills a Kerbal co-pilot could have but no one Kerbal should be able to do it all. Divide that up to a skills tree and add science, engineering skills.

Hoping there would be an Advanced Ballooning tier as well for the modern balloons that use a combination of buoyancy and body lift driven by jet engines to gain altitude. Wouldn't KSP need multiple atmospheric flights for this to work? I mean High Altitude manned balloons are only going up to about 25% of Atmosphere thickness. (Thanks wiki) Google's project loon higher but still topping out 50%. So In KSP a realistic carrier is only going to get to maybe 30km which would be great until you pilot your drop ship away at speed and the carrier disappears into nothingness after 2.5km.

I would think more like a co-pilot than an autopilot.

Couldn't there be bonuses within the realm of science? I mean if you have multiple engines running with a mix ISP then the more skilled pilot could throttle less efficient engines down first. For example 2-3% fuel saving between 50-75% throttle and 3-5% between 25-50% but with matching drain on electricity or monoprop. The further skilled pilot could trim throttle to keep within terminal velocity. Skilled players are already doing that and getting themselves in to orbit on 100dV less than not doing it. Yes this did occur to me after reading this thread. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/43927-Multiple-throttle-groups

For no real reason other than it would be funny to watch... I think Asteroids should be basically a source of water (well other things as well... but that not important right now). The miner would be basically a hot nuclear powered cone that is very heavy and can take a bit of and impact. So the goal is to get the miner in the path of the asteroid and let the asteroid crash through it and embed in the surface. Once there the heat of the nuc makes steam the collector facing the cold inky blackness condensers it back to liquid. To much pressure builds up and the release valves would fire which could work for you by bring the orbit more circular and easier to dock with to collect or could work against you depending on your piloting skills during the litho-acceleration maneuver. With this there would be two other parts to the system a tank to collect the water (plus maybe a couple of steam engines). A processor to turn it into the other Hydrogen/Oxygen resources for the normal rooster of engines. Well and some way to pick suitable targets.

Might be to do with the dense air on kerbin.

It would also be good with if the new mirroring options they spoke of let you mirror struts either side of a booster back to the main hull while also adding struts to the radial symmetry boosters a the same time.

With the new explosive buildings this megaJeb would cause a fair bit of a damage.

I've been wondering the same... they could go further than just mod delivery and keeping them up to date. Make it part of the game play. Use contracts and reputation as a beta test system. So new mod would start at a high rep requirement but move down as it passes tests and spreads to more players.

Yes, looking forward to JFKerbal's "we choose to go to the Mun" speech.

Have to say I do like the ideas. If Kerbals had skills and specialisation like science, engineering or various flight skills then having a range of skills on board could have a moral boost. On the flip side put a Science skilled Kerbal in a lander can (so you get science boost from surface samples) without a skilled pilot and well moral is going to tank.

I do as long as the science cost exponential to the outlandishness. Any engine or tech that has at least been test fired on release day should be reasonable. Something like warp drive should require maxing out every science point in the kerbolsphere.

Oops... Keep forgetting Kerbals are just celebrity ballast. Then they should move the buttons off the image and shorten to "XFR" as others have suggested. Edit: added: Why bother having IVA at all? Saves on artwork, polygons and buttons.

Not sure it would need another button. If the IVA had more complete models then you could IVA into first kerbal perspective then just walk/float around click on hatches inside the modules to get between them even pick seats. Even go EVA by picking an external hatch. Keep the EVA button as a short cut for Kerbals in modules external hatches but do everything else with IVA. (Well maybe eventually given the development time required)