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The legs have worked so far in my limited testing (I don't do planes). The kerbals pass through them, which is not ideal, but certainly better than causing explosions.

Well, the billionaire bodily-liquiding match over who has the largest nonexistent rocket show must go on, right? BFR is bigger than NG2/3 . But wait, New Armstrong!

A small, directional antenna should be able to communicate with Kerbin from anywhere, the only thing that would change is the effective data rate. Even the omnis should really work anywhere assuming a decent DSN. What should change with distance is data rate, as a slower data rate is generally used to improve S/N. MRO has transmitted terabytes, for example, whereas New Horizons has 8 GB of memory, and is still sending back stuff that filled that memory during the flyby.

Untrue. Marginal costs are meaningless. Total program cost, divided by launches. Every launch cost around 1.5 billion using that measurement in constant dollars. Had Shuttle not been a thing, HST goes via Titan III? likely (or another variant, this is counterfactual, so they'd make what they needed). The launch is less than 1/2 what the shuttle launch added to HST, and there are not X repair missions at a cost of 1.5B each. If you imagine a more limited lifespan, you take the opportunity cost of not blowing billions a year on Shuttle and have new (better) HSTs popping out every 10 years or so. So HST could have launched on Titan, as other Keyholes did---HST and KH are un-coincidentally pretty much exactly the same (it's why the Shuttle cargo bay was the size it was, and why HST had the mirror it had instead of the planned 3m size). HST was to be launched in '86 (delayed from '85), had it been launched with Titan, they would have discovered the flaw in 1986, and would have had 7 years to build a new one and still come in at the same time HST became useful in 1993 with the COSTAR repair. Bottom line is that it certainly could have been replaced a few times for the multi-billion dollar cost of what, 5-6 total shuttle missions for HST? I agree that they are not cost-effective in the first place, and that they would likely have to be built there, but that makes them even less of an analog to KSP (the point of this thread) unless EPL were stock. So under the assumption that we don't leap so far into the future that we are manufacturing PVs and other items on orbit (well past any foreseeable future, IMO), any resupply will have to come directly from earth. I think if we have to posit delivery of supplies to GEO (lunar?), then manufacturing in GEO, then we might as well assume the station in question is an O'Neill cylinder at L5 a few km in diameter. Then the dv to GEO is only ~1.5 instead of closer to 3-5-4. Heck, you could go more near-future, and posit that such construction would be done by telepresence/robots. Why put people in a dangerous radiation environment for no reason? Long story short, I don't see GEO repair that requires 24/7/365 space station crew on call for instant repairs (the only reason to leave them there at a station all the time) as being a thing for a long, long time, if ever. For KSP, we don't have failures, so repair is not even a viable rationale.

There are no patchers for MacOS, and the DL isn't updated (or if it is there is no way to check short of DLing the thing).

Clearly a power station with a huge cross sectional area will have more interactions with micrometeorites, etc than satellites do. The question is how often would it be worthwhile to go all the way to GEO to fix it. The repair craft would have to be fairly substantial, and be able to haul whatever repair materials are required, for as many days as such repairs might take. I could certainly see that craft as being useful to leave in LEO, and refuel, and resupply with repair parts. Why would it need a station to attach to? Every XX months, you fly a refuel/crew mission to the repair vessel, then it heads to GEO, does repairs, and returns to LEO. Perhaps it hauls along the crew delivery capsule, and the crew returns to Earth. Does anyone really envision a station full of repair crew "on call" to pop up to GEO to fix a bad PV element, then they head back to LEO, then head up a couple days later when another goes out?

The build is supposedly updated...but not at the store.

@Workable Goblin We only have a single example of repair, and while HST was hugely expensive, it still would have been cheaper to throw it away and send a new one. Even with the repair, that repair was a mission by a spacecraft, it was not some sort of extemporaneous repair from a station. Any such repair requires that all spares are on hand already. If not, it's a dedicated mission, and doesn't require the station. It is functionally the same, as for a space station, you need to demonstrate that it's economical to have all possible spares on hand, as well as crew, on the off chance you need a repair. Then you need to spend a huge amount of dv to get the repair crew and parts there. If you have a craft at station for this, you likely have propellant boil off, so constant propellant resupply as well. Why would that be cheaper than sending the repair crew and specific parts needed from planetside?

Having a plan is actually the key issue that prevents the balkanization of parts that plague the current game.

I've seen other speculation putting NG2 at around 40 tons to LEO, so it doesn't seem unreasonable. I think a bigger issue is the 7m fairing, honestly. It doesn't do much good to be able to lift more if there are not payloads that mass enough that fit in the fairing.

Honestly, we don't need a "unitasker" part. Add a new, larger habitat part or parts, and deal with the "hotel" issue in contracts. Stations can already get new contracts to add to them. Add a flag such that if a station is built as part of a "hotel" contract, then it receives guest contract. Done.

I've already gotten ridiculous value for the puny amount I paid for KSP. I'd prepay right now for new content, just because I feel guilty for having gotten well past my $30 worth (or whatever I paid). Seriously, I've had many hundreds of hours of enjoyment for the cost of a cheap bottle of wine.

One "consumable" mass is fine, and it represents the net consumables. USILS has a decent take on this, actually, though I think the mass is slightly high. The base value is 10kg/day (was 16, heading to 10 for update). That includes air, food, and it's actually mostly water. Then, the parts like the lab or hitchhiker (or modded parts) can have things like recyclers that effectively stretch those consumables to some %. Water can approach 100% recovery, as can air, actually. Food clearly cannot. For humans as I recall the food number (dehydrated) is on the order of 1.something kg/day for food. The kerbal equivalent would be the best you'd get to 100% conversion. Greenhouse parts are usually wrongly done in KSP, as they look like big windows, which would present heat load issues in both directions. I should add that I never want the ability to 100% close the loop in space. I think that;s beyond KSP scope. I'd change my mind for truly permanent installations. Ie: if we could stake out areas on a world, deliver certain, large masses os supplies, plus extensive ISRU delivered, plus power generation, and batteries (or fuel cells, or nukes) capable of lasting through any night assuming some large nighttime use, then deliver kerbals, and they build a real installation on that world... like a KSC on the Mun (or wherever).

I tried to test 1.2 stock last night... and did for a while, but you've ruined me, @Shadowmage. Everything was so... ugly. I can deal with the mk1 pod (particularly the new one Porkjet has shown, though I did not put those in game), but literally every other part is so horrid I could not interest myself in making anything.

The in-flight highlighting is really no different than having the spacecraft leave nyan cat rainbow trails. I can see some people with visual problems wanting more in the VAB (though I certainly don't), but I find it hard to believe that anyone would like the effect in flight.

The design sheet is awesome. Kudos, @Porkjet! Exactly what parts have needed for ages, a coherent design document looking at the parts as a whole. Truly excellent work.

Yeah, I agree, my off topic tangent was because I was saying that the lack of economic drivers in game wasn;t unrealistic, as there really are no economic drivers, stations are for other reasons. Yeah, these two are great, although they come with a standard KSP problem---Kerbals are useless by themselves, so the player has to hand-deliver all the supplies needed. I'm all-in for construction yards, though. Fun, but I'm unsure how this works in game. Honestly, the "tourism" could take care of these with better contracts (and less random). Glass in large quantities really isn't a thing, growing stuff would likely be under electric light, powered by solar, or via a heliostat directing light into a more enclosed (and easier to regulate) greenhouse. That one is out there, but yeah, the contract system need to have hotels be a thing. Again, unsure of the mechanism for incentive in KSP. I have suggested that certain parts require specific "science," so this could be a thing... build a certain facility, and run it for XXX days to unlock new parts. This is just logistical, and I think many of us do this anyway---if for no other reason than we want to use our stations, for something.

I wonder if the new upgrade functionality could be useful for otherwise very similar engines (Merlins, for example)?

Who thought the green highlighting was a good thing? Clearly someone did, though I have trouble imagining why. How do I turn it off? I turned off Highlight FX to no avail. I have trouble playing at all, it's so incredibly distracting.

Tantares has great Soviet stuff, and SSTU has Soyuz/R-7 stuff, and station parts as well.

From a KSP standpoint, construction of something huge doesn't require a station, they can just live in a pod while they work, if you even need kerbals. If kerbals had AI, and could be tasked to do things, then orbital construction might be a thing. You'd send kerbals to supply a depot with parts, then kerbals based at the depot would build whatever they were taken to build. As it is, you really need only 1 with KIS, or a probe core otherwise to dock stuff together. Seems like the major costs would be transportation, not equipment, so if you are sending something to GEO, you might as well bring the spare as SOP. The only reason to bring the broken bit down would really be to deorbit it. I'd think that telepresence would be superior to risking people in a high radiation environment, as well.

I'm not quibbling, it's exactly the same, satellite service. How is it economic to keep people in LEO 24/7/365 so that you can occasionally send them up on short duration missions to GEO?

Yours is exactly the same as Giscard's. Servicing an unmanned satellite. What the sat does doesn't matter. The only real world example had repair cost more than replacement. Note that a station is likely in LEO because of radiation hazards, and solar power is likely in GEO. So such a maintenance requires an equatorial station ideally, and then require sending workers TO the power sat. Why would you not just send them there directly, instead of keeping them on a station, then sending a spacecraft that will certainly require fuel deliveries anyway.

Why would it require human beings? Beamed solar has not been considered viable for a long time now, however (it was the initial rationale for O'Neil stuff, back in the day, but it's not taken very seriously now). EDIT: I'm open to solar power stations, however. I just don't see why they require people. To stare at gauges, and turn 1950s style knobs?

Yeah, the He economy has been cited for decades WRT lunar stuff (one of the proponents at LANL taught a class I took on Lunar bases back in the 90s). The trouble of course is that such an economy is predicated on Fusion power plants. "Plausible" with such a caveat places it in the "currently implausible" category to me, though I welcome my fusion powered masters.