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Good points, @r_rolo1, that also reminds me of another problem, that KSP gets only easier to play, not more challenging as career progresses. Life support certainly adds more challenge, as you need to create larger craft for any given mission, and/or do far more planning. There is also the issue related to what you said that the tech tree is the sole reward system in the game, and like it or not, players unconsciously play to reward systems in games.

I would really like to see a robust construction ability off Kerbin. It would also serve to give Kerbals something to do in space. Have a VAF (vehicle assembly facility) that you have to build, then it needs to be supplied with parts. Small stuff can be bulk-loaded KIS style, but any large components would need to delivered in most cases. Certain structures might be available for actual construction from scratch on-orbit from pieces that could presumably fit in a bulk container of some kind. The VAF wouldn't look like the VAB, just because it would be cool to have it look like it's on a station. It would have unique limits. A similar facility for bases would be cool to have as well, including the ability to create certain kinds of base structures (which might be allowed to be constructed already attached to other facilities). I like it, I see that as an actual use for a station. Note that I see this as a way to more precisely build the sorts of things I already build on orbit. Say I flew up a crew module, and it had transduna injection stages and a transkerbin injection stage on top of that, and it was to be launched in 5 launches, and assembled. I can dock all those together, but trying to get it perfectly aligned rotationally at the docking ports is non-trivial. I'd love to be able to put each segment next to an orbital construction facility which would then grab them (it could have some robot arms that work like grabbers), then all those parts appear in a "VAF" and I assemble them, exactly aligning the parts, then poof, it gets done.

Slow progression in the KSP carer mode? True, that's a real problem, because going from inventing rockets to SSTO space planes is way too slow... it might take the average space program in KSP, what, weeks to reach that milestone? Days or hours would clearly be better.

The point of the tech tree is not to be historical, though that would likely happen with a better tree simply because hard things are hard, and easy things are easy, and the real world actually works that way. The point of the tech tree is supposed to be so that the player has meaningful limitations that impact design choices. Career was never really thought about, and to the extent they did, "tycoon" was a bad model to pick---not least because that mode requires elements they never planned on adding (totally autonomous kerbals to manage). Any tech tree that is designed outside a specific gameplay concept is broken from the start. The two concepts that make the most sense are exploration, and a space race. Exploration requires stuff they have also stated they don't like, like randomness. This leaves only a space race as a plausible career mode to work with, though ideally some part failures would be in there as well---note that my goal is limitations and drivers to push the players into making interesting design choices. Think about replay here. There is no chance of me failing on basic tasks in KSP, ever, in career, and it's been pretty unlikely for a long time. I'd like a chance to not always "win" on a replay. I can set the current mode to hard, but honestly it's just grind to me.

Career should not be a tutorial. That's really the problem, I don't think they had much of a plan about what career actually was to be. I use a "Space Race" example for a number of reasons, and if there was an AI system (including at a "strategic" planning level) I'd happily play such a mode. But take an explicit "race" off the table, and look what sorts of choices a space race puts in front of a player, and see if that describes what career should feel like as a thought experiment realizing that many of the elements of a space race are in fact implicit to KSP career mode. In a race, you have some finite resources, and you are trying to make these exploration and science milestones before the opposite program. Given your resources, and the technological path you start along, you have to actually make hard choices: go NOW with some real risk of failure, or try and develop a better spacecraft first? It's a real choice, because the opposite program might accept more risk and "win" that milestone. The failure might be... a stranded astronaut. Obviously not a thing in KSP because non-player programs are not stranding astronauts... oh, wait, they are. Milestones imply that there is someone else who might be "first" to the Mun, for example. OK, so we have no space race, but the race is implicit in KSP regardless. Assume just that, and look at the tech tree, etc. Shouldn't career possibly think in terms of an abstracted race such that the player might get rewarded for making goals in a timely way? A risk/reward system that makes it possibly pay for sending less capable craft, or picking a novel tech path?

The current tech tree is absurd, and is bad for many reasons, including the most important one; it's bad gameplay. The point of career and the tech tree is to provide constraints on the player such that they have to make pro/con choices to make the completion of missions more challenging. If in career all the parts were unlocked at the first, the Mun ceases to be any sort of challenge. Build a Mun rocket, succeed. Since the game has an implicit "space race" feel (milestones, rescues, etc), but no actual foil, the foil becomes the tech tree... you want to go to the Mun to get "science" to unlock more stuff, but you need to unlock the tools to do so. A better tree would allow for players to pick different paths through the tree to attempt their mission goals. A soviet-style Kerrin-Orbit Rendezvous, vs Direct ascent, vs Munar Orbit Rendezvous, for example, depending on what parts you unlock. The current tree is just awful in this regard.

As someone who has spent 50 years here in 'murica, I might have a few more data points than you do. But maybe you're just vastly more gregarious than I am (not even slightly impossible, lol, I tend to be sort of quiet). Older people seem to care more, and of course it depends on the context... if you were to ask me specifically about my family's background, then I would discuss it. There are also subcultures where that might be more likely... certain "ethnic" neighborhoods I have lived near have people who think of themselves as Italian-American, even though the last family to live in Italy was a couple generation back (my brother-in-law, for example, his grandparents were that way, he's not that way at all, but he's in his 40s, not an old dude).

Graphs? Sure. I was thinking more robust tools to actually fly spacecraft. 1. Have current map mode be an actual map. That means it works day and night. It also means that the data shown on the map represents what is actually known about the terrain. Kerbin starts with an awesome map that can be zoomed in to a camera altitude of a couple thousand meters, say. The Mun can be studied on the kerbin-facing side to a higher altitude than the current map can zoom. Duna is a smear, about what it looks like when you first enter the SoI, no closer. Other planets are similar to that. Far side of the Mun is blank. 2. Add some camera parts (crew capsules can be assumed to have them) and mapping ability (scansat-like). How and where you take images adjusts the zoom level of the map. Such imagery needs to first be reduced, so orbital labs can do this work, or it can be sent home. Just flying low with crew won't cut it, you fly low, but your map view will stay zoomed out until you reduce the data. 3. Add something like the Trajectories mod, but it has hooks to be turned on to varying accuracy per world. Starts the game off, and as you do Kerbin missions, it becomes available for kerbin, and requires "science" to be done at other target worlds to be used on those worlds.

Science should actually do something useful for the player. Atmospheric analysis can allow you to predict flight paths through atmospheres, for example. Map zoom view tied to how you've imaged the planet. Then add the details to the worlds so that this information is useful.

Mars has been "around the corner" since I was born. Forgive me if I think that current claims are no more likely than all the other efforts (and the vast quantities of money sunk into them).

I've managed a few MM patches myself, so that's not a problem I used to have @Nertea's stuff in my install, and with 64 bit I guess I can put it back (woot!).

I'm not sanguine about humans going to Mars in the next 30 years anyway . It is my understanding that current bone loss mitigation efforts are just that, they mitigate bone loss, but do not prevent it. Note that the losses experienced on long ISS missions to this point are in spite of their exercise regimes.

Regarding docking, particularly welded docking: can those ports "snap to alignment?" It's really hard to build something where all the parts stay in alignment on orbit. I get usually get pretty close eyeballing it, but it can be a few degrees off, and once I notice I cannot unseen it. Ideally this would be a function you could set in the right click, because it would be useful for any new docking port part. Perhaps the part needs to be rotated within 5° or something, and then rotates to alignment. This idea sort of goes hand in hand with my asking for a sort of linear docking truss part, as that would have to snap to alignment to be useful.

I'd be most worried about acute issues, like bone loss. Presumably 0.38g helps, but I think a precursor study would be to have a spun hab in Earth orbit at martian gravity to see. If that eliminates the bone loss problem, it would be a big deal, because then the transit times would have an intervening reset---that might be another study, send people to ISS, measure bone loss, then send them to the 0.38g station and see if it results in regeneration.

#2 sounds better, frankly.

Seems silly to land someplace you could literally jump off of using a capsule designed for a powered, atmospheric landing on Earth. There is a reason vehicles are designed to be specialists. You are suggesting spending a long time in a spacecraft, then landing in a capsule that you would presumably also be using for Earth return after landing on a couple dusty moons.

Here's a hub with 3 crossed SSTU tanks. Obviously the docking ports could be welded types or standard size in any of the 6 directions. I don't know if they could be switchable, i.e.: 2 x welded, plus 2x standard, plus 2 x 2.5m, or something. Perhaps they could be slightly longer so that the hub is less tight, with room for some RCS (more of an obvious + shape). Docking lights are in SSTU, I wonder if on a hub such lights might be off the ports slightly, and not quite on-axis so that once docked they illuminate the docked segments.

Yeah, it's not really a KSP thing since we cannot interact with the terrain in the ways needed.

Venus and Mars have no appreciable magnetosphere, so their radiation environment on the surface is actually pretty bad. Mars is 0.67 miliSieverts per day, so they get a year of Earth background every 5.2 days. Deep space is a several hundred mSv per year. Venus is bad, too (no magnetosphere). Eve rotates sort of normally though.

^^^then they need to be buried in a few meters of soil .

Yeah, I'm sure it was. Like I said, on the recent landings, I don't remember seeing the top of the stage, so I guess I just missed it.

What is the purpose of the highly tapered parts on TKS-VA? Honestly, I google the Almaz stuff, and the tapered bits look like a launch escape tower. Ah, the tapered bits on the ends are the return vehicles. So on your TKS, that would be an entirely different part as a reentry vehicle, leaving it really just a cylinder.

We'd all like "wow" factor visual improvements, that goes without saying. As for gameplay, it's way more complicated. I'm with @Veeltch on "biomes" (that name needs to go, it only applies to places with biology, it'd be like calling the munar surface an ocean). It just slightly changes the grind structure. I suppose it depends on the vision of the "end game." Say for argument that the end game became long-term habitation/outposts. Depending upon the way the Joolian magnetosphere works, certainly only Kerbin and possibly Laythe are places not awash in deadly radiation. Every other body would require habitats to be buried in regolith. The RL analogs are about 5m for the Moon, and about 3m for Mars (that's how deep they need to be covered in their local soils). If building outposts using local shielding were a thing... 1. It gives kerbals something to do on a planet. 2. It makes some sites potentially better than others (add lava tubes?), and perhaps requires more science (this area is better suited to tunneling, etc). 3. Maybe some new construction parts, like a nuclear powered drill (fuses regolith into a glass tube as it penetrates), a front loader, etc. 4. It provides an incentive to come up with 'AI" kerbals that can do certain construction work on their own (really just a cool visual effect, so that when you bring resupplies, the kerbals at the outpost "look busy"). 5. Perhaps such interesting features could somehow be randomized. Certain terrain types (a combination of the current biome data, plus local terrain shape) might be where rilles form. Perhaps they are not always breaking the surface in the same place (forcing some exploration).

LOL, I think it's that the only time I remember the RCS firing a lot post landing was the ASDS landing where it tipped over. The RTLS modality meant that we had a nice, steady cam view where the entire booster was clearly visible. I can only assume this happened in the other landings but I missed it.

Maybe it's because the video usually cuts out on the ASDS footage, but I was kinda worried with the RCS going strong immediately post landing thinking there was a gear failure.