tater

Makes sense, I thought it might be a possible modification/refurb (I thought this for no actual reason whatsoever ).

That's what I meant, use a end of life F9 as the FH core, and expend it.

Gotcha. I only happened to notice because I decided to test SSTU for 1.1.2, and picked that "badge" flag randomly, which I had not picked in stock tests.

Isn't F9 non-recoverable the plan for EOL Falcons? It;s been reused X times, so the swan song is an expendable launch?

If you option-click to move a tank, the copied tank looks OK in VAB until you mouse over it, then the flag (if small) stays, but the rest of the decal goes transparent... I'll test it some more.

SSTU is all about low part counts (less of a thing perhaps with 1.1 should it ever become un-bugridden), so all the parts have options both in size, and in look. It rapidly became my favorite parts mod.

If you die at home, your cat will apparently start eating you as soon as it gets peckish. Your dog will wait until she is starving first.

There are some soyuz parts here as well. This mod is stunningly good.

I know where it is, but they bothered to keep it visible from the forum Home for pre-release, they should do the same generally.

It would be helpful if for the OPEN release Squad put the link to the bug tracker as a forum---which they did for the only partially open pre-release.

I hadn't read that. Cool. What are they set to pay fora launch though? As long as it exceeds the cost to build/launch an expandable LV, then after the first launch the thing is paid for. My arguments are really predicated on the idea (which I have no data on, whatsoever ) that they must keep a certain rate of production in LV/upper stage manufacturing to be optimally efficient. Perhaps improvements with 3d printing might allow a more scalable manufacturing process... dunno.

You'd think autocorrect would learn, mon. What's funny is that it doesn't prompt, then changes it later.

The reaction wheels should certainly be turned down, but as reggae said, the parts would need to be moved down the tech tree. Frankly, it's bizarre that RCS isn't all tier 0 since the pods all have mono and crazy reaction wheels built in.

Regardless of the savings, at a certain point, they've paid for the LV, and if they chose to do a launch for their own purposes, the cost is propellant plus refurbishment, plus the upper stage/payload. Assuming NASA and the AF demand new vehicles, then every 3 launches for those customers, SpaceX ends up with an FH to play with for the cost of an upper stage and payload (propellant is practically noise, cost wise). Once D2 is flying crews, what if NASA demands new (they likely will for a while)? What if they allow reuse X times? Then the X+1 launch it is a "free" payload for SpaceX to play with. Again, I'm thinking of this aspect of SpaceX as Musk's hobby, like BO is for Bezos. Get things to the point where for a few million bucks for an upper stage, Musk can send a lander someplace. That's not chump change, but it's not half a billion $, either.

Yeah, they make RCS useless for anything but translation. You can use them to flip a lander right side up. They're pretty silly as it. The people that argue against anything being more realistic always claim it's all or nothing, since that would be silly, when All we'd like is for it to make more sense.

That all assumes that the manufacturing people need to make X Falcons (and upper stages, obviously) per year to be viable (you certainly don't want to have to lay skilled workers off for much of the year). They might have an eye on the ULA AF contract as well, since if you have rockets lying around ready to go all the time, it's easy to be on call for a launch.

That's interesting, and could well be true. Under the assumption that they need to make X F9s per year to keep the mfg shop efficient, and that reuse is anything like they expect (10-20 launches), they will have more rockets than they can possibly fly with payloads. Since a launch will---even at reduced prices---pay for a LV, any reused LVs are effectively free for SpaceX to play with. Really play with. This might in fact be the real goal of reuse. Musk doesn't have the f-you money that Bezos has, but by making expendable rockets reusable, he can fly his own personal missions at very low cost.

That vid is awesome.

A career with a randomized Kerbol system that only allows players to see/know what could be know by astronomy from Kerbin would have career be a true "discovery" mode. Science could be adjusted to determine useful information, and/or unlock game features instead of as a points system. (the features would be that atmospheric science from a probe might turn on the ability to turn on accurate flight path tracking in atmosphere for reentry, for example). Nominally, career/campaign modes should be designed such that the player sometimes ends up with novel challenges. In KSP this is done via random, and 99% stupid, side quests. A real career mode would be such that the player sometimes has an "Apollo 13" moment to have to deal with, though being KSP, the solution might be to keep it in some sort of orbit (vs crashing), then send a rescue. I know they hate the idea of parts failures, but if there were ways to mitigate that, through testing, and parts with variant MTBFs, that creates interesting design choices---though again, without a foil, there is no reason not to always use the best parts. I like the idea of career, it's just very "meh" in practice. I'm not saying that the solution is easy, either.

Yeah, that's just another mode I think would be cool, hence me saying it might not even belong. A novel way to do this would be for the AI to borrow from other players. You play your space race, I play mine, many others also play. Our crafts can be picked up (provided all parts are available to the AI's tech tree) and used by other games. It could also possibly sample player choices about upgrades and tech tree to make things more fluid. It would require a better tech tree, however. In order for any sort of Space Race to ever work well, there would have to also be random failure modes. You'd have the ability to drive the chances lower and lower via use/testing.

Good, actually, provided the AI is halfway decent.

Strategic AI could have widely variant goals. In a KSP context, they could be rival countries, or rival companies... Your goal might be Duna, their goal is tourism to the Mun. In any race mode (it'd be a new mode), rep would be the relative score.

You trashed the 1.1 DL? I always keep a copy of the last version around, just in case.

@regex has put it well that contracts are "random side quests" (my apologies if anyone else said it that I missed). I edited my post above to add something like Strategia, where the player makes missions/goals, instead of them being either automatic, or random contracts. The possible contextual contracts addition makes some of this more plausible within the current framework. I would like to see "internal" contracts that come from your program, that fit the goals you might set in something like strategia. So your goal is the Mun, but your science team then suggests possible landing spots (via survey, etc, "contracts"). Instead of rewards being funds/science upon completion, perhaps (assuming time became a thing) the funds come from a budget, and perhaps science points can be awarded in advance---to buy tech for the mission in question. Say the whole funding paradigm became an annual budget, paid out to the player in chunks every month or so (a Minmus month is ~50 days, or it could be a Kerbin year/10, or whatever). This would make time be a thing, instantly, as if you are low on funds, you warp to the next month. Bam, 40-50 days pass. With real mission planning, your goal is, say a crewed Duna Program at this point. Taking that goal would award some science to spend on stuff for that mission. Contracts and missions (Duna is the program, I'll use "missions" for the internal to KSC contracts) are then generated for Duna. Linus suggests orbital science at Ike, and various science on Duna at specific places. Taking those gives you extra science to spend, and perhaps can borrow from total annual funds, NOW for that mission (reducing your later payments, obviously, as you took an advance). Time limits on missions and contracts would be slashed across the board. You'd not have 10 years to complete a rescue, it would be 10 days. In the case of Duna, completion would be set for some years that make sense. Perhaps in picking a Program you could set a starting date yourself (aiming for transfer window).

Yeah, that works, as everyone is in lockstep.