tater

The scope of KSP is not going to change. We can all want it to change... doesn't matter, it's not realistic to expect that to change. If a development suggestion is to be taken seriously, it needs to be something that has a non-zero chance of actually happening, and even the less serious changes suggested are unlikely, frankly. Look at their career game additions for proof. That's just reality. There could not have been a body behind the moon, because math. You cannot plausibly deny the player information that would have been available in the Age of Sail unless you plan on the game starting out in the Age of Sail. If it is automatic, why bother? I am only assuming they know what they should know at the point of their technology. You don't get to aircraft/rockets without having some basic physics and astronomy. Assume it's automatic... it all happened before the game starts. Mini-Kerbin I would argue is a mistake. The reason they made it small had to do with error propagation in the code, as I recall. Rounding errors screwing stuff up with large distances. Smaller planets is actually not only unrealistic, but it also harms gameplay. The Mun has one, simple solution as a spacecraft problem in KSP. There is no balancing KOR vs MOR, vs Direct Ascent modes of landing on the Mun. If the worlds were bigger, then you'd actually have a reason to wonder as NASA and the Soviets did about what was the best choice for mode. That said, it's not going to change. I have said exactly nothing about simulation. I prefer an exploration mode. I just don't think it needs to include stone-age exploration mode. I think the start date for Kerbal SPACE Program is a society of little beings capable of space flight. No civilization reaches that point without the low-level science required to establish the orbits of the planets in their solar system, and indeed even some slightly more detailed analysis. I'd not disagree if it can be shown that the generated worlds would be reasonable. Right now the only really good world is the Mun, IMO. I think they could have a library, and simply have people submit bodies for addition to the library. the game can go online now and again and grab new worlds to add. If you rescale, and have enough choices to pick from, it will seem pretty novel each new career.

Yeah, the existing treaty is bad. You'd need to hammer out for planets how much can be claimed. Would the area be set by having people walk the perimeter? Would they be granted X km^2 per person landed? Any such new treaty would involve.... politics. What the US and private business wants, vs governments. I still think OP tends to make some threads that are equivalent to a 2016 election thread with tags added that say "even if this is technically politics there should be no reason to talk about politics here." Wait, what?

The only bit that matters is country in the case of Apollo as it was funded with public (US)) money.

For real discovery, there has to be some randomness, though. I agree that purely random would be bad. I would say have variant systems that have reasonable assumptions in terms of which types of planets are where, but that the planets themselves would change (still handmade, it just selects from a library of choices), and the solar system scaling could change as well (1.2X spacing, 4.3, 6.4, etc), with the planets changing size independent of that (as long as they scale the same or less). Best of both worlds.

I don't know how it would work, but something like the hitchhiker (or lander cans) should require a fairing. If the HH didn't, then it could be heavier than one might expect, because it's designed with that sort of stress in mind. It would be nice to have a benchmark about what is actually reasonable in terms of survivability, too.

Note the wink. That said, the world didn't plant a flag on the moon, one country did. The treaties that were created to prevent that from being a claim were hammered out politically. Any change or opinion regarding those political agreements is by definition political.

How can your tags possibly make any sense---that there should be no reason for politics in this discussion? Any alternative would be a new treaty. A new treaty would be enacted via a very political process.

I think we should use any weapons we like in space, and we should in fact claim the moon, since we planted our flag on it. Is that political? This is pixie dust level stuff. Agreeing on "peace" would be non-political, but disagreeing would be political?

At anything like 0.3 to 1g acceleration, the trip times would be so short, there would be no reason to bother with acclimatizing people to variable g loads. You will always be fine going to a lower value, anyway.

I can only assume the reporter who wrote that article is not a native English speaker. Man, web news content needs to realize that copy editors are a good thing. Without specifics of the actual problem they are having, it's hard to say what the prognosis is.

It's always funny when a thread is started that is nothing but politics, that then says, "don't discuss politics." Any discussion that involves treaties, or international relations is political, and any discussion that avoids all politics effectively avoids all real content. The same applies to threads about what NASA should/could do, for example. Without politics, you might as well be talking about treaties among unicorns.

The idea of discovering planets except perhaps one out in the kuiper belt is absurd. I think it is outside the scope of KSP to have to "discover" Saturn (I'm going to use real world examples, but assume that any I use are really made-up, randomly added planets). The starting point for KSP is roughly the Earth in the 1950s to 1960s. The planets would all be known, except, again, possible worlds that are very far away. What would NOT be known is: The specifics of planetary atmospheres. What they actually look like on the surface (no one had a clue what Mars actually looked like until the Mariner probe flyby). What their moons look like, or indeed most of the moons. Until we sent probes to Jupiter, we had no clue how many moons it had, dozens of them were brand new discoveries---everything about them. This is ripe for "exploration" in KSP. Large asteroids and dwarf planets. Again, some would have the orbital elements known, and nothing else about them. There is no reason at all to ask for the added boredom of a terrestrial telescope that you have to click on, or whatever. It is needless. KSP is about spacecraft. Give the player in such a randomized "discovery" mode exactly what data they would have, and nothing more, but certainly don't give them less than they would know. The proposal needs to be: Something Squad could actually do. Something people actually want to play. Terrestrial (whatever the word should be, kerbestrial?) astronomy should not be a thing, it should be assumed.

I think that all the astronomy should be assumed, this is kerbal space program, not kerbal "Enlightenment Science." Fog of war hides what is only known by space probes, but all other data is available. We knew orbits, masses, even atmospheric values for many places before probes. All that would be available. I have no desire to have to "launch" a telescope on kerbin EVA and click to observe some planet, that would be mind-numbing. what the game would also need is more planning tools (which it needs anyway). There is he mod that predicts atmospheric flight paths, for example, so you can more accurately plot landing zones. What if something like that was included, but the values it uses for the atmospheres are not the actual values, but the values the player currently has unlocked. Your first Eve probe would use the value determined astronomically from kerbin, which would be wrong. Having transmitted some science from sending the Eve probe, your next probe gets to use the newly determined values. (I used Eve as an example, but this could be a new world we have not seen before with an atmosphere that is hard to nail down (like the RL Venus)). Regarding the notion that the "shared experience" is important to the community... I don't think that is a thing, frankly. I personally don't care even a little about it.

It was interesting to watch the onboard camera view, then go back and watch the chase plane view. It slides after it lands, slightly. Look at the nasa video around 5:50 at the presumably 1st stage mission control. They have the camera on the drone ship on the big screen, but you can see the "paddles" deployed on stage 1 as well (after boost back).

It would still show a useful comparison to look at the spaceplane cockpits as they are so OP. Any of the command pods need to be lighter than those. I agree that the hitchhiker is not a reasonable comparison, it's supposed to be an on-orbit habitat. Like even other non-spaceplane part, it need to be made not ugly, and we need more options for station and base parts.

This will likely go the way of the previous megastructure movement of the 1960s.

Add the mk3 spaceplane cockpit. It's absurd. It bests the mk1-2 in every single statistic, but has lower mass.

Regarding the drone ship landing "We were confident that if it did fail, it would fail for a new reason... it turns out there are a lot of reasons for a rocket to fail."

This is a 6" with a computer control, but still dobsonian mount: http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes/IntelliScope-Dobsonians/Orion-StarBlast-6i-IntelliScope-Reflector-Telescope/pc/1/c/12/sc/27/p/102026.uts?refineByCategoryId=27 Slightly larger than the Celestron you linked, but basically the same features in a more compact mount.

Just awesome. Gotta come up with a nice cocktail to make this evening.

Why did you attribute the above quote to me? Dobsonians are a very simple mount system. They allow changes in altitude (vertical), and azimuth (horizontal rotation). Equatorial mounts align the part that rotates with the equator, then can have a motor that counter-rotates the telescope so that it remains pointed at the same spot in space as the earth rotates. The one your mom suggested is a slight equatorial variant with a motor on both axes, and the computer uses your a setup algorithm to determine your position, and then it moves the scope as needed in both directions to counter the earth's rotation. Refractors vs reflectors is complex. Bottom line is that at the same aperture, refractors are going to be better for planetary observing. Generally speaking, I think a reflector is probably a better bet for you. The one you linked is fine, and a dobsonian would also be fin---and for the same money, it would be bigger (bigger is better), but it lacks the perks of clock drive, etc. Here's a dobsonian to look at: http://www.telescope.com/Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes-with-Free-Shipping/Orion-Limited-Edition-SkyQuest-XT8-Classic-Dobsonian-Bundle/pc/1/c/12/sc/398/p/101452.uts?refineByCategoryId=398

Nothing in it has been addressed. Nothing. I can repost everything I typed up thread again, and it still applies. I had hoped it would be addressed before 1.0, but we got a double-down on random side quests somehow being a "career."

I used to play the Starfire games, actually. The animation above reminds me a bit of traveller (another game I used to play).

I've been using ETT, and I think I can mess with that tree a little at some point. Can't test 1.1 until it's past the whole Steam thing.