tater

The tech tree is absurd.

Gotcha, will do.

Why does "Habitation" in the VAB show "Indefinite?" It might be nice to have the option of seeing LS/Hab status for ships with no crew. I made a point of rotating crews home before updating to 0.3.0, so currently nothing shows up. In the settings, how long is a kerbal month as used in basehabtime? Is it a Munar month (6 days), a Minmus month (closer to 50 as I recall)?

They should go away, or snap to whatever size they are attached to... The simple solution is to convince Squad that all engines are in fact for spaceplanes. In that case, all the ugly aspects of them will go away next update, heck, they'd probably get an art pass to not look ugly into the bargain.

I saw this story maybe last week... it's sort of absurd. An aircraft having an RUD incident at altitude is almost certainly the result of something nefarious, so any testing should at least involve a detonation first. Of course with the fuselage breached, and a water landing, it seems like over most of the earth you'd be happy to not be dead... then you'd drown. Most other wrecks are as cantab said CFIG incidents, and a chute does no good at that point.

Sturdy doesn't seem to be the issue in this case, it was a failure to lock. They presumably have some shock absorption as well.

I was wondering if this was about Patrol Boat, River, or Pabst Blue Ribbon. Imagine my surprise.

Yeah, it's very hit or miss. Anyone who was a journalism major basically has no knowledge about anything that they don't already know about, and no expert knowledge they don't have already. Any science/engineering reporters not trained as scientists or engineers are pretty clueless in my experience. My wife says the same about medical/bio stories.

I'd think that a proper camera part should be more automatic. Think "ScanSat" (mod). We have a kind of infinite camera view right now, it's called map mode. Tab to a world, then zoom in. The zoom takes you to a position some XX km above the surface. What cameras SHOULD do, is adjust that zoom level based upon the altitude and type of camera used to visit that particular world/spot. The default zoom would be reset to what you could possibly see from Kerbin with a telescope. So the side of the Mun might look as it does now in map mode, but the far side would have the zoom level moved so far out it's just a disk. Duna would be a red disk with ice caps, no other detail, Jool would look as it does from the window of a craft that has just entered the SoI, perhaps. Cameras would change by tier. Tier 1: Video camera mk 1. Low res, moves map zoom to Xkm above the altitude of the craft flying it. (have to work X out) Large format film camera. High-res. These might be assumed to be in all crewed pods. No transmit at all, must be returned to Kerbin to be developed. Moves map possibly to some fraction of altitude of craft (need to work out long lenses vs scanned area, how does scansat deal with this?) Tier 2: Camera/developer. Like the cameras used in the Lunar Orbiter missions. Takes images, develops film, scans film for FAX transmission, and can transmit. Limited supplies. Tier 3?: CCD cameras. Medium res, but can transmit. Tier 4-5?: High-res CCD cameras. Can transmit. Radar mappers could also be possible for places like Eve (abstracted for clouds, even if not in game). No clicking by the player, though. Place in polar orbit, otherwise you just image a swath under the craft. Ideally it would only image the day side, too.

If you know actually something about a subject, and then read or hear an article done by reporters, you will pretty much always think the reporter is an idiot and doesn't know what they are talking about (because they don't). You will then read the next article about something you don't know that much about, and you'll believe it.

No, I agree completely. It's just that time-based mechanics are ruled out by Squad because warping is "bad," when they have other times it's required, and times like the dumb contract rep hit when you are encouraged to warp. My point is if they are going to add a mechanic that encourages time warp just to advance time X days, they might as well make it useful

Then ALL time warping is bad, even warping to Eeloo, instead of laying in real time. The bottom line is that the entire "Apollo" time period in KSP "career" happens in a few days. In career this is absurd, and makes it have no sense of being a "career" to me. Time warp is just fine. If it's fine to warp to a transfer window, SoI encounter or maneuver node, it's fine to warp for construction to complete (a more KCT mechanic) or to the next fiscal month to get new funds. It's all the same. Designing is "interacting with the game" and takes no game time (?---might take 1:1 game time, never checked), but easily could. There is no reason why VAB/SPH time could not take 1 Kerbin day for every 10 minutes or whatever (just warp the clock by whatever when the player is inside). Piloting, etc, is "interacting with the game," but DOES take game time (sometimes 1:1, often times heavily warped). There is a button to warp to dawn right now, it would be trivial to have it warp 6 days (there would be 71 such 6 day weeks per Kerbin year), or 71 days (6 "months" like this per year), or whatever. Warping is warping, it's a tool, and if it's good for one part of play, it can be good for another.

Certainly the goals can be pretty simple, but again, the game will not be easiest at that point, it will be easy, then harder, then easiest, then slightly harder, etc. Simple question, is the initial goal easier in sandbox or career, yes or no? Could you do the first orbital launch in career easier at the point you can accomplish this in career, or once you've unlocked all the tech and upgraded the facilities? Clearly it is easier in sandbox, or the career equivalent which is all the tech and buildings unlocked than it is at the point it first becomes possible in a career game. So the Career game is necessarily harder earlier than later, I don't see any way around this. The only way it gets harder late game is if you take ridiculous contracts as some sort of challenge. I have zero interest in hauling ore from Duna to Ike, for example, that's an absurd request. Sure, it's harder than mining Ike, but it makes no sense, so I don't do it. I've suggested basically the same thing, we're in agreement. My point about budgets is not that they are given in advance, but they are doled out over time in advance. This creates time as a thing without KCT mechanics. Say the Explore Duna advance is 600,000 funds and 300 science points to buy tech, and the mission must complete in 5 years, then perhaps it funds the advance over the whole duration. You'd get 120,000 per year. You can arbitrarily divide the Kerbin year into 6 months of 71 days, then you'd get 20,000 funds per month. The science might be given as a lump to buy tech needed for that mission. You still have other flows of science/funds during the dev period for that mission. If you want, you can warp ahead a few 71 day months to build up the funds if needed. I'm not disagreeing---again, I suggest this as a new type of career mode, not as a replacement.

I'm basing that on the tweet from Musk that said speed was OK, but it tipped over due to the leg not being locked. That's textual confirmation, right?

I can't see any possible way that you start with less capability (like Tracking station not upgraded) and have the game be easier at the start. I tend to think it is fundamentally impossible to make the game easiest at the start. I'm operating under the assumption that the game is not going to do things for you, or make choices for you early on. The pieces we have to play with are facility unlocks (maneuver nodes), parts types, and parts limits/masses. I suppose they could introduce engines with a greater vectoring capability right away... or probe cores that can do things right away. Adding a KER-like functionality would be huge, but the lack of maneuver nodes is a big deal. In career mode, you should not be warping to completion of any mission. While your probe is en route to Eeloo, you have another going to Moho, and manned missions to other places, etc. Life support would help here as well. You could have a system like some proposed here where you pick your destination, then you are given a budget (in advance), and also a time frame to complete the mission. You'd only take a hit if the mission doesn't hit whatever that date is. I always play with LS once mods catch up with a new update, so I know how this forces time to be meaningful. A planner would be ideal, though Well, there is already a foil implicit in the rescue missions, as well as the firsts (why bother with noting YOU are the first if you will necessarily be the first because there is no one else?). Again, I think this would be an alternate career mode. I see people post who routinely blow up kerbals, for example. I almost never lose any, so that when I do it's a big deal. The reason I like the idea of a foil is that it adds a really unique design trade off if done right... safety vs firsts. With no foil, and time making no difference, there is no reason not to just do everything right/perfectly, particularly in replay for those of us that have at least some clue what we are doing. Life Support makes my planning even more careful, so I personally think it would be fun to have some idea that my opponent (either a Cold War analog, or BO vs SpaceX, whatever ) is doing something that leads me to think that he might be attempting a Mun shot before me, so I might as well go with my marginal craft to beat him, but at some risk. Again, not required, but I think it would be fun, particularly for replay value as it's entirely different from what we've had.

No, I think it means it landed much like the land-landing last launch, but then one of the landing gear folded up.

I actually have no issue with time warping. Squad claims they DO, yet implements things like the Rep hit which encourage time warping. Embrace time compression. Use it to set annual budgets that pay out XX,XXX funds per Minmus month (50 days) or something. Run out? Warp to the next Minmonth. This would make your launches actually spread apart in time, instead of inventing rockets on day 1, and landing on the Mun on day 4.

Last frame looked like flame where engines should be, I bet it hit the target, but I haven idea at what speed

Last I read they had a 0% chance of a weather violation.

That's awesome, the hosted thing last time was just awful. If I wanna see stuff like that I can watch the youtube junk my kids watch, or twitch (shudder).

It's a rifle, you can likely do whatever you like to it short of making it full-auto in the US broadly (if it were a semi that you could get to slam-fire by screwing with the sear, for example, THAT would be illegal nationally). Some cities have really draconian gun laws even if no States do, however. Whichever cities have the worst crime rates likely have the most strict laws, even with long guns. DC, for example would require a permit once functional. You can google gun laws and your city/state and know pretty much instantly what is allowed. Best bet as said above would be to take it to a gunsmith. He will almost certainly tell you that it's not something worth messing with since it would likely cost more to fix than simply buying a new gun. i'd imagine they might led it for use as a wall-hanger someplace public (restaurant?), or perhaps as a prop.

Thanks for posting those tweets, I sent the LA image to a buddy of mine in LA who is likely not keeping up with launch stuff.

We could have gone to Mars a long time ago for a visit, but that is not a colony. If a colony were to be set up, it would by definition need to be mostly self-sufficient (note that the US colonies were not self-sufficient in everything for a long time. That said, they were trading fairly quickly with the Old World. That's just not plausible for Mars. There's nothing unique about Mars, and nothing that exists there that doesn't exist on Earth or asteroids that can be hauled to Earth orbit. I think to argue for a trade economy with Mars you'd need to justify why it would be better than the Moon or an asteroid delivered to Earth orbit, and you need to include logistical costs. I'm not seeing any chance of this, it doesn't seem remotely plausible. I'm not saying a permanent base/colony is not possible, I'm saying that a trade economy would not be a thing.

An orbital telescope, or the far side of the Moon would be substantially superior to the martian surface. Astronomy isn't even on the table as far as Mars is concerned.

Space unicorns is it, sadly. I think deep space is infinitely superior. To offer something constructive, I think that I'd have to actually think there was a good, economic reason for colonization. I can possibly come up with reasons to colonize, but a trade economy with Earth isn't going to be one of them. Wanting there to be a reason isn't enough.