tater

Again, recast the OP as safety. "Green" for tiny volumes is similarly lost in the noise (assuming you can even define green in a meaningful way such that the error bars are not larger than the signal for this application). Isp still matters, even from a "green" context, because you need dv in the end, and any reduction means more green propellant required, and more booster propellant to get it where it needs to be. Years ago at the U, there were kids who successfully protested the use of styrofoam coffee cups in favor of reusable ceramic mugs for food service. I asked the guy with the petition how the energy budget compared given the commercial dishwasher required, plus the impact of caustic detergents and water use, and how this demonstrated that ceramic was superior... I got the blank stare you'd expect. I told him they might be right about the cups, but no one could make an informed decision if they didn't "show their work." It was a demand over the heads of the poly sci and art history majors driving the petition I'm all for better stuff, but it needs to be demonstrated that it is superior, and that there is a need.

Ven's mod is pretty much required unless you want to gouge your eyes out looking at rockets. i agree with OP completely, except I'd bump many of the lesser requests up.

No, it doesn't. It's not one resource, it's one aggregate mass value for multiple resources. Mass. That's it. LS systems recover a % of O2, water, etc. They scrub waste CO2. The net result is X kg added mass needed per astronaut per day to the system. Give a concrete example where the needless added complexity is actually useful for teaching anything past the simple understanding that LS involves multiple factors. That can be added to the part descriptions, edu content taken care of. My principal observation in using TAC was that my right click menus became annoying to the point of me not using it any more. - - - Updated - - - Instead of "noms" or other silly names, I'd prefer to see LS supplies called "consumables." The part description could include what is actually included. The "balance" issues are all in design, so I would create a new set of LS parts, as well as values for extant crewed parts. The LS parts would be LS hardware, not consumables. Maybe they do a check like "connected living spaces," so they must be a child part of a crew container, or connected. They would chance the efficiency of scrubbing/recovery for the habs connected as a function of total connected crew aboard. Some might explicitly mention that they get a bonus if a power cell is used (water), for example, or might even function as one. The description would explain that they produce a small amount of power using fuel/oxidizer to generate water for LS. net result is just lowering consumption slightly. (The balance of consumables loaded would be shifted to what is actually needed).

Yeah, rockets need love, badly. Contextual contracts are are a good idea, but given the fact that the stock contracts (including all the FP additions) are almost universally terrible, I fear we'll just have terrible contracts that are contextual. It would be nice if there wee at least some decent contracts as a benchmark for them.

Recast the OP as a safety/handling issue, and sure, safer is better. "Green" is so vague as to be useless. If handling is cheap enough to affect overall costs, it should show up in the data. If it is cheap enough to justify, including dev costs (amortized), then it is competitive. NASA buys propellant, and handles it. Safety is a legit issue, as is Isp. How their supplier makes it, etc? Not their problem as long as it meets the required specs, I don't think they should be wasting money on it, let the private sector come up with it if it is a cost effective product. If it's not cheaper, launches simply move someplace cheaper.

For the Mac as well? WTFG, guys!

If it doesn't reduce the cost per kg to orbit, we shouldn't waste a penny on it.

The door is also not big enough for a helmet to fit through, I think. One of the things I love about Ven's reworked parts is that the hatches are sized up.

Why? Did shuttle pilots need to check 6 a lot? It has a window on top.

The mk1 cockpit should look like an X-15

Maybe they'll make the mk1 cockpit stats based upon the mk3 cockpit, which should result in it having negative mass.

As was said, you can't, since the "inside" bit will rotate out of the craft. On top of that, I think alshain's point is that the hatch is actually facing downwards, so the ladder would be sloping the wrong direction (overhanging).

Just counted 280 parts on the wiki. 98 are plane parts.

The 2 extant retractable ladders are only really different in appearance. They should take the Telus Mobility Enhancer, and make it have no "depth" that sticks radially inward, then it can be placed on a surface, and rotated out with no risk of the "tail" protruding. Would not affect existing designs, either.

Maybe they can fix the fact that the mk3 cockpit holds is better (capacity), stronger, more heat resistant, much larger, has more mono, more EC storage, and more gyro torque than the mk 1-2 pod, which is heavier (not even counting the heat shield). Seems like the mk3 should have the mass tripled? At least doubled. Just checked via the wiki page. It has about 0.9 tons of added parts (mono/battery/reaction wheel) compared to the mk1-2 pod, not including anything else.

Then Oxygen, then every other little thing. LS need only account for power (used for the craft's LS systems), consumables (aggregated into ONE value), and optionally "waste" (RoverDude has said why waste is a good optional to add above). That's it. The added complexity of adding the different consumable resources is complexity for its own sake, with no actual value, IMO. Any parts/systems that are needed to utilize this complexity can simply be baked into existing parts. You can "bottom line" all into how much added mass is needed, and what the efficiency is (by altering the consumption rate of the consumables). Any system should have the fewest possible things to have to track. I have yet to see an example of a "complex" LS need where it cannot be done equally without tracking XX resources.

I don't think that "difficulty" options in RT actually make much sense since the game lacks the tools real spacecraft have to deal with signal delay, etc. Programming the probe? Why not just make a series of maneuver nodes, then download them to the probe (LOS and delay taken into account), then the probe executes the nodes unless you send an override before it does so? What about things like radar altimters firing retrorockets for landing, etc, etc? Without that, having LOS matter is OK, as certainly is antenna range (really more of a S/N issue, but however they want to abstract it).

Mine doesn't. Dogs are actually pretty intelligent. There is a woman at Yale doing research that shows dogs adopting very human strategies involving risk avoidance. http://doglab.yale.edu/our-research (found it)

Well, we could survive where chimps do, probably. Chimpanzees use tools, however. We'd get their level of tool use, plus hands adapted for habitual bipedalism. It's a weird counterfactual. Take simple defense against predators, or in fact humans vs chimpazees. They have huge canines. An adult chimp, bent on killing a man would kill most humans. Easily, even if the human was pretty large. We could not bite through their fur, we'd have to try and strangle, and any bite from the chimp creates a severe laceration. If we wanted to hunt a chimp, they scamper up a tree. If we try and follow, we are in trouble, comparatively.

The question is in effect, "could a tropical monkey thrive at the South Pole?" It needs to be grossly more specific. How dumb do you have to be to not be able to make any tools since Great Apes make some tools? What survival stories are there of modern humans with bad intellectual deficits surviving on islands, or otherwise in the wild? Imagine an incredibly unethical experiment: take some people with IQs below... 60? 50? Lower? And drop them in the wilderness, "Naked and Afraid" style. Come back in a few years. Are any alive?

I don't think you know what "natural selection" means. The "fitness" aspect is reproductive fitness. Those that managed to successfully reproduce, would eventually evolve to survive better, or humanity would be extinct. There is no modern Homo sapiens without having already evolved to be the way we are, so it's an odd question. Had we not come up with tools, we'd not look like what we look like now. How about you can edit genes at will, and you make a novel, complex animal out of whole cloth. Then you let it loose someplace. Does it survive? Does it reproduce and thrive?

This question is very oddly phrased. Are you asking if intelligence is our primary survival adaptation? If so, define the level of intelligence. Early hominids had considerably smaller brains, but had adaptations that we have shed (fur, for example). Modern Homo sapiens are a sort of neotenous ape, and we had adapted within an environment of technology, even if just simple, stone tools. So define intelligence in this what-if by tool use. Too dumb to use tools. We die anywhere it gets too cold for naked people to survive.

All the ore contracts are absurd.

I just checked again by superimposing the 2 mk2 parts. They look about the same size internally from the instrument panel back, which is where they overlap. There is more than enough room in the cockpit for 2 more seats---or the 2 helmets of the crew. The internal props in the crew cabin (those bundles), plus some of the room under the windows that is blocked off easily has enough room that they could have shown stowed helmets there. Nominally, the open space width in the crew cabin (the short, vertical walls that the "bundles" are attached to over 1.5m. It looks like the space from window armrest to window armrest is close to that 1.5m, number, with another fair bit available laterally. They'd easily fit with helmets, IMO (height might be the only issue laterally). But again, at least there is room inside for the helmets.

I did, what's the issue?