tater

Imagine one set up so that the biggest KPBS part (greenhouse?) would fit under it like the cargo pod on a Skycrane helicopter... So cool.

Regarding "end game" making it 100% closed loop, I think that that should not happen, personally. A critical issue with KSP as a game is that it gets easier, not harder as you progress. USILS has a nice element in the 15 day grace period (as does Snacks! in base supplies per pod) in that early play can ignore it. As issue I sill have with USILS vs Snacks! (I'm with regex on the name, preach it, brotha'!) is that the 15 days is not 15 kerbal-days. A 3 man pod with 1 crew should do better than a 3 man with 3 crew. I suppose I could alter the cfg so that it's fewer days, then add supplies to make up the balance in my install... In both I set death on, though. Increasing the mass required to Eeloo or whatever is desirable, it is not a problem. It's supposed to be difficult to visit the outer solar system with crewed vehicles. If you cannot manage this in late game play, what's the point? At that point, you have all the parts. This extra mass is in fact the only thing that would slightly mitigate the fact that play gets easier as you progress. I have to admit, when I see craft for visiting places outside Kerbin SoI, I always judge them based upon how habitable they look for X years travel. 10 years in a room the size of a hall closet doesn't cut it.

Yeah, 'Mission Control" in KSP is not mission control at all. In fact, the "tracking station" is Mission Control. Mission Control is but definition the place where missions in flight are controlled. I dunno how it got where it is in KSP, it'd be like calling the VAB the launch pad, frankly, I just don't understand it. Scheduling would be incredibly useful, including a drop from time warp X days before supplies run out. Those claiming they want "none" should take a look at the default implementation of USILS, as it doesn't kill anyone, and the original 4 kerbals are immune. I turn death on, myself, as LS without that seems utterly pointless to me. Time is the mechanic most needed in KSP, honestly, and Squad's aversion to it is similarly bizarre. Any stock life support by Squad would also need to address contracts at the same time, BTW, IMO, to make some of them make sense. Rescues in particular. The clock needs to be ticking on any such contract. Now that they have pods, in USILS, that should mean 15 days. Note that the time limit should be included in the time to decline. Ie: any rescue should have 15 days to accept, and 15 days to failure. If you wait 10 days to accept, you then have 5 days to failure. Of course they need to fix the issue with you being spammed with rescues for places you have not been with kerbals by predicating them on a flag placement or something. Maybe even a check to see if you have a manned craft in the world's SoI. Alternately, any rescue past Kerbin SoI could be for a reasonable looking craft (and actual craft, not a pod). Say 10-20 parts, tops, including LS supplies, with a time limit based upon those supplies. So you might have X hundred days to get a Duna rescue there, so that the mission requires a fastest transit path, making it harder (and worth more rep, etc). - - - Updated - - - Except it should not be massless, that part makes no sense at all.

Yeah, USILS needs a warning system of some sort.

An actual greenhouse (glass roof) should itself function as a solar panel for its own use, and only require added power at night, or if the insolation is below some value. "Closed" (to the sun) greenhouses are obviously different.

Options on topic (assume all useful improvements on "biomes" are done for all, BTW, so that they make sense): 1. OP's desire for procedural sub-"biomes." Pros: more science points with fewer missions and more clicking (is this a pro?) Cons: more science points with fewer missions and more clicking 2. Additional, hand-designed* (unless procedural can do as good a job) content possible nearby a given landing site (limited to X total per "biome"), placed in a "semi-random*" way. (% chance per landing site within XX range by biome or other factors the game is capable of tracking) Pros: New content. Possibly more science points with fewer missions and more clicking. If the content is interesting to see, then it is also interesting to look at. Some is the same interesting content as #3, but the exact location will vary game to game. Some might be linked to the already random ISRU deposit levels as a visible sign that this area is bad/good for ISRU? Cons: Even if hand-designed by Squad to be awesome looking, the word "random" is used in reference to their possible placement, which makes them "bad." For reasons. Also, additional science points, which is not really a "pro." 3. Additional hand-designed content certain at a tiny number of places per world. Pros: New content. Cons: always in exactly the same spot, making 99.999999% of the places on each body pointless to visit from a gameplay standpoint.

I'll try to keep the quote apocalypse to a minimum. This is a Straw Man. We saying nothing of the kind. I'm not even a little completionist. Science is organized trial and error. That's what the scientific method is. Yes, because the player must sit there in real time for 10 hours because there is no time warp... Oh, wait, there IS time warp. Place orbiter in polar orbit. Do something else in your program, next thing you know the planet is mapped. If you can only manage a flyby encounter, then you might image part of the world as you zing past. I think this is a cool idea. Also, we have auto-generated contract content, integration with this is trivial. All the contracts asking for surface science in location X could be predicated on the map data. If you forgot to bring enough fuel, and your probe goes zinging by Duna without orbiting, then you only get surface contracts for the side it took pictures of. If there were cool "areas of interest" as you suggest, you might send a Ranger type probe to image that area, making all the various surface contracts happen in that area (the player driving the contracts, instead of them being 100% random). Note that the contracts could vary based on the resolution, as well (have low and high as options). High-res areas being weighted by the contract system. Space-Based contracts could try to fill in gaps. "Visual survey" is really "mapping," anyway, so you'd be asked to try and fill in the maps via contracts if you care to. Better aero, better reentry, life support, all these have people arguing against them as well. I don't get the point, your 2 statements seem contradictory. Realism can add to gameplay, it's not about realism, it's merely the scale at which you bother to model. The point of the game is exploration, so why not make exploration as interesting as possible? IMO, from a gameplay standpoint, making science interesting means making it actually useful for gameplay, vs it being a grindy point collection scheme. That means that you send an orbiter not to "collect science (points) from orbit," but because it allows you to see the surface clearly in map mode, and perhaps pick landing sites (that would require a new mechanism)---or spot interesting places to land ("areas of interest" as you suggest). Sending a pressure sensor to a world might unlock something like what exists in that mod that shows a spacecraft path more accurately within an atmosphere---so you get "science," and in addition to points, you can now do things in game you could not as easily do before (land your next duna base part near the first one more precisely). ISRU already does this scanning wise. I think it's good gameplay vs land for points. YMMV. I think that from a gameplay perspective both concepts have merit. Gameplay is never one choice is good, and the opposite choice is bad, often both are good, but in different ways. Take part failure. Apollo 13 would be fun in ksp. I had something sort of like that happen once due to a design fail. I did not mirror a fuel line as I thought, resulting an a very unbalanced craft under thrust once the tanks drained. Getting a burn to return was hard as the craft would tumble. Fun. With KIS/KAS, I have had a ton of EVA fun with rovers since I actually crash those, unlike spacecraft. I have then rebuilt them in order to drive back: making a functional tricycle out of a 4-wheeler after a flip trashed a wheel, for example. Yeah, this decision is baffling to me. No progression is even really needed, you can note your total DV, and see that if THAT craft made it to the Mun, then any craft with similar dv should be able to do so. I'm all for a time-based mechanic. MY career games take a long game-time, as I don't warp missions to completion. Life support alone forces this if you have multiple missions in flight. It's completely constructive. By that rationale, only people playing Minecraft using the same seed can discuss minecraft, or share experiences. That's aside from mods. I know you use an alternate tech tree, does that disqualify you from this discussion? I would say, "no, it doesn't disqualify you." My ideal KSP having a new system most every new career is not going to happen, anyway, so focusing on that is pointless. It was primarily an argument for the benefit in gameplay terms of semi-random content. Semi-random because the quality of the worlds in question can be as arbitrarily good as you require for my argument, Squad could spend many man-hours on each world making them as hand-detailed as you like, I'd only vary their position, and scaling within some range (past 3.2X scaling in my experience they get "muddy"). Anyway, this is off topic, as it will never happen. The biomes are painted over the map. That's all they are. I have never suggested biomes be randomly painted. Yeesh. I'd go in and apply crater biome to all craters. BY HAND. (except those that might be "special" crater biomes, like "Young crater" or whatever is of special interest. The current "biomes" are sloppy, I'd fix that, ideally. I'm against the sub-biomes, also, as I have said. Regarding crates as an example, I should be able to know what most "biomes" using data you have gained (photographic mapping, for example). This would give gameplay value to science, and would let the player more easily drive the missions. No disagreement. Conversely, if you CAN gain from random, procedural generation, don;t discount it automatically because the word "random" appears. There is a time and place for both kinds of content, period. I am arguing gray, you are arguing black and white (that any/all random is bad). Well, since I've actually worked on some games of that type, this is funny. Games with dice, yet you say nothing is random about them. LOL. Games of a simulation variety (at any level of fidelity) are about realistic outcomes (within the "universe" simulated, so Sci-fi or fantasy have "unrealistic" premises, but can be internally "realistic" within those changes to actual reality). Such outcomes can and are achieved using random content. In a single player game, random encounters, for example. The table rolled on to produce them is an act of intelligent creation, and it is tweaked until the outcomes feel right (realistic outcomes). You need not predetermine the location of every facility on every world ahead of time for a sci-fi RPG, for example. Some can be random. Plot drivers you'll drive the players to anyway. Same goes for board games, though those are typically 2+ players, so everything is placed by players (though perhaps hidden, and only discovered randomly). I won't digress farther on board game designs, I was having such working discussions about them on the USENET in the 1980s. I've managed to argue without calling you stupid even once. I'll leave our relative intelligence for the reader to determine. I have presumed that most issues here were a function of language (presuming english is not your native language), and that you might not be clear on subtle distinctions of language. Regardless, it is possible to disagree without being rude. I will say for the nth time: even in my random solar system, I granted you all the worlds as hand-crafted as you require. So in arguing that point, you must remove any random quality of the worlds from the argument, and say why it would be less interesting for repeat players (I also stated it would be an option for repeat players) to explore a new system. People seem to enjoy outer planet mods, and other kopernicus alternatives, so apparently some agree with me about new content to explore). Fog of war (not knowing what you should not know about the Kerbol system) REQUIRES something to be randomized. It is certainly equal. You pop on the forums to explain a problem you are having in a game with a certain world, and people will tell you exactly what to do---say aerocapture. They'd tell you where to put the periapsis for a kerbin-planet transfer. In a randomized "advanced" play mode if you did this, no one could help you that specifically, they'd instead have to tell you how to determine the proper periapasis yourself. Similar result, but one is very mechanical, the other is "do this experiment/science." (note that perhaps the game could give you this data with the right science earned (again, USEFUL science, instead of points to grind). Sigh. This is a non-argument, particularly 3. How about I argue that you replace 3 with "The improvement is of lower quality than using much better than hand-generated random content." You would rightfully say that I cannot make that claim, just as you cannot define random as always bad. You conflate random with bad and randomly generated at every turn. Random can just as well be "semi-randomly placed, hand-generated content." A lookup table. If the player is in a crater of type A, then there is an X% chance he discovers an interesting feature appropriate to that type of crater, hand-designed by squad. You would place such a feature in ONE crater, and have the player have to land in that spot to see it. If such a feature would be "realistic" to find in 20% of craters, then I would simple have it applied with a 20% chance to any particular, appropriate crater a player lands in (one such determination per landing within some distance, so if you landed in the same crater 100 times, and it was;t there the first time, it would continue to not be there, ever, check another crater). Random, hand-generated, and the game is not forcing the player to land exactly in spot A, every, single game. Just land int he right kind of crater and you might find one.

Either a base will close the loop, or it won't. Complexity doesn't matter in the end, it all comes down to what % of needed consumable mass must be added, what the mass IS doesn't matter. Have different hardware parts in the tree with different recovery rates that function. In game terms by reducing consumption rates. A magical LS module with 100% recovery drops consumption to zero per kerbal. roverdude, the thing I'd really like to see is taking into account parts like hitchhiker in usils. Both from the standpoint of some supplies included (or low efficiency recovery), and from the standpoint of well-being at a simple level. Right now, no food for 15 days and they are tourists. How about regardless of food supply levels, after ~30 days they become tourists if there is not a hitchhiker (or other hab part) as part of the craft for every hab_crew_capacity number of crew aboard. That last could be adjustable, because I think it's too generous, I send a HH for every 2 crew.

Multiple mass/kerbal*time is a pointless complexity. You'd just bundle the consumables in the appropriate ratio, and you are down to a net consumable per kerbal, per unit time. Power, consumables, and waste if it has some use. Higher quality life support systems would change the rate at which supplies are consumed (some is recovered).

Hopefully they don't try to land with an HL-10 lifting body.

Waste is fine, assuming it has value as a resource later (possibly for greenhouses, etc) USILS is pretty decent, though I would prefer to see supplies added to certain parts, and I think that kerbal well-being/morale should require a dedicated "habitat" part for trips over a certain length. There is no point at all in the multiple consumables of TAC, IMHO. No matter how many you make, you can always distill it down to X kg of consumables per Y time frame used. It is incredibly cluttered to track all the different LS consumables, and functionally pointless. In another game, where you can have failures, and perhaps if there was a mechanism to come up with novel solutions (real Apollo 13, or the book, the Martian, etc) then there is a reason to have the different components.

I have an abstract lying around here someplace for a paper some guys did on ISRU for propellant, etc, where they compared Phobos/Deimos vs the lunar surface. Phobos or Deimos won, since it takes less energy to get to and fro than from the lunar surface. Another paper shows that lunar ISRU (unless you star talking about a fusion economy) basically can only offset landing costs. It is never economical to haul much to space from the moon.

Yeah, there is, they look better for a 2-mad pod. If it was just the kerbals, maybe not, but you need to fit 2 helmets in there.

I only go to Minmus as an afterthought as I think it's incredibly ugly. <shrug> As I don't time warp much for long missions, I usually have bases on the Mun by the time I'm sending anyone terribly far. My current career is using the 365 mod, (3.2X planets, 6.4X distances between them), which makes Minmus certainly more attractive as a first landing from a dv standpoint. Aside from the fact that stock should be at least 2X, IMO, I'd say that ideally the Mun should be large enough that 2-stage landers might be attractive., then I'd bump up Minmus just enough so that you'd need more than an EVA pack to land there.

I'm really liking this, though stock career is grindy upon reaching orbit because you need big parts to start exploring with manned craft, and the needed parts are scattered at the end of the stock tech tree. Reentry is nice, it actually feels dangerous on munar returns.

Nice... been playing a 3.2X planets, 6.4X distance mod, clusters might help.

I had a deep space probe with a nerva on the back, and 2 probes forward (an orbiter, and a lander). At the very top of the stack (orbiter), I had a high gain antenna, top middle. I had 2 large, folding radiator arrays, and 2 large flat ones on the tank in front of the nerva. Zero heating issues at all... except the high gain exploded, taking both the orbiter's solar arrays with it.

I'd say it's reasonable to expect infrastructure for things like greenhouses overnight.

Play with a scaled up solar system (even slightly, like 3.2X), and the need for 1.875m parts becomes more obvious.

I never send guys interplanetary in anything less that a command pod, a lander, a hitchhiker for each 2 guys, and usually a science lab. A few years in a capsule designed for at most a couple weeks seems a little cruel

I'm another in the non-TACLS camp. Any LS system can be reduced to power, hardware mass, and mass consumed per astronaut, per unit time. Any space program will know that water recovery is one rate, CO2 scrubbing is another, etc, and will supply the exact balance to deal with this, functionally resulting in 1 added mass value. Dealing with the mass of each component is nothing more than clutter, IMO. All you need do with TAC is look at the bottom-line consumed mass per astronaut, and all the rest could be eliminated. I don't like to see all the clutter when I right click.

Been playing career, set to moderate, works well. I was a 32x player, and still use 64x, and I have to say I like this even better. 3.2x is perfect for stock. I'll say what I said about the 32x mod, this would ideally be stock. The only thing lacking with stock parts are a set of 1.875m parts, so I've been using HGR. Career is doable without those parts, but it is more grindy.

OK, the version as-released seems to depend upon OPM. I removed the OPM cfg, and it worked.

I threw this on last night, and it the system is still normal scale. The Kerbin365 and Kopernicus folders are both in GameData.

This is spot on. I'm for both, frankly. Alternately, you can populate all the words with interesting detail at the scale it happens in real life, then astronauts will find it about the right amount of time. That's the "goal" really, to have interesting outcomes about the right % of the time. Most EVA on places like the moon will be routine, areas like Hadley Rille might be expected to have more interesting probabilities, but if you happened onto an open lava tube you could walk right into---win! Good point. Yeah. What drives me are nice vignettes of a view, frankly. Certainly places you land just feel authentic, and that's where exploring---entirely for its own sake---is fun.