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KJR is good as well. I never liked having to add struts to otherwise rocket-looking rockets.

From a balance standpoint, I think something akin to the station/base requirements in contracts makes sense. A way to assign a specific ISRU unit to a specific target, in other worlds. Do science/scanning. Take a mission (ideally create one, but that's not a thing right now, so assume when some level of scanning is completed, specific missions pop up involving that area) where the ISRU only works in that biome/geome/whatever (might vary by world). However it would be done, you'd not pack a "universal fuel maker," you'd build one for a specific world. A munar regolith ISRU won't work on Duna (but certainly might work on Dres, etc).

It's the de facto reward system (science points = new tech), so you you are right for many. I think that if they made science useful for gameplay, then "actual science" could be its own reward. All the ideas surrounding ways of using science to learn things about bodies so that you can visit them, for example. Pipe dream, I suppose.

I've been doing just that with 64X… You need to bring a lot with you (as it should be). The solution to resupply would be for your pilots to be able to pilot, then set up recurring missions they could do themselves (resupply). - - - Updated - - - The devs have stated that the purpose of Career is supped to be a space program management game. In that case, what you are complaining about is… managing a space program. It seems to me that what you want is in effect sandbox. To be fair, the devs have left out the oct critical element of the management component, which is people to manage. I'd want to set up a resupply schedule, design (and test fly) the resupply craft, then have them happen by themselves. THAT would be space program management. If I had a budget, then I'd have to weigh keeping many facilities resupplied vs doing other missions (which might drive taking commercial contracts to pay or some stuff). This would add many gameplay choices for the player.

Yeah, it was more animated when we didn't know that 1.0 wasn't coming far in the future, but basically NOW, with no even cursory look at reexamining the fundamental paradigm of science in KSP.

Stupid_chris, I have a serious problem… I see your posts, and get hypnotized by your avatar---it makes me nervous, but I can't look away.

Even if everything AngelLestat said was true, or even relevant, it would say nothing to the basic point of manned spaceflight. Space exploration is better done by robots, period. Most everything involved in possible resource utilization/exploitation would best be studied by… robots. The only thing humans can do better in space is to possibly at some point make more humans. That's not going to happen any time soon. Note that there are at the present time certain places where humans could actually aid plain old "exploration." Mars, for example. Humans in ORBIT around Mars could run robots on the surface with effectively no time delay, but we'd still be better off with the robots on the ground, probably (less mass to land, less risk). That said, if you're going to keep people on orbit there until a return window, it would be hard not to want to put boots on the ground, just because.

I agree entirely. I think that private firms have an interest in monetizing space, which is a plus, however. In addition, I think that they can drive costs down in a way that porkbarrel NASA "business as usual" actually discourages (I don't entirely blame NASA, they could want to buy off the shelf, and that doesn't stop them from being mandated to buy stuff they don't want because of plants in certain districts). As you said above, Apollo happened because of the Cold War. No Cold War, no Apollo, plain and simple. I also agree on bases/colonization. Comparing it to the conquest of the New World is absurd. There were viable reasons to come to the new world, both economic, and political (US colonization was partially related to the English Civil War, after all, not to mention the geopolitics of Britain/France/Spain). Without some driver like that, colonies are pipe dreams unless costs drop enough that NASA could easily set up and maintain bases within their current budget structure, I think. That or a new, economic driver.

Wall? Getting up to pour another pint my first night playing? Honestly, the only thing that took a while to get a hang of was orbital rendezvous/docking. The former to get the hang of getting sort of close, the latter because invariably on my first several attempts I'd end up doing actual docking in the dark, lol.

RO (Realism Overhaul) does this, so yes. Engine Ignitor does it (marked for 0.25, but it works in 0.90).

True…. unless the private entity wants to do it "because."

SLS is a porkbarrel pig of a project, as is Constellation/Orion. This is reality with a democracy doing space exploration. ALL government spending is by definition political. There is no chance of rational policy, because what is required is X votes in this district, Y votes in the next, and so forth. From the standpoint of science, manned flight to either of the 2 winning poll results is absurd. Unmanned could do it cheaper/faster. The Space Race was a creature of the Cold War. Perhaps China could become a foil to drive the US to the moon faster as a new cold war, I dunno. Short of that, we need a private program, frankly, since a private entity can make choices that are rational, and long-term, and follow through. NASA is beholden to the next continuing resolution (or now for the first time in several years maybe an actual budget). I agree on the Mars thing, which is why I voted "Moon." I meant that from a science standpoint a flyby is pointless. For the mass required to keep a few astronauts alive for 500+ days you could land some awesome rovers, or perhaps a small sample-return mission.

The implicit meaning of the poll is MANNED, so science is not an issue, nothing on the moon (or even the asteroid notion) requires a human being to do science. Probes are better, period. Any mass you can land on the moon and return samples with could return at least the same mass of samples as a manned mission. Probes have only delivered less because they had budgets (in treasure and mass) that disallowed more. ARM? Why manned? It means more mass for the same job, and far more risk. Mars orbit would be more sensible, because they could land rovers, and remote control them with no real time delay. It would be longer than the proposed 501 day flyby, however. As a flyby, the Mars mission seems like more of a stunt. I voted Moon, simply because it's relatively easy, and of the "stunts" I think it has the most appeal to the populace at large. Face it, these are STUNTS. Yes, new capabilities can come from such stunts (the Space Race was full of them), but remember that the Space Race ended when we landed on the Moon. Nothing after that was compelling (to regular people) and nothing will be until a Mars landing, frankly. A new Moon mission, with streaming HD video is far more interesting. Novel landing locations will be very interesting… I'd like to see a mission to rilles, for example. Yes, remote rovers could do the same thing, but if the goal is cool, manned missions before Mars, then the Moon.

First time players? How about a way to select a kerbal that requires rescue that doesn't use the [ or ] keys, since just about every single player that joins the forum posts that question at some point? (They all try the tracking center, map view, etc).

YOu see clouds from orbit as well. That said, I would much prefer better procedural terrain, with hazards that are of closer scale-size to spacecraft.

Maybe roverdude's stock-feel LS... That or using the system they have in place for the Mun generate all the terrain on all airless worlds.

Thinking this is bad is simply goofy. Regardless… TIME PASSES. We warp "just for time warp's sake" to get into orbit around another world, sometimes, how is this different? I fly many concurrent missions (with LS), so I don't usually warp a lot, but say I sent a mission to Jool. When I arrive I'm gonna do a ton of science, and even just the transmitted stuff will be a major bolus of points. If I were to warp to that encounter… it would be no different than warping the same time period to collect points over time. No different at all. Just being in the SoI and meeting the "explore" contract requirements will land massive points, and all I need do is send a probe (usually a multi-probe, actually), and time warp. How is this different?

That's absurd. IF you play the way you play now, the only thing that would change is that you'd take X years to do everything in KSP instead of X days. LS would always be a toggle, anyway. Or you could add "invulnerable kerbals" as an option for EZ mode.

That's why the current tech tree (and I fear the 1.0 tree) is so screwy. The extant 0.90 tree is almost coincident in terms of timing, but there are places where real advances in tech could be put into the tree to make it meaningful. A simplified version of Real Fuels would be cool to see, for example (I'm talking stock, so something accessible to most players in terms of complexity). If some of the engines required fuels with meaningful boiloff, then you'd have cool trade offs… better Isp, vs long-term fuel loss (tracked the way Roverdude does out of focus resource mining (assuming I understand that correctly), look at the time since last focus, then delete time_in_days*0.001 fuel (or whatever the rate is). Then have the tree include upgrades. Use boiloff for power generation, or combine to make water (assuming some LS system in game), whatever. Then you get NTRs when you should, but the rated Isp for for H2, which has pros and cons, or you bring a tank with alternate propellant, but get lower Isp using that. Later advances might have different capabilities (or perhaps at the end of the tree their are tanks with an order of magnitude lower boiloff rates).

Had the Space Race continued past Apollo (it functionally ended when the US reached the finish line), I think NTRs would have been at least tested in space. A friend's dad worked on Rover a little (I know many Los Alamos people, both my generation, and parents of friends) and he was confident that it was a good system. Classes I had (taught by a few LANL people) on lunar bases, and space infrastructure assumed some NTR use, of course they also talked about fuel depots, etc. H2 storage is certainly a problem with boiloff rates of ~0.1%/day. Something to consider would be multiple fuels. Use H2 for Mars transfer insertion, and lower Isp propellants for the return (that are more easily stored). The outbound transfer burn involves higher dv than the return. I would assume there might be a point where the curves cross, and we could find the optimal balance of propellants---take vastly more H2 to deal with boiloff, or burn all the H2 right away, and use denser propellants for return. If all the H2 was burned within a few days of launch, boiloff is not meaningful. Our craft will obviously be considerably more massive, but at least that portion can be built ahead of time (the denser fuel tanks).

While I agree regarding politics, I think that one element that IMHO, KSP could really use is the sense of competition/pressure that the Space Race added to the equation. It means (particularly in a Kerbal context) that some missions might be taken with more risk than they otherwise might have been. Not recklessness, but enhanced risk to achieve a particular goal. Hard to add to KSP, mind you, but I think that the Cold War really pushed rapid progress in a way that would not have otherwise occurred.

To know the actual savings we'd need to know their total labor costs for checking, restocking, and launching a recovered Falcon 9 booster. At that point, assuming their baseline notion is right, they'd launch 9 LEO flights, then 1 GEO/whatever expending the booster. They'd save the mechanical costs on 9/10 launches due to reuse, but the labor costs would be identical, or higher. I've seen people saying Merlins cost ~1M$, but that still leaves ~40 M unaccounted for, so the labor is in there, along with the airframe. So you get savings on the cheap (relatively) Merlins, plus airframe. I don;t see it as anywhere endear 90% savings. If they can get the labor low enough on restock, presumably they'd have the same savings for new rockets.

It already starts in the 50s, and only a few elements available are as far as maybe the 1970s. The bulk of the tech tree is basically simultaneous.

Harlan Ellison… I have a few signed books of his. interesting guy.

I have yet to end a career except when a new version comes out (or I start a new, modded version), but OP has a point for a few main reasons, IMO. 1. The game's only psychological reward system is unlocking the tech tree. Most of us play on for other reasons, and some even make the claim that that is when the game begins---which I think is wrong just from the standpoint of "reward." You'd then have to set your own reward, unprompted (or tracked) by the game to "get all science in the Kerbol system" or something. That might be a sensible addition by the devs, a counter of your science vs a total (is there a fixed total?) Then at least there would be a counter to watch, even if it has no reward in game. 2. KSP, unlike many games gets easier, not harder as you play. Landing on the Mun with part count/mass/cost constraints is considerably harder than landing on the Mun after you have unlocked the tech tree. The only possibility of "failure" in a KSP career is in the very early game, in fact. Once you've upgraded the VAB and pad, you are on a path to have more funds/science than you can spend. 3. World quality. Face it, right now the Mun is the most interesting body due to the landscape. They need to doll up all the worlds so that they have interesting features and hazards at the scale size to make landing require at least looking around a little. The counter is likely that things like Eve return, etc, are difficult, and they are, but it's just the expense of funds/time at that point to figure them out, and you should have trouble with neither due to #2, above. I think that this is just the reality of things. Mars is more difficult than the Moon only because of human issues (life support) or time delay (probes). Since LS and time are meaningless in KSP, that makes increases in difficulty based upon distance similarly meaningless (the one way to make the later game a little harder is basically not considered important enough to add).