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The other world contracts are silly for anyone playing with life support (and likely pointless), unless the crafts are plausible. I'd rather see an good, intact craft with only the engine wrecked, or maybe a ship that could be fixed with an engineer, or refueled. Better still, add in the stock alike version of soviet pods, and use those.

Yep, all kinds of people will chime in that this is an awful idea, but it's a good idea. The game needs a space race, and a source for those stranded kerbals.

Is this the one? 2.5 m parts?

I should have added that we are at about 35 degrees latitude, but my house is at 1981 m altitude.

Well, assuming it might take a year to fill a single tank of an ascent stage on a world with an atmosphere, that would be fine to the extent it's reasonable. If a KSP craft lands with a tiny drill and refills the tank in anything short of… a very long time… the regex is entirely correct. Note that most extraction methods talked about use a lot of energy. If you have vast amounts of electricity, then perhaps ion engines are in order, saving the need for the ISRU in the first place (obviously not for landers). The time to mine/extract is sort of critical to even somewhat believable ISRU in small packages.

I realize this is for stock, and I'll use some mod, or only use such a drill in the context of a large base, but a front-loader makes more sense than a drill. For the Moon, regolith is ~42% Oxygen by weight. Hydrogen is only a meaningful component at the poles (it's only like 50 ppm elsewhere). If a drill is only several cm across, it's not mining any meaningful amounts of regolith. If hydrogen is a target resource, then it should likely be polar regions exclusively on airless bodies (obviously different on asteroids/comets).

storm from my patio A sunset with more typical weather (and Moon/Venus): Here's one from today:

Cameras provide a way to actually have instruments that belong deeper in the tech tree. First were low res video, then for the moon, they actually took FILM images, and scanned them for facsimile transmission. Later cameras (Voyager, for example), used CCD cameras. I'd have early probes have low res video. Pods would all have high res photography (requires return to Kerbin to develop). Later probe cores can be assumed to carry CCD cameras... Or they could be separate parts if holding part count down isn't a huge goal (except the pod cameras, those are handheld devices). As was said above S/N drives effective bit rates, but the bottom line is indeed bit rate, though it is not a part limited thing, but one of distance from the spacecraft to Kerbin.

I voted no. If you make one for an actor, why not one for all the men and women that actually made meaningful contributions to space exploration? What's the cutoff for inclusion, being sufficiently famous to non-science or engineering people?

I'm curious what (for stock) is supposed to be mined with such a small drill. Mining actual regolith is a more… industrial… activity if the goal is meaningful amounts of propellant.

Yeah, first and for most it should be useful.

Deepening the tree is not a good idea, either. Most all the current KSP tech fits the late 1950s to mid 1960s. Making it "deeper" makes little sense, IMHO. We can have more "deep" choices like land on a distant world so we can unlock… a ladder.

1.25 m is spam in a can. There is simply not enough room, IMO. I'd rather see some love on the larger end sizes, frankly.

Rings a km in cross-sectional radius?

As my kids are in private school, it's a subject that is starting to come up. Many of our social group are science people (Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos, and UNM) or docs. The private schools are not big on AP, they maintain that all their courses are high-level, and that good schools don't take the AP as credits anyway (they look for admission, nothing else). Dunno. Something that has come up repeatedly is that the only school that matters is the last one you went to. Spending a mint on a high-end undergrad institution only matters if your graduate education is equal or better school wise. State school undergrad and Caltech for PhD trumps high-end undergrad with a state school for grad school, basically. If your PhD is from Mississippi, no one cares that you did undergrad at Harvard---they won't even know unless you tell them, and telling about lower school makes you look like a chump, anyway, lol. That you know what interests you is FAR more important than where, IMO. People tend to focus on undergrad location more than what they want to study. Where ever you end up, work hard, for your discipline, you'll want a graduate degree, anyway, so think in terms of maximizing your chance of a good grad school, undergrad is a stepping stone.

Cutscenes have no place in any type of game, frankly. They are anachronism to a time when making anything decent looking required a pre-render, and even then they were jarring.

Other than actually animating something happening in game, I don't want to see it, period. My craft, as built, rolling out to the pad? I'd be fine with that… of course I use KCT, so I expect a roll out time, but I also warp through it. If time were meaningful in game, and perhaps you have multiple launch pads, then you could launch with another vehicle rolling out to a different pad... I'd be fine with kerbals crawling around on buildings undergoing construction (upgrade) as well. I don't want to be switched to some view of them, they should juts be there, doing what they do.

Nothing that could possibly be launched from Kerbin is large enough to be a real orbital colony.

Magnetometer. It's more orbital science, but there is already too much science anyway… what USE an item should have in game should be what drives most "science" IMO. The whole science=tech thing is a problem because we run out of tech to buy so very quickly.

Yeah, the current LES is entirely useless, I've never actually used it in game for real, I messed with it once for testing, and decided it was pointless.

Something I would skip 100% of the time.

I assume the seismometer is placed, then a separate impactor is used? I see no reason to require a scientist (or even a kerbal) to place it. In general, I think that having to wait to unlock science instruments is bizarre. Can land on another world… can't figure out a thermometer, but can figure out some more complex experiments. The whole set of instrumentation needs to be evaluated outside the box. I think science transmission should be more based upon data sent (via coms) than just the experiment. Clearly sample return has little no no transmission value, but pictures depend on the data rate (lower data rate, fewer good pics sent, or more, crappy images sent). Perhaps science communication can be done out of focus after a fashion? (hit send, do something else, revisit craft later and it dumps the transpired time worth of data). Have experiments generate science per unit data. So you can have stuff that makes huge amounts of data quantity, but low science per unit data. This requires bringing the experiment back to Kerbin (full science upon landing), or you can broadcast, but it might take years to dump the data. I want to see: Communications realism bump. 1. Complex satellite relays should not be required, but meaningful differences in antennas, and a simple LOS check (assume Kerbin-wide ground stations are available). This impacts probes, since they might need an orbiter relay if they are farside from Kerbin. Omnis from the start, high gains soon afterwards (maybe make a non-folding version very soon, then the folding a little later). Any connection could be stored, and rebroadcast later, though, no need for instantaneous relays I think. Camera (these ideally would work like scansat or something, regardless all transmittable, but data rate should matter) 1. Wide field camera. Available from the start. Improved science gained by lowering orbit. Broad survey. Past the scansat type useful science, perhaps coverage of the planet could equal science gain (each % of surface imaged equals 1 science, weighted up or down based on altitude?) 2. Hi-res camera. Available from the start, or soon thereafter. More narrow field. Specific "visual observation" contract type instrument using current "contracts" as an example (even if I don't like the science contracts to be 3d party). Hi-res images make X science per % of the world imaged. 3. Transmission should be set such that the data rate of the antenna matters. You can scan the whole world, but if it takes a month to cover the whole planet and 100 years to transmit, not terribly useful. If you send an impactor with a camera (like Ranger) you need to have the coms capable of sending the images before it hits. Assign a size per pic to above cameras, and a data rate per antenna type. Thermometer Less science per use than now, particularly if geomes/regions are going to matter (temp on airless worlds depends on sunlight, period). Available from the start. Ideas above are OK, except on airless worlds where there should not be much variation. Also, importantly, the data is just a number, so 100% transmittable, but set science value per unit data generated so bit rate matters (this is low bit rate stuff, though). Goo Whatever. This should be a later experiment than the above few, not the first. Have it generate large amounts of data per unit science, so that the transmission rate matters a lot. Land it for full value, or transmit from orbit for a LONG time. Might have a transmit cap, too, unlike most remote sensing to force bringing it back. Barometer Again, a simple experiment that should be available right away. Parachutes that care about pressure, but no barometers? Really? Ideas above for generating science are good, science per unit data can be tweaked as needed. Data is numbers, 100% transmit. Science Jr. Some good ideas above, but again, switch to a science per unit data model, and have it generate huge volumes of data so that landing it makes sense as well as perhaps a cap requiring a lab or landing. This can be a later part. Gravmax Sets of accelerometers? I suppose a later part. Good ideas above. Data is numbers, so 100% transmittable, though (adjust via science per data and coms). Seismometer Good ideas above, but no reason it needs to be placed by a person that I can see. You could perhaps make a multiplier if placed by a scientist, and set the base science a little lower to encourage such placement. Data, again, is numbers, so 100% transmission, balanced via data rate. EVA reports Here is where skill matters. EVA reports should have science based upon the science skill of the astronaut generally. Note that the "Explore" contract could give substantial science for the first EVA report regardless of astronaut type. The first impressions of Jeb are scientifically useful, bit for later region/geome/biome hopping, you need a scientist or don't bother. If the current is 25 (40?) per region as an example, I'd say that is what a level 5 science kerbal gets, so 5(8) for a lvl 1 scientist, and perhaps 1 per level for non-scientists. Sample Collection 1. Like the EVA report above. It is 120 right now, so that would be the best possible scientist, 24 science per level. 0% transmission*. Explore contract can make it so first collection gets a large amount of science, but further collection wants a scientist (adjust the amounts so that it's valuable for pilots/engineers, but much more with scientist. 2. Add a slightly later part that can collect samples for return (0% transmission) for probes. 3. Add a yet later part that collects and analyzes soils. 100% transmission but requires good coms, and the science is much less per collection than real sample return.

Map view could have layer toggles. You need visual mapping to get detailed map zoom visually. Radar mapping might be added to provide more accurate altitude data. Gravimetric, seismic, and collection should be required for any ore marking on the map---though visual might illuminate places that are good bets to check further.

I have no idea on the size for a mod… It seems like if it were properly "vernal" inside, and decorated with trees, etc, it would drag our machines to a screeching halt anyway. If it was not cool inside… it's sort of pointless. Maybe you'd view the inside not from the actual inside, but from a room near the rotational axis where the docking port is. Dunno what you'd do regarding the light from the sun coming in, though...