SorryDave

Glad you are okay. I slid off the road crawling down Mt. Vernon this weekend during the blizzard, no damage. i plan on putting on the heavy landing gear as soon as it's released.

I don't believe the change will have a big impact. This release will totally change how the game is played, but this one change should have a small impact. There will be all kinds of reasons to go straight up into thin atmosphere before beginning your turn. Instead of the "turning suddenly at 10k" or the "begin turning early". One thing they are promising is a rebalance of engines, some may get nerfed, but many will probably be more useful. I am looking forward to learning how to play all over again.

Maybe the other forums are more positive, I'm going to check them out. Maybe the members are responding differently to the news from SQUAD than is usually posted on the official sites, These forums have great stuff, the exchange, the support areas, the official Devnote Tuesdays. All I am saying is that maybe there is a reason why they openly discuss possibilities on other forums but save this one for more official news.

Massive asparagus staged rockeys are better left to experienced players, they can be difficult to hook-up. Noobs don't make them. The new players I intriduced to the game all make long wobbly rockets.

I 100% agree with the OP, I think an option to start with untrained kerbals should be added to science and sandbox mode. It would make these modes much more fun.

This isn't the same thing at all. Sure I could give unlimited funds and unlock techs to make career mode something like what I want, or I can back the OP by asking that training kerbals be added to science mode and sandbox. It is a stronger solution because the options would make much more sense. Although i appreciate that weak workaround suggested, what has not been presented in this thread is a good reason why the option to train kerbals would be a bad idea in science mode or sandbox mode.

I'm recommending eliminating it to improve the options available to players that play sandbox and science mode. If you would be more comfortable leaving it there because it is there, then the better options could be added to science mode.

So you wouldn't want the option to train kerbals?

This should be added to sandbox as well as science mode. i'd like to access the R&D building from sandbox to see what I've researched. I play science mode the most, but it is honestly just an option away from being sandbox. Career mode is a whole different game with a whole bunch of features and options. There is no reason why researching science and training kerbals cannot be options in sandbox. What sandbox means is "do what you wan"t, not "unlock everything". I wouldn't mind editing the save in science mode if that would allow Kerbal training, but it doesn't seem to work for me. Sometimes I unlock the techs in science mode by editing, so that I can play a more historic space program, and still review the data collected in the R&D lab.

Kerbal Alarm Clock would be a great addition to the stock game, I find it extremely useful. Besides node management, it keeps me from warping through a SOI intercept. I also use it to alarm me of an upcoming transfer window. This and Engineer are my two "must have" mods.

If SQUAD does add life support to the stock game, it could be done in many different ways. The current mods for life support each have a different approach. There are single resource abstracted solutions and multi resource solutions. The consequences are varied as well, ranging from killing kerbals to insignificant effects in sandbox. whatever system is used there would be only one concern for mission planning, how many kerbal*days would one ton of life support provide? I estimate for humans 1 ton would support about 100 man*days. Later technology that regenerates waste would support more. How many kerbal*days do you think one ton of life support should provide?

Whatever system is used it should be possible to re-supply and store a large amount of life support. Regenerative systems would be good later in the tech tree, as well as creation from resources. Life support systems should consume the most electricity a space vehicle uses. The big question is how much life support by weight would a Kerbal consume per day? Humans consume around 6-10kg per day. Should a ton of LS support a Kerbal for 100 days (without regen tech)?

LS could finally give players a reason to unlock the tech tree besides giving higher paying part testing contracts. Later technology could allow unlocking better and less heavy life support systems. Depending on how LS is implemented, giant solar panels and big batteries could also be useful outside of rovers and ion drives. Of course if not done well, it could make manned outposts not just a waste of resources better used for achieving contracts, but also a bit of a grind. I have faith that the development team will be focused on a fun implementation.

This is a nice suggestion as it may improve immersion. You could build at night and launch during the day. However, it may just encourage uglier rockets. Usually, after building a capable rocket I spend a great deal of time making it look cooler.

It is not difficult to imagine an atomic engine that heats propellant. They can heat anything including water. The high ISP comes from an energy source that exceeds the output of chemistry alone. Practically, I'd not like to see new tanks to support this engine. If it burned just fuel without oxidizer, it should burn enough to be balanced.

I can't imagine that life support would make the game much harder, ships would just be heavier. In KSP this would not quite separate casual from hard players. It just means slap on more parts. Just don't take the rover and add moar boosters. The biggest challenge would be to the physics engine for increased part count. Build time elapses after you build a ship might help with immersion, but not make the game harder. I am sure my KSC will still rival NASA, unless it also takes over 60 years to leave the SOI of my home planet. I can't imagine a strong player deciding between a trade off between a faster to build cheaper rocket or a longer to build expensive rocket, if they could do the same thing. However, reentry heat would make many missions harder if it prevented aerobraking a vehicle big enough to return to Kerbin. Adding life support, three shallow passes through the atmosphere consume a lot of support.

I am not sure how I feel about life support, I did not enjoy the mods much. I do not know how much of the Apollo mission weight was life support. Would the challenge just be tacking on more life support like over building with fuel? It is still radiation and no gravity that keeps us from Mars or at least being strong enough to do anything when we get there. Not life support. I think even loneliness is a bigger concern. I would imagine it would be a large factor in a multi decade trip to Jupiter or for long term bases. The solution would have to be the generation of life support, not just taking more. It would be cool mission planning to send supplies with slow efficient vehicles and kerbals in faster vehicles with less travel time. Restocking space stations might be a fun grind as well, maybe I'll even use the lifeboats I always add. Of course space stations might just not be worth it.

I think that having the two selectable game types with the options recommended would give the most intuitive options for creating a greater variety of game types for a diverse set of play styles. I think this would be a better approach than one game type with a large set of options. Based on the feedback I would add to the original suggestions "unlimited funds" for career and "no stock craft" to sandbox. Although eliminating science mode from the main menu, it would be equivalent to sandbox with "unlock all techs" off, "no stock craft" on, and "start with untrained kerbals" off.

I'll be playing this game for years, but maybe not as much as I have been since I discovered it last summer. Sandbox strategy games have a way of pulling me back again and again. Take a break, when you get the itch, come back.

I am an engineer by trade and have some background in celestial mechanics. I like to calculate required Delta-V on spreadsheets and then build rockets that just meet this capability. So yes, I run out of fuel all the time. On one trip back from the Mun I used the ejection force of my last decoupler to drop me into the atmosphere, it has a bigger impact when decoupled far from Kerbin.

Landing on all airless moons is easier in 0.90. Being able to SAS assist retrograde brings horizontal velocity to zero during landings, this allows the player to focus on vertical decent velocity.

I am suggesting that sandbox mode include two options: 1-"Start with unlocked techs" Option on still allows visiting the RD center to review science collected. Option off treats sandbox as the current science mode game. 2 - "Start with untrained kerbals" Option off allows kerbal training. With these options, science mode can be eliminated and sandbox mode could have more depth. Career mode will still be the more challenging game for more experienced players.

Usually when I play, I unlock the tech tree as quickly as possible. Then I start visiting places and biomes. I'm not trying to collect everything, but I like landing in new biomes and running science experiments. I like reviewing science I collectef in the RD center. I do not agree that science needs to be rebalanced to encourage visiting beyond the Kerbin SOI. That is not very realistic or historic.

I had it all! Atari, pong, model trains, model planes. I had metal rockets that used black powder, bottle-rockets, Estes rockets, and lawn darts. I had telescopes, ham radios, a 3 foot thick TV with all five channels. I even had girlfriends. Then I got addicted to KSP, and now I sit home waiting for Devnote Tues.

An equatorial orbit is petered for missions that require interplanetary docking, especially if you need to land and take off again. I usually set one up with the following steps: 1. Set up a transfer that has a SOI intercept 2. Select the target body in map view and "set view" to see the predicted entry 3. Adjust predicted tragectory by slightly accelerating in different headings until perapsis is nearly at the equator and you are heading the right direction. 4. When at the target, burn retrograde just enough to create a orbit with a high apogee 5. At apogee fix inclination 6. Circularize orbit Effective staging is the best method for getting fuel there, but you have to deal with solar orbit debris, something I struggle with due to my broken mental process.