mysteriosmind

The last time I went on a big trip I tried to see the sunset every day from a vantage point and on some days also the sunrise. I got to say that they pretty much look different every time. As for why sunrises look different than sunsets I could image that it is due to the change in temperatures: In the evening the air is much warmer than in the morning which leeds to different air density and therefore different light diffraction/scattering. Depending on the temperature there will also be different humidity levels which affects the scattering aswell. But the main reason for every sunset looking unique is definitively the interaction of the sunlight with the current cloud formations. Though I am not sure if it would be necessary to include all this into this mod, as your sunsets/sunrises already look quite astonishing!

Duct tape would certainly be a very Kerbal way to fix things! Another thing you could consider is adopting an already existing resource from another mod. "rocket parts" would be an interesting choice as there would be even a way for people to frabricate them on an off world base if they have MKS installed AND there should already be plenty of containers (which leaves only the question if it would be ok to use them)

From a gameplay perspective, I would argue against making repairs too easy. If you add a new feature (damage) but make it possible to overcome it simply by sending any Kerbel on EVA and clicking a few buttons, why have that new feature in the first place? The harder you make it to overcome the damage the more meaningful it will feel to do so. If you let only engineers do repairs, it will lead to people pondering before every mission if they want to risk starting a mission without one. It could also lead to people launching rescue missions for damaged crafts which would make for interesting stories. You could even go so far, that you need an engineer of a certain level to repair a certain part class, say only lvl 3 engineers can fix engines, which could lead to flying in specialists if you really want to repair a broken craft. Coming from that consideration I am not sure if I am a fan of the screwdriver/wrench right now, as it is too small to have a real impact on a mission -> it is basically a non-decision because you will always bring one. To create a meaningful choice gameplay wise, there would have to be a bigger tradeoff to add repair capabilities. If you use a ressource that gets consumed on a repair it will add the consideration of how much of that said ressource is enough for a planned mission. Playing it safe or risky? (The ressource would have to be a lot heavier than a screwdriver though or people would just end up bringing a "gazillion" anyway) But as being too difficult would turn away a lot of people too, you could consider some kind of difficulty presets (maybe ranging from: any kerbal can repair any part instantanous without any prerequisite to something like: only engineers of a certain experience are able to repair a certain part class and repairs take time and also consume ressources)

By reading through the last posts I take it that repairing parts only takes some tool to be equiped and happens instantly. How do you feel about needing some ressource (spare parts?) for repairs as well that an engineer could salvage from other parts by breaking them (besides it coming in containers) and repairs (and salvaging) taking time? Together with some other mods (live support) this could turn a crash landing into an interesting fight for survival with decisions like "do I first fix the oxygen leak or the fuel leak?" or "do I try to get back in time with a broken air scrubber or do I salvage spare part from the engine to repair it?"

I really like the idea! I am not playing KSP at the moment but this is definitively going on the list of things to add when I give it another go. You write in your post that you see it mainly used in the endgame, but I think with the right balancing it will be give an interesting addition much earlier, when it will make you think if you rather spend science on researching a new part or to improve one you already have instead. To not take away the need to research new parts altogether some sort of increasing cost (maybe doubling) for each step of improvement seems logical. Letting only the number of improvements you already used on a part decide the cost of the next upgrade and not the type of them, would make the decision what upgrades to get much more strategic (If your first upgrade is ISPVac it could cost you 20 science, but if you had any other upgrade before, the same ISPVac upgrade would cost 40 science instead) but you will have to decide if this would be interesting. And I think crash tolerance, maximum heat, and maybe even science gain from experiments should be improveable as well, but obviously it shouldn't be overpowered. Maybe initial improvement costs should depend on the part class so that it will be rather expensive to squeeze more science out of experiments or to keep wings from burning up. Another thing you could think about is lowering the starting values of a new part to not make it too overpowered. Anyway, I am really looking forward to see where you will have brought this mod when I get back to KSP.

As far as I remember, there has never been a request for a complex mod that has been picked up by a modder and was then realized. People make mods because they think of a feature that they want to have in the game and at some point want it to be in the game so badly that they just end up adding it themselves, some even learning to mod just to make it happen. And even that is often not enough motivation to see it through to an end, as you can see by how many mods get eventually abandoned. So the chance of somebody getting motivated enough for an idea that isn't his own is pretty slim; or to look at it from a different perspective, all the people who are skilled enough to make something like this and have enough motivation to keep going will be too busy realizing their own ideas. Long talk short, if you really want it to happen, you will probably have to pick up modding and make it happen.

Hi Silverfox, Is your weather system a simulation that will always give you the same result if you feed it the same data? I am asking because if it is, there should be nothing you can do as part of gameplay that would have any influence on how the weather will develop over the course of a game and solely depend on the starting value, when you begin it. So what I am getting at, is that instead of running during the game, where it will be a big strain on ram and processor you could let people pick a starting value and generate a weather pattern for how many years they want for all the planets outside of KSP (maybe letting it run overnight) and then just load it up when they start a new game. It would still need some testing to see if it makes sense (nobody would want to let his computer running for 1 month to generate a 100 GB weather pattern before starting a game), but it could be a solution to having a realistic simulation without making the game unplayable under the load of it.

"OPT Space plane" seems to have a linear aerospike: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97525-1-0-4-WIP-OPT-Space-Plane-v1-7 and "Mark IV Spaceplane System" has something the mod author describes as a "multimode torroidal aerospike engine" which seems to be 2,5 m in diameter http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/101699-1-04-Mark-IV-Spaceplane-System-The-redo-everything-update-bigger-and-better-(24-07-15) It's not exactly what you asked for, but might still be worth checking out Edit: Just saw that sashan already mentioned those ...

That sounds pretty sweet and I will definitely give it a try when you post the next version (Finally a reason to download the newest KSP version). My main concern is that at the moment it is too easy to point the telescope at a body by just going in the map view and targeting an "unknown object" and then using the target on the navball. Having to first "find" those unknown objects or otherwise having to point the telescope without targeting would be nice.

Right now parts (or Kerbals) are either completely intact ot completely destroyed, with nothing in between. There are some part failure mods out there that improve on that, but they all feel too arbituary in the way that the failures are detached from what is happening to the part (them being random). So I have been thinking for some time now, that a Hitpoint system for both Parts and Kerbals could be an interesting gameplay element and would also give engineers something more to do. It would work like this: The idea: Every part and Kerbal would have 100 HP to start with and everytime a force within a certain Percentage of the crash tolerance hits it, it loses some. Same when it is within a certain Percentage of its max Temperature for a certain time. When it reaches 0 HP it is destroyed obviously. But the interesting stuff would happen between 100 und 0. So evertime you lose HP there is a chance (based on remaining HP) that the part stops functioning; maybe with the chance being 0 % until you are below a certain amount of HP. If a part is below a certain critical HP amount it will have a chance of stopping to function every time you use it. If that happens, Engineers can use a resource (spare parts?) to restore function and aswell use the spare parts to restore HP (Their level decides what part classes they can repair, up to what number of HP they can restore a part and how many spare parts are needed for both of those). They could also salvage parts (destroy them or maybe just take off a certain amount of HP) to gain a certain amount of spare parts. The yield would depend on the part (part class and part mass) and on their level. Another thing that is dependant on the engineers level would be how long they take for doing repairs/salvaging. Parts would also have a half-life. So that in maybe 2 (5/10/?) years parts lose half their HP through decay. That time could depend on the level of your Assembly buildings and if there is an engineer on board. Unmanned (Unkerbaled?) crafts could get a bonus to half-life to account for manned crafts having a lot more systems that could break. Kerbals on the other hand would slowly regenerate HP (maybe more while they are inside a craft). As for what it would mean when a Kerbal "stops functioning" would be up for discussion, but it could be kind of cool if they would stop being controlable and other Kerbals having to carry them back to a craft. So as I am pretty sure that there is no mod like this yet so I really hope that a) somebody who took the time to read those lines is now thinking "Hey, this is a cool idea" and is able to pull something like this off, as I sure ain't.

I just stumbled on this mod and got to say that it is pretty amazing. Even more, it is something that I really wanted for KSP for some time now. There seems to be a little room for improvement left at the moment though, as discovering planets seems to be (I only had time to watch the video and read the thread so far) either clicking through funds and science on the ground or sending up a telescope and then targeting and discovering all planetary bodies in like 15 min. To make the gameplay more interesting it would be good to have more research levels for every body (already hinted by you); most importantly one where they are not even unknown objects yet (so that you can't just simply target them) and that advancing a research level would take time (already hinted by you too!). So the research levels could be something like "not known" -> "unknown object" -> "know the orbit" -> "know what it looks like" -> "know its details" and advancing a level would take some time researching it. The last two levels could even be split down to gaining higher quality images and gaining each fact individually (mass, size, ...). Telescope size would determine how far you can research a certain object (depending on the body's size and distance) so that you would either have to build a really big telescope or send a probe with a camera (would work exactly like a telescope gameplay wise, just a lot smaller and lighter+having to be really close) to get certain information about further out bodies (especially with stuff like outer planets mod). So a telescope can be used to either "Find new body" or to "Research a body further" with both costing a monthly (daily?) rate of funds if you let the tracking station do it. With the "Research a body further" it could be possible to skip the unknown object phase if you point it right. Sorry for going a bit overboard with suggestions here, but I got to say that this mod really excites me with all its potential for making the research of celestial bodies more interesting!

Oh yes please! Adding building maintenance costs seems like a neat thing and a good way to counter timewarp to win. Would be even cooler if you also had to hire workers (mechanics, scientists, control center staff). That way you could sack workers in case of a funding cut or if you fail an important contract. Control center staff would influence how many active missions you can have. Scientists and mechanics might only make sense in Kerbal construction time though (influencing research und build times). Maybe you would have to have a certain size of workforce to actually use the benefits that building upgrades provide? Workforce could be as simple as a slider of how many people you employ or as complex as individual kerbals with skills (high skilled kerbals would provide more benefits but require higher wages and you can only recruit them rarely). funding could work that way that the government offers you funding packages for a certain time period like option 1: "we will pay you 50.000 funds per month for 2 years and expect you to complete 4 government missions and reap in 800 science points" or option 2: "we will pay you 70.000 funds per month and expect you to complete 6 government missions and reap in 1200 science points". You pick one and when the time is over you get new offers based on your performance (did you reach the set goals/how many government contracts did you fail/Reputation). A system like that would stand for leading budget negotiations and give players flexibility in their play style. As for a name I really like "Kerbal Spending Program" too, but it might be a bit confusing to have a KSP mod that has KSP as an acronym. Maybe make it something like "Kerbal Spending Sim" or "Kerbal Spending Time"

I would argue in the exactly opposite direction. Having completely random part failures (happening without a reason) in a game that aims to be a physics simulator seems way off. Testflight does its thing a bit better in the way that the chances of part failures are at least better connected to the time it is in use. But it is still totally disconnected from what is actually happening to it. So an actual physical event (weather) leading to part failure seems like so much of an improvement over both Dangit and testflight that it would seem like a big missed opportunity to not go for it. By the way silverfox, I am really looking forward to seeing your weather systems in use eventually!

Yeah, I kinda expected that there were some reasons, why this wouldn't work in KSP. Anyway, it sounds like you know about KSP's limitations pretty well, so you might be able to make something similar in a different way!

You might want to have a look at this video then: It shows how what you are describing is done in Proland and gives some details on how it is achieved. Not that I understand much off it, but maybe it makes more sense to you. The source code and some documentation is available on the Proland website as well: http://proland.inrialpes.fr/index.html I am not sure if it is even possible to bring this to KSP, but there seems to exist a (basic) port to Unity http://scrawkblog.com/2014/05/20/proland-to-unity-forests/