Coam

KSP Version: 1.05 Mods: Planetshine 0.2.4.2, Distant Object Enhancement 1.6.4 , MechJeb 2.5.6.0. I have a boat floating around 5km from the KSC. Passing within ~2.3 kilometres of it causes lag, and on exiting the lag and passing within 2.2 it disappears, killing the crew on board it. It doesn't leave any debris behind. This happens repeatedly, regardless of the aircraft design used. Two possibilities I can think of are that the ship is being deleted for being too complex and taking too long to load [It contains around 150 parts] or that it collides with the water on loading and is destroyed. However the ship loads fine without damage when selected and flown from the map view, and it seems to load in reasonable time when this is done, so neither seems particularly obvious as the cause. Does anyone have any idea what's causing this and how it can be prevented? Screenshots:

At the moment, the R&D Lab is unavailable in Sandbox mode - which makes sense on one level, because parts cannot be researched once all the parts are unlocked. Unfortunately, this has the consequence that Science-collection instruments are nearly useless in Sandbox. All the science data you collect is unviewable once you close the description or send the data back to KSC. Sure, you get the (often amusing) description, but that's it, and if you want to read it again you'll need to re-create those circumstances. I'd like to see clicking on R&D in Sandbox take you directly to the Science Archives screen where all the planets and the research you conducted on those planets is stored. I'd also like to see science points retained in that window just so you can keep track of the relative value of what you've done. (The points would be unspendable, but collecting them as a form of score alone is quite fun, indeed, I edit my save-files to do just that in Science mode at the moment.) The same general idea applies to contracts - Tourism ones in particular, are enjoyable because they are tracked. I don't conduct contracts for money, but because they often provide interesting goals or design challenges that could be 'roleplayed', but are more fun to conduct using the contract system. Even without financial reward, contracts in sandbox would be quite fun for that reason. (I'm not sure if keeping reputation in Sandbox, with a similar complete lack of effect, is worthwhile.) Neither of these would affect the actual gameplay of Sandbox mode too much, one could continue to ignore Science collection and contracts if they simply wanted to explore locations or design interesting vehicles without having to unlock parts or fly Tourists up to 70,000m to pay for them. The change would however make tracking past gameplay achievements much easier.

I propose we create a new naming system for Kerbals based on the planet they are located on/orbiting. For example: Kerbals on Kerbin will be called Kerbins. Kerbals on the Mun will be called Kuns. Kerbals on Duna will be called Kunas. Kerbals on Eve will be called Keves. Kerbals on Eeloo will be called Keloos. Kerbals on Moho will be called Kohos. Kerbals on Jool will be called Fools.

An interesting thing that occurred to me about the militarisation of KSP is that it seems to invert the real world situation. In our world a fair amount of rocket-technology has roots in or links to military hardware - the R7 ICBM leading onto Vostok and Soyuz, for example. In KSP the situation is inverted - the space-program is an entirely civilian endeavour and (stock) military technology is created by re-purposing civilian hardware. Creating military hardware out of stock parts creates some interesting design challenges, and I wouldn't strictly rule it out on pacifist grounds (Kerbals may not fight wars, but they might still have use for an air-to-air missile to shoot down out of control drones, remove obstructions, etc.). Kerbals seem somewhat like they would design what we would consider 'fighter bombers' for peaceful engineering purposes. (Before you laugh incredulously, it's not as bizarre as some of the things that we've tried). Given the huge space-focus and enjoyment of explosions, I can also see use for A-SAT missiles in the Kerbal world. With what we've seen of Kerbals they don't seem a good match for military situations, so "militarising KSP" in that sense wouldn't fit the tone of the game, but in terms of simply designing pseudo-military hardware I don't see an issue. In multiplayer, I can see a bigger case for warfare, since battling vehicles you've designed yourself would be fun, though part of the challenge of a KSP battle would be how unfit-for-purpose the hardware is and dedicated military mods may detract from that. The current situation is ideal, at least for single player - a civilian space program, where it is in the hands of the player to decide whether they want to build an F-15 with an A-SAT missile to remove outdated communication satellites, or just de-orbit them with a small probe or onboard engine. I'd also make a distinction somewhere between "weapons" that exist purely to destroy automated equipment, and ones that pose a risk to Kerbalkind, but I can't think of a way to fit that into everything else I've written. There's no harm in Kerbals blowing up obsolete planes by radio-control, but blowing up planes/ships with crew inside them is another matter.

It had quite a few incidents through it's service life (as nearly all models of aircraft do.) Here's a list By the time it had come, it was probably already too late for mass-use unfortunately. Concorde was competitive with the original 707 (It was even quieter on take-off and landing!), just as the age of the 747 was beginning. I believe it was still profitable in British Airways service, though.

SA is Something Awful. They charge to view posts older than 6 months, among other things. Real name was probably a pretty good indicator that it was fake, since that's not an existing parameter. Location is more interesting to imagine implemented (I'm interested in how many other users are currently Landed at Eve. I can't see any from here.) Since the original thread is gone, it's becoming increasingly hard to remember what I was thinking at the time.

Yes. Okay, for KSP forums it's not such a realistic prospect, but the first two are already happening in places (SA charges to view old posts, and as far as I know has done for a long time. Using real name rather than a username is encouraged on a lot of sites, not the least youtube. Age and location are already parameters on the forum). The 140 character limit is pretty unrealistic, though more because the effort required to allow tweeting posts would be too high than because it's a bad usability decision. (Too many sites make horrible usability decisions, I have no specific example.) The idea was pretty good as an April fools, but having been done so early it was understandable that it would be taken with complete credulity. Much crazier things have happened online. Also: Congratulations on your repeating digits.

But we don't have a laythe! We have Europa, which may have water, but we're 5 years too late to be allowed a landing there.

I think the worrying thing is that it seemed entirely reasonable to expect that a forum would attempt changes like that. It says bad things about how websites can be run today, and what people expect of them. Although that probably made it more effective as a joke, that decisions like a 140 character limit, tagged age/gender/location, effective up/downvotes (ie, ones that affect the position of a thread instead of simply rating it.), social media integration and charging for basic features all seemed like something that someone would attempt or otherwise consider a good idea. The least plausible feature is probably the interactive forum assistant (Walt). It would also (assuming an option to turn it off) be the only possibly good one. (Tumblr integration might be useful for image hosting images could be grouped like with Imgur, but it's blocked in as one feature in line with Facebook integration, so it's rapidly cancelled out.) So as a joke towards the current state and trend of websites, I like this week early april fools, now that I know that's what it is. For the moment, anyway.

It's not a bug (or 694 bugs), it's a feature.

Rather than fixing bugs, why not make a new science module for taking the bugs into space for research purposes? It would be faster to make one new part than fix all those bugs, so 1.0 would be ready much quicker. I for one welcome our new crash-reporting overlords.

Thinking in a completely irrelevant context: What about occupied/unoccupied? The specific reason this came to mind was the hypothetical addition of launching a living thing that isn't a Kerbal - much like we launched Laika and Enos here on earth. "Crewed" falls short in that case, because "crewed" (to me anyway) gives the impression that they are operating/flying the craft, whereas Laika and Enos were essentially live payloads on a ship outside their control. It's an unlikely situation that non-Kerbal occupants be added - especially since Kerbals are treated as expendable anyway, but the terminology swap did come to mind since occupied is appropriate in both contexts and simplifies the UI down to "This is a probe or empty ship, it's okay to delete" and "This has a living thing on it, please don't!".

I think to most people the Shuttle is the Shuttle Orbiter, the boosters and ET being ignored. I liked the sound of Ess-Tee-Ess personally. SLS isn't so good sounding, but the way it feels sort of off feels appropriate for the general state of space travel feeling off at the present. We developed a moon-rocket, ditched it for a shuttle, then ditched the shuttle for what looks like (but is very different from) a retrofitted Apollo with shuttle boosters strapped to it, feeling like we've gone full circle in a confusing way. If SLS has part of the rocket coloured orange like the ET then treating it as a Shuttle derivative would feel more natural to me. Perhaps SLS - Space Launch Shuttle? Or abandoning the acronym, something conveying a message that is essentially "Space Payload Shuttle." - the Launch vehicle is expendable, but it shuttles payload into orbit reliably. Orion-Shuttle is quite nice, being distinct from just "Shuttle" while keeping it in there. I can see it being truncated to just Orion, but considering this is similar to what happened with Shuttle vs Shuttle Orbiter, maybe that's natural.

Tried moving planets into Kerbin orbit using Hyperedit. Never again. Total loss of control (couldn't even fire rocket motor), sinking into Kerbin, being flung on a Kerbol escape trajectory, and all sorts of other fun glitches resulted.

What percentage of bugs are already covered by Stock Bug Fix Modules?