ComradeWolfe

Fair enough. I suppose they'll make them relevant in 1.03 and unneeded in 1.04.

Don't be put off by all the forum chatter. The only major change is that your craft should now have a pointy end for going up and a heat shield for coming down.

If all functions necessary to civilized human life are in the hands of robots, I would imagine that many things would effectively be "free". Robots harvest resources to feed and house us, do the labor of such, and provide the resources and labor to keep themselves going. Humans would pursue more leisure and the like. On the other hand, the transition to a robotic utopia would likely be pretty rough. The risk of robots inserting us in to a money-free world of abundance might be threatening to people who currently hold power or assets. Humans naturally want to have more than their neighbors, and as a result you might see people who own things like mineral deposits or farmland actively resisting the potential of a robot utopia in order to maintain a status quo where they are still in a position of advantage. With no real control of labor, they would starve resources for immense personal gain while delaying the greater benefit to humanity. There's also the matter of too much free time -- people might take up gardening or KSP as a leisure activity... But they might also find that it's easier to find the time to wage religious wars or ethnic conflicts when they don't have to worry about farming and paying for arms.

I believe the answer was pretty well established by a small group of researchers in 1983. Here's a link to a video of their findings:

It seems to me that the main advantage is cost and configurability. Say a target nation brings a new comms or weapons system online -- will an existing satellite be capable of listening on the right frequencies? Possibly, but odds are a specialized target-specific payload would be more effective high enough priority missions. Being specialized (tailored to target) the payload would be a lot smaller than a general purpose radio or optical system, hence the use of a smaller craft. Also, it lets you pick a different orbit as needed. This is important for intercepting ground-based point microwave links. Towers that communicate using narrow beams with line of sight are often impossible to intercept from the ground or above, in which case the only viable option is a sat in an orbit that places it low on the horizon "behind" the receiving tower. You can also place it by a target satellite in order to intercept comms with a ground station or between two target sats. Again the benefit is that you're 'in' the narrow beam of transmission. Finally, yes there is likely a scientific benefit in the fields of hypersonic flight and lifting bodies, but I doubt they actually carry much by way of NASA payloads. Remember, Discoverer's "scientific" payload turned out to be cameras pointed at the Soviets.

So how long until a matching/same scale helmet hits shapeways?

No pic, but I just had a Kerbal doing a solo flyby of Duna. Wanted an upper atmosphere EVA but he got pulled off the ladder. The crazy bit is, using his suit he was able to land (thanks to 1.0 atmosphere?) without dying. Then my game crashed and killed the save.

Dual monitors: KSP on mute in one, youtube in the other... There are TONS of old documentaries on there about apollo (one good one has a full episode each for command / engines / lunar module / etc), rockets, colonizing Du...Mars. For 1.0 I've gone back to the game and its own music, because it just feels like a return to old times when I first got KSP like two years ago. There's still something magic about the music as the stars first appear.

Look at it this way... When the mods do get updated, they'll be likely to stay fresher longer. Plus, there are so many changes that you may as well enjoy stock for the extra day or two (week or two maybe) that it takes for the more active and less obscure mods to get going again.

Hi all, first post ever here. Played since October 2013... First of all, thanks for the stock ISRU system RoverDude. I've used Kethane, Karbonite, and SCANsat and can generally say that I'm satisfied with the new system (caveat: I haven't had a whole lot of time to play yet). To the detractors, please take a moment to remember that this is not Kethane or Karbonite -- it's a new system which you will have to LEARN in order to utilize (just like all of KSP was when you first started playing). When offering up any criticism, please also be sure it's productive. If all you're doing is saying "it sucks" without any input as to how to fix it, you're only serving to make RoverDude feel sad... And sad devs write sad code. So my observations: Overheats: Radiators are a good quick fix. Also, the bell-curve for 3* engineers seemed good. I didn't test yet, but would adding multiple low level engineers help thermals too (IE: a handful of novices = an intermediate engineer)? InstaScan: I'd like for the wide scanned to do scan only what it has LOS to. This means 2-3 scans for a whole planet (this keeps simplicity for the player while removing the "it's magic!" factor of instascan (with the side-effect of being tons of code, I suppose - sorry!)). Ore conversion: I'd like to see ore heavier or producing a lower amount of fuel/oxidizer mass. To me, ore should be noticably less convenient to move than "processed" materials (it's got a lot of dirt mixed in). Thanks again, and keep up the good work.