Tourist

Snark, sarcasm and 'witty' retorts doesn't make comments sound as clever as the commenter thinks it does. Clarity, brevity, focus and insight does. Also, treating a person you disagree with respectfully is a true sign of quality.

I have never lost a Kerbal in space. Eh.... admittedly there have been a lot of .... ahem... simulations of failed missions. In other words, thank Thor for F5 and F9.

Flew a supersonic plane up, over the north pole and about a fifth of the way down the other side for a survey contract (crew report over 19000) and back again. it was a long flight... a lot of micromanagement of the throttle and pitch to keep it at the highest speed that was safe, without rapid disassembly. What I wouldn't have given for an autothrottle.

I don't necessarily agree that Mechjeb is "essential". I've reached all the major KSP milestones without it, and I'm no Scott Manley, Mun landing, Duna, Tylo, an working SSTO etc.... have I reached them all efficiently and elegantly?... certainly not.... good grief some of those successes were ugly.. very ugly. On the other hand, the docking alignment widget.... I believe that is essential, and should be stock in some form. (Admittedly, this is a common refrain in the community. Ie "Squad why are you not making (enter commenters favourite mod here) stock." It could be implemented so easily too, you don't even need an addition UI component, just an marking on the NavBall to indicate alignment vis-a-vis the docking port. Trying to eyeball docking can just be a pain sometimes. Ok, maybe not essential either but, jeez... it would be so, so nice.

Honestly, for me, this game felt almost feature complete when they added docking, even though career mode had not been implemented yet, everything else has been gravy. Squad has done a good job. Having said that, I think career could use a bit more work. An end state would be good. For instance, land (and return science from) at least Mun, Moho, Duna, and Eve and/or Tylo (maybe not Eve). Also, a purpose for science after the tech tree has been opened up... I say this because in my last shot at Career (before 1.0) I'd opened up the entire tech tree, having only gotten as far as Minmus.... and I wasn't even really grinding science (not sure if I could manage that since release, not that far yet.) One way they could do it would be to have some uber expensive tech at the very end of the tree, which requires you to get a lot of science... this tech being essentially just a win state. A "warp drive" or some such (I was thinking along the lines of Scott Manly's interstellar series.) Also more complex contracts would be good to. Perhaps, a Mun shot, which requires you to place satellites around Mun and Kerbin first (for the TV signals of course) so that completion of the contract has multiple stages to it. Ie placing and arranging the satellites, launching the mission. etc. This would not be too hard, the contract types already exist, they just need to merge them. I know much of these things can be done by mods and community challenges, but would be good to see it implemented in stock.

I play them as rivals. Kinda like Chuck Yeager and Scott Crossfield. Jeb breaks through the atmosphere, Val achieves orbit. Val flys by the Mun, Jeb lands first, Val lands on Minmus first. It will culminate with a joint mission to Duna.

Destructoid too, 8.5 http://www.destructoid.com/review-kerbal-space-program-291550.phtml I agree with the scores.... that's not to say that their are not things that could be improved, nothing is perfect. But ultimately Squad has done an outstanding job. I would myself rate it around 8 out of 10. Based upon a rating scale of 1 game is utter crap, 5 game is meh, 10 game ushered in a golden age of gaming. I don't think breaking the score down into various components is entirely useful for me, as my assessment is really only going to be on my enjoyment of the game.... and depending on how much fun I'm having, some of the typical components that people rate may not carry much weight. Also I can put up with a lot of faults if I'm having fun. And I have enjoyed the .... of KSP. But ultimately, these things are entirely subjective. It is entirely valid to use whatever rating system you feel expresses how you feel about the game. One way of another, thanks Squad!!

This is really a bug, but I preferred to tell it as a one in a million catastrophe. No pics unfortunetly I was returning in a space-plane (which I call the Falcon IB) from a visit to the KSS (Kerbal Space Station). The vessel came down, just south west of the KSC. Everything was going by the book. Lined up the runway, descended, touched down.... accidently scraped the R.A.P.I.E.Rs on the tacmac...blowing them off. Pretty much at the same moment the launch pad blew up, for no clear reaon. I'm sure there is probably an programmy type answer to explain it. However, I prefer to think that there was a chain of events, which, while highly improbable, conspired to destroy the launch pad. The engines hit the tarmac, exploded, which launched a rock that had been on the runway in the direction of the launch pad. This hit a worker who was performing routine maintenance to the launch pad, causing him to drop a lit welder, that ignited some spilled fuel.

No pictures unfortunately. I was doing a tourist contract, early on in career mode. Concept for the vessel was a rocket with a final stage that re-enters and lands like a plane. The plan was it would glide into landing... hopefully at the space centre, but really anywhere. Due to weight restrictions, and so I could attach the early stages on the bottom (rather than a space shuttle type arrangement where it is strapped to the side), there was no jet engines, instead relying on a LV-909 to de-orbit the plane, maybe give it a little push in the atmosphere to regain control. No parachutes of course, because, well, this plan is foolproof... clearly. Take off went fine, of course it would with Jeb at the controls, the cargo.... um ... I mean paying customer was enjoying themselves. Performed de-orbit burn. Entered atmosphere within sight of the KSC. So far so good. Lost control during descent, starting descending backside first.... seems the LV-909 was not powerful enough (who'd have thought it) to help me regain control. I struggle, but never manage to get the nose down. The little LV-909 is burning like a trooper, but all its doing is slowing me down a little, and giving me virtually no forward velocity (I'm assume because of the angle of attack of my fall is killing forward velocity. So the vessel is falling, taking its two occupants to their inevitable demise at just under terminal velocity... really lamenting my overconfidence at not having cutes as backup... the occupants are completely helpless.. BANG!! The craft hits the ground. Fuselage, wings, engine all explodes... BUT.... the M1 cockpit carrying Jeb and the M1 line cockpit carrying the tourist miraculously survive. They make those cockpits tough. Lessons learned? YES, YOU FRACKING NEED PARACHUTES!!!