thereaverofdarkness2

I can't say for sure but I believe it does based on some videos. Interesting, I'll have to check that out.

Thank you for a constructive and well thought out post. I'll agree that your points pretty well demonstrate that my idea wouldn't work very well in the stock game. [snip]

I had an idea for a part which would enable simulating the Korolev Cross in KSP both for roleplaying and strategic purposes. This part should make for a useful type of decoupler/sepratron. The part is a small radial piece much like a radial RCS thruster, and it can only attach a fuel tank to its root. When activated, it detaches like a decoupler but then adds a radial point of thrust to the separating (away from root) fuel tank, causing the fuel tank to expend its remaining fuel at very low dV to produce non-damaging thrust. This will use the fuel remaining in the tank to push the tank away from the rocket, much like the real separation bolt used on the Soyuz rocket. Another way to say this is that it's a decoupler that provides thrust, pulling fuel from the tank it separates with. Thanks, Geonovast, for the alternate explanation. The name I came up with is the Kerbolev Sepratron, relating it to the Korolev Cross, and it would be produced by Kerbodyne.

It affects performance. But you know what affects performance more? The little trucks driving around on the floor. They affect performance a LOT more. And they don't affect it much. The performance impact is probably orders of magnitude smaller than you're capable of imagining.

The jetpack is already going to be less fuel efficient than the EVA pack even if it uses the same fuel (monopropellant) merely because it has a higher thrust. If that thrust isn't high enough, it won't be able to lift the Kerbal far enough to be useful on Kerbin. I feel like an adequate amount of thrust for use on Kerbin would be high enough to lift them on Eve, even if it's not high enough for you to want to use it on Eve.

I feel like I suggested this once before, but I can't find the thread. Anyway, with Kerbals getting parachutes, I feel it is time to revisit the idea! The basic idea is to give the player backpack options for the Kerbals, so you choose whichever backpack type suits you. The default backpack is the EVA pack, and if you change the backpack for a given seat on your craft, it will save that setting with the craft. Perhaps you could store extra backpacks in the command module and switch while on mission, with each command module having its own backpack storage limit. EVA Pack: The vanilla backpack. It's excellent for maneuvering in low or zero-G, and can be used to easily fly on the Mun or any body with similar or lower gravity. Comes with a hose that can connect to another EVA pack or a fuel tank to transfer monopropellant. Parachute: Exactly what has now been given to all Kerbals. With my idea, it's an option which carries an opportunity cost. Excellent for a Kerbin or Laythe landing, might even be strong enough to survive a landing on Duna. Jetpack: Much higher thrust than EVA pack, but only provides thrust in one direction and it has lower total dV, meaning the burn time is much shorter. You can use it to travel upwards pretty fast even on Kerbin, and it is strong enough to lift Kerbals on Eve. Despite having thrust in only one direction, the user can twist their body to affect their heading slightly. Comes with a hose that can connect to another jetpack or fuel tank to transfer liquid fuel and/or oxidizer. Storage Pack: It's a backpack for holding things. This would go well with Kerbal Attachment System if it were made stock. Various small items could be placed inside and carried around by the Kerbal to be deployed later. Could be interesting if engineers were given some various tools to use. Comms Array: A medium-range radio transmitter with antenna and battery pack which can be used to relay science reports. Comes with a cord that can connect to another comms array or battery to transfer electric charge. Just for fun: Wingsuit: A folded pair of glider wings which can be extended while falling to enable the Kerbal to do impressive aerial stunts. Also comes with a tiny one-use solid rocket which can be used either to lift the Kerbal off the ground initially or to get a temporary speed boost while in mid-air.

Why would you get 10 points, and all costs are in increments of 5? Why not divide those values by 5?

A vessel parachute is very different from a small personal parachute. Kerbals should be able to repack their own parachutes, but it makes sense that it takes an engineer to repack a spacecraft parachute. Also, there needs to be some reason to ever bring an engineer along!

Poll: do you think KSP: good (10/10) bad (0/10) Pass on your binary vote now, it's the tiny bit of info that makes all the difference!

Surface temperature should transfer heat much more quickly than atmospheric temperature, but only to the parts in direct contact with it. KSP already has a system for transferring heat between parts so the same system could transfer heat from the ground to the parts that are touching the ground. Your spacecraft could get very cold when flying in space a long ways away from the sun or in the shadow of a planet, unless something on the inside were generating heat. RTGs should generate heat at all times. I'm interested in giving a few parts a minimum temperature, but I think most things shouldn't be affected by the cold. All structural components, landing legs, struts, wings and lifting surfaces, docking ports, and panels should operate just fine no matter how cold they get. Fuel might be an interesting thing to have fail when it gets too cold, or it could have difficulty burning. Maybe some functions would happen slowly while the ship is cold. Getting any crew module's core temperature too low could kill any kerbals inside, though the kerbals would generate some heat and all parts with crew or passenger capacity would have internal heating which would draw electric charge to keep warm. That way you mostly could ignore heating, but in the event your power fails, it is possible for your kerbal crew to die from the cold.

It's way too much effort for such a simple program. Plants vs. Zombies offers the same thing, but it comes with the game and is easy to use. As it is just a program that allows you to dress up a Kerbal and take screenshots, it's not worth the effort it takes to use it, let alone the money it costs. It probably cost Squad a significant amount of development resources to provide the tool, given it has advanced 3D models. I think perhaps Squad should invest a bit of time and resources to salvage it, mostly by making it easier to access but also by adding more options for what you can do with it. I assume eventually this tech will be wrapped into the main game, which will then be able to render Kerbals who don't all look the same. But that might take a while. Maybe we can have some kind of teaser to keep us interested and help us wait? What if there was a Kerbal coffee shop which was an online hangout where the Kerbalizer kerbals can be rendered sitting at tables. Then you can log in to a chatroom lounge and chat live with other KSP players, and it could offer some P2P options such as streaming to your new buddy you found in the lounge, so he can watch you play KSP and type messages to you while you play. It's a far cry from the multiplayer that people are asking for, but it could be very easy to implement relative to how much players might gain from it. Basically, you're giving the players a simple tool and letting them do all the work in using it.

I'm happy with the way they look now, but I've always been happy with the remodels so I'm not invested in a change but I won't get bothered if one happens.

What's wrong with the currently existing 1.25m and 2.5m flat disk probe cores? Are they not what you're looking for? They are pretty advanced and high in the tech tree, but their monetary cost isn't very high.

I'd like to see it be a toggle on the navball. When it's set to atmospheric flight, it'll have horizontal prograde/retrograde markers, up/down markers, and horizontal sideways markers. These would replace the orbital markers that you see on the orbital navball. When you use the atmospheric flight navball, your Kerbal or probe core pilots would follow the new markers.

RE-N2 "Nuke" Atomic Rocket Motor Width: 2.5 meters Length: 6.0 meters Mass: 24.0 tonnes High Thrust Mode - Max Thrust: 720 kiloNewtons - Engine Isp: 600 seconds - Thrust to Weight ratio: ~3 High Efficiency Mode - Max Thrust: 360 kiloNewtons - Engine Isp: 1200 seconds - Thrust to Weight ratio: ~1.5 Real-life experimental rocket technology extends pretty far beyond the techs you can research in KSP, if you count unfinished projects that we know will work. The end game in KSP gets a bit dry. I think it'd be nice if some experimental tech were added to stock KSP. There are a bunch of these for which we have measured attributes of the real thing to provide examples with which to go by. This larger, variable thrust ARM I've suggested above is based on plans for the NERVA program before it was cancelled. It was known that it would be possible to make the NERVA engine capable of raising its thrust during flight, at the cost of efficiency. Also, the original NERVA came out with a specific impulse of 850 seconds, but future refinements could have theoretically improved this figure to considerably higher values. So my RE-N2 "Nuke" is Rockomax's refinement of the LV-N "Nerv" ARM, both generally improving on the design (as well as making it larger) and giving it the capability of swapping modes like what the R.A.P.I.E.R. engine can do. The high thrust mode is less efficient than the LV-N but has substantially higher TWR, while the high efficiency mode has lower TWR but substantially higher specific impulse. This engine would be invaluable for long-range missions both due to its high efficiency and its versatility as it can take advantage of the Oberth effect more easily, helping to make back some of the lost efficiency. It also just provides something more to research. I'm thinking it should go in the 1,000 science tier, two tiers past the LV-N. There are other rocket technologies that could be added to KSP at even higher tech tiers, such as: the popular Orion rocket, the alternative to Orion--the Medusa, the new ion engine--the VASIMR, the high-tech Daedalus, the extremely efficient solar sail, or the laser ablator sail which doesn't need to carry its fuel along. Orion As many of you already know, the Orion rocket would detonate a small fission charge behind it every second or so, absorbing the blast with a pusher plate and getting very high thrust and high efficiency. Future refinements could use smaller charges at a higher rate of detonation, improve efficiency by directing the blast more in-line with the spacecraft, or use hydrogen fusion charges for greater efficiency. Medusa The Medusa rocket would carry a large sail ahead of the craft, and would detonate charges much like the Orion craft. The sail would add mass to the ship, but it would be able to collect much more of the blast, enabling greater efficiency as well as a smoother ride. VASIMR VASIMR is a refinement to the ion engines we've put on space probes in recent decades, and it improves efficiency somewhat and greatly increases thrust, but most importantly, it is capable of varying its thrust vs. its efficiency much like the NERVA program originally had planned. Unlike most others in this list, the VASIMR is currently past initial development phases and is very near to seeing actual use. Likely within the next decade, a spacecraft equipped with a VASIMR engine will have already made its way out beyond Earth. Daedalus This rocket would use a set of lasers to detonate a constant stream of very tiny fission or fusion charges from within the craft, and would direct the extremely hot plasma out the back by deflecting it with electromagnets. The efficiency is extremely high, though it requires a very massive engine, so it's only useful for very large ships. Thrust is meager yet potentially far greater than Dawn-style ion engines can provide. The original development of this engine came through research on the most effective way to reach another star within a human's lifetime. A two-stage Daedalus craft could reach 12% the speed of light and perform a flyby of another star within 50 years of launch, collecting data as it passes and relaying that data to Earth. The Project Longshot aimed to refine Daedalus to go a bit slower but actually enter orbit of the star, providing far more time to study it and report the findings back home. Solar Sail We had long been aware that it was theoretically possible to build a solar sail craft, but with existing materials it seemed its TWR would be too low to be of much use. The solar sail gets its push from the solar wind and the momentum transferred by photons which are a massless particle--the sail will wear out due to the rigors of space but its efficiency is theoretically infinite as light itself (in non-ionizing wavelengths) does not remove any material from the sail. The LightSail project is trying to revive this idea, using modern materials and robotics to make the craft extremely light. They have performed a couple successful tests and plan to eventually launch a full scale solar sail probe soon. The probe will be very tiny and as such will not be able to carry very decent instruments, but it will also be very cheap. Perhaps one day we'll send hundreds of these out to explore the lower-importance parts of the solar system. Laser Ablator Sail The laser ablator sail does not carry an engine onboard but instead carries an ablator sail. This sail is similar to the solar sail but its skin is heated to very high temperatures by the laser and it gradually ablates, generating thrust. The laser sail is remarkably efficient due to its mass being almost entirely "fuel". Its thrust is pretty low, but it could accelerate over a long period of time, eventually reaching incredibly high speeds. A laser mounted in Earth orbit would focus its beam on the LAS spacecraft. The biggest disadvantage to this is that it would only be able to generate thrust away from Earth. The Breakthrough Starshot program wants to build one of these and send it to a nearby star at perhaps as much as 20% of the speed of light. The tiny craft would not be able to collect very much useful data on its trip, but simply making the encounter with another star may be enough to generate interest in the space program. And since the laser is reusable and the craft is cheap, you can send another one out as soon as the first one is done accelerating. Perhaps one day we'll have tiny instruments we can fit on one of these, powerful enough to collect useful data from other stars. I'd like to see some of these technologies put into KSP, at higher tiers of science unlocks. It would be neat to be able to refine our methods of travel beyond the currently existing limits. Now I'm not one to suggest adding other stars to KSP, I think that going to them would get very boring since in order to reach them, you'd have to go so fast that gravity ceases to be important to the travel. But I had an alternative idea that some folks might find interesting: a nearby red dwarf. There could be a tiny star orbiting deep in the outskirts of Kerbol's influence, unknown initially. You'd have to upgrade your tracking station all the way in order to track it, or you could stumble upon it and find it on your map after you got close enough to it. You'd have to actually get pretty near it in order to see its planets and moons, so there'd be some discovering to do. Maybe its planets would vary from one game to the next. I think that could be fun to play with.

This exactly! The amount for a new biome should be reduced a bit, how much should depend greatly on what you're exploring. For example: Exploring a new biome on Minmus should give far less science than the first biome, while each new biome on Kerbin (which are actually very diverse as well as difficult to reach) should stay at a pretty good chunk of their base value. Also, checking out other flats on Minmus should give very little science after you've already researched one of the flats, because they're all relatively the same. You should get more science for scouting the Mün's crater, midlands, and highlands than you would for scouting the basins of three different craters. Different islands on Laythe should give quickly diminishing returns on science, but there should still be a lot to get from the ocean. So basically if you keep going to the same place on a different part of the planet, you shouldn't get tons of science for it. But going to new features and new kinds of terrain should give you good science. Also, the rate at which science diminishes should be relative to how easy it is to get around the body. Bigger and heavier bodies should give more science for full exploration, while smaller and lighter bodies shouldn't give much past the first few experiments.

It doesn't have to break science mode. Why not have science mode work the old way, but change career mode? Then we still have the problem that we can't explore very well until we have the whole tech tree unlocked. That's why I think we should also expand the tech tree with upgrades to existing parts as well as futuristic tech that may cost large amounts of science.

That's the issue. I don't want to barely reach Duna. I want to go there and play around.

I like freedom of choice, but I don't feel I have that freedom. Part of the problem is that I don't really feel like I can do interplanetary missions very well until I have just about the whole tech tree unlocked. Before that, I'm struggling to pay for rockets and I can't afford the final launch pad upgrade. I hit the 140 ton limit with a craft carrying maybe 20 tons to orbit, and I don't have the small parts to make that 20 tons into something special. I don't have the fairings to build it the way I want. I'd have to assemble a craft in several pieces, using the little tiny docking ports, just to get it to Duna with room to perform any science, let alone bringing it back to Kerbin. I don't mind doing a lot of science in the Kerbin system, but I want to have something to do out at the rest of the planets. I want a reason to explore them. Usually my reason to go anywhere is to collect science, and it isn't much fun when I have to unlock the whole tree before I can really start collecting.

I think that's a good point. It'd be nice if Minmus gave less science, and if the whole science tree went a lot further. I'd like to see a lot of futuristic technologies put in at the end with high science requirements, giving a player a lot of room to expand. It would give purpose to collecting science from all of those places. That's a really important point as well. You can turn up the science rewards from missions and turn down the science gain from experiments (I think), but it would be nice to have alternative options of gameplay. I like collecting science and running contracts, but I don't like it when the game selects for me which I have to do to progress.

Minmus has about as many biomes as the Mün, and it's more difficult to reach Minmus so it makes sense initially that you get more science from Minmus. The issue is that it actually takes a lot of work to collect data from all of the Mün's biomes, while getting everything on Minmus is barely more difficult than reaching Minmus. A simple craft with a small amount of fuel can easily touch down at multiple locations on Minmus. Even ion-propelled craft can land on it. It becomes an issue when you collect all the science you can get from Minmus and you get so much that you've already unlocked most of the tech tree without even leaving the Kerbin system.

Oh whoops, I didn't read very carefully. Yes, we could use splitters of all sizes. I was thinking some of these parts could be done procedurally--you select a base part and adjust it with options in its right click menu.

I've had the issue off and on in many applications. It seems to have started with Windows 7, and it seems to be caused by the operating system allowing you to stop providing input before the process has had a chance to register the input. This may fix certain localized issues that happen in some very specific and extreme circumstances, but sometimes (read: pretty often) results in weird anomalies in which the computer should have or even did register the input but acts like it didn't. Sometimes this results in clicks seeming to do nothing, sometimes you watch the button go through its button-press animation yet it acts as if it wasn't clicked. Workaround: hold the mouse button down longer. Try to figure out how long it takes the process to register a click, and get used to holding the mouse button down for that long. The amount of time will vary by program and sometimes by what else you're running along with it. If the process is running very slowly, you may need to hold the mouse down for much longer, a few seconds or more.

We don't need a new category, what we need is more control over what category we want to set our debris to list as.

I want explosive-only stack splitters that completely obliterate themselves, leaving nothing attached to either part, and nothing floating in space. Should come with appropriate weaknesses of course.