Leopard

downloaded this and currently fiddling with some basic examples, seems very easy to use. only have a crude joystick but have some actually useful ones on order so will be playing more soon. Q: is it possible to get the current craft acceleration? only really asking as I was fiddling with KSPSerialIO, though these seems a lot more flexible and usable, just curious on acceleration to port one of the examples over. testing currently using two altitude levels, which is working nicely Excellent work

KSP 1 has three game modes, sandbox, science and career suggestion, why limit it to three? have a scenario system and pick the scenario you want in the scenario you set the starting parameters, have/not have funds, science, what tech is unlocked, what tech tree to use. in effect you could start with the classic three, but maybe also stuff like sandbox where you already have bases on mun, minmus & maybe Duna (or the KSP2 versions obviously), some orbital stuff - in effect start part way through the game to cut some of the grind or just go play elsewhere makes career mode a bit more interesting as it could be a bit more focussed, e.g. a more detailed "early years" tech tree, or starting further on, you have a fair bit of tech available, go colonise somewhere random though, but the point is to make adding this stuff later easy because its modular from the get go

a game shouldn't be collecting anything to violate personal privacy, it shouldn't need to know enough to do that in order to run, I highly doubt this install of KSP knows for example my real name, because I've never told it that information. its also worth noting my original point was an observation, thats what I was doing on that day, watching mechjeb crash things even I could get to orbit, indeed I only use it to automate things I know works - its currently acting up, so I'm not using it as much. to dat no Kerbals have been lost, due to the craft having suitable abort mechanics, a few payloads get wetter than intended but thats because uncrewed craft don't get the abort options. I'm treating it as an in game system failure and working around it. and no, you don't have to work with things as they are or we would all still be living in caves somewhere thinking this "fire" stuff was far too risky and we had managed without so far. I've worked with systems where humans are responsible for gathering data and making reports, and where they are just responsible for instigating the report, the second category gathers more information but also a lot more consistent information, and more people make the reports - make it easy to get the information and it happens, make it time consuming, especially in a game, and you will get a lot less feedback and it will likely be a lot more variable - e.g. in what people call individual controls and events

Or, I could just play the game, if people want logging and bug reporting from normal game players its easy build the logging and reporting into the damned game. I have no idea where the log files would be, how to extract the appropriate bits etc either - nor do I fancy creating yet another log in for an online bug reporting tool for the main game - just add it, the ability to open a menu and say "report bug", screen shot with maybe a very basic tool for annotations, a box to enter some text and away you go. you want bug reports, make reporting them easy

today I haz been mostly.. watching Mechjeb fail to reach orbit, several times, in a craft even I can get to orbit, not had a problem in 1.10 so suspect is just one of them things. also watched mechjeb tell me I was orbiting Eve when orbiting Kerbin and refuse to plot a transfer node, then when it did plot one it utterly failed to execute it properly (as in Pe ended up near the orbit of Moho failed) after that I thought "meah" and put the same craft into Eve orbit myself manually, it lacks the fuel to get back but thats a muck up on my part

I tend to use basic, but overengineered launchers, I like elegant ones, I end up with clumsy ones

restarted with 1.11 a few weeks back not that long after it came out, have to say I'm liking it for giving something to actually do when you get somewhere, and once you have a cluster of ground bits, a reason to go back and add more since they actually do stuff - and do stuff a probe cannot yet do. note tried the on orbit assembly stuff as yet, but can see it being useful to upgrade older craft at a lower cost than sending a whole new module

pondering, inhtegrate the bug tracker into the game - won't catch crashes (though a watchdog crash reporter could), but will make saving instant game state, mods, versions etc easier - with a screen grabber and maybe simple highlighting tool?

visited Dres a few times, its the furthest out I have taken a Kerbal and returned them safely, its not exactly exciting but then most of the places you can go to are a bit the same - go, tick the same SCIENCE! boxes, return game needs more randomisation of whats actually at various places, and a few more reasons to actually go to some of them, rare resources or something thats actually useful

i like the idea of resupply missions, but also that you, the player, are at the cutting edge - get to the point where you have flown that refuelling tug a few times and then able to "automate" it and forget about it, the game not doing things you can't for you, but allowing you to automate the bits you have done. I like mechjeb in career mode, by the time you have it you can do what it does reasonably, its then just helping - something similar where say when you have plotted a few transfers to other worlds yourself you get to automate them, but only about as efficiently as you did yourself you still need to design the fuel tug and fly it, and say how often to fly it

Sunrise through the rings of Sarnus

only once have I had a Kerbal "get out and push", first Duna lander than managed to land upright enough to take off, that is to say on its side but pointing up a hill, it was just sub orbital with tanks and RCS tanks dry.. Kerbal got it to a few metres above the atmosphere so they could await rescue. that being the rescue mission for the previous lander that fell over harder after landing at less than 1m/s and bouncing skywards in a truely silly way

hopefully an actual purpose for space stations would be nice, more modules for them to have, more contracts related to them - even if a lot of it is "add a module containing the following parts" stuff

had watched a few on line demos so had a reasonable idea what to at least try, in career mode so thankfully limited range of catastrophes to try out flea, three fins, single crew capsule, parachute, staging correct, no science stuff on the first flight - this on the XBox flew, splashed down safely, now my standard career mode "first flight", the "Mk1. Lawn Dart"

I'd like it, but switchable as a difficulty setting - plus then options for re-supply missions

point is you make it an option, by default "off", becomes something maybe under the difficulty levels, and perhaps applied differently to planets further out - further from Kerbin and you know less without going there, maybe have an observatory you can upgrade to find a bit more, and allow for some science experiments that don't provide 'science!' they provide information - e.g. observe a planet for a while and find the upper edge of its atmosphere and density information I do incidentally love the idea of a planet based on the "Venus" from something like the early Sci-Fi novels, obscuring cloud cover (good target for a radar sat scanner!), mix of oceans, dense jungle terrain thats dangerous to land in and similar, a world thats a challenge less because its actively trying to kill you and more because there are not that many good/safe landing spots, but could perhaps benefit water craft and aircraft

option in settings to "Randomise system parameters", and a slider for the amount from 0 to maybe +/-15% - changing planetary gravity, atmospheric density, upper limit of atmosphere, orbital radius, maybe science return and similar point - you now need to go somewhere to explore, not just use what you remembered/looked up last time, and its optional. parameter changes occur when you initiate the save, and don't vary further

Kerbal Alarm Clock - why this isn't stock is beyond me MechJeb - for times when I have done something a dozen times already Docking Port Alignment Indicator - not entirely sure why but its nice Chatterer - just because no parts mods as yet

got the Jool lightning orbit, on the third try, probe twice the mass with nuclear engines over the smaller Xeon ones, less DV overall but better launch and intercept. next contract - enter the atmosphere of Jool, had been meaning to try aerocapture anyway, small probe, it worked experimenting is fun

few bits today finished a contract for rendezvous and crew transfer in Ike orbit, craft refuelled (docking target is a fuel processing station/lander/miner), they then landed, did SCIENCE! and are in Duna orbit waiting to return. mission success so far first Jool probe failed its mission, got there, orbited but lacked the fuel to get the mission target orbit, still did SCIENCE! so not a total wash, will fly a second one and just keep the first as a comms relay

finished with Gilly for the time being, three crewed flights there and back - there is a refuelling/processing station in Gilly orbit for "next time" onwards to Duna, contract to stick a base with 6,000 units of liquid fuel on Ike.. well, I was sending a fuel processing plant anyway so its basically free money - V1 landed.. slightly nose down, blew up the payload bay with the probe core - so its now just sitting there, with the probe core next to it, as debris.. V2 has a back up probe core near the middle just in case, currently in LKO. these are basically the Gilly refinery, with twice the engine power and the nuclear transfer engines integrated and more fuel tankage. send it, land it, let it fill up, collect the cash, will also fill the monoprop tansk and liquid oxygen tank space it has, some 6,000m/s when its fuelled, though TWR on Ike is about 1.3 when fully loaded, workable. prep for the first out & back mission, same crew flight vehicle as used for Gilly - this mission won't be landing, a pure science flight for contracts, so the flight profile is easily in budget

still not found the password to upload images to my hosting. not looked that hard to be honest.. yesterday saw the return to Kerbin of two of the three intrepid and at least partly willing visitors to Gilly, mixed bag of a mission. sent a base, for a contract, to which I added fuel processing kit etc. mission plan was: launch base, launch resource scan sat, launch crew flight (with return capability) at Eve dock crew module to base (contract) and stick the science crew aboard, process whatever they can in the lab the contract required scan Gilly, land the base and start munching fuel once fuelled, with ore bays also full, return to orbit - when science load is finished transmit - while this is going on the crew craft & pilot land in another biome, then return to orbit - dock again, refuel, transfer science and repeat. eventually the base is left in orbit, fuelled for the next mission - the crew fly home. what actually happened step one was fine step two was fine scanned Gilly, the base failed to enter Gilly orbit (thrust too low to capture), then lacked the fuel to try again - crew unit picked up the full crew, and landed, did science and flew back, docked, churned science for a bit, robbed what fuel was left and headed home realised one scientist had managed to sneak back to the lab module, still don't know how - realised after the Kerbin return burn was finished.. crew ship flew back safely, two Kerbals & science recovered. today saw a replacement base unit (as the contract is still incomplete), with a higher thrust and more fuel, plus a second crew flight - two on board stuck in Kerbin orbit waiting for the next window - their job is to finish the mission of the first... also stuck a probe in Duna orbit, and a test Xeon powered one is headed to Dres. never been to Dres, even on console mind you never had Kerbals outside the SoI of Kerbin and managed to bring them home again[/.i] on console.

failed to get a throw away surface base to Eve - aerobraking altitude a bit too high, never entered orbit failed to get a probe into Eve orbit, flipping thing lost control link to KSP a few seconds before the orbital capture burn needed to start and couldn't align it properly both were cheap missions though, a third is in orbit, but the wrong orbit, again waiting for Kerbin to get close enough to re-establish comms

that many of the 'problems' can be solved by reading on line - would be nice to have an option as a bit of a randomiser, variable, just stuff like change the gravity of a planet by say +/-5%, maybe where the atmosphere ends a little - provide a reason to go places to find this stuff out in advance of larger missions - without the ability to just look it up. maybe vary the orbital radius of planets and moons a little as well in the same way

I tend to go Mun first, because the contracts for it come up first, I have a 'standard' mun lander I tend to use, its horribly over-engineered (as in the actual ascent stage typically isn't actually needed unless going for the poles or something) - by the time the minmus contracts come up I tend to just use the same thing