MajorTomtom

They allow at least rotating space stations. However, I am disappointed too that there are still no good electric engines parts, even though you can make acceptable propeller craft with these (with a lot of work)

Hi Squad, With breaking grounds we can now make stock propellers, but I think we lack real propeller blades. Currently we have to clip elevons or winglets and it's ugly and buggy. Please release a stock propeller blade !

Hello, I just saw the odd design of the Starlink satellites, with the single solar array deployed upwards and the electric propulsion on the platform. I wonder, how does the whole thing remains stable ? I mean, during their electric burn phase to reach their orbit they have to use the thruster, and I guess the center of mass of the satellite is somewhere near a third of the solar panel height, so there must be a huge parasitic torque created ? Do you have any idea on how they keep it stable ? Thanks in advance

The surface features still look like they popped out of nowhere though, will you work on them to make it less artificial ?

To make things more interesting, they could add missions to the career, instead of making it a separate content. You would get all the traditional random contracts (test this, go there, plant flag) and scripted or pseudo random missions that would be more interesting, and may be added by people themselves, with a more constructed approach and narrative behind. Otherwise, I agree 100% with you, the career has to be overhauled, maybe not in as much details/complexity but they do have to make it more interesting than a progressive sandbox.

There is a mod called trajectories that shows an approximation of the point of impact when your trajectory goes through an atmosphere. This is however in my experience rarely precise enough to the point that you could land at the KSC for example and not in the mountains nearby. I don't know how the mod calculates the trajectory, but as mentioned by OHara, your incidence etc factors GREATLY in where you'll land I'd say try the mod to get a rough estimate and use it as a starting point from which you fine tune your approach using your incidence. Another issue for what you ask is that you have to predict when you'll be falling also since you are coming from far away, and Kerbin rotates during your approach. A starting point would be to practice in LEO beforehand to minimize this drift

I tend to mimic real space missions, for example my early career satellites are called "kutnik" , then the mun exploration crafts are called " muna 1, muna 2 etc", you have the "minimuna 1, 2 etc" craft for minmus. And for manned crafts, I go with "Kermini", "Kerbollo", "Kostok". For fictional missions or those that differ too much from real life, I go with greek/roman gods and classical names such as "Ares" for Duna, "Juno" for Jool... My bases and stations are named with Russian names such as "Zvezda" as IRL the Russians built the most stations... My relaysare always called with acronyms (for networks) such as "KRS - 1" for Kerbin Relay System 1. My contract satellites are called, as in real life, with the name of the client and a number (e.g "Owl - 1") Not really original I guess, I should vary a bit but afterwards I just forget what the craft does/did. And I don't reuse crafts anyway as 90% of the fun comes from building a mission from scratch in my opinion

What I tend to do is precisely curiosity-styles rovers. You build your rover, add a decoupler on top of it with some structures, a tank and a probe atop of it + 4 lateral engines and 3 chutes : that's your crane. Below the rover I add another decoupler + structures, and then a fairing. Below the fairing comes a heatshield (so that I can do a direct aerobraking). Below the heatshield comes the interplanetary transfer vehicle, basically a small tank/engine/antenna/solar panel (if you need course corrections) Finally you add your rocket below When you launch (e.g to duna) you send the whole transfer vehicle + fairing etc to duna encounter, course correction to get a precise aerobraking perigee at duna using your transfer vehicle. Slightly before periapsis at duna you jettison the transfer vehicle and begin reentry of your egg-shaped reentry structure (fairing + heatshield). Once at reasonable speed you drop the fairing and heatshield and deploy speed chutes, and once close to the ground you light the four lateral engines on your crane, drop the rover and fly the crane upwards and turn it sideways so that it crashes far from your rover. Afterwards, you can roam the surface with your rover and realize how empty It is and that you should have made a simple lander The only downside is that you have to use a rather small rover (such as curiosity). You can't launch a gigantic star wars rover with ISRU etc with this method

Just to come back on the science per day revenue, a work around would be a fixed science per space mission (and eventually a science per aircraft mission) revenue, that would be proportional to your R&D center level and your reputation. That way warping your way around is not an option, but you still have the same results, and its closer to real life. The experiments gathering could also be made less clicky by providing either a shortcut "run all" (for the moment you have to set it up manually using actions shortcuts and its not really beginner friendly or interesting) or run science experiment automatically once entering a biome with a simple indicator in one corner of the screen and a "science window" where you can manage which experiments to store/send/process etc (with a send all button of course). A rework for the tech tree could be the following: -You don't spend science for nodes but just money, you just accumulate it -Each node has a required overall science threshold -A lot more nodes that each contain only a few linked parts (for example : ungimballed basic engines, upper stage engines, fixed solar panels, deployables, basic science experiments, batteries etc...) That way you have the analog of real life R&D where some parts are developed because we have the technology matures (~enough science data since the beginning of space program to make it work) and the money to fund it.

A good way to change it would be, in my opinion, to have a "science point per day" revenue based on your reputation (to make reputation useful) and your R&D center size + strategies that could allow to spend money for science etc. Next to this stable revenue, you would have science rewards with contracts inspired from real life space science. I'm not talking about boring and overly difficult contracts such as "fly at 100 m/s at 50 km above 3 points that have nothing in common and test a ladder and run a goo", I'm thinking of contracts such as "land at that point, run that experiment", "land a rover and drive XX meters with that experiment on board" etc. It's mostly the same contracts but made easier and with less crazy conditions that are not that fun. The science gathering could be made more interesting by providing more info when you "run your experiment". For example, you could imagine that a thermometer could be turned on prior to a landing and that you would collect data once on the ground and get a nice little temperature vs altitude chart, or pressure vs altitude etc. You could also, by taking enough measurements, have a 3D view of the magnetic field of planets on the map view etc. This mechanic doesn't change the game that much but makes it more enjoyable on the science side, as I'm sure a lot of us wonder sometime "how hot is Jool, how is the gravity field around pol etc" A final touch is to add more science experiments (such as Dmagical science mod that is a must have in my opinion) and scrap the "send back" coefficient that lowers your reward when it doesn't make sense (for example : temperature readout)

Doing the full tech tree while staying around kerbin is probably feasible but not easy at all, unless you spend a LOT of hours going from biome to biome and doing the same thing over and over again... I agree that these contracts should be more rewarding, because today I simply don't do them because they usually require incredible parameters (20 000 m high and under 300m/s for example for a SRB test) or a lot of time (science at 3 points around the whole planet). Maybe they could make them less hard, like "put a rover down in this valley and do this experiment" or "test a part in space"

Well it is a struggle you will agree, and you use parts (wheels) that are not supposed to be used like that to achieve your goal. It's smart, but hell it should be simpler so everyone could do it

I agree it is feasible, but it is not particularly adapted either. For example, to link different modules you have to use either clamps or docking ports, the first are ugly and the seconds require precise alignment, which is something hard to achieve "on site" Moreover, we lack "specific" base parts (tents, hydroponics...) in stock

We could imagine a stock colony system where you would have to establish bases and support them in late-game career ? It would be a good idea for a DLC because we would have more parts etc, and new mechanics to actually build bases on the ground (which is immensely difficult in stock today). Maybe something quite simple like a succession of contracts beginning with "launch an outpost" and then each "module" would have to be sent up there, as well as kerbals. Another idea for science would be to add some experiments and add new overlays for map mode to show the differents fields (temperature, pressure etc). A mission could then be to "map the magnetic field of kerbin" and you would have to send a magnetometer in eccentric polar orbit, and afterwards you could have a 3d visualization of the magnetic field, or you could be tasked to send a probe in jool's atmosphere to establish the pressure/temperature profile, which would then be accessible in game visually. It wouldn't be too difficult to implement I suppose, but it would sure add something to science, because for now you can check the temperature etc on instruments but it's more like "oh great it's 100°C here, well now I must go to another biome and get MORE POINTS" and you forget what you did. A "simple" addon would also be new planets to represent Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Jool is great, but it would be great to have other gas giants ! They could also easily add some "space anomalies" which would be for example interstellar objects like oumouamoua or even strange spaceships like the one in Rama. It would be fun to discover and explore.

The argument of mods being available is right, but for me it's kind of the same as "If you're unhappy, just develop your own game". OK the modding community is GREAT in KSP, but mods are mods and are not necessarily updated at the same time as the vanilla game, it may lead to stability issues etc. I really don't understand what would be so difficult for SQUAD to develop an alternative tech tree accessible with a switch at the beginning of a save, and I think everybody would feel it doesn't worsen the game in any way The stock tech tree is alright to learn I agree, at least for the first few nodes. Afterwards, you are simply to limited because you can't use probes without solar panels, you can't use your large fuel tanks without large engines etc. For ladders which seem to be the focus of all problems here, I think they should happen right at the beginning because it is not logical for a new player to jetpack around on the mun or minmus instead of walking and climbing a simple ladder. Giving them later simply makes them useless because we are used to the stupid idea that jetpacks are sufficient and when we first get somewhere where we need ladders we forget them and feel stupid.

I agree, a tech tree should not be hard to develop, it's basically just rearranging what's already there. They could easily implement a switch during career creation to have either "original" tech tree or "historical" tech tree for experienced players, where you would have to use planes, probes etc before capsules. They wouldn't even have to balance this one all that much as players already know the tricks to get ahead in science, and to rearrange the order they could just go with the real historical invention dates For the moment, it feels as you pointed out, that the career mod is just a long long tutorial. Now if Squad really don't care about career (I can understand that), I think it's a mistake, because playing sandbox forever is sure to bore most players nowadays (myself included, if I don't have a semblance of a "mission" to get somewhere I simply won't except for some rare moments of inspiration)

I agree of course, RO is great for realism, but I also enjoy the relative simplicity (and stability most of all) of the stock or near-stock ksp. What I meant with this tech tree is just that some parts always seem to arrive before you can actually use them, for example 1.875m tanks before 1.875m engines, or probe cores before fairings etc. It's not making the game unbearable or anything, just a bit surprising.

Hi, It's probably been proposed again and again, but seriously, what with the tech tree ? Before the expansion I thought it didn't make much sense, but now it seems completely random. Why don't we have plane parts before (or at least at the same time) rockets ? It makes no sense to put a man in orbit before being able to navigate on kerbin. Also, I would like to see RCS and batteries coming with the first rocket engines, otherwise we just forget about RCS and rely on SAS only, which is a shame The biggest issue still is with the expansion. We unlock the 1.875 fuel tanks before any engine that fits them. Sure we can use multiple 1.25 ones with the new decouplers and it works great, but for the casual new player I think it is a bit too complicated for a start. Why not unlock some of the 1.875 engines with the tanks or at equal tech level ? It also seems broken to get the (overly efficient) AJ-10 replica that soon because it outshines most of the other engines and most of the supposedly more advanced ones that we unlock later... Anyway, I know a lot of mods change that, but I just wonder why Squad never reworked this tech tree, if there is a good reason for the choices made or if it is pure random...

Well the governments won't fund the development if the rocket is not at least partially built in their country. It's the same I believe with NASA's SLS being built and using parts made in a lot of different states to satisfy the congress...

The main problem is that you don't really make money selling rockets, because the development cost is huge. Ariane 6 development is hugely funded by ESA, and for Space X the money came from their government contracts (at 3-5 times the normal commercial price) and their NASA partnerships contracts. If ArianeGroup wanted to develop a whole new rocket by themselves with an intelligent approach regarding work breakdown / procurement etc, they simply couldn't because they would have to invest a tremendous amount of money, for a very low return on investment (and not a quick one moreover). Plus, European countries sometime choose foreign rockets to lift their government satellites, so you could imagine what it would be like if the rocket wasn't even produced partly in their country...

Yeah it's true, however they really could have seen it coming in my opinion. I agree that Ariane 6 will not be a huge commercial success, but it will survive because it has to, in order to allow Europe an independent access to space. I think that some companies will even agree to pay more than for a F9 just to keep a healthy competition on the market.

Hi, sorry to dig old posts, but according to this : https://satelliteobservation.net/2018/05/21/ariane-6-and-beyond/ Adeline concept is "financially not interesting", so I guess it is abandonned

I don't see how a 2 vulcain variant of Ariane would be more reusable than Ariane 5 or 6. Moreover, the european space program is concerned about which country builds what, and it turns out that the italians are good at solid rocket, and the french need to keep fresh on the technology because of ICBM research.

Hi guys, I want to calculate the total delta V necessary for an electric spacecraft to transfer from one circular orbit to another. I know that in this case the Hohmann transfer is not applicable because of the very-low thrusts at hand, therefore the manoeuver is more or less an ascending (or descending) spiral from one orbit to another, or, speaking more kerbal, you simply burn prograde/retrograde until you reach the desired orbit. My first guess to calculate the delta V required would be to make the difference between the two orbital speeds, but then I thought about the oberth effect and I suppose it is not that simple. Does anyone know how to do such a thing, or where to look ? Thanks in advance, and sorry for my grammar

So how is it supposed to be an earth-escape orbit, I mean sure it leaves Earth SOI, but it isn't near the planets orbit plane (which is I believe around 23° from the equator) ?