r_rolo1

Hum, the plot is getting somewhat cheesy, Kuzzter And they should't talking about mint icecream, given they were stuck on Minmus?

Well, that only means that you always launched rockets with little drag in top compared with the bottom and that you're not going through the sound barrier at 10km. Otherwise your rockets would flip at the sudden 45º change of direction. ANd it is not a matter of doing things right or worng. You're just being wasteful ( but that was never a sin regarding playing KSP ) and forcing yourself to more work than you need to ( a well tuned rocket in post 1.0 will do the gravity turn by itself, without the need of much user input ).

I would like very much to have "take pictures of X area" contracts, TBH. People sometimes fail to realize that space programs don't take pictures just for PR reasons, but also ( and mostly ) to gather scientific data, especially regarding the geology of the site in question ( OFC that would mean adding camera(s) to the game as scientific devices )

Well, I have to go devil's advocate here and ask: There has to be a order? IMHO the science tree and the building tier system are the ones that actually were made to constrain your ability to send stuff to places ( not completely because you can do a lot with the basic resources on tier 1 ), so why would the contracts offering system also do that? Why don't simply propose all "explore X" contracts at game beginning and let the player pick the ones they think they can do?

Not sending anything manned to a place where a unmanned ships was not sent before the launch of any eventual manned mission. Simply because it is like that RL works It gets interesting when you play on Career with stock rules, given that SQUAD is a die hard fan of having little green men on the right bottom corner of the screen :/

Well, you can argue with some veracity that MechJeb is closer to reality than the current stock autopilot, but RL ships don't have anything resembling Mechjeb ATM ( especially given the fact that Mechjeb has high grade intel about the ship situation that RL ships don't ). At best you can say that the space programs as a whole has tools that, all condensed, are somewhat equivalent to Mechjeb, because if we go ship level reality is closer to kOS than to Mechjeb ATM ( the Orion capsule will probably be more like MechJeb, though )

Well, TBH I don't see why some people still cling to the idea that using a autopilot is cheating in any way. People, just boot your game and notice that your stock vanilla install already has a ( admitedly not ideal ) autopilot for a good bunch of versions. This kind of discusion could make some sense years ago, but now it doesn't ...

Ok, I'll drop my awnser in a spoiler to not derail the thread , as Kuzzter already stated his opinion on this:

Well, being in orbit in theory assumes you are up there longer, so in theory it is akin of a longer exposure to vacuum. Again, in theory

Oh, let me comment on this: Well, this would assume that you have access to the Biomes in game in a non-cheaty or awkward way Besides that, I can agree with this ... after we get some redrawing of the "Biomes" ( "Geographical zones" was too long? ) to resemble more actual terrain zoning of areas of interest ( or not interest ) I can't agree with this, since this doesn't fit with the planetary system we have in hands. Say, if you can land something on the Mun and bring it back ( and if you have ablator shields ), you can do a explore Laythe contract ( the dV for a Mun and back mission is enough to send something to the Jool system and you can do the rest by aerobraking ). OTOH a explore Ike contract might be harder than a explore Dres one ( say, if you can't aerobrake in Duna ). Other objection is that it disregards the possibility of tranfer windows not beating right with your calendar and force you to disregard good oportunities just because you haven't done a step in the ladder. Say, in current stock career, you'll have a window to Moho and another to Jool before you have one to either Duna or Eve. So, if I had advanced enough in technology to be able to do a Moho or a Jool ( or any of the Jool moons ) mission ( something that isn't even that hard ), I would have to twindle my thumbs when those windows came by , just because some arbitrary rule said I can't gain anything from going to Moho before going to Duna ... That said, the current 1.0.5 is OK by me. I would not change it in this aspect Agreed. You could also keep the current touch and go contracts ( think RL Virgin project ), but more permanent stays would also be nice. Well, first of all, I think the current part contracts by themselves are reasonable, including the Range stuff. First of all, I do see the current contracts as ignition sequence tests aka dry runs. Those are done IRL so no issue with that ... and OFC something that works at surface level might not work at mach 3 and 15 Km high, so I'm Ok with that too. What I don't like is that this part contracts are the only ones we have If we had some more types, like the ones you suggest, it would be better ... Well, I can see your point, but also note that the company is not asking you to put a sat they made into space ( what happens IRL and the idea that seems to be behind your sugestion ), but that you build and put in a certain orbit one sat that belongs to your program. As you retain ownership of the sat and you're not bound to keep it there for any time bigger than 10 seconds ( other thing that could be done is to enforce stabilty for more time ... say, a year or two ) you're in your right to do two contracts with the same sat ... So , in other words: IMHO you could either ( or both ) put predelivered by the contract company sats to orbit ( and then lose ownership ) and/or keep the current contracts, but enfoce stabilty for more time. Both would adress your point without major fuss

This x10 .. I do some tutoring teaching Maths, Physics and Chemistry and in the case of Chemistry there is a widestread movement that advocates teaching kids the wrong and outdated atomic models first as gospel because kids suposedely can't grasp the fine details of the more advanced models ( somewhat true , but not true enough IMHO ). OFC this disregards the effort teachers and tutors need to have to force the kids to unlearn what they learnt last year and to learn a new atomic model ( that will also be wrong and in need to be unlearned a couple of years later ). I've heard enough "But my teacher taught me like this last year" for a lifetime and KSP does not need those In other words, IMHO you will not gain much by teaching wrong stuff to newcomers to the game. Sure, it will be easier in the beginning, but the time and effort needed to force people to unlearn what we taught and to make them learn new and hopefully more accurate stuff outweights those gains heavily. OFC you can always use incomplete models ( say, disabling thermal damage at start ) for beginners if you're careful enough and very explicit that you're not telling the whole story for now. But teaching people wrong stuff ... it is evil

Fair enough Kuzzter. Your boat, your rules

Hum, stranded Kerbonauts don't collect paychecks, right ? I can definitely see Mort doing that On the quoted part: Kuzzter, it is not a question of hardcore scifi. It is just a matter of in-story coherence Sure, it is not your fault that KSP has a incoherent set of physics rules ( you can't have nuclear engines and not have gravitational lensing , or have Keplerian orbits in a context where conservation of energy is only respected at times ), but the incoherence of those rules will port to your story ( and you should be ready to adress those issues ) ... unless Bill is not the lunatic everyone thinks he is and we will discover in the end that their whole world is just a flawed and incoherent at seams simulation used to write a story by a Lookie BTW , and as you ( didn't ) asked, there is a n-body physics mod and a ( sort of ) gravitational lensing mod for KSP

Well, I do not expect that the same laws of physics apply in Kerbfleet universe than in our own ( a long, long rant about the KSP issues that does not belong here would follow if I go that way ), but, to avoid the Unfortunate Implications , you need to be especially careful when you start introducing new physics laws or stuff that implies you have new laws

Well, I missed that part, but, if true in the Kerbfleet universe, it brings a lot of Unfortunate Implications ( lack of n-body physics means you broke the First Law of thermodynamics and that you can, among other things , do perpetual motion machines of the first kind ... ) Oh well, as I already opened my special reserve of suspension of disbelief, might as well drink it

Hum, Kuzzter ... 1) Uranus is a M6 body in terms of visibility from Earth, barely on the limit of visibilty by naked eye by a average human ( and people with good visual acuity can see it if you point where it is ( remember, barely visible ) and in fact there are pre-telescope records in both China and Europe of Uranus ( no one realized it was a planet though ... just a barely visible star ). Not the best example possible 2) The point Geschosskopf raises is a fair one. A alter-Kerbin opposite from the Sun from Kerbin would be pretty visible from Duna or ( especiallly ) Eve ( in Eve it would be rather visible, far more than Venus from Earth ) and I have to open my special reserve of suspension of disbelief to assume that a rather long scientific mission to Eve orbit would fail to notice that bright and moving spot that was not ( very .. see below ) visible from Kerbin. But I don't need that much to say that a alter-Kerbin would already be known if it existed, by the same reasons we know there is no alter-Earth IRL ( and yes, that was already suggested seriously more than once ): a ) Alter-Kerbin would affect the orbits of Eve, Duna and even of the Mun and Minmus in a visible way. There is no way the KSC grunts would never notice those issues given the rather detailed knowledge they have of all the visible Sun system bodies. b ) Alter-Kerbin would be visible from Kerbin ... due to gravitational lensing. Due to that, Alter-Kerbin would appear as a ring around the Sun that would be visible in Solar ecplises ( that ,as you know , are very common in Kerbin ). And we can assure that there is gravitational lensing in the KSP universe: we have both radioactive generators and nuclear engines, so we know for a fact that relativity applies ( P.S. IRL there is a third reason: due to the Earth eliptical orbit, a alter-Earth would librate back and forth enough to be visible from Earth at times. Because Kerbin has a perfectly circular orbit, in theory a perfectly opposite to Kerbin alter-Kerbin would always be behind the Sun ) Well, it is your story , Kuzzter, but be aware there are some issues with the alter-Kerbin issue, if you choose to go that way

Next you'll tell that Mort Kermulan is the chief of La Resistance ...Oh ,wait, that could actually work

Well, it is discussible if we can't discuss the issue, especially when Harv itself chimed about the issue elsewhere .I do not find his argument very solid, though ( all in all, it resumes on his belief that people don't understand randomness, a proposition that ...well, does not show a lot of respect for the potential and actual buyers and players of the game, IMHO ) and it does not exclude part failure when it is expectable to happen, like when using experimental parts or when you're pushing the envelope ( we could have finally a use for the 100%-120% area of the throttle gauge ). Oh well ...

All true, but look at what I was responding to I was just pointing out that his argument about mechjeb did not make sense, because we can't preprogram missions in Mechjeb ( something that the person I was answering to pointed out that was the bread and butter of most RL missions ) and directing to the mod that actually does that

Well, basically every river in Kerbin is a BASE jump worthy place, because the rivers are actually very narrow bays at sea level. If you have mountains nearby a river it will surely be a good place for what you want

Well, technically that is a argument to use kOS, not mechjeb, since mechjeb does not allow ( and it is not targetted to ) programming your missions before launch ....

To the OP: The original idea for this game, as stated by Harv himself, was basically a 2,5D rocket launch into the atmo of a single planet that got on rails and 2D as soon as you left the atmo ... in other words ( the ones of ex-SQUAD MaxMaps ) a little more than a flash game , and more , made by someone that admitted that he only really learned about orbital mechanics while coding the game So, the game has been since the beginning being steadily drifting towards more realism and that is a good thing ( atleast IMHO ... I'm pretty sure I would not play "Angry Kerbals throw rockets to space" for a long time ) That aside, and adressing the actual OP point , I think that eventually most parts on the game will end being very close of RL counterparts ... simply because the similar laws of physics ( hopefully ) will force convergent solutions. Not necessarily equal, but surely close in terms of actual performance. P:S I do not understand the logic behind the test on the second option of the poll. Kerbal rockets are not whacky or even explodey, atleast not more than human ones: their parts are so overengineered for crash tolerance and heat resistance their rockets would not reach space in Earth and TBH I can't even do half of the crazy things that were done in RL within stock KSP ( say, like tethering two objects at diferent orbits to catapult the lower one higher at the expense of the other ... or, my favourite, how one of the biggest space agencies in the world used for decades as their staple ship a glider with custom engines with loads of gimbal bolted sideways to a rocket mostly pushed by some really big SRB Infact, the game doesn't even have SRB with thurst vectoring, something that predates the Apollo program :/ ). The whacky ones are us, not the Kerbals

Well, I didn't said that the warp to morning button doesn't have it's uses , I just said that IMHO the terrain scatter was in line for some dev attention for far longer Last time the devs made any substantial change to terrain scatter was in ... 0.15, maybe?. That was years ago :/

Yup, technically terrain scatter is still a WIP ... in spite of not being touched basically since planets were added to the game. Too bad, but I agree that it is something that should not be in top of the devs priorities ( but we can argue that it should probably in front of stuff that was already implemented, like the "Warp to next morning" button :/ )

Well, Jool could have a liquid surface far down below. It would not be so much diferent of RL Jupiter, where the atmo most likely goes supercritical somewhere on the way down ...