czokletmuss

Thank you very much, this is a very nice thing to hear (read?). Yes, in fact the lack of any update for the last 2 months (!) wasn't planned. I guess I should've expected this when besides The Grand Tour I started also third AAR (based on Crusader Kings II) on a different forum. This doesn't mean that I'm not going to continue this AAR - in fact I have most of the spacecraft tested and ready, as well as the plan for further chapters. I even found some time this week to finally reconstruct Alexey Leonov first spacewalk: But I don't think there will be a new chapter sometime soon - RL indeed is getting in the way. I guess I would have more time for The Space Race when the Grand Tour is completed. But frankly I can't really tell. One thing is certain though: I don't want to abandon this project.

AAR guide will be finished soon, no ETA of course.

You should put a link to it in the first post or your signature (or both). Edit: Ninja'd.

Will there be some kind of a manual for the IVA (like pdf with 2-4 pages of expanation which button does what and so on)? Honestly I feel lost every time I use ALCOR

For a long time That's one of the greatest moments when you are writing a story - the moment when a story arc reaches its climax: On the other hand, this is not a book - it's AAR. Which means sometimes the game is ruining all my plans but at the same time it creates situations which force me to come up with new ideas, which is a very good thing. EDIT The new chapter of my CK2 AAR is released and as it turns out, I'll have a lot of work in the next week. There won't be any ETA for a Grand Tour chapter, but don't expect it to be released before Friday.

Thanks for sharing your opinions, I made a decision and the next one will be the Grand Tour chapter. What is funny is that the Three Laws are based on utilitarianism, which is probably the most widespread philosophy in the West IRL and is more or less the basis for liberal democracy and the welfare state. Most of us live in the world built on utilitarianism and see no problem with it - but it takes only a little bit of logical thinking (not necesarrily AI or robots) to see that when taken to its extreme this philosophy can be quite, well, extreme and ruthless. All Just A Dream is quite lame trope IMHO. But who knows what the truth is? LOL! This is hilarious

First photo of Earth taken by Chang'e 3: Yes, this is you. And every other living human. Earth in ultraviolet 360 panorama:

Just a reminder - we're talking about a DLC for KSP, not about DLC in general, business practices in regard to them or DLCs for Reblog or any other game.

Imagine that the authors of the most popular mods have an accident or just get bored with KSP and leaves - no more MechJeb, no more BobCat Ind., no more Kethane etc. With official DLC you have guaranteed support and compatibility.

I really don't want flame so please post constructive posts. "DLC is bad" is as much an argument as "you are stupid" - that is, it isn't one. Please use arguments.

Why so nervous? The idea from the first post was just an example, nothing more. Yup. We all know that there are some disgusting practices like day one DLC (which debutes on premiere) or some really silly ones (in "Tomb Raider" you can buy some skills for 1$ which normally you would unlock in 30minutes into the game) but I think that in KSP only DLC which would work would be extra content. Besides, if DLC would require some extra coding (and they would) it could be beneficial for everyone - for example, Squad released a DLC about building colonies and includes all the changes necessary for it to work in a patch. Then modders can use this to make (free) mods for the game. Everybody wins.

There are a lot of things: Sure some of them can be or already are in mods but that's not important - solar panels, rovers, probes, docking and so on also were mods in the beginning.

It was just an example, there are other possibilities. And Squad changed their mind about multiplayer, so they can change it about other solar systems too.

In my opinion YES, it can be. Why? Besides the obvious advantages (game developer earning more money means longer support and possibile sequels, player gets more content to play with) and flaws (cutting out features from the game to sold them separately), the DLCs make possible a unique path od developing the game, combining both more money for the developer and more content for the player EVEN if he doesn't buy the DLC. Yes, this is possible - I'll use here an example of Paradox Development, who are using this solution for a long time. According to the game dev: Source: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?746634-Europa-Universalis-IV-Conquest-of-Paradise-Dev-Diary-%96-Random-free-stuff! The last sentence is the most important one. Basically this approach in KSP would look more or less like this: 1. Squad finishes KSP (let's say it's 1.00 version) 2. Some patches are released (1.00 -> let's say 1.06) In the meantime, Squad is working on a, for example, Interstellar DLC. But not all of the new features will be included in the next DLC - in fact a good chunk of them will be realeasd for free. So the day of the release comes and: 3. Interstellar DLC is released with the patch 1.10 -> content from the patch is free: for instance some new parts, new animations, more tweakables, bugfixes and one new capsule -> contet from the DLC is paid and includes bigger featurs like another solar system and antimatter drive than enables to reach it. In the en Squad is happy because they earn more money (DLC) and community is happy too, because devs care about us and not only continue to fix the game but also give us some goodies for free (patch). This is just an example and the proportions between patch and DLC may be different - for instance it's easy to imagine that free patch adds new solar system but only DLC enables higher time warps and new engine which makes it easy to get there. So even only with patch you'll be able to go there but it'll take A LOT of time and truly gigantic rockets - it would be much easier to just buy the DLC and enjoy all the goodies. As you can see, the DLCs aren't anything bad by themselves. This solution (DLC+patch) works for Paradox for years and I see no reason why it couldn't work for the Squad and for us, players. If you wish to discuss this topic, please be rational and don't turn it into a flamewar. Thank you.

Asteroid belt doesn't look like this at all.

I did a test with Gemini coming back from the Mun at 3200 m/s at 25km PE and it survived BUT what I meant by supporting Deadly Reentry was adding a AblativeShielding resource (if I remember correctly), which would be used during aerobraking just like the others Deadly Reentry heatshields are. Not that this is very important but it would be a nice touch I think. I dunno what frizzank thinks about this.

Question: would you prefer next update to be the next Grand Tour chapter of FINALLY some update for The Space Race?

Early Soyuz? Zond? Venera?

Great to see you back, MrTheBull We're all waiting for more awesome parts from you!

Frizzank, are you planning adding Deadly Reentry compability to Mercury and Gemini capsules? It would be sweet - right now stacking additional heatshields beneath the pods looks kinda silly

Foreshadowing! Vagueness! Though I'm sure that everything will be alright. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with the mission? Small tip - while taking screenshots centered on a spacecraft try to use right mouse button to turn camera a little so that you won't accidentaly highlight some part of the said spacecraft.

Fantastic! This was probably the quickest modder reaction to someone's idea on this forum ever Thank you very much!

Kinda - if you have Lazor on your spacecraft you could switch to FPP during EVA. Life support indeed isn't standardized enough, although asmis's ECLSS 2.0 probably will became quite popular when released. Well, besides the obvious (being jetpack fuel) I think also things like: - velocity - orbit (apoapsis and periapis) - current altitude - remaining delta-v - distance from spacecraft (?) - and some kind of a navball showing pro/retrograde, rad+/- and so on would be nice too: constant switching to map and back to make sure you are facing the right direction when trying to make single jetpack to orbit on Minmus/Gilly/Bop/Pol is very annoying would be cool to have. Thanks for showing interest in this idea

Just an idea - is it possible to use SteamGauges as a sort of HUD for kerbals during EVA? It would require some sort of first person view to work though but I think this would be very attractive option I'm talking about something like this:

Great! Are you going to sort the links somehow (author, start date etc.)? Plus it would be a good idea I think to allow all the authors to write short (two-three sentences) descriptions of their stories to put on the list so that one can easier find what's most interesting for him.