Beeman

I don't know about hostile mechanics on planets, but I do know they had a volcanic planet in the works at some point. I think they were holding off on implementing that(and other planets they had finished back then) until they got around to implementing planetary discovery via the observatory. I wonder if that stuff is still on the roadmap >_> Would be interesting if the volcanic planet had dangerous surface features like lava pools, gravitational anomalies or whatever, though

The devs have indicated before that they didn't have much interest in randomizing the solar system at all. However, they'd talked about having other solar systems potentially be somewhat randomized. But the reason they want all the planets we have now(and any future planets or planetoids) to be as they are is 'cause it creates focal points for communal experiences. Or something like that. Basically, we've all launched our first rocket and many of us had it explode. We've all tried to get to the mun and some of us succeeded. At some point, all of us are going to go to duna or moho or jool and so on and we'll be able to relate to each other very specifically because the planet's always the same distance, the gravities are always the same and what-not. But there was talk quite a while ago about faster than light travel or warp drives....and the ability to jump to other systems far beyond Kerbol. I think it was hypothesized that those would be randomized to an extent...because that would be the deep unknown. Granted, that was...I think Harvester just thinking out loud about something he could see happening in the far distant future for KSP. I think they've pretty much canned that idea for the time being, so don't go looking forward to it or anything. Like those resources...I want them still so bad T_T Anyways, I think it's fine that some people know every inch of every planet, moon and whatever else might be out there. I also think it's fine that someday before release, I may well know the entire planet of kerbin like the back of my hand(though that's unlikely for me >.> ). You could always do what some people do and just not play until the game's more feature complete. I know I'm still holding off(kinda) until career mode's just a little more fleshed out.

I think it's been said that they're never going to integrate KSP directly with any of Steam's systems. Like, it's just available for purchase and download through Steam and that's it. I think the reason is that Steam is technically DRM and they want to provide KSP to us as a completely DRM-free game, even if we get it on Steam. Also, I think it'd complicate the update process if they had one DRM-free version of the game for every OS in addition to the Steam version of the game on each OS. But then, I don't know much about that stuff, so I could just be wrong on that >.> Either way, while some people(myself included) would love to see a bit of integration with Steamworks for whatever reason, I don't think it's ever going to happen.

An in-game museum that would showcase your achievements was suggested before...actually, in a couple different forms. I can't remember if the devs ever talked about a museum but I know players were really into the idea at one point. Then it just kinda faded from memory. I don't remember most of the old discussion of the topic, but the general idea was that you'd be able to manually save scale models of successful ships, rovers or landers as well as things like samples or pictures for exhibits. Another idea that I always liked was the encyclopedia idea. This was simply to showcase your progress in the solar system. The science menu kind of functions like this but in a far less quaint sort of way. The idea here was that whenever you started a new game, you'd have an encyclopedia. This encyclopedia would be mostly empty, with some detailed surface pictures of kerbin and some grainy pictures of the mun...and maybe minmus with quirky little text entries for each. Then, when you build(or first use, if KSC construction/investment doesn't become a thing) your observatory, you'd get slightly more detailed pictures of these bodies as well as grainy first-look images of more distant planets. From there, you'd have to send out probes, orbital telescopes and even kerbonauts themselves to these celestial bodies to fill out the encyclopedia's pages with progressively more detailed images and paragraphs of information. I always thought that'd be a perfect sort of...guide to your personal progress and the potential for quirky initial planet descriptions would fit the game perfectly. But yeah, the museum is still a pretty decent idea. Might not be something the devs are interested in working on 'cause it's kind of superfluous but it'd still be nice to have regardless of that.

This is a pretty old thread...but I'm still in favor of the idea for a number of reasons >.> So yay~

This has actually been suggested before...probably more than once. Many people liked the idea just 'cause it's a nostalgia trip and you'd be able to show people what it was like building back then. But then...aren't the older builds of KSP still available for download from the store page? I own the game on Steam so I never really looked >.>

These types of information would be known by us...humans of Earth. Not necessarily to the kerbals. I mean, they develop rocket parts capable of sending their people to other celestial bodies before they build things like jet engines. Who's to say they've got the means to run all of that science on their celestial bodies. Maybe the kerbals honestly thought mun is made of cheese or something and decided to send a rocket up there to get some for snacks...only to find out that there's no cheese up there at all. It's like you said, it's obviously a gameplay choice...and as the developers have said, gameplay always wins over realism. Planet discovery has always been a good idea to layer onto career progression, though it should be something you have the option to toggle on or off when you make a new game, like science or funding. But that's a topic for another discussion...or many, as seems to be the trend 'round here >.>

I think they mentioned before that there was going to be planet discovery at some point...we'd have to use an observatory to spot planets and what-not before we can logically attempt to send rockets their way. Not sure if that's still planned or not, but I'd hope so. To accompany this, there was a suggestion once that I really liked that involved an in-game encyclopedia. At the start of a fresh, new game in KSP, this encyclopedia would just have some pretty detailed information and ground-level pictures of Kerbin on a page, some vague information about the sun on its own page along with some blurry pictures and the same with the mun. Minmus would probably have its own page as well, though you might need the observatory for that one. Some of the larger outer planets might be in there as well, with even less detailed pictures than kerbol and mun's pages Then, as you upgrade your observatory, launch orbital telescopes, send out probes and finally kerbonauts to each of these celestial bodies, you'd gradually fill in the pages of the encyclopedia and get much more and more clear images from each to show your progress. Then, doing various manned experiments would solidify the information on each page. I always thought that was a brilliant idea for tracking our in-game progression. Very compelling and there'd be lots of room for kerbal silliness(like an entry reading "we think Mun is made of cheese...we really need to get up there and find out!), especially in the earlier stages, before you've sent kerbonauts everywhere and learned everything there is to know about the kerbol system

We've already got an easy, medium and hard setting. They're sandbox, science and career modes, respectively. However, it's been suggested a number of times before that we should instead have a variety of toggle options when creating a new game. Like, if you want science to be a part of your game, check the box for it. If you want funding and contracts, check that box and so on. From there, there could potentially be sliders for like...how quickly(or slowly, for challenge) you earn science or funding, whether there's thermal damage to parts(if they ever add that feature) and so on. I've always been in favor of that, especially after having spent a week or two playing Xcom Enemy Unknown/Within and Xenonauts really intensely. It's just satisfying being able to toggle certain features on and off for your features, like ironman mode and what-not

I've always been in favor of having difficulty options and toggles when making a new game in KSP. We have something similar to that right now, we can choose between sandbox mode, a mode where science is your only building limitation and full-on career mode, where you've got to manage your funding and reputation while trying to earn enough science to unlock more parts. They could very easily just expand on the new game menu with some additional options. Rather than three prefabs, they can just have a checkbox for R&D, then another for funding and reputation, perhaps with sliders beside each with which we can set a desired multiplier. Five settings seems reasonable for these - two multipliers below one(like .5 and .25), one above one(like 2x and 5x) and the center point being 1x or stock. Other things I'd like to see as options include the reentry heat thing or whether or not we've got every planet visible in the tracking station without building or upgrading the observatory(that's still a planned thing, right? ). Things I wouldn't want to see as difficulty options or toggles without mods are things like the planet or universe size or gravity settings. Those types of things are...a bit technical and not the types of things you see in a vanilla game without console commands or whatever. They just don't fit, if that makes sense.

This was suggested a few days ago...and probably before that as well. I still support it, though...like the encyclopedia and museum that people were suggesting forever ago. Just good stuff to make the game-world feel more alive and they present more opportunity for kerbal silliness

I've seen the base upgrading thing suggested before...and honestly, it's a great idea. Starting a fresh space program with a fully equipped space center is a little odd from a gaming perspective. Though what buildings would get upgrades and what would those upgrades do for those buildings, I wonder...moreover, which buildings wouldn't be there at the start and need to be built? The observatory, I guess, would be the most obvious building that would need to be built initially to find farther out planets and moons...upgrading it would allow you to see the very smallest or farthest out celestial bodies...but then, I've always kind of hoped for orbital telescopes to become a thing as well. Hmm...maybe that's how you upgrade your observatory, by sending out an orbital telescope to orbit 'round kerbin...then the final upgrade would be a telescope orbiting kerbol, the sun @.,@ I don't know, but other than that, I feel like now's the prime time for an overhaul to the aerodynamics and spaceplane parts...since SSTOs are rather important with the funding thing.

Rather than difficulty presets, we should have the ability to toggle on or off various things when making a new game. Like, if you don't want missions, turn them off. If you don't want science but do want missions, turn it off. If you want reentry heat and thermal damage or whatever, turn it on and so on. That way you can completely customize your personal experience and crazy people like myself would wind up with three or four different saves with different options enabled and what-not >.>

From my understanding, the contracts and funding weren't really meant as a means of progressing your space program. That's what the science is for, so new players have fewer parts to choose from and can learn the basics of rocket design a lot quicker do to far fewer variables in part combinations. Contracts, if I'm remembering this correctly, were designed to help guide players to various goals or achievements. Now, it'd be nice if there were some options when creating a new space program(career save). Things like...ironman, where you're not allowed to quicksave or revert your flights, sliders to allow you to choose a multiplier for how much science and currency you earn per task that would grant such rewards...among other things(life support, reentry heat, etc..). We've already got the beginnings of such a system by having three options when creating a new game. They only need to expand that new game menu a bit to be like the advanced world options in Space Engineers or something similar. But yes, the current(1x) values for both science and funding income need a bit of fine-tuning...which they'll undoubtedly get since they're both still relatively new. I don't know, but for some people, the game could use a little more (optional)challenge without needing to resort to mods.

I was thinking just last night while first attempting to play .24 how there should be an ironman option. Reverting your flight kind of defeats the purpose of playing career mode, but I can still see the appeal of it for some(even myself sometimes). What I've always said, though, was that they should have a series of difficulty tweakables, sliders and toggles. Like ironman, where you can't revert your save beyond the last automatic quicksave or whatever. Or life support or multipliers for how much money and/or science you earn per mission or science task represented by a slider. Lowest setting for those would be like half of the current rate for income and science but the maximum setting would be like...five to ten times as much science or money per task. When they revamp the aerodynamics, there can be an option to have it rather complex or an option to ramp it up and add things like reentry damage and what-not. Those types of settings should definitely be stock and they should obviously be optional. But I seem to recall some people pointing out that the developers weren't very interested in having those sorts of difficulty options, even as toggles in an option menu somewheres(or when you make a new game, like XCOM or Space Engineers or others). So that's kind of a downer. I mean, I know there's lots of mods out there to do some of this stuff, but like...a lot of them just should be stock, you know? But whatever, maybe we'll see that stuff as DLC someday or something like that.

This idea reminds me of that old encyclopedia idea someone came up with a while back...where you'd start the game with an encyclopedia you could flip through. Its pictures and descriptions of planets would be really vague and blurry until you built your observatory, space telescopes or sent probes and stuff to these distant bodies. The most detailed information you could get for the encyclopedia would be from sending actual kerbonauts to do experiments and take pictures and stuff. That was always a really good suggestion for an immersive(and undoubtedly silly/kerbal) way to showcase the player's progress. Would've gone very well with the museum thing people talked about way back when too. This newspaper idea...would be perfect to go alongside those two, giving us some insight to the kerbal world and their take on the space agency. Could even throw in silly ads for the different companies that provide contracts as well as a handful of fluff articles to take up the page space. I imagine it'd just be like...once a week or once a month(in-game time, of course), you get this newspaper and the headline might feature something your space agency had done that week...along with the aforementioned silly advertisements or 1-3 paragraph long fluff articles surrounding the main headline story(especially if you didn't do anything that week). Would be very interesting, amusing and...just very fitting to a silly game like this. I mean, the rocket science is pretty serious and realistic and all, but the kerbals themselves...everything about them screams outrageously silly shenanigans.

Still want them resources >.> Anyways, having a basic roadmap wouldn't be a terrible idea. Doesn't need to be too detailed for now, just have a basic outline for some of the things they intend to implement before release. Like, one point on the roadmap would be an aerodynamics update or rework while another might be the multiplayer shenanigans they've been working on in the background with a brief(one paragraph or thereabouts) description of each, you know? That'd be more than adequate. Then again, wasn't there a list of planned features on a wiki somewheres? What ever happened to that, I wonder >.>

Probably career mode for the contracts. I've been waiting months for career mode to get fleshed out like that. Though I might wait to see what they've got planned for .25 @.,@ I'll also probably play some science mode just 'cause.

I'm going to have to jump on the aerodynamics bandwagon here. Since SSTOs are going to be really valuable in career mode now, it's high time we get some spaceplane parts on par with the other parts that've had...what, two graphical revisions already? Naturally, if they're going to rework the spaceplane parts, that would be the perfect opportunity to revamp the aerodynamic system as well. Aside from that, I'd like to see the better/full IVA stuff and...as always, resources. I know they kind of canned resources indefinitely, but...man, I just want that beautiful chart they showed that one time T_T Hmm...some robotic parts(arms, tools, cameras, more functional transmitters, etc...) would also be a pretty good focus for an update, though in all honesty...that stuff can wait another update or two.

I'm pretty sure other people have figured out that it's like 3.1 gigs of RAM that KSP can utilize before it starts crashing on launch. This has to do with the number of part mods you've downloaded. I'm sure they'll eventually increase the memory limit for KSP at some point...but I feel like that's kind of a low priority right now.

We'll undoubtedly see a complete overhaul of the mechanics and cosmetics of all the spaceplane parts at some point. On top of that, the person who made the B9 Aerospace pack is currently working for SQUAD so there's a fair chance we'll see some of his art style influencing them. Either way, there's a couple other really talented artists working on the game so you know the new parts will look good. We'll just have to wait a few updates(give or take) until we see anything like that. They're kinda busy at the moment with bigger, more fundamental additions.

There may not be those extremely distant or small things yet, but there will be. I mean, there's another handful of planets each with a handful or more of moons in the works yet. Beyond that, we'll have to discover the other solar systems, whenever they get those going on. That is, discover their location relative to our own precisely enough to travel there via magical warp technologies. So there'll logically be need for orbital telescopes at some point. Just not necessarily right now. Besides, who's to say kerbals ever really looked up at space before they started developing rockets. Who's to say they're even thousands of years old as a species? Human history isn't kerbal history, they could be clueless as to what's beyond mun by the time the kerbal space program is founded. They might even still believe that kerbol orbits their home planet. As the developers have said, gameplay will always trump realism....and that should extend to this type of thing as well. If it's more entertaining to start with zero knowledge of celestial bodies in the kerbol system then use telescopes and orbital telescopes to discover them, it's something they should and definitely will consider over having that information predefined in your knowledgebase.

You'll use the observatory to discover planets. We just don't have the observatory yet. Hopefully "observatory" isn't just a ground-based telescope. Like, a lot of people(myself included) would LOVE to be able to send out orbital telescopes and use THEM to discover the other planets AND the other solar systems, if they ever get around to that.

This was suggested a looong time ago. Several times, in-fact. As I recall, one of the developers mentioned something along the lines of a museum being in the pipeline. When we'll see such a thing is unknown, but it'll probably show us successful crafts or pictures or something like that to remind us of our achievements. It was mentioned 'round the time they implemented background progress tracking....which was just an update or two ago. It's also been suggested that we have an encyclopedia that we fill out over time with our missions. Start with grainy pictures of other planets, moons and even other stars then over time get better pictures and more data as you point orbital telescopes 'round and send probes out there to explore the stuff...with manned missions bringing in the most precise or definitive data. The encyclopedia idea seems to have become the knowledgebase, so that's cool. Can't wait to get that going in career mode. So yes, it's more or less a planned feature already. So...yay~

According to the developers a few months ago, the goal of KSP was to have the kerbol system which was always the same set of planets, moons, asteroids and so on. Then beyond that, there were supposed to be a handful of other predefined solar systems that were always the same. You'd discover them with your telescopes or what-not(hopefully a HUGE orbital telescope or something) before you could travel to them. Beyond even those, there were supposed to be procedurally generated solar systems to encourage you to keep going and see what you could find. I have no idea if that's still the plan, but I really liked that idea, so...we can hope that's how it turns out. Otherwise, I've seen it suggested at least once before that the kerbol system be procedurally generated. I don't think people took too kindly to it. People like sharing their firsts with familiar parameters. Like the first time you landed on mun or duna or eve or got to jool, everyone knows exactly what you're talking about and everyone fondly recalls their own adventures way back when. It's just a really good feeling being able to relate to your friends or just people in the community in that way. That's what the other predefined solar systems were meant to do as well, capture that same feeling. THEN there were procedurally generated ones to keep you going even more, telling wacky stories of wild discoveries into the unknown. I quite like that, I must say.