Mr. Scruffy

- ´Thou shalt have great knowledge about the land!´ [...] - ´What´s a paladin?´ [ultima IX] You have unlimited funds - no need for ´return on investment´, dude.

Religion obviously, or... string theory. After all, it´s always been this way: From time to time, there is a quantum shift and everything chances. Nothing unusual about it. Everytime it happens, the kerbals in some universes praise their god(s) for having been allowed to survive, in others the scientist community announces that another shift has occured and they are frantically researching the new parameters and such, while in yet others (like mine) they just simply cease to exist, while another universe pops up shortly after.

This thread just gets more and more depressing for anyone like me, who is not old enough to have seen it live, yet old enough to be almost twice the age of other forumites...

Oh, i dont think we need broken probes on it to have a reason to send (wo-)men to Mars. Yesterday, i watched (well skimmed) the first hour or so of the landed curiosity footage. Mixed emotions, i must say, right from the first few seconds: Cool, way cool, we can see this. But, man, it would soo much cooler if we´d actually be there. The desire just kinda immediately pops into my head. Just because, you know? All the video-tech is great, but to ´feel´ a place, you have to actually be there. The probes are just an intermidiate step from ´artist impression´ to ´someone has been there, felt the place´. Say you have a pen-friend on another continent. Before, you just new rough data about the place that person lives in. Now this person starts to describe his/her life and where he/she lives. You get an ´artists impression´. Later, the person sends you pictures of the cool places he/she likes to visit. That would be the probes. But you will still know very little about how that person lives, how it´s like to live in that country, until you have actually gone for a visit. Knowing all the dats, hearing desciptions, or even seeing pictures just does not compare to being able to, say, pick up a stone, turn it, feel its weight in your hand, to throw it, feel the force applied, see it land and impact - in short to experience this other world. And just knowing that some human had that chance would be enough reason for me, as a space program president, to go for it, if possible.

I´d focus on evaluating the chances and possibilities of terraforming and settling on Mars, if there is no budget constraints, besides of focusing on the budget situations remaining as it is. Another focus would depend on the requirements of science: If the astro-physician-community told me, that they needed this probe in that location in order to test some ground-breaking theory, i´d let them have that, of course. But the main focus would be to spread earthly life where no life currently exists. EDIT: A little philosophical sidenote: Some people, when looking at the whole earth as a single organism, tend to assign the role of the brain of the planet to mankind. But when i look at the average thoughtfullness of the actions of human masses and how it always only follows its desires without much care for consequences, i´d much rather assign another pair of body parts, very male ones, to mankind. If we are that, we could at least fullfill that role properly to its purpose...

...and are still doing so, i might add.

Hodor: A massive rock-planet with no atmosphere.

Okay, got this idea and dont know where else to share it: A game for two players. A 2D (for simplicity´s sake) playing field with Kerbol at the center. Each player gets a ´Kerbin´ and a certain amount of mass. The game goes in four (or so - i go, you go) turns in which the players toss either their ´Kerbin´ or another planet, comprised from their ´mass´, into the system from the outside rim of it. All mass must be used up in the final turn. Aim is to get ones own Kerbin´s orbit into the eco-zone of Kerbol during its entire orbit and keep it there by the end of the game. Probably needless to say on this forum, that the bodies already in the system are rotating around Kerbol and start to influence one another, when they get close to each other. In other words: (Simplified) Physics apply. The players toss their masses into the system by eyeballing - no numbers on the screen, please - direction and speed (and timing - the system is in constant motion after the first object has been inserted). If the other player already tossed his kerbin in the ecozone successfully, you´ll want to steer it away from that by means of the gravity of one of your masses (- like try to toss a gas giant in a slightly lower orbit, wait till it passes the opponents Kerbin and have it pull it out of its orbit). Not very fleshed out, this idea, i must admit, but still: Could be a little flashgame to further spread KSP´s popularity across the web while at the same time serve as the creational myth of kerbalkind (name the two players, say, Kod and Kishnu, or something).

Hmmm... going a bit off trail, here, but: Wouldnt it be nice, if, when an engine is avaiable as radial and inline version, there´d be a little button in its icon on the left-side part-selection tab in the VAB, toggling between the two, uncluttering the tabs a bit? The stats of both versions could still be different, maybe even in a consistent way among all engines (e.g.: radial version always feature -10% thrust or whatnot, when compared to their inline versions). The same could go for sizes via a second button inside the parts´ buttons. Like have a single liquid fuel tank icon (if you wanted to take this to the extreme) and have a button like this ´<->´ and another indicating vertical direction inside that icon, and the first would switch between the various thicknesses (1.25m, 3m...) while the other switches between the verious avaiable lengths (1/4x, 1/2x, 1x, 2x).

Yeah, Mr. Shifty: If it takes 225m/s from an orbital plane of mun´s altitude, and 930m/s from LKO, how much does it take from LKO to mun´s altitude? Some 800m/s if i am not mistaken. On the same premise, the trick to Gravity Assist is to only spent those 800 and get the 225 (+/-) for free, pretty much.

There needs to be a ´Nec Kerman´. (hopefully some germans will get this).

I, too, noticed that the game seems to have gotten darker lately, at least in some places. I keep forgetting to check if there is a gamma-correction-option in the settings menu.

Yeah, maybe they should not simply close such ´mod-tainted´ bug-report-threads but rather leave them open for user-discussion and maybe there will be someone out there wanting to try it vanilla-style, thusly ´purifying´ the report. Maybe there should be an extra-subforum within the bug-report section? I mean, why suppress info, if it can be useful, after all - doesnt mean the devs have to look at it, until it´s been verified in vanilla.

Well, but if the game hits the wall (regardless of where that wall is, or what causes it), it should still not just crash away, right? A massive slowdown (say due to disc-swapping or whatnot) is acceptable, maybe, but just going ´good-bye´ is something that should be taken care of, asap, imho.

Most of all, i´d like the next update be the best next step towards the finished game. Assuming squad has some sort of thought-out roadmap layed out already, i´d like them to ignore this thread and just plow on. I only want them to work on a new release when they have the feeling, that they need a thorough round of public testing, from now on. I dont want delays due to user-request (by implementing something that technically better be implemented later or working on a public release, when there seems no need for it from the devs pov). If having one less 0.xx means i get the same 1.00 a week or two earlier, i am all for it.

I am all for remembering the true heros in a space-game, but it should probably not be done within the maingame itself, but maybe rather in the credits. For reasons of scenario coherence, suspension of disbelief and immersion in general. The only ´human´ easter egg i´d not mind seeing in the (finished) maingame would be a voyager fly-by very late game, when you may have a chance to actually detect it. Cause finding it, without knowing what it is at first, bringing it to your research facility and then getting to see that famous picture and to hear some samples of the record might not be an immersion-killer but rather a goose-bump-wow-moment. As a bonus, it could give a direction to point some listening device to and if you do that, you will get to hear some internet radio from a squad-sponsoring station.

Someone should deposit a bunch of explosives down such a hole and use it as a cannon, or something.

Facing the such a problem, i´d suggest to bring up some booster stage to dock with your craft and push it out of Kerbin´s SoI. I usually have ~0.4 TWR on my exit-stages and start burning at t-5:00 from ~90km.

Just tested - not true. If you thrust upon your own rocket, the thrust does get canceled out. I built a very simple rocket to test: Four radial engines with four plates put under them. The design had plenty of TWR, but would not lift off. EDIT: For completeness sake: With a plate under only one of the four engines, the rockets lifts off and immedietaly starts to spin, just as one would expect IRL.

For moving outwards from a kerbol orbit (like for reaching Duna from an orbit close to Kerbin´s) you will have to burn prograde.

yeah, check all tanks... try to figure in what sequence it´s getting used and most importantly if everything is getting to the engines! If so, and the difference remains: Any version changes between the design and the flight? Staging?

And only that?

Purely on the thread´s title: any bets on the next movie announced by emmerich will be a remake of 2001/10?

check the external fuel lines

...which leaves but a few options on the dark side (the real one) of the mün.