Mr. Scruffy

Thanks for the info - DL size has about doubled, too.

Yeah, i had two jet engines on my plane, and right clicked one, moved the panel and then switched mode. Needless to say, that it only switched mode for that single engine (working as intended i suppose), but i could not right-click the other engine, anymore. Not sure about other parts. Win32.

got it from steam?

And the WIN-version i DLed from the store like an hour ago has only one .exe....

Yes, i suggested Squad to lend the licence several months ago. Have KSP 2 from a third party, and then Squad could take it back and make 3, if they feel like it. BTW, i feel, that i got my money´s worth at this point out of KSP: I´d be okay with work on non-free content and overhauls be started, if that would speed up developement and increase overall quality of the franchise more quickly. I admire Sqaud for what they achieved so far, so dont get me wrong please. But it feels like the franchise has reached a point, where it could benefit from experienced long-term pros taking over for a while*. On topic: I never bother to read contract-descriptions, either and wish for a story for KSP. Maybe whoever did X-Com would be a good contractor for KSP2? *I cant look into Squad-members´ heads´, but i can imagine that after having worked on the same project for years on end, some of the initial enthusiasm gets lost - all the while fullfilling the demands of the community gets ever more difficult and the list of things-to-do gets longer, instead of shorter, with items to implement and existing stuff to overhaul.

Again, there could be a viable middleground between truely random or even just procedural and handmade: If that library, you talk about tater, would be split in catergories resembling properties, then due to (plausible) combination of them combined with no more procedural processing than for the mun right now added ontop of it, for detail-features only and stretching... Eve in the place of Duna, with Laythe´s atmophere, or Ike in the orbit of Jool with the mun´s surface and Duna´s atmo. Add enough variations of these properties and mix/match...

Hmmm... there could be two (or even three) optional paths about this: - Probes with a special sort of scanner would discover all moons in a planetary system they´d enter, given enough time and energy. They´d not need to be focused on something, once they reach a new planetary soi. - Ground based telescope could do the same, if focues on that planet, but it would take much, much longer and require a scientist to work on it. Upgrades to the facility would be super-expensive but raise the cap of its exploration speed which would have to filled with scientiests again (assuming a time-relevant management game). E.g. basic version could only hold, say, 5 scientiest. Fully manned like that, it would discover 1 moon of the planet it is focused on every ~80 kerbal days - it would take just one scientiest a kerbal year. 2nd tier telescope could hold, say, 10 scientists, shorting the minimum time to 40 days (this all could be modified with the distance of the planet focused). - Orbital telescopes would be somewhere in the middle. Moderate in price for their effeciency and automatic. It would come in the form of heavy modules you install on an orbital base, which would encourage orbital base-building. Those modules could be identical (call them ´lenses´ or whatever) and each one would work like a fully staffed tier of the ground based telecope (so are capped to its maximum possible tier per base). It needs to be focused on a planet, in order to work. Only one per base. You could run multiple probes, one ground based telescope and multiple orbital ones all at once, all focused/used on one or multiple planets, if you wanted to. Multiple telescopes/probes focused/working on the same planet would add to each other´s effort. So you could choose one way to do it, or another, or do multiple in parallel. The time it takes to find something should not be fixed, the numbers i gave above should be mean-time-to-happen, not absolute values.

monami: I agree with Tater, that manually scanning the sky with telescopes doesnt sound like fun. If anything this should be part of the management game, where you would have to focus an observatory on a body (that must be known beforehand) to discover its moon(s) and orbital properties automatically over time and maybe upgrade that telescope and man it. That would not add a whole lot to gameplay, though, imho. If time is to be implemented in a meaningful way, there would be enough stuff to take care of (i am thinking of research and construction times, life support etc). Tater: I think when i was a child, Jupiter had like, i dunno 23 (this number totally coming from my behind) moons? Now it´s 62 (iirc).

Well, i guess there could be a compromise, with most bodies known, but some to be discovered with certain equipment coming close to them when active. Say Gilly, Pol, and Bop only show up, when you bring some sort of scanner to the planetary system. With ´random´ systems, just the possibilty that there could be something, would make you bring that equipment - and it would be discovery facilitated by flight.

About detection of the anamolies: What if one led to the other? Like start with the monolith close to the KSC. Get close enough to discover, that it is ´full of stars´, or, in this case, a picture of what might well be some location on the mun, featuring a strange geological formation (an arch), with the sun and kerbin in close alignment behind it (indicating it being at the equator). When you go there, and step in front of it with a kerbal, it triggers some sort of holo-emitters on its inside, displaying the clue to the next anomaly. Go there, search its vicinity closely, and you find the clue to the next one, say that odd signal on duna, along with a device you need to decode/detect it, for the next clue after that. And so forth, until, at the end, you arrive at kerbal walhalla, where all the dead kerbals go. No text (or very very little of it), no explainations (or aliens), still goose-bump mystery, yet meaningful and connected and pretty hard to complete, so that even if you look for a walkthrough for it on the webs, it still remains a challange that will require the normal player to employ some late-game techs and serious amounts of skill. Like say, once you find Kerbal Heaven (or the Kolymp - or whatever you want to call it), you can pick up and thus revive the deceased kerbonauts, but it only opens for kerbals, so a probe will find nothing there. But the game only gives you a very vague clue that this is so, if any at all. In any case: In order to make ´use´ of it, you need to send a vessel capable of carrying at least two kerbals (unless you want to sacrifice one for another). Also, it would require you to bring some sort of equipment that you can only get at one of the other sites, so that just knowing the location will not do. Maybe some sites could be skipable (like the monolith close to the KSC - you could just go straight to the arch, if you know where to find it, or stumble across it, by accident), but some should be mandatory (working like keys, pretty much), if you want to complete this ´quest´. This could be tied into the contract system, too, at least to get you started ("We found this monolith close to the KSC, X km in the direction of Y - go there to investigate!"). I´d really love the game to have such a ´storyline´. So here´s a related question: Are there any mods that do this? Should there be special mod-support for stuff like this, so that people can more or less easily design their own storylines and maybe distribute them as some sort of scenario? I think a ´scenario-editor´ allowing you to place anomalies along with some content for them (pictures, key-devices, trigger conditions etc.) would be totally rad and we´d end up with a bunch of costum made space operas (2001/10 style) set within the game-frame in no time.

Ugh, yes you did. Thx. What a mess. And it seems like even compitiions (in the way i mentioned before) would not exclude the possiblity of 3rd party code being used in the entries. Well, it would have to be explicitely mentioned in the announcment, that anyone entering it, gurantees (in a legally binding way) that the code used in their entry is owned by them. But what if somebody lied about it, and 3 months after the released implementation, somebody steps forward and sues. Squad could then redirect to the alledged author, but still could face hell, trying to put humpti-dumpti back together again (e.g. extracting ´illegal´ code from their release). Hmm, yeah, looking at it this way, maybe rather not...

Well, why let a thread die, even if the original question has been answered pretty much, when you can use the opportunity to stroll off on a tangent?

Have there been specific mod-requests made by squad, along with prizes for and the explicit a-priory acquisition of the winning mod by squad? Regardless: The difference in simply allowing mods and picking what you like (and then having to beg the makers for their permission to implement it in stock) to purposefully and selectively requesting specific mods for a given prize seems like the difference between hunters&gatherers and farmers&ranchers, to me. And i am still struggling to understand, why any modder would be reluctant to have the honor of stock-implementation be bestowed upon them, given squad acts fairly towards them and gives due acknowledgement (and maybe some compensation). Okay, maybe some are aiming for a job at squad. OTOH, if your mod gets chosen to wear the seal of approval to become stock, you can apply -i´d imagine- pretty much anywhere to get a job as a pro, in whatever specific field your mod was designed in (e.g. graphics design, physics mechanics, whatdoiknow?). I am genuinely interested in the reasons why modders would not want their work become officially pro-grade (pun intended).

It´s the thing that irks me the most about KSP: The management aspect has no time component.

I can understand, that modders dont want their work cloned and thus their achievements ´stolen´ by other modders. OTOH, i think it´s a mistake by Squad to not have somesort of clause that at least implies permission for squad to implement any mod, totally or partially, into the stock game, provided the mod-devs do not specifically speak up against that. That at least would make such mods avaiable to them, whose devs went ´missing´ (and thus dont speak up either way - that would then imply ´permission granted´). I am no modder. But i do respect their work. I can only guess the motivations behind it. I would tend to think, that the vast majority of modders do it, cause the things they are modding into the game, are things that they would have liked the base game to feature in the first place. Another might be to build a portfolio, enabling them to enter software developement professionally (or get a better job within it, if they already are pros). None of these would stand to reason against stock-implementation, as long as the modders´ work is officially acknowledged by squad. Anyways - how about this: Say, squad wants a feature but doesnt really have the ressources to build it. Given all these great talents in the community, they could set up a competition, with the announcement specifically mentioning a prize and the right for Sqaud to implement the winning code (if there is one, that meets their quality standards - let the community test it) into the base game. The prizes could include a moderate monetary compensation, mention in the credits, free kerbal merchandise, immortalizing the modder(s) as kerbals, and establishing contacts to a professional studio to offer an entry into a programming career, for example. This way, the game would become partially developed by players for players and squad would, for some features, only act as an organizer.

I am sort of wondering: Some mods do provide dv-readouts, right? I assume that most people are okay with the values those provide (fringe cases and all). So, where exactly is the problem? Why do modders mod? For profit? I dont think so. So which modder would not agree to have parts of his/her code implemented into the stock game, even if only for an honorary mention in the credits (and maybe say, a thousand bucks total, or whanot)? And even if they do not agree - i might be wrong, but i was under the impression that any mod, for any game, can be acquired by the owner of the licence of that game, if they so choose, with or without agreement of the modder (i know it happenend for Silent Hunter 3, where they even sold mods as an expansion pack, afaik). Surely, that would be a sad course of action to take for squad, even if legal, and might alienate modders, but still.... where exactly is the problem with using existing code of mods in the stock game for dv-readouts?

Hellblazer: That is all fine and dandy for a mod, but looks way to heavy for stock, imho. At least for now. I think if LS is going to be added to the stock game, its first iteration at least should be as simple as it gets, while still adding something meaningful to the game. It all boils down to the old "complexity vs. depth"-principle: Getting the maximum of the later for a minimum of the former.

I dont know... why not simply equalize the ratio at which engines combust oxidizer and liquid fuel, so that both are used at the same rate, and then have the fuel tanks have one capacity over all of its contents, instead of seperate capacities for each? That may not be realistic, but for gameplay reasons i´d prefer that over more, almost identical, parts. Maybe the Nerva would need another little balancing tweek after that. But all variety in the fuel tank department could be limited to size and shape and you could fill them with whatever you need, be it monoprepellant, LF, oxidizer or ion fuel (and whatever else modders might come up with). Maybe a function to color tanks (via the right-click menu) would be useful here - possibly with an optional auto-color scheme for various kinds of fuel. What i would not be entirely sure about is, wether a single fuel tank should then be able to hold various fuel-kinds. If consumption ratio of LF to OX was always 1:1, you could just attach two tanks of the same size, filling one with LF, the other with OX. So, maybe, by default at the beginning of career, only one kind of load per tank should be allowed and either techs or building upgrades could increase that number. UI-wise, there could be an extra line above the fuel-tank section in the SPH/VAB, allowing the player to choose what the tanks he is attaching are filled with. If you are yet only allowed to fill any tank with one kind of fuel, you can only have one of these selected at any time. As that number increases during your career-game, you can have more fuel-types selected and tanks that you attach to your ship get auto-filled with the selected fuels in equal proportions. The right-click menu would otherwise as is (for further tweeking), with the exception, that the number of items on that list can be reduced and expanded (upto the limit mentioned above) and reduction of one amount will increase capacity for the other(s), too, and vice versa. It would feature little + and - buttons like the stage-list, when applicable (e.g. "-" only when at least 2 types are loaded, to delete one, "+" only when the number of types has not reached the limit, yet).

I guess the point of the OP is that with the simple addition of eyebrows, it is possible to very strongly convey emotions on the kerbal faces in a very simple way. I am not sure, though, if the game does that already to just the right extent and if adding eyebrows might not be overdoing it (remember that not only the expressions would have to be coded, but also their causes!). There´s only so many emotions the game needs to convey via the kerbal faces, after all. But if the Kerbals are ever to migrate to other games or media (like, say a TV-cartoon show or a "muppet"-movie) eyebrows would take them a long way. Imagine Bert from the Sesamestreet had no eyebrows - Ernie´s shenanigans would not be half as amusing. But if it ever comes to that, eyebrows could still be added for that purpose - it´d be a small change compared to what the klingons had to go through (and some excuse could be made up, like kerbonauts shaving them off for aerodynamic reasons in case of unplanned disassembly of the craft, or some outdated fashion-fad, or something equally silly).

I dont think a stock dv-calculator has to cover the fringe cases, as long as the assumptions it works with are mentioned in the KS-Pedia (e.g. alligned thrusters in vacuum). That picture a few pages back with thrusters on both ends on the rocket is rediculous - even a 5-year-old will figure that in this case all thrust will cancel out. But switch off one of those engines and the dv-calc is correct. So: While the game should not require players to sit over a notepad and a calculator, along with a formula collection when planing a mission, but it may assume common sense is being applied. The other picture, with the dv´s listed in the construction manager looks fine to me - and it could be made even simpler as that pic lists the sum for all stages below each seperately - which is not really needed. Add that to in-flight mapmode along those buttons for craft-info, crew and mining.

Of course. But let´s look at your Avatar - Kerbalize that and you have your ´shocking dead kerbal´. EDIT: Or just have it sleep, like you suggested, before.

Cat went missing in autumn. Turned out to have drowned in the pool (must have snuck in below the cover). Was found in winter. Had to be chisseled out of the ice. Or something like that. I wasnt there and it´s been a couple of years. Point is, kids are not quite as sensitive than some people seem to think. They can actually be quite cruel, at times - that Tom & Jerry above is the perfect example, because that whole cartoon is about a mouse hurting a cat, basically - and (most) kids think that´s funny, not brutal, cruel or shocking. A kerbal that looks like its trying to hold its breath for longer than he should, certainly isnt something that would freak 99% of youngsters out - most would actually giggle, i assume..

Yeah, i agree. It´s a metter of art style. There are definetely ways to depict ´hypothermia´ in a family-friendly way. Why am i thinking of the hamster in ´day of the tentacle´, right now? One of my nephews once found his cat frozen in the outside pool - and still found that hamster funny...

Well, if kerbals run out of stuff they need for survival, their bodies start oozing out kerbonite (which looks a lot like carbonite - the stuff han solo got frozen in), until it completely covers them, hindering all activity, but ensuring survival, until rescued and freed. So: No bluish scary dead people faces, more like gradual petrification.

Well, months is okay. I play KSP in ´bursts´ mostly, meaning, i may play nothing but KSP for like 3 days, and then, after i completed what i set out to do (this time around, it was my first mining contract) i may well end up not playing it for a month or two (but still fire it up occassionaly, just to let some time pass on slow warps). To have time elapse in between would go a long way for me - even for inter-planetary transfers and launch windows. I think it would be really nice, if i could optionally keep a real date in my mind, when my Duna-probe is going to arrive. That doesnt mean, i wont touch the game until then - there a lot of other stuff to do, after all - but each time i would use warp in the meantime, i´d have to adjust the real arrival date of that probe. No biggie. On the other hand, i would be almost guranteed to play KSP on that date, when it finally comes, and the days prior i would get hyped - like it was real, sort of... Right now, i feel like i am sort of missing out, whenever i dont have KSP running, even if it would just be for the sake of having time elapse in its world. With that option, i would feel like i was progressing (and by virtue of keeping the dates in mind and waiting them out at least partially, deserving that progression) in the game, even when i am not playing it. As said - it´s mostly about emotional attachment for when you are NOT playing the game. PS: Maybe there should be a safeguard extra auto-save whenever you load a game with that tick-box enabled so that if you ´overshot´, but didnt think you did, you can still roll back to before all that time elapsed.