Mr. Scruffy

BTW, has anyone ever put a long-ish last stage of the smallest fuel tanks (with probe, battery, panels, and small SAS on top) through the atmo at high speeds? It´s hillarious. I wish i had taken a screenshot: The thing bends like craaazy, but it doesnt break, before tipping the whole rocket over. I think i used six of these tanks (which isnt all that many, now is it?), and i would etimate the bend topping 30°, maybe even 40° at some point. Struts fixed that for my next launch, but i was like ´wo-ho-ow´.

I can honestly say, that i never ever rejected a single contract. It´s my career-houserule (which i dont even have to force myself to adhere to - it just comes natural for me, not to press that button - i keep fearing it would cost me REP) #1.

Agree with OP.

BTW: Last time i had issues with an outer stage crippling my inner stages, and i didnt have sepatrons researched yet, i simply added another small tank outside towards the top of the outer stages, so that they would open somewhat, away from the center, at the top, after staging. Didnt look every elegant, but it worked.

Sadly, apparently they are not, though. That´s a real problem for KSP. There are players -some with the ´right´ background, others without- who find the realism in KSP gamebreakingly lacking. While, otoh, there are people to whom the basic stuff KSP does model is completly alien and they feel like hitting a brick-wall instead of a learning curve, when playing it. In that sense, KSP is a bit like a grade-school teacher who -with good reason- expects, that the pupils´ parents have already tought them some basic social skills before they got to school, yet finds this not to be the case (with is of course not the pupils´ fault). When, almost 50 years after the first moon landings, some people in industrailized countries (and there are probably more of them, than many of you would like to believe!) still dont know weather the sun or the moon is bigger, the complexity and realism that KSP offers must sadly be recognized as the be about the maximum that is marketable, it seems. EDIT Jeez! Seems like everyone has ADS these days - everyone who is not a monk, anyways.

A forth direction could be ´Skunkworks´ - and that´s (meaningful, please!) part testing contracts. EDIT: Instead of ´National Space Program´, 1st direction could simply be called ´Exploration´.

Graphics ratings: Now, THAT is a field, where times have changed concerning reviews in a meaningful way. Back in the day, there certainly was something to be said about the quality of the graphics in a game, since general capabilities of the hardware were limited. Compare the average 1983 c64 game (say ´centipede´) with the average one in 1988 (say ´Katakis´). Likewise for, say, PS1 games (with different dates, of course). Now this has changed quite a bit. Today, it´s not about getting the most out of a limited ressource anymore - well, at least not to the same extent. Today, it´s more like trying to rate art: Do the gfx support the atmosphere of the game? Is the colorscheme eye-pleasing? I mean, how do you rate a game´s gfx, that is intentionally trying to look 8-bit-ish? Poor, because it doesnt utilize modern hardware at all, or good, because its original and supports the feel of the game very well? Does the average FPS-game really deserve a better score than pretty much any other game from most other genres, only because now you can look 25m further, when compared to the last iteration of the same game? Is rating the graphics of a game more like judging an engineer´s or an artist´s work? If it´s the later, things get really complicated, especially once you try to condense it down to one single number. "Mona Lisa = 96%, The Scream = 92%"? Does that work?

1. Well, the upgradable parts (i took note of you not liking the concept) could work in sandbox-/scimode just as well. Pick your upgrades freely in the former, pay with science for them in later. They would add another dimension to the tech-tree. 2. By saying ´KSP 2.0´ i meant to imply that i dont regard this as feasable at the moment or even in the next couple of years. 3. You seem to be very focused on re-entry effects (rightly so, this is the topic of this thread) but i was thinking in more general terms, here. There probably are certain conditions, under which your windows would start showing creaks (they do not neccessarily need to be of the type of windows we use here on earth) and painted on logos melt away from the surface. I do realize, that this is currently outside the scope of the game and would pose a real technical challange to implement, which, at this time, would simply not be worth even trying. Still i find the idea of seeing stress on your parts appealing and would love to see such sometime in the (distant) future.

´Change of times´ or not, it doesnt change some minimum requirement of time to be invested in order to give a proper review. Nothing will ever change that. If i was to review* a book, i would have to read it. All. Anything less, and my review becomes an inferior product and at the very least, i should put a disclaimer on it, saying ´only read half of it´, or something. So, if across the board, reviewers have to deal with such time-constraints, we do not get any reviews at all any more, but something more akin to ´first impressions´ for anything that is not a very casual game. I mean: How is anyone gonna judge long-term motivation on a game, when he´s basically forced to put it down after 2 hours, to give just one example? Please note though, that i am not refering to any particular review - it is a general statement. EDIT: Imagine, you´d meet some movie-reviewer, whose review on movie XY you read, and you have watched XY. Now, you start to strike up a conversation about it, saying something like: ´I always wondered if you noted the subtile twist in this or that charactars behaviour towards the end of the story - how the events of the story changed him´, and the person you talk to replies: ´Uhem, i have not actually seen that scene you are refering to... so, ehhh... - you know i only had 90 minutes to write that review..., so i had to skip some scenes´. That would be like me saying ´yeah, i couldnt actually read the meters of all those houses in that street, so i had to guesstimate some of them...´ If i did that, i´d not only get fired but sued, too, for i´d have been pretending to do a job, which i did not do. And i am not willing to accept this, on the sole basis, that this is ´just´ about games, a medium which i value most dearly. *LATE EDIT: Isnt that what the word ´review´ implies: Looking back on it. Now, i can only do that, if i put it behind me - not after i stoped in the middle of it.

You seem to have very low expectations for a professional review - maybe realisticly so. If they ´simply do not have the time´ to do their job, maybe they should look for another? I can remember a gamezine from the late 80´s, early 90´s, which would not publish a review before the reviewers have finished the game in question. You know, games like ´Ultima IV/V´ or other epics. They might call the devs for hints, even cheat, but pull all-nighters, if needed, to actually give a competent review in time for the next issue´s publication. If they didnt play through the whole thing, they´d explain why (´the game broke at this point´, ´it was sooo bad, that after 3 hours, i seriously had it with it and there was no indication of anything getting better...´, ´we made it up to the final boss, but couldnt kill him in time for the deadline of this month´s issue - and we decided we´d still give the review this month, in the hopes that this final scene will not have a significant enough impact on the overall expression, to justify the delay of publishing next month, instead´, or something along those lines). If someone doesnt even manage to get to orbit, in a game which is about space-travel, freedom of speech still allows said person speak about the game in private terms, but that person surely is not eligable for a professional review of it, imo. In that sense, a game like KSP can hardly be reviewed in less than a full workday by someone who has not played it before. Just like you cannot review a movie, that lasts two, in just one hour. A pro who does this, is not doing his/her job properly, imho. A pro-reviewer, especially one that likes the game in front of him, should be enthusiastic enough about gaming, that extra-hours kinda go without saying, if need be. To just dabble with it for like an hour or two is not fitting the bill of a pro-review. Putting a game that got rated top-notch back on the shelf by the same reviewer after such an amount of time, never to touch it again... well, that´s like a car-reviewer keeping his ferrari in the garage all the time - it would show a lack of dedication to the medium, which is required for the job that person is doing. "If you like that game, and if you even get paid to play(test) it, why did you stop after 1 or 2 hours?" The answer better not be: "Well, i am not so much into gaming, really...", but its hard to come up with another, for me, at least. EDIT: Seriously, if a review has to be done in 90 minutes, there is something fundamentally wrong with the industry. It sometimes takes me 90 minutes to write an email (if i put some effort into it)! Like i said above 90-min-reviews on computer games is like basing a "review" of a movie on nothing but the trailers for it. Under such conditions, the reviewers will have to look not for an "objective", independent judgement, but for the fast and easy way out. "Let´s see what others have said... Oh, good reception overall? Okay, some 80+% score then... - Now let´s have a quick look at it to find some stuff to write about...".

Commercial reviewers? Heck yeah. I know this second hand. If graphics adapter manufacturer X has enough commercials running in the magazine/on the website, it will get decent scores for its card being tested, despite the testers not having been able to even get it to run. This comment is totally unrelated to KSP in particular, though. In my experience, you can also browse various review sites and get the exact same entries to a review of a particular game, almost down to the word, for each one of them. As for KSP: So what reviewers are critizising is the graphics? Really?

Well, You sir, come off as being about this smart (to me, anyways): This is not to insult you, but to put into perspective, for your own benefit, how you present yourself to others.

About balancing the heat tolerance of parts: If only we could improve our parts (in game - with SCI or money) - then they could all start low and you could choose to either make all those you want to bring back more heat-resilient, or simply use the heat-shields. Wanna build a plane, that can savely go to space without burning up? Upgrade those parts´ heat-tolerances! But maybe you are such a pro, you can do with ´stock´... Heat tolerance could be only one of several part parameters that could be upgradable (to a cap, and with increasing cost, for each, of course). You think the 909 could use a little more ooomph and that this could actually make your current design work much better for a given mission? Well, upgrade its thrust, if you have the money/SCI. Or maybe a bit of miniturisation (simply a tad less weight) would be even better for your current design, since the 909 sits on top of it? Hmmm... So for example for engines we´d have those three parameters to tweak: - max. thrust: +5% per upgrade - weight: -5% per upgrade - heat tolerance: +20% per upgrade Only one of which gets improved for each upgrade, with a maximum of 5 upgrades total per part and the cost doubling for each level of a particular parameter (so improving the same parameter of a stock part twice costs 50% more than improving two parameters of the same part once, each, for example - getting, say, thrust to the max. +25% would be substantially more expensive than using the 5 possible upgrades to make an engine have +10% max.thrust, weigh 10% less and be 20% more heat resistant). Okay, i realize i just ramble of to OT land... I really liked the idea of the capsule getting squashed like a can when exposed to high g-forces. Something to put on KSP2.0 list, i guess. It would be totally awesome, if pressure and heat could do visible stuff to your parts, like if you could watch your capsule start to melt... your shiny KSP-logo getting all distorted as innuendo to the upcoming desaster... So that you´d actually inspect your parts after a mission, to see, how close it was this time... When you are in IVA-mode and watch the creaks spreading over your windows like slow-mo lightning..

Anyone remember the game ´heart of africa´ (dan(ielle) bunton (RIP, iirc), 1985)? You had to find the tomb of an ancient king in africa going through cryptic clues given to you on your travels through the unknown (it plays 1890-95) continent by tribal chiefs - and it would be located somewhere else, each game. Like that.

Yepp, the number system is fine. I had issues figuring it, but that´s fine. The reward: You know, what would be most desirable would probably not be achievable exactly due to the intended alien-nesses - the best reward would be a story unfolding. Like, i dunno, something that happenend in the system a loong time ago. But how would it be told? So short of that, i think some technology is preferable to science. What you find there is nothing you could have gotten anywhere else (or maybe be in the mod as an extra tech node, requirint massive amounts of science, allowing you to unlock it without actually doing the ´quest´). So some unique part it would be - what kind of part? I dont know. Also, if that is possible, some (the monoliths for example) could work as teleporters, where when you get too close, they beam you to their respective counter part, or whatnot. Cheap way of traveling with small craft / individual kerbals, between fixed points. So, maybe (one of) the reward(s) could be that these things become researchable (requiring science, not dishing it out), and then build- (for lots of funds) and deployable in pairs. Or maybe you can just choose at which of the monolith you want to get out at... Uh, yeah... just throwing things out there...

That would be a sort of multi-screen support, FishInferno. You could drag the map-window to the 2nd screen on an extended desktop.

Rambling on: In addition to that ´rosetta stone´ each body could literally wear its glyph somewhere on its surface.

[EDIT: haha - xpost] I´d suggest you use pictures and geometry whenever you can, for the riddles. Numbers/math is okay, too, but even using them like ´1´, ´2´, ´3´... takes a bit from the alien-ness (better: |,||,|||, ... for example). Dont do codes like that, please, cause if somebody left the message, it was meant to be understood - intentional codification should not be the obstacle to understanding it, but simply trying to figure what is meant by the forms and pictograms or whatever. Any use of conventional stuff (like the alphabet) should be avoided, imho, and only ´universal truths´ and/or strange glyphs be utilized. Also, if possible, you could do something like using a certain science instrument (something is supposed to scan actively) close to an ´alien crate´ might open it, with some hints to that depicted on its lid (say a wave next to an open crate), for example. If the player cant figure it out, he might be able to excravate the crate, bring it home (as soil sample, so to say) and get what´s in it after that. Just throwing idea out there, trying to help... i´d like to play such a mod very much. - - - Updated - - - New, post for the last was an xpost: You could leave the very first hint right at the KSP and THAT ONE could use conventions (Alphabet, numbers) - it´d be something you snatched from the KIA - top secret stuff about something found close to the north pole... As for giving coordinates: That´s really hard, i guess. Hmmm... Here´s an idea: crop pictures from close to them and use those in your hints. Altitude profiles, maybe. Then you only have to codify the body. EDIT: For body identification, you could place some sort of rosetta stone early on, which would assign a glyph to each planet (by graphical means, NOT: ´Moho = ß´..., but a pictrogram of the system with the glyphs shown next to the planets, or maybe simply the sequence of glyphs as the planets with smaller glyphs for their moons below each), and use glyphs on the other hints - some people might not find the stone, but figure it anyways. EDIT2: I guess the distance from the equator of a site could also be universally codified as a pictograms, as the equator is fixed by nature. For the other (i cant ever remember which is long- and which is latitude) you could use the highest elevation of the body as reference and shift default coordinates accordingly for each one. Then you´d have to translate each set of coordinates into some sort of other convention, that is somehow alien, yet accurate enough, in its own logic. Maybe, they should not be given in degrees, but actual distance from that point of reference (y=equator,x=of highest elevation), so the logic behind it is not that obvious and ´20°N´ reads completely differently for two bodies of different sizes. Which brings us the units - be they degrees or distances. Those have to be universally codified as well and a hint given as to what ´something´ in ´1 something´ means (after you have figured how a ´1´ looks like). As this will probably something of planetary scale (i´d suggest the distance between some moon to its planet - which one is the most circular?), you probably will have to find a way to write something as ´1/x´ as well. Well, there could be some micro-scale, again to be figured by finding stuff. Say the distance between two peaks on some planet. There be a hint, showing the peaks and a line between them and the glyph for that distance - but you might not figure it, until you maybe accidently, while in orbit, notice those peaks and go ´Ahhh!´.

I disagree. It would be more like ´civilization´ - still playing 4 and that after having seen the various endgame scenes maaany times. And just like with civ, there should be various possible endings to this story. A couple of ways to win, and one or two to lose. And a couple of incidents the story would be hung on: 1. Once you have upgraded the mission control (? the one that shows your ongoing flights) building to the top tier, an amount of time is randomly chosen within a certain range (say 6 months to 3 years), after which an asteroid with collision course to kerbin is discovered. You need to prevent impact or the game will be over after it hits. 2. Once that is done, or at the start of the game, another time is chosen by the game, at which kerbol will go nova (this could be in the range of 25 to 50 years maybe). Notification of this is given in due time in the game. This can be prevented, by discovering the anomalies (we´d need something like scansat for that) and ulimately finding some alien tech that can stop kerbol going nova. You´ll have to do some hard mission with it, to save kerbin (think spock in Star Trek XI). You do this for extra points/time, as you can (IF you can) skip right to the ultimate goal of: 3. Build a ship that can hold and sustain many (like MANY) kerbals and bring it to a well defined trajectory at a certain speed (+ many other possible requirements, like a drill or whatnot), leaving the kerbol system, thus ´emulating´ colonization of another star system. After which the game tells you, you won. Imagine having to assemble some real monstrosity for this, running multiple fueling mission, after dozens of assembly missions. Then you start bringing up the passengers - again hardly doable in just one go. Finally comes the crew... i can imagine the tension being quite high when you actually start the burn... 1&2 would give a some mild time-pressure - just enough to make it matter in the long term. After you dealt with 2, you can take your merry time for 3. Now, this might not be everyone´s cup of tea. But i think a sufficient number of players would enjoy something like this in career mode to warrant making it an option during its setup, maybe. Could also come in form of a (cheap) to-pay-extra-DLC. EDIT: Those are of course just ad-hoc examples... EDIT2: If you fail 2, the game will be over, but at least you´d get to see some awesome cutscene... ;D

[emphaszis added] Well, the prudent thing to do then is to announce the begining of work on KSP2 and charge again. I´d have no issue with that. I´d even have no issue if the devs are a bit fed up with little green people going to space and want to do something else with their lives for a change. In that case, they should ´rent out´ (not sell!) the franchise, let some other people take over with fresh ideas and energy for 2 and get back to it when they feel re-inspired for 3.

Hmmm... IVA/stage- and mapmode could simply be optional extra windows, as a quick workaround - you could then drag them to your desired screen on an extended desktop.

I agree with the OP - these contracts should be auto-active.

I think something that many may be overlooking might be, that not all changes make the game harder. SRBs are throttlable now. For a first stage, just strapping some together (without struts or decouplers) is not a bad idea anymore, even if the 100% throttle would be deadly. Just go with 20% or even less, if need be, and let like 4 BACC-boosters blow you out of the atmo. Munar fly-by isnt really that hard. Getting back any experiments through the re-entry is much harder (if you dont resort to chute-cheesyness), even if you fixed the heatshields (you know, that set physics_something = 0 thingie). I brought the mat-bay and a goo+thermo in a service bay, and on reentry, one after the other waved good-bye. As sad as it was, i was glad that at least the pod made it back and was thinking that this is about the best way to implement it, gameplay wise - have parts blast off with relative ease, but make fatalaties rather unlikely. Limited risks.

i share the observation - why is it happening though? What´s going on there (technically)?

Cause we are the ones, who kept right-clicking and draging our mouse on that pic. ;P "Damn it - it crashed again!"