Mr. Scruffy

Because each mod integrated into stock means less choice for the users. Simple as that. It´s easier to include mods you like into your local installation of the game, than to exclude stock-features you dont like, unless they come as optional. Too many options in the stock game, and you are bloating dev-time (support) and disc/Ram-requirements for something only some will end up using. That doesnt mean, that no mods should get stocked - just that it should be carefully considered which.

One of the main motivator for playing the game is to see places. Currently, you can just send probes to do that. But what if you were, when using probes, limited to map-view after a certain distance to kerbin? A bit more advanced probe (or some optical instrument) would give you some visuals in stage-view, but pixelated or with low frequency or something. There´s a whole multidimensional space to balance these around. Range, Resolution, Frequence, Colors... And now you really want to send kerbals at some point (if no probe would be perfect). EDIT: And the graphic-effects could really add to immersion.

You are probably still new to the game, but may have played too much recently (aka ´honeymoon-phase´), when, driving through a round-about in your car, you try to leave it, by pushing down the gas real hard. I almost did that once.

Fortunately for you, the code had not been pirated. I got a game last year from a retail store and as it was doing its steam thingie, steam told me, that the code was already used. Tough luck (as it was only €10, i didnt bother trying to make a case out of it). So: Buying online is actually the saver method, imho.

xpost There could also a bit of improving of already unlocked parts, for fullfilling testing-contracts with increasingly harder conditions. Like in: Test some heavy (ish) engine in some high (ish) altitude /speed to gain a bit of VAC-ISP (like: 1). After the fifth time you did that with a specific engine, the ASL-ISP would drop by one each time. After improvement, specialisation could work as a natural cap. High speed but low altitude for better ASL-ISP.

And to gain additional profile nodes, you have to fullfill parts of a testing ´contract´. Like ignite (!) them in incrementing altitudes, gaining one more node for each, say, 8km upto a cap of 64, or so (numbers thrown at me by the kraken - and the linear formula, too).

" It´s a wonderous place out there [...], but it is not for the timid " [Q, Star Trek: TNG]

hmmm... seems like content comes with interest charged on devs these days... everything that has been created once must be redone at some point and then again at some point later and..... Honestly: I might be an aestetics buffon, but i dont quite see the issue, here.

I expect you to know. If not, look it up. That´s an order. Of the stick.

Is that the one, that comes with integrated webcam and internet for the manufacturers amusement?

so there - that´s all you need to know (and your OS - windows i assume?) here you go: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us EDIT: BTW, good to see young folks with decent avatars...

´MSI´ is the manufacturer. They just build GPU-cards ´on licence´. As do many other manufacturers. So it doesnt matter. What matters is that it is an nvidia chip sitting on it. Look on their (nvidia) website for drivers - these days, the two major developers are just AMD/ATI and NVIDIA - if i am not mistaken they both use standard drivers that work for most of their models.

On topic (for a change ;D) : Now i did it, too. Well, that was okay, though, cause i needed to actually flip the munar orbit of my sat around all the way, pretty much, in order to make the second one. After that, i almost messed up with an eccentric one. Those arent bad. But boy, need the buildings balancing and more increments. 5 at least for most, i´d say. I actually got the impression they confused their intended incremental benefits from one lvl to the next with what that higher lvl was intended to provide. Like in: Going from 2 missions (lvl1) mission control to 7 for lvl2, with an increment of 5... which seems to me to be a more reasonable number for what lvl2 should provide (5, not 7).

The test missions wouldnt be so bad, as i have pointed out in another thread, if they were always to be concluded by applying the part in question to its actual purpose, like in: - Take landing gear to space, but afterwards actually land on it - Take a jet engine to the moon, but afterwards test it in an oxygen atmo ...all to see if the equipment survived the stress of the journey and still works, where it actually can work.

I am really startled on what is so hard to get here: The way time is set up in the game, there is exactly zilch economical reason to have multiple independent missions going on at the same time (though you might try fullfilling multiple contracts with one flight). Being ´busy´ is pointless from a gameplay perspective. You do it for roleplaying purposes and because you may not like time warping too much at too high multiplicators (which is exactly the same for me). If that is the case, i ask you to look inside and ask yourself why that might be so. For me it is, because it feels wasteful, which is exactly what it should be, when you are running a program that has fixed expenditures like having to pay for personel periodically, for example. [late edit: ... and that wants to stay on top of people´s minds (rep), too.] Now, i can live with this abstraction of time, making it meaningless wherever possible. I am not even sure i wouldnt agree with it, if i saw the alternative in action. But please: Do not deny simple facts. What you describe mattering here is the number of contracts you can hold at any one time - not time itself. Okay, contracts have expiration- and duration times - which just makes the whole construction even more wierd and inconsistent, in my book. So a campaign may go something like this: Within the first two weeks several mun-landings. Then first shot for minmus. Something goes wrong with the transfer burn - say i havent paid attention to the mun intersecting. So what? I´ll just do a 70 day mission to minmus then. Or 170. It does not matter in the slightest. The worst thing that can happen to me, because of it, is that i´ll have to do some additional timewarping free of consequences once i want to go to duna, cause maybe i missed the first window... big deal. ´... to, whenever it may happen, land a man on the moon and return him savely back to earth... maybe this decade, maybe next... who cares.´ EDIT: @tater - you probably know the mapsat mod? That would be a good source of continous income (of whatever, science, rep, funds... whatever fits best). There could be loans and interest on them (call it a ´strategy´ - btw, i think for some terms squad should reconsider if they are truely well chosen - ´biomes´ and ´mission control´ are two other suspects in this regard). There could be periodical government funding (maybe based on your rep?). And where you get your lions share of this periodic income from could then influence what kind of contracts you get offered - which brings us to SpaceX vs. NASA sort of programs. Expanding the buildings needn´t be so expensive - if they had a periodical maintainance cost attached to them... Training kerbals came up - well, why not have a training facility that trains recruits over time at a periodic cost (upto a certain, limited, point of expertise)? ´Oh awesome, in just one week, the tech with the parts i want for my first interplanetary manned mission will be done... i could still need some funds for that, though... hmmm maybe i can squeeze in one more lucrative mun mission until then... That´ll make my cash go up a bit till then, instead of down, cause these scientists working on that tech are damned expensive...´[late edit:] ´well i should also keep some spare funds in order to be able to do something while that big duna rocket will be under construction... hmmm... maybe i SHOULD build a LKO base first, to do reservicable flights, to free up the VAB for a long time, so that the Titan can be constructed without interruption... Oh, this is hard... seems we wont be making it to duna on the next window after all...´ [/LE] That´s how a KSP, in which time mattered in the sense i am talking about right now, would look like.

@samstarman: No need to lecture me about transfer windows - you obviously missed the part, where i said i have been playing this game for years. The point being, that when you miss one transfer window you can just wait out the next - cause you dont have to pay anything for the waiting game. As for pilot skill - always ample time to train new sla... kerbals. A trip to the moon and back takes like 2 kerbal days and even for a transfer window to Duna being missed by that much - what does that translate to? 15m/s? 20? For everything that is not currently in transfer (intended or not - moon capture and whatnot) or an aerobreaking process (and asteroids, maybe), time does not matter, since all orbits are... well... frequencies and will come to the same point again sooner or later. So all timing concerned with starting transfers is subject to reoccurance, for which, again, you can wait without penalty. And i was refering to the ´get science from orbit around x´ which are completable with doing science that has been completely explored before, thus yielding 0 science. If i measure the mass of the mun a couple of times (to account for errors or such), there is no point or scientific value in doing it for the upteenth time - the game reflects that by granting zero science for it. Yet, some company comes up to our programs, asking us to do it again, for good measure, so to say, and is willing to through money at us for it. Some kerbals must be very sceptical about our programs abiliity to do science (or simply dont mind being scamed by getting as a result for their investment, info that is now in the school books), it seems, and even if so, it seems unlikely they´d offer us a contract in that case.

Yeah, that´s a good one, too, vectura. They could come in different predefined sizes and weights as well (info given in the contract offer, of course)

I agree with the notion of seperating ´missions´ from ´contracts´. The former should basically just be a list of milestone things (alt-records, 1st time SoI / orbit / landing - that kind of stuff) that you can complete at any time, without choosing which you are planing to do next. By and large, the main reward for these would be REP, plus a little extra funds. ´Contracts´ otoh would, in tendency, reward the player with funds and a little bit of REP. I also very much agree with the notion of more (less? more tiers) granular steps in building upgrades. In another thread i compared the grind involved with World of Tanks and for the science building, it´s the equivalent of starting out on tier VI or so, trying to get to VII. And the total road block that is the low tiers buildings restriction is probably not the most fortunate choice of parameter to upgrade in it, either, even if ´time´ is not on the table. A simple science cost multiplier (tier 0 -> 200%, tier 1 -> 180%, or something like that) would probably be better and might keep science valuable for longer within a game, keeping it so throughout: The early, easy, launch pad sciences wont get you as far in the beginning, you dont hit brick walls rendering science temporarily unimportant (until you can afford the next upgrade) mid game and the tree might last a tad longer end game. I also agree that science should exclusively come from ´doing science´ - exceptions may confirm this rule, but they should really be exceptions. Another point i agree with is ´contract-chains´. I dont know how many of you have played paradox games (europa universalis, crusader kings f.e.) but for those who did, think event-chains. Or the good old Panzer General campaign. Depending on how well you do on a specific contract (say there is one primary objective and a secondary one - depending on weather you managed both or just one and which, or none) or even on how you solved a specific given problem, there could logical follow-ups. ´chain´ is actually sort a misnomer - it would be more like ´trees´ with branches. Testing contracts should, imho, only crop up for parts, that you have the tech unlocked for, but not the part itself, and the benefit would be gaining free access for this part and maybe a small contigent of it for you to use for free. I find it sort of debatable, though, if the conditions for these tests really have to make sense on first sight. Sure, testing landing gear on high orbit seems pointless at first, but it might be about its durability in space, not about the actual use of it up there, but rather how well it perform on the ground afterwards. So: Probably there can be all sorts of funny condidions, as long as they are concluded with an actual meaningful test, that makes sense for practical purposes. As in: Bring the landing gear up into vacuum and then land on it, too! Or: Bring a jet engine to the mun alright, but the actual test takes place back in some sort of oxygen atmosphere (point being to see if it still works properly after the journey). It shouldnt be too hard (i guess) defining meaningful test-conclusions within reasonable parameters - if those are always at the end of such a test, whatever apparently wierd stuff you have to do with it before this seems a lot more plausible.

Try attaching a shuttle to each side of the lifter and see if that works. EDIT: Just noticed our avatars, OP. I have the one you use on my comp as well...

Be carefull with that throttle control and refrain from pressing shift or ctrl, when you use it! IIRC, the throttle setting of your joystick will be detected once any change to throttle has been input, in any way, during your current flight, but not before - which means, if you had your throttle-control on the stick to max at the end of your last flight and havent touched it since having switched to your current flight, hitting ctrl or shift will actually put you to full throttle, instantly. It can be a very unpleasant surprise, the more unpleasant, the longer it takes you to figure out what´s going on. So: Be consistent with your choice of input-devices, esp. when it comes to throttle!

The coolest thing they could do with the artifacts is to give us a mystery to solve and a story to reveal, maybe unlocking an ´alien tech-tree´ with unique-to-it gadgets, along the way. Ideally, at least some of them would be placed in different places for each game... well, just dreaming, i guess..

For each body in the sequence they occured: 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. with the occasional ´in memory of ....´, if someone had tried before but failed (like Jeb on Minmus in my current game, due to misdirected fuellines).

I dont think the multiple use of sats for various contracts is a big deal. I am sort of new to 0.9 (been playing for years, though) - i played for like 3 days straight now and still i have not upgraded my mission control center, so i can only take 2 contracts at a time anyways - maybe the upgrades to the mission control center should be more costly/less effective (lower number of maximum contracts at higher levels). What i think are real problems: - ´Decline mission spam´: The missions that are being offered should be what you have to choose from until they expire ´naturally´. The way it is right now, is a bit like Bart playing Monopoly with Maggie: Keep pulling event cards from the stack until you find one that you like.* - Get science from X should not be possible to complete by ´harvesting´ 0 science. I actually play this way, checking my science archives each time before i accept such a contract. *this of course points to the problem of time being irrelevant in KSP outside of missions. Instead of declining the mission, you could just time-warp until it expires. That´s another issue with the science center imho: I really dont like that 100 science-barrier - but without time mattering outside missions, it´s hard to think of any other reason to upgrade it. Maybe, there should be fixed costs in KSP? The buildings taking some maintainance funds, the employes getting paychecks? And research taking some time? Time not mattering really irks me. Messed up your phase angles? Ah, doesnt matter much if the mission takes a week or a year, as long as you brought some extra dV. If that is out of the question, i´d still suggest a different parameter to be altered by expanding the science center. Maybe a multiplier to science cost (2x unexpanded -> 1.5x -> 1x...) - just having to stop researching anything at all, until i hit 764,000 MUs is indeed quite a grind, which is not even optional - i´ll have to do it, at one point or another. The game feels a bit like WoT, here.

(1) You raise a good point there. I just wonder what would earn you money in KSP. Cause going to places - the fun part - is already covered by science. There will be a need for money - earning it better be fun, cause it will obligatory. (2) Again: Dev-time is a good point. I just think it´d be a nice addition to the game. I´d not want it to become central, but something you might use once in a while. Like in: Damn it, this otherwise totally cool design fails - if it could only lift this tiny bit of extra-fuel... Let´s see the tech-tab. Oh, i could raise this thruster´s boost by 0.5% - that will make the next research field a tad more expensive, but for the mission after this one, i intend to take another tech, anyways. And if this works, the mission conducted with the planed design will probably earn me just enough to fund that tech and the rocket to do it. Well, it´s this or back to the drawing boards... Hmm... EDIT: It also helps ´open-endedness´ as you could do this with the very last parts and make things possible that formerly might have seemed impossible, like a kerbaled-eve-return or somesuch. (BTW: Since it influences tech-cost, it sort of is a second currency)

I like that idea. It does not contradict (2) at all. It´s merely an addition to it. (4) Part Recovery and Tear&Wear. It should cost a bit of credits, depending on distance to the KSP.