NovaSilisko

I like "Probe or drogue?" better.

At first it did, yes. But after that the carrier for the capsule has been maneuvering. It sat at Earth-Moon L2 for a while before moving to lunar orbit, where it resides currently.

I've thought of that, but it ends up being a huge amount of work for something almost nobody would encounter. Not worth it. I dunno, I'm pretty attached to Stubbs & Vribble here... In all seriousness, manned missions are back to being a higher priority I think. I think it would pretty much exclusively be the player performing the manned expedition, since everyone else, when asked to enter the terrifying void with aliens that want to eat you and debris sailing around and the real possibility of drifting off into space forever, responds with a general consensus of "are you out of your damn mind?!". Maybe if you pay well enough you can take a few henchmen along, but I'm unsure how getting a bunch of interns killed would fit into the narrative. The last thing the MEA needs is an investigation into what they're up to. I think it would be entirely up to the player. Probably would have some general purpose habitat modules that you could enter and refill your suit with air/etc. - - - Updated - - - Playing with post process once again. Need to turn down the specular reflections on the metal beams.

There is... absolutely such a thing as too much post processing. I find physical difficulty looking at these images because my eyes get twinges as they try to interpret what's past the mush, but they can't given it's baked into the image. I've instinctively tried cleaning my glasses four times while looking through these...

You have to be extremely careful with so-called "science" journalism nowadays. People have realized that space and scientific topics are getting popular, so have started putting up any old trash in an attempt to get more attention and thus ad revenue. Stuff like the hyping up of the "NASA warp drive" which was really just a study conducted by one scientist and an artist making a rendering of it.

10 3 seconds in and I already find factual errors. "According to Chinese State Media, China’s lunar orbiter has successfully locked into orbit around the moon. The spacecraft, dubbed the Chang’e 5, will next perform a soft landing on the surface of the moon. It’s mission is to collect four pounds of rock and soil samples before returning to Earth." The lunar orbiter that recently entered orbit is the carrier vehicle for the test of the return capsule that was flown a few months ago. It's called Chang'e 5-T1 or CE-5-T1 (bit of an ugly name), and has no capability of landing. The full-up Chang'e 5 mission will happen around 2017. I don't see any direct sources stating that they're going to "strip mine" the moon. The article this one links to says the exact same thing, but doesn't actually quote the guy they're referencing, nor do they provide a link to any transcript, or anything of the sort. Reeks of hyperbole and poor journalism. And given this "inquisitr" site also has garbage like this: http://www.inquisitr.com/1754084/ghanaian-man-dies-sees-michael-jackson-and-pope-john-paul-in-hell/, I can't say I hold them in the highest regard of journalistic integrity. Nothing more than clickbait.

Well, KSP's music (apart from the main theme and I think the credits music) is by Kevin MacLeod, and is royalty free for anyone to use. The people setting up the webcast at SpaceX presumably just got it from there as well.

1. The hoppers freeze their motion and turn off their AI if you go too far away, and then turn it back on when you return. You must have flown away from it after it jumped up, and then flown back to find it still up there. There will be plenty of creatures capable of handling at least a bit of space. For instance, trees which grow a seed pod high up into the planet's gravity well before letting it burst, scattering seeds far and wide across the planet, as well as off into deep space, allowing it to spread all across the galaxy wherever those seeds may take root. 2. Probably some basic ullage simulation in that you won't be able to fire the engines while upside down in enough of a gravity field, but beyond that everything is pressure-fed, so it's not as much of an issue. Most fuels will be hypergolic and not need ignition sources, and simple electric sparkers can suffice for non-hypergolics.

1. Yeah, I've thought about having some planets rotating on their own, which your science team freaks out about since it goes against everything thus far learned about the place. 2. I have. I actually first learned about it when I showed Scott Manley a few pictures of the very first prototypes of SotS. IIRC his reply was something along the lines of "Oh cool, reminds me a bit of this game <link>", and of course my mind was blown because, dammit, somebody else thought of small planets too!

Nah, they'll sit still. I'm not sure, given the small size, if that would make ice caps on the far sides, but I harbor doubts - the planets are so small I think they'd be a pretty uniform temperature.

Meet the Dynamic Debug Duo: Sgt. Stubbs and Lt. Vribble: They are specifically designed to emulate the sort of ships you'll be able to build once the construction system is made. Realtime lighting - though it's manually arranged in that case, but the final result will look just the same. Need to actually build the system that makes it all work together.

Nah, they're closer in material to wood. Not nearly squishy or wiggly enough to be tentacles.

Ground textures are generated procedurally via Substance, but baked into textures. Also, to restate that it's not dead: Eventually there will be a big blog post explaining some big changes. Patience.

Not dead.

This poll would probably work better if >1 option could be selected. I think most people would like more than one of the things listed.

What the hell?

Technically. It's only rated for return from the moon still, I believe. After they analyze the data from EFT-1 they'll have a better idea of the limits, but a direct entry at martian return speeds would be... tricky.

Ah, that's the multi-billion dollar question...

The IXS Enterprise isn't real. It's something one scientist and an artist dreamed up. Be excited about the real space achievements of today, not the imaginary ones of a hundred-plus years from now.

I'm not sure you know anything about how this actually works. I have never encountered anyone in game design who does things that way. That's complete insanity. You want to start getting stuff being made ASAP. What you're describing sounds more like a general software project, not a game, or some outsourced horrible corporate not-quite-AAA thing. I have no idea where you're getting the idea for a design document describing "the color of each pixel"...

I need to think of more places to promote this game. Specifically, more forums I could effectively duplicate this thread in without it being out of place...

DuckDuckGo. Doesn't track you, doesn't try to customize your results based on your browsing habits, just displays the same results for everyone. I like simplicity.

Most likely. Probably only resulting in a verbal scold, or a string of curse words, or maybe if something can be made to animate it nicely, they could get fed up and lob whatever you threw back at you.

It's funny, technically the core stage of Sputnik's launch vehicle was the first object to enter earth orbit. Followed shortly after by the two fairing panels, and then by Sputnik itself. People reporting seeing it from the ground were in fact seeing the core stage, 90% of the time. Anyway, on the thread's specific question, a constant-burn trajectory is more difficult in KSP than IRL given the planet "curves away" from you much more quickly than earth, so you have to be more careful with it. I've managed a few single-burn trajectories to orbit using RealSolarSystem, but only once or twice in stock KSP.

You could call it an excessively interactive menu. You can wander around it to check up on various things relevant to your missions - operating the portal, ordering rocket parts or fuel, building ships, managing your part inventory, inspecting and refurbishing returned ships, and so on. I also want to make it so you can buy random bits and pieces to decorate the place with if you so desire. It's always fun to be able to make a place your own, as anyone who enjoys the Elder Scrolls games can tell you. If you want to decorate your shelves with core samples from various locations across the microverse, go right ahead. Or you can collect soda bottles. If you want, you could collect soda bottles, then build a small pressurized surface base outside the portal, and store your bottles there. Addendum: behold, my masterpiece