Wjolcz

I just imagined it would have to come back to a base with ground fuel depot from time to time anyway. As said above, it would have to, even with an on-board fission-based ISRU, to replace the core. The lack of ISRU would save some mass. Multiple bases with one flying HQ in a form of an SSTO shuttle is the way I would go for. Not ideal but neither is the many landing spots, one base and one/multiple shuttle/s approach. Thinking about it strategically, multiple smaller fuel depots with limited crew would make it easier to manage when some of them get attack or captured. If we have one main base at which the shuttle has to land at to replace fission reactor cores and that one gets captured the the shuttle becomes useless. And I guess we could make a few bases like this but they would probably be more expensive than conventional fuel factories. Especially for guerillas with limited amount of cash. Edit: ...and also fighting many well-founded by governments armies.

I really like this thread. I don't know about the NTRs and all the maths problems but if I've ever were to imagine a sshuttle like this I would go for the Kankoh-maru (JAXA's proposed SSTO) with some sort of ramrocket running on chilled kerosene and LOX (a'la SpaceX). I'm assuming such spacecraft would take up to 6 crew +food for a few days and serve as some sort of mobile HQ with recon abilities.

Or maybe let's not do that.

Since jets already work both underwater and in the atmosphere then I see no reason why electrictric propellers shouldn't do the same.

About the Space vs Airplanes discussion: spaceplanes were added not to make things easier or because NASA uses them but because there was a demand for them. People saw what @C7Studios did and really liked it so SQUAD added a runway and eventually C7 became a part of the team. Now, am I against spaceplanes? No. In fact I love them and at this point I'd rather buy an aeronautical game with kerbals made by SQUAD than a KSP DLC. But I also like rockets. I don't mind seeing both in the game since both are a way to go higher and higher. Boats on the other hand aren't. Sure, you can dive in Laythe's and Eve's oceans and it's one way to make these bodies worth exploring, but there are also things concerning exploration which this game is still clearly lacking. Example: the scientific experiments don't gather real data but some "techi-unlocki-pointi" crap. You go to a planet to grab them, put them in the lab, start the lab, plant a flag and wait until the heat death of the universe because kerbals don't eat. 'cause exploration, right? Now, am I against nautical exploration? As long as the "exploration" part is neglected and it's added "just because" then I am.

Please don't ping me when you're talking about career. Nothing will change anyway.

NASA also doesn't do space tourism. It's the private companies that do. And since KSP's career mode is this incoherent mishmash of national and private space agencies then I see no reason why shouldn't there be airliner missions.

Oh-kaaay...? I'm not sure what you are trying to convey here. The ARM 3.75m tanks were made before PJ started to overhaul the smaller ones. I guess you are either talking about the historical parts being less historical and more ARM-y or the never ending SQUAD's part overhaul plan should be more historical pack-esque. To be clear: I'm 100% cool with both options. I just don't think they should be compared to something that never was (and probably never will be) official and stock. But then, it's just my opinion. I'm in the consistency camp. Doesn't matter what colour scheme there is on these tanks as long as they all look good together.

Two things. Firstly, I don't think the new parts should be compared with something which didn't make its way into the game (PJ's rocket parts). Secondly, I agree with the opinion that the parts should be as consistent as possible. IMO the biggest issue with these overhauls is the fact that each of them is never fully finished. We either get new plane parts or new rocket parts and it's never the same person making them. I also think that if SQUAD decided to make all the parts procedural and stretchy there would be less work to do and the inconsistencies would never be there. By making the game LEGO-like they also make their jobs much harder since each part has to have it's own model and texture. EDIT: I know it's about the DLC parts and it's not an overhaul but still, procedural parts would make probably everyone happy.

Don't do drugs. I'd prefer if IntakeAir finally became useful in more ways than one.

Whatever the historians decide to do about this day doesn't matter because there are more awesome things coming and I'm excited about them.

I thought they did though. Nvm. It was only the entry burn. But since the customer wants a piece of it on display then meh. It won't fly again. Besides, thanks to this they probably had an opportunity to gather extra data for much more agressive landing profile. Edit: ninja'd by @CSE

Same!

I'd rather not have to deal with even more types of wheels tbh.

So, if that Mission Builder thing is an actual ubersandbox where you build things and teleport to different locations, set their orbits and positions then I will consider it pretty amazing and just assume the new contracts and parts are simply "extra" thrown into this DLC pack of sorts.

Yeeeaaah, this whole thread is probably not needed. The navball is a compass. It's even better than a compass because it doesn't wobble and is perfect for space travel. KSP is a game about space exploration. Compasses only work around Earth's/Kerbin's/any planet with magnetosphere so no real use for it in deep space.

Paraphrasing @NovaSilisko: bodies smaller than Duna look odd with atmospheres. It's about shaders, or something.

I too don't think a gateway station is needed. My only guess why they actually need it is for hardware/tech and the purpose of doing something. I don't know how true this is but I remember someone saying that if NASA spends only a little they will get around the same amount of cash next year. So by that logic a cislunar station would mean massive boost in funding by the government which would make a Mars mission very much possible.

More isp means more delta-v. It's like having a balloon full of air. You can pop it and see a piece accelerate fast but not going very far (high thrust, low isp) or simply release it and see it flying for much longer because the air isn't coming out as fast as when after popping it (low thrust, high isp). At least that's how I imagine isp. Sbd correct me if I'm wrong.

SABRE

I don't have much hope anymore but I will say it anyway: IMO a great way to implement the story element for KSP could be a sequel. The following includes my imagination going wild and spitballing. Once upon a time there was a tribe of big-headed green creatures. A black rock came from the sky and they started getting smarter really quick (doesn't affect their lack of fear though). They quickly start dreaming about flying machines. A bunch of smart guys build it and need someone to test the machine. One of the kerbals comes out of the quickly growing population of these little green creatures. It's [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] Kerman. He wants to be a pioneer and many of his kind quickly follow the trend. The small society is developing newer and much more sophisticated methods of keeping their silly contraptions longer and longer aloft. During one of the record-breaking flight attempts our brave hero named [INSERT YOUR NAME HERE] spots a red barn on the coast while going south. He sees little things flying vertically and leaving trails of smoke while going higher and higher. He loitters for a while and goes back to his people to report this odd observation. An expedition is sent and it seems there's a different tribe trying to make their way to the stratosphere and beyond, except without wings because apparently they forgot to invent them. The two tribes get closer together and decide to settle near each other to share their tech and concepts. Many years from now the original place of their meeting will be known as Kerbal Space Center, but before that happens someone has to clear their way to the stars... Now, to make things clear, I just came up with all this on the spot. It's just an idea. The player would be the pilot (obviously) and have some sort of linear-ish story to follow (story missions about testing and contacting the other "tribe" +additional side missions/races/scientific research/whatever). I imagine it as some sort of side by side story of two schools of flying. One with wings and jets/piston engines (with the player as the Top Gun) and one with rockets (with Jebadiah, who would be occasionally mentioned during the player's adventure but never actually appear until later on/by the end). After some time the rocket program would become dominant (and the place would be called KSC) and player's XYZ Kerman would be one of the white suits kerbals with his own, individual story to follow except with more airplanes than rockets (and LKO SSTOs later on to spice things up a little bit). TL;DR: KSP about Jeb's adventures in space and "Unnamed Kerbal Sequel Game" about [PLAYER'S NAME] Kerman living long enough to pilot Wright-like gliders and SSTOs and have great adventures and thrills every kerbal pilot should experience during his/hers 200 year long life. I wouldn't even be mad if @SQUAD just looked at this, decided they are making it a thing and never credited me for the story. I would even thank them by buying it.

I don't think it should be inefficient, but very, very slow at processing instead. RL ISRU units aren't as big as the ones in KSP. They are much smaller but also much slower at processing fuel.

An air-augmented rocket is a rocket which uses atmospheric gases as working mass. They are (as far as I understand) pretty much ramjets with oxidizer and fuel, except more efficient. There used to be an ICBM, called GNOM, with this technology but it never got beyond that point because the lead designer died and there was no interest to continue the project. Now, are they more efficient? As far as I understand they need some sort of cowling/intake around the body which redirects the air towards the exhaust. I see two problems here: while the TWR would probably be higher the cowling/intake part adds drag, mass and as the air flows into the exhaust it probably lowers the ISP of the engine (because of raised pressure). Am I imagining this correctly? What if an aerospike was used instead of a reguar nozzle? Or maybe I'm overthinking this? Maybe it never was considered because of the complexity for something that would be expendable anyway? Maybe now that the reusability is more and more popular in the aerospace industry this neat piece of tech could finally be utilized?

I'm not against this.