Wjolcz

Yup. Welcome to career mode. Where the tech progression is inane and contracts random. Or dumb. Or random and dumb. I really wish there was some sort of in-game mission designer just so I don't have to deal with all the contracts offered (more like generated though) now.

I don't think that's necessary.

I'm pretty sure it somehow can recognize where it's mined. Otherwise the current ore haul contracts wouldn't exist.

Meh. I'd rather have all the contracts asking to mine ore from [insert body name here] and bring it to Kerbin for profit every single time. That or a contract filter that let's me see only this kind of contracts. Well, they wouldn't have to add any more resources. It's just one contract really. Except the body you have to mine ore from is random and the body it asks you to land the payload on is Kerbin.

So am I

You should put a trademark on that sentence from now on.

I actually really like the current Laythe, even though it's not very realistic.

Naaaaah. The tree is fine as it is. No need to change that.

SSTOs are something that was built and worked perfectly fine with a good payload capacity. Not on Earth though.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Would be cool to see F9 use one engine instead of nine some day though.

I think I remember reading somewhere that they want to replace the nine Merlin engines with one Raptor engine in the first stage?

More launch sites would be nice to have, but ICBM silos? Not a fan.

They do. But that's not what I want. EDIT: OK, so I really start to sound like one of these annoying customers that call me during my work, so let me elaborate: What I would like to see in the career mode is no science points. I really don't like the fact that you have to deal with them. What I would like to do is to progress with money and reputation only through the tech tree. The current career is "designed" to force the player to gather science points sooner or later, simply because money is insufficient in the early stages of the career, thus rendering the money-to-science "strategy" useless.

Well, how about this: instead of limiting the science points output per body, make the science experiments generate reputation instead (+disconnect tech research from science and make it money-dependable instead) and improve the contracts system, because the current one is crap. Missions and their [scientific/commercial] objectives should be the reason to explore, not science points. Besides, I think it would be best if we could pick what kind of resource we want to use to unlock the tree with. I really don't want to grind for science in order to unlock new tech. I've done that before and it is not fun. I wish I could decide whether I want to fully focus on commercial or scientific objectives. Right now you can't easily progress by doing tourist, or any other commercial contracts only, because science points is what you NEED to progress. Not only it kills the sandbox feel of the game but is also bad gameplay design.

Well, that's not exactly what I mean here. I'm not sure how a few tons of regolith would be useful for R&D, but if we consider regolith having some sort of precious materials in it I'm sure companies that dig for precious materials on Earth/Kerbin would be interested in paying good sums of money for it. So basically, space mining for profit. What I mean though is a scenario where there are companies that want to pay money for bringing them ore. Just like it is now. You bring ore somewhere and get paid. Except in this case "somewhere" would be Kerbin's surface only. I remember reading about some asteroid irl that has so much platinium that bringing it to Earth and selling the material would make platinium dirt cheap, or something like that. That's what I'd like to do in KSP (except without ruining the market, but since it's non-existent then there's no problem with it, I think). EDIT: here it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/(436724)_2011_UW158

Well, yeah, the whole point of this thread is not to force people to go through a certain type of progression. Nobody should be forced to do that. The best way to deal with this is to group parts in a more logical way. If there was a clear one branch, node after node progression, the only thing left would be to add more parts to these nodes, or simply make them have more branches every time new parts are added. I seriously don't understand why the devs don't want to do that. For some reason it's more logical to move parts around the tree everytime a new element is added to the game? Really? Redoing it would be so much easier to balance it and even new players could easily distinguish what part of the tree contains the parts they want to go for. I guess you can already see that, but the progression seems to be from good to better anyway, so why not make each branch themed and linear, thus more logical?

I'm bumping this because the "tweaks" made every update get really annoying and ridiculous. The parts got moved again in 1.2. Dear SQUAD, could you finally make up your mind about what is where in the tree? Or maybe rearrange the nodes in a way you don't have to tweak it all the time? For example, make clearly separated branches that are themed. It would really solve all the issues. Thank you.

Noooooooooooooooooo. No more types of points. I already have to deal with science points, which this game could be perfectly fine without (if only devs planmed the career properly in the first place). More types of currencies = more useless stuff that clutter the UI. Science points become obsolete once you finish the tech. And so would probably these "exploration points". There's also the problem with balancing them. I really don't see how a new currency would help implementing time-based mechanics.

It's more of a "let's see if I can do it and have fun at the same time" challenge rather than "do this with this and this and nothing else" hardcore challenge. I will set a new "unmanned" score board, because the lenght of a probe core and a cockpit arent the same, thus earning more points with a probe body is easier. I'll be giving extra points for nice replicas and unusual ideas (kinda like in Mario Party) when we have 10 best results. The replica doesn't have to be a Vampire. Just make sure it has a Juno at the back.

What about rare materials though? Like platinium and helium-3?

The main reason for me not accepting the ore hauling contracts is the fact that I have to haul it somewhere and leave it. Just because. No real reason. No explanation. So maybe instead, Kerbin could become the center of ore usage? Roleplay inbound: A company wants you to bring them some of the Mun's regolith. They want it because there's some sort of precious element in it. So they send you a contract to bring them a certain amount. You go there, harvest it, bring it home, land it, get paid. Simple. IMO that would not only make more sense but also encourage making, planning and maintaining of the whole infrastructure consisting of bases, SSTO shuttles and ore harvesters.

Oh, I actually kinda misunderstood your previous post. I would love the testing contracts to be meaningful. Once the research of an engine is done it would need a few additional testing missions (maybe one in-flight and one on the ground). But not the way it was done before. Example: "Achieve Dres escape orbit in order to test this jet engine". These were dumb. Apart from that, I really wish for a career overhaul that lets me progress either by doing missions, hauling tourists, or take scientific data. Or everything at once. The only way to progress right now is to grind for science. The rest is just that not very useful "extra" stuff (contracts, reputation and strategies).

Wowowowwoow, will that let research the tech nodes with funds?

There was, but Sea Vampire was the first pure jet aircraft to do so. Nope, sorry. Only Juno and brakes. But you can flip the plane just before the touch down. I kinda want to see that happen to be honest. Yup. That's why I measure it from the nose, not the back.

Oh, and by the way (sorry to multipost like crazy) it would also be nice to be a purely tourism-focused program. Unfortunetaly it's not possible because of how the research system works. ALWAYS BLAME THE CAREER MODE!