Wjolcz

So I have been thinking about the strategies and came to conclusion I don't really use them that much. Me and quite a few other members of the forums have been discussing the idea of so called 'programs' in the Suggestions & Development Discussion subforum. The basic idea is that they would replace the strategies and have a direct influence on what kind of missions pop up in the Mission Control. But it occured to me that such a drastic change to the career mode could ruin some people's gameplay. So my question is: Do you use them? Which ones do you prefer/find best? Would you mind if that part of the game got changed? Please keep in mind this is by no means a petition to change the system. I'm simply asking out of curiosity (and maybe to give some sort of feedback just in case SQUAD actually decides to do something about it). For the interested:

@Mr. Scruffy yeah, that's true. I can't even code, so I'm not really the right person to judge the decisions made by the Devs. Guess I got a bit carried away then. It would be nice to have those programs though. Anyway, all the major ideas seem to be in this thread (and some others) and SQUAD is one of those few dev teams that actually seem to listen carefully to what the community has to say, so at least I can be thankful for that and hope they listen to what we have to say in the future.

Eh. Don't have much hope for another contracts 'tweak'. Seriously. The game NEEDS those programs. That and a proper R&D.

If we were 150 light years from the Sun with today's technology and radiotelescopes would we be able to detect the first artificial radio signals?

Looks pretty cool if you ask me.

I'm not really sold on the whole AI idea. Probably because I like to play at my own pace, but perhaps it could add a nice progression aspect just as well as rep decay or programs unlocking.

I suggested the same thing some time ago. Would be nice to have procedural parts BUT only if this was a thing. Why? Because a 50m long fuel tank would go *poof* in the middle when hit and whatever was on top of that would fall 50 meters down and also get *poof'd*.

@Pthigrivi yeah, deadlines being tied to the closest window could also work nice, but they would need to be balanced, unlike it is now. I often find myself accepting contracts that last for 60 years, take the money and never really complete them. On the other hand "balanced" deadlines could also cause some problems. So let's say you want to do a bunch of slingshots first (Kerbin -> Eve -> Kerbin -> Jool) before you get to Jool. If the deadline is balanced for a direct transfer time (Kerbin -> Jool) there's a high chance you might not make it there in time. Such system (which is just a balanced version of what we have now) would harm the players that like to play a bit slower than others, or simply didn't research needed tech in time for the closest launch window. I think the best way to do this would be to set a deadline for a launch of a [Jool] flagged vessel. Once it's launched there are no deadlines and the only objective of the contract is to do science once you get to your destination. That way the only thing you would have to do before the launch would be the tech research, which would also be easier to balance: if there are two parts/groups of parts (one takes 15 days and the other 20 to research) needed for a mission/program you add the time needed to research both (35 days) and set the deadline for the launch somewhere around that. Now you may say: But what about the completion? What if players just launch vessels and never go to Jool/other body specified in the program? My answer: If you won't go there then you won't complete the program, which means you won't unlock another one. Better go there and do that science or you won't advance anywhere. EDIT: oh, and by the way: Have you ever played with KAC @Pthigrivi? Launch windows happen all the time, so waiting for another one is not really a problem.

Expandable modules would work best for this me thinks. That and some sort of corridors that could be connected KAS-style (wide enough for the crew just so it doesn't feel like we are squeezing poor kerbals through fuel pipes when transferring them).

So why does it look different? Is the outer cover not needed for testing purposes, or something?

I think (and many others) that programs (implemented in place of strategies) would work best for this kind of thing. Each program would have a bunch of missions/objectives the player could pick themselves. That way the progression would be way better, players could choose their own paths of progression and be free to do whatever they want to do at any time.

The buildings could be upgraded depending on what tech the player unlocked. The R&D would automatically expand as the needs for new and better tech arise. No funds needed to expand it (assuming there's some sort of government funding the program). Or certain (newly) unlocked programs could boost the expansion of KSC too. So for example: a simple Jet Flight Research Program is available at tier 1 SPH. Once it's completed a Supersonic Flight Research Program becomes available and SPH becomes the tier 2 SPH. Once that's done you pick the SSTO Research Program and the SPH hits the final tier 3 form. I agree. Simply giving some sort of 'tags' to vessels could work quite well too. On the other hand, aren't slingshots a real thing? The Rosetta mission didn't directly go for the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko asteroid. It used Mars to slingshot itself (and maybe did some science there? it certinly would if Mars didn't already have so many probes orbiting it).

It was the mouse causing problems.

Yeah, the Endurance had a really nice and sane design. It could be built IRL if not for those super efficient engines (probably needed a helluvalot of electricity to work). Nautilus-X is also a very nice project. It has a ring and is modular, which comes in handy when you want to use it more than once and transport things with it.

Funds. It would be hard to balance, but if the career is limited to a certain amount of money the program would permanently rise the income each month/year/whatever. So for example: you get 11,000 funds per month, which is just enough for any LKO operations. It's the max amount you can hold in your pocket, so it's unable to stack over a few months. Then once the program gets activated you get to hold sth like 50,000 funds per month, which is enough for a Jool mission. Once the mission is launched (the game recognises it as the Jool vessel because it has an experiment instrumentation combo specified as needed in this mission/program) it goes back to 11,000. I think the funds cap was orignally proposed by regex. The values are a rough approximation, so don't crucify me for not actually calculating all this stuff right, ok?

: O This is soooo coooool!

Hmmm. Might be it, but that would be rather unusual because it works fine when I hold the RMB on desktop. Will change the batteries and bump this thread tomorrow if the problem persists.

The game is not stuttering and yes, I use a wireless mouse. It seems to happen everywhere (KSC scene, SPH/VAB, flight).

Woooooooooooo!

OK, so I'm in 1.1.2 and the right mouse button doesn't work too well. When I try to rotate the camera it just cuts out and I have to click many many times to rotate it. RMB works fine on desktop. I can hold it and create those blue windows "squares", or whatever they're called.

Will I necro if I bump this? Hey, OP! I bought the same exact plane as my first RC monoplane recently. I don't know if it's thanks to KSP or IL-2, but it was surprisingly easy to learn how to fly it. Unfortunetaly I gave it to a friend and he crashed :| It doesn't work and seems like the main reason is the receiver board. It simply doesn't want to bind to the transmitter (95% of times. I managed it to bind a few times, but it doesn't stay like that after the battery gets disconnected and inserted again). Does anyone here have any idea how to fix it? I probably need a new board, but maybe there's a way around that? Also, maybe this should be moved to The Lounge? EDIT: Found it! So if anyone has the same problem this seems to be relevant: http://www.rcdiscuss.com/showthread.php?51733-Sky-Dancer-V913-Binding

Yep. The film was pretty bad. And what the heck, guys? How is Interstellar not good? I rewatched it recently and read about that poem by Dylan Thomas and the film made way more sense after doing so.

I'd prefer having science widgets when performing the experiments. Pushing buttons, proding the Mystery Goo in 0G to see what happens and stuff like that. But golf on the Mun might be fun too.

@Pthigrivi The tree is just a dumb limitation of the career mode. There's no balance there, it's simply LIMITING! I'm never going to change my opinion on that. Missons should be the ones pushing your progression, not the tree. The researched parts should be simply an extra thing. Yes, some engines are more futuristic than others, but that doesn't mean we should be limited to unlocking ones that we are not going to use anyway. The tree is linear. Independent groups of parts wouldn't. Add that to missions that you can choose the theme yourself and then you get true freedom of career mode. I never said the missions should be scripted and tried to be as explicit on this as possible, but anyway here it goes again: 1. Programs in the Admin Building (YOU choose what kinds of missions you want to do, not some random lottery system from the current stock game) 2. They have their own tabs in the Mission Control Bulding 3. Each tab has at least 5 (preferably as many as possible) missions based around the main goal of the program. R&D: 1. Parts are grouped depending on what their purpose is/what they are made of (wings with wings, girders with girders, wheels with wheels, etc.) 2. You need to provide money and experiments' data to research them 3. You have to test engines if you want to own them (by completing test missions): rocket engines get 1 static test, airbreathing engines get 2: static and in-flight and the ion engine gets to pass one vacuum test. Only some of those nodes would be connected. Like tank sizes, for example (tiny -> small-> medium -> large)

Yeah, the tree is a poor solution IMO. I struggle to understand people who say 'Nah, I don't want linear progression with missions but the tree could use some tweaking'. Except that means you actually want linear progression and accept it, because that's the only thing the tree offers you. That and random contracts. It would be better to have independent research on every part (or a group of very similar parts) instead of silly nodes. That way we could progress however we want to without going through the whole science grind and parts we don't need.