CaptRobau

You need to break eggs to make an omelette. The basic setup of these parts is so wrong, compared to how modern KSP can and should work that keeping them too much the same, just to keep some legacy designs, would make the improvements useless. Yes, the revised parts can keep a recognizable shape (the Mk2 spaceplane mod shows that in HD the MK2 system looks stunning). But things like the model, the attach nodes, etc. are so badly designed that they need to be redone.

Thanks for the reply. I'm trying to modify this mod to take work as followed: each pod generates LS for half the amount of the crew capacity in exchange for electricity. This means that if you have a Mk1 Pod, then you only have a limited amount of time since the LS generated won't make up for the LS consumed by the 1 Kerbal. So you need to add another pod (for example a Mk1 Lander Can). In that case it'd produce 1 Kerbal's worth of LS and keep him safe for as long as he has the electrical power to run the generator. This way I want to make life support more about having to create ships with sufficient living space than to just have large LS tanks supporting Kerbals in small pods. Want to go Duna? You can't just stick your 3 Kerbals in a Mk1-2 pod and be done with it, you'll need at least a Hitchhiker or something bigger too.

How does this system work exactly? The moment you lift off Life Support and Electricity starts degrading? LS can't be replenished?

Which dll do I need to just have the improved generator code? Asteroid or lib?

A suggestion: a Mk2 decoupler. Would work great for launch escape systems.

I'd also like to add that the navball should be on-screen by default. In a majority of cases, you want to see the navball or use the throttle.

I noticed a few people saying that three years is a long time for KSP to still be in development. In reality three years is pretty much an average for the development of complex games in this day in age. Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous have also been in development for that time (Elite kickstarted in 2012, but they developed the engine before that).

If anything is released it'll be in the announcements forum instead of General Discussion.

I brought it up because I've been building a lot of SSTOs lately and found that it was hard to use the aerospike successfully compared to other engines. That plus the realization that I don't use it for any other designs prompted me to open up this discussion.

In 0.18 the Toroidal Aerospike was heavily nerfed because its thrust-to-weight ratio was equal to that of other 1.25m engines but its Isp was much higher (which is simply how an aerospike works). At the time the nerf made sense. There were few engines and the aerospike outclassed them all. But times have changed. The RAPIER engine has become a major contender for the role of SSTO engine, something the nerfed aerospike was often used for. Career mode is now the mode to which parts are balanced, instead of sandbox mode, due to the introduction of the tech tree. The playing field has changed completely. The aerospike dangles at the end of the tech tree like an exciting price but its outclassed by most other engines. I think all parts should have some use, even at the end of the tech tree, but at the moment I find too few uses for the aerospike. This is why I think a change is in order. At the moment the aerospike has three clear disadvantages and one advantage. The advantage is that its atmospheric and vacuum Isp are high and nearly identical. This makes it an ideal engine for launches in an atmosphere. The disadvantages are a lack of thrust vectoring, a lower thrust-to-weight-ratio and the inability to stack it. I think the best way to make the aerospike more useful would be to add a thrust vectoring capability to the engine. The whole point of the aerospike is its efficiency in all layers of an atmosphere, but without thrust vectoring controlling a aerospike is difficult. Control surfaces are a solution, but are generally not enough to control large rockets. Giving aerospikes thrust vectoring (which they have IRL) would make it more useful for atmospheric flight, but with the other disadvantages still in place it wouldn't be OP. Stackability is sometimes necessary, as is higher thrust-to-weight-ratio, meaning engines like the T-30 or T-45 still have a role even after the aerospike is unlocked at the end of the tech tree. What do you think?

Only for lower stage rockets. The upper stage rocket that helps get your spacecraft into orbit would be quite easy to recover if you stick some landing legs, some extra landing fuel or parachute and a large probe body.

I think the current setup as it's been communicated to us will work pretty well. If you build a disposable rocket and recover just the command pod plus the parachutes then you just some money back for those parts. This way returning is easy, but because you won't get as much money back you'll have to work harder to get the extra cash to do other things. The SSTO on the other hand will get you a lot of money back as you'll get a lot of it back to Kerbin, but the return flight will take extra time and effort. This makes other things easier. One thing I would like to see is a distance modifier. I want to be rewarded for managing to land right on top of the space center.

There won't be any consideration for mods in the contracts. No limitations, changes to accommodate them, etc. Why would they care how anyone uses mods to get through career mode. There's no competition, no real money at stake or anything that would make them care if you HyperEdit, MechJeb, FAR, etc. yourself to a contract's completion.

These parts are so cool. It's a great compromise between real and KSP design. Two suggestions: -A more Apollo-like command module. The Mk1-2 is so ugly compared with this stuff. -A 3.75m Skylab module

This is looking really good.

The models and textures would be thrown out of the window, but some of the shapes either make shape or are iconic by now. This very mod shows how good Mk2 parts can look.

All these new parts look great. Can't wait to get my hands on them. Porkjet, would you be interested in redoing any of the stock 1.25m parts? If there was decent looking Mk1 Cockpit, Fuselage and Mk2 Cockpit, one would never have to look at the ugly stock parts again when plane building.

Most new computers have been 64-bit since about 2010, from desktops to laptops. A look at the Steam Hardware Survey shows 64-bit Windows OSes accounting for 75% of all systems.

Those displays can be turned off and they're not at all necessary to fly a plane/rocket.

I love it. It has no real function, yet you managed to make it awesome nonetheless.

Not really. I have no time for this ATM. There's ideas floating around the old noodle to improve this mod, but it's just too low priority at the moment for me to spend time on. Maybe in the future.

The tech tree was balanced based on the biomes available when it was added (Kerbin and Mun). If they add the rest of the biomes, I imagine they'd redo all the science values to compensate. Also filling out the tech tree doesn't seem to be the end goal of the career mode. The devs have said that it was a way to introduce new players to all the various parts. Exploration is the goal and science, contracts, etc. are ways to help you explore.

KAS only offers a straight cable. That's simple, but looks like crap. A real rope bends and twists, looking great but at great computational cost.

I agree with the general idea of an update full of small changes, but not necessary with all your examples: 1. IVA views If they're going to do this, they need to do this well. Just a spiffy new interior model will look nice, but that does nothing for playability which is the real problem with current IVAs. RPM improves IVA playability, but it is far more complex than just a new IVA and thus goes against the idea of a small-changes update. 3. SpacePlane parts touchup(goes with the Texture update) While the spaceplane parts do look like crap, I feel that it be better served by a separate update. Like the IVAs, a nice model/texture will make it look better but the core of the problem with air/spaceplanes is not how they look but how they play. It's better to design the new parts around a better aerodynamics model and a better atmospheric engine model (the current ones act more like rockets than real airbreathing engines) than having to adjust the new systems around the parts you've already made. If they everything in one go, it's going to be a much better way to for once and for all properly integrate atmospheric flight into the game. 4. More Biomes Very much agree. The systems are there, all they need to do is come up with more science definitions and assign a biome map to each body. 5. more tweakables Another +1 from me.

Friz, would it be possible for a 3.75m version of the SII attachment plate. With some extra adaption points it'd make a great IV stage (the Saturn I one, with the 6x RL-10s) attachment plate. I've tried it myself through rescaling, but it came out all wrong.