CaptRobau

Never knew they were crossfed, but I have to see it makes sense that they shouldn't be.

I would've, had I known. But I always thought they weren't crossfed. But most of the time you'll be using it for a situation where you don't want crossfeed.

It was radially attached and it seem to look like it was about the size of linear RCS. Maybe it was a mod that was lost in the April Forum Fire or the image in my head is faulty.

If science, reputation and money are interchangeable, then I imagine you could either trade science for money or reputation (from going to the Mun, Duna, etc.) for money. Also when I originally started this thread I envisioned reusable (outside of your usual spaceplane) to mean àla SpaceX. One or all stages returning virtually intact via a powered landing. Partial re-usability such as the Space Shuttle SRBs parachuting down into the sea (and needing quite extensive rebuilding) is far too difficult to handle. It makes it too easy to just land a big booster using a lot of chutes. So my suggestion would be to check if parachutes were used to land it. If it is, it's probably not going to be reusable.

Nope. It's older than that.

SCANsat is a lot of fun and does a better job at orbital science gathering than the stock system does. It's not tedious, it would help make orbiting probes useful and the maps that are generated are great for helping you plan future missions (which adds a far greater sense of discovery/exploration than the science blurbs do). Ideally satellite mapping would be integrated into the map view as a layer, as the way SCANsat does it is a bit ugly and clunky.

It's none of those three.

I remember there being a mod that had very small ion thrusters with a new model (i.e. not just a resized PB-ION). I can't find it anymore however. Does anyone remember this mod and its name?

At the moment decay isn't that necessary, as voyages aren't very long in the Solar System we have now. But it might warrant attention in the future if more planets are introduced. Just like the semi-major axis of Earth is the basis for the Astronomical Unit (AU), the distance of Kerbin can also be used for a Astronamical Unit of its own. The solar system of KSP is scaled in pretty much the same way as that of real-life. Mars is 1.5 Earth AU, Duna 1.5 Kerbin AU, Jupiter 5 Earth AU, Jool 5 Kerbin AU, etc. The only outlier is Eeloo. That Pluto analog is only 6 Kerbin AU from Kerbol, while Pluto is 39 AU from the Sun. If the Kerbol system is expanded I imagine, we'll see Eeloo move as well. If Eeloo were positioned at the same relative distance as Pluto is IRL, it'd take on average 49 years to get there. Then the half-life of the RTG suddenly has an impact. For nuclear thermal rockets there is no reason to model half-life decay. Nuclear reactors use Uranium-235, which has a half-life of hundreds of millions of years, compared to 87.7 years for Plutonium-238 (which is used in RTGs). What nuclear reactors like those in a nuclear thermal rocket do have is a fuel cycle. Nuclear fuel in a reactor gets irradiated, determined by its use (want a lot of power, the nuclear fuel gets irradiated more quickly and vice versa). After a while the fuel gets so irradiated that it's no longer usable to get a nuclear reaction. This you could quite easily simulate in KSP already, by having nuclear thermal rockets use a NuclearFuel resource. After a few missions it'd run out. You could use that as a way to put a limit on the life of nuclear-powered space tugs, or through adding something like mining mining you could replenish your NuclearFuel.

Yummy methane ice.

It would definitely need rings. Otherwise it'd be too much like Jool. This is the last picture (perhaps a year old or more) of what the second gas planet looked like when the devs were still working it. Would make a nice contrast to green Jool.

Ah, so it works with that DMagic Science Animate .dll you made. No problem, if I were to use one for a science mod it'd be that anyway. Much more versatile. I noticed that the normal setup Sun had an 11x modifier for low space, but only 2x for high. And I wondered why I got such a massive boost even in high space while playing stock. If Squad fixes this it would really upset balance, as a dumb probe into Solar orbit was always an early game cash cow. With a 2x modifier not so much.

It's The Sun.

Would it be possible to fix KSP not reading the FlyingHigh and InSpaceLow values?

This proposal doesn't sound that different from the ones we've heard before, although artificial gravity spinning isn't always in them. My favorite manned Mars landing plan has been Footsteps to Mars. It is based on the lessons learned by Apollo and the Space Shuttle that if you accomplish your goal, your budget will be cut and if you do something often enough, the public will lose interest. So instead of going straight for Mars' surface a couple of times and losing either funding or public attention, there would be several steps: -Mars Flyby -Deimos Landing -Phobos Landing -Equipment Tests in Earth Orbit and Lunar Surface -Mars Polar Landing -Mars Equatorial Landing So each mission would seem fresh enough to keep the public interested and until the first person set foot Mars, politicians would be weary to cancel the program for fear of wasting such an investment before it could be put to effect.

Technogeeky, would it be possible to apply the SCANSat to a pre-defined map? This way of science collection works great for space-based experiments, but you can't get a real gravitational, magnetic field, etc. map from in-game data as far as I know. So if 'fake' maps could be added, people could make like something like this for all the planets which could then be scanned.

In a Reddit thread about it two people showed up that they worked for a research group that was contacted by Interstellar's special effect team to help them understand gravitational lensing around wormholes. So the star sphere seen at the end of trailer is based on some of the (so far theoretical) scientific work done on wormholes.

One thing I'd love to see are animated heat sinks. Imagine after having fired your cannons for a while you needed to deploy heat sinks to prevent your system from overheating. Something like this maybe: Having these pop up, then start to glow white hot would be an amazing sight.

With budgets coming in 0.24 and development of that system still not being completely finalized (judging by dev comments), I thought it’d make sense for me to share some of my views on the issue of reusable and mass produced spacecraft. In real-life space programs there are two ways of designing a launch vehicle or spacecraft. It can either be reusable or it cannot. Most spacecraft and launch vehicles so far have been not reusable, only usable once. The exception to this so far have been elements of the Space Shuttle, and SpaceShipOne. Luckily the future might bring us some more reusable rockets and spacecraft, such as the Falcon/Dragon by SpaceX and the Skylon by Reaction Engines Ltd. Reusable Vehicles There are advantages and disadvantages to a reusable vehicle, but one thing that is clear is that in (stock) KSP it’s quite an accomplishment to make such a thing. The game should reward this skill by giving the player the cost of all the intact parts back upon retrieval. This could be perhaps modified by distance from KSC. This would also incentivize players to invest in a reusable infrastructure of spacecraft moving crew and cargo to Low Kerbin Orbit followed by refuelable space tugs moving them further into the Solar System. Mass Produced Vehicles A reusable vehicle is not the only way that real-life space programs are trying to get costs down. Common designs and mass production are another way. If NASA had to start from scratch for each mission they’d run in the red after only a few launches. They use common designs so that they can mass produce components and keep costs down. If KSP would add a modifier that would reduce costs based on how often a part or a combination of parts would be used by a player (to a certain lower limit), this would incentivize players to come up with common designs and use those to launch their missions. Like reusable vehicles this would add a challenge to the game, because players would have to try to build their missions around what their common design could carry into space. A cost-reduction modifier would reward the player for this. What are your thoughts on this fellow Kerbalnauts?

Just want to say that the redone Mk1-2 model looks great. May I suggest a few things? -Make it carry two Kerbals. Mk1-2's crew of 3 is too much and there's a lack of 2-man pods (at least ones that look like they'd survive reentry). -Perhaps add the airlock texture that a lot of the stock mods have. Would help it fit in with the rest of the stock parts more.

Sounds good. I'll have to try it out.

FlyingHigh is everything above FlyingAltitude to the edge of the atmosphere. InSpaceHigh is everything from SpaceAltitude to the edge of the Sphere of Influence.

I also think that a single Life Support resource is enough for a game like KSP. It's simple to grasp, but still allows a wide range of implementations. One of the problems with how life support is often implemented in mods is a disconnect with living space. To go Mars, astronauts don't simply need an oxygen tank and a CO² scrubber, but also a spacecraft that's spacious enough to live in for months at a time. My idea would be to make Life Support and Living Space the same thing. Only parts with CrewCapacity would produce Life Support, but only half of the number of Kerbals that can get into that pod, cabin, lab or whatever it is. Want to not care about a 3-man space lab in orbit (Mk1-2 has 3 crew capicity and the Lab 2, meaning only 2.5 Kerbals are supported indefinitely)? Add a crew cabin to it. If you want to go the Mun àla Apollo? You'll start out with LS supporting 2.5 Kerbals (Mk2 Lander Can + Mk1-2). After you detach the lander the Mk1-2 can support the 1 Kerbal remaining indefinitely, while the Lander Can can't because it can only support 1 out of 2 Kerbals. So they have time limit. When they meet back up, ditch the Lander Can in orbit and return they'll have a Mk1-2 full of Life Support and 1.5 Kerbal's worth of LS production to get back to Kerbin. Combining this system with a science multiplier if you bring multiple Kerbals with you, then there'd be a system in place that would introduce some planning into manned spacecraft construction and reward player s that manage to get a 10 or 100-man crew to another planet/moon in career mode.

Manned missions already have enough advantages even if probes get surface samples. Manned missions can use every unmanned experiment as well (and more easily take it back home to get max science), they reset goo containers and materials bays using the lab and can more easily traverse multiple biomes (Kerbal on EVA can easily get all biomes) than a simple lander. At the moment there is very few reasons to use unmanned missions. The balance can be moved more towards the center, without removing all advantages of manned missions.

The first official trailer was released. Like the teaser, it blew me away. I find it very intriguing. What did you think?