Stargate525

Extremely unlikely hypothetical. Hitler was a madman who had, several times, made it very clear that there would be no stopping until he had control over everything (with the possible exception of Africa and S.America). That said, assuming someone sane came into power, stopped the Reich at 'just' Europe... He's a **** pawn; he'd work on whatever they told him to. An ICBM isn't out of the question, especially considering the US would be hard-pressed to simply let them sit on Europe. On a slightly off-topic note, the US was actually fairly 3rd Reich friendly until the 40s (something we have conveniently whitewashed from national consciousness). We are still a large majority Germanic descent, even moreso back then. It is ENTIRELY possible that if, instead of declaring on us following Pearl Harbor, Hitler made a condemning speech and swore to stand with 'our Germanic American bretheren' against the threat of Japan, we would have slipped off of neutrality onto the other side.

I'm a bit late to reply on this, but seriously... If Yellowstone goes, loss of power will be a much less pressing issue than making sure humanity lives through the resulting decade of winter. And as for it being in a National Park... Seriously guys? You think that'll stop us? We built a pipeline through a national park before. There's a spot where the caldera nearly touches the boundary of the park, opposite side from Old Faithful. If someone built there, I doubt anyone besides a few die-hard hikers and boaters would ever see it.

The United States is sitting on the largest active caldera in the world at the moment. It's called Yellowstone. Why in blazes haven't we found a nice out of the way spot somewhere in there, run some pipes down, and started up some turbines?

The biggest question I have for them is this: Don't solar cells require some fiddly/expensive materials in their construction? Won't you then incur problems with sinking massive amounts of fairly rare resources into roads? And how are they going to stop people from absconding with these tiles and stripping/selling/retrofitting them for their own purposes?

Current. He's got a team working on a machine to generate teeny-tiny warp rings.

A disengaged docking port is prevented from docking again. It's to prevent an undocked vessel from immediately magnetizing back together.

Wouldn't come close. You're looking at far less mass than the earth, at a size of a kilometer or so. If this is added, please for the love of all that's holy make it a moon; hitting an SOI change with a body this tiny at interplanetary distances would be nigh impossible.

I would hazard to guess that for personnel transfer, it's easier on the body. I don't think any SSTOs experience the 3-4Gs a rocket hits?

Which pretty much means that any vehicle that tends to sit for any length of time is a) a constant, small fire hazard and going to be empty when you need it.

I get that. I'm less saying that about the desire to not want better aerodynamics (which I still don't understand), but about the counterargument 'well if you're going to complain, then you build one.' It's not constructive, and your ability to critique something is independent of your ability to do what you are critiquing. Olympic judges are not professional figure skaters or divers, game critics aren't developers, and watchdog groups aren't politicians.

There was a plan I saw once to build a miles-long tube with generator fans inside it, and utilize air pressure differential of the weather to generate power. The US is sitting on one of the richest geothermal vents we could hope for in Yellowstone. There are engines being developed that will run on any flammable liquid with almost no nasty emissions. We can also pump water up a gigantic hill into a reservoir, or spin up flywheels in a vacuum, or any number of other methods.

You need the aerodynamics in order to simulate planetary bodies with any degree of believability. As it stands, atmospheres are like brick walls, and the drag model is insane. I'll tell you the same thing. If you don't like realistic aerodynamics, get someone to MOD IT BACK. Right now, it's being geared as an educational tool. It is in the best interests of that cause to make things as intelligible and realistic as possible. Arguing that 'you can mod it' and 'I like it the way it is' is anathema to actual improvement and critique. It reminds me of prissy children who, when given critique, throw their tools down and stomp away yelling 'then you do it!'

I've actually found that my payloads have INCREASED since installing FAR. And... I could be misreading it, but is your argument really going to be 'I don't want my space sim to accurately simulate space?'

It's the 'hopefully' in there that worries me. Squad is appearing more and more to me as someone like me; unable to bring something to completion before moving to something else. I know from experience, that's a horrible way to get anything done.

No, don't you remember? We've always been at war with Eastasia. They never said it was impossible and wouldn't be implemented! Perish the thought! /sarcasm I wouldn't mind the doubleback if they hadn't then gone and scrubbed every mention of their previous excuse from the forums and the dev comments. There's being wrong, and then there is retroactively editing your past statements to make it look like you never were.

No. No it isn't. Mods are not an acceptable replacement for terrible endgame, or half-implemented features. The constant reply being trotted out whenever people ask about improved aerodynamics, in-situ resources, etcetera etcetera, is 'just get the mod for it!' I'm worried that soon, that will be the official response as well.

Not necessarily. The only thing Mars is missing is a magnetosphere, which we could theoretically replace, and Venus' upper atmosphere is actually quite nice. Impossible, no. Difficult, yes. And ironically, the beginnings of any effort would be the bacteria and spores we're so careful not to bring along.

That's another bonus. Finally something to use power for.

You're confusing unlimited in reality with unlimited in practicality. If humanity were suddenly given a dyson shell and all the power it captured, for a good half milenia we'd have unlimited power in every practical purpose we could bend it to.

Word of advice: Don't try this with infinite fuel and FAR installed on your game. I built a stubby little super-mainsail rocket, which hit mach 40 as it re-entered, shook itself apart, and then skipped back out into orbit from 10km in the air. Might have to get a clean one (I realized belatedly I also had the rebalance mod installed) and try for something absurd again.

Ion engines or ants, for large stations. +1, would use.

That's the solution to your problem. The CAUSE is those struts. Strutting across a decoupler negates the push of the decoupler when it fires.

Don't care if it works on rails, really, not right now. But yeah, it takes a slight draw of power which is a) more realistic than having a completely dumb pod need no power whatsoever and completely negligible as soon as you mount the smallest solar panel.

I think a good first step for this would be to add a means for the SAS to hold a navball-dependent orientation. Currently, it locks orientation relative to the entire Kerbol system which, long-term, is almost completely useless. It prevents SAS from being any use on a plane, prevents sun-locking a probe or vessel, and also prevents you from facing relative to your orbiting body.

They were. There was exactly one geologist on the moon. That's it. The 2-man reason was indeed for safety. Initially, they weren't 100% certain that an astronaut could GET BACK UP if they fell on the moon. If that had been the case, tripping and dying of suffocation would be the worst death ever.