Eric S

I have to disagree. I understand the conservation of momentum aspect. The thing is, yes, you get some angular momentum as the fuel enters the fuel line, but you'll get a corresponding opposite angular momentum when the fuel reaches the end of that fuel line. It's probably something that would still have to be taken into consideration because these are very large fuel flows we're talking about here, but given that the fuel lines would be full before the launch clamps release, the worst part is behind you by the time you leave the pad.

Of the things that could seriously impact the use of asparagus staging in career mode, the most likely possibility may be that asparagus launchers will just be more expensive due to more engines. If 6 engines that combined have the same thrust as one big engine, but the one big engine works out cheaper, then the big engine could be more cost effective. The other possibilities: Kill fuel lines: Not likely. Rebalance engine TWR, ISP, and fuel tank dry weight so that engines aren't so much dead weight. Not likely. A better aerodynamics model: This really depends on how realistic they make it. RL aerodynamic drag losses (as a % of total delta-v) are more than an order of magnitude less than they are in KSP, so unless they go semi-realistic, asparagus can afford higher drag losses than normal stacks. As for making radial decouplers very high drag, we'd need the better aerodynamics model to make that practial, otherwise, the numbers would have to be stupidly high because of the low mass of the radial decouplers. Not to mention the fact that you'd be doing the same amount of damage to very traditional boosters.

If asparagus staging were the only thing that used fuel lines, I'd agree, but all my decent non-low-gravity landers are dependent on them as well, mostly because fuel doesn't flow between radially attached tanks, and for mid to low gravity landers, I always have more tanks than engines, and I really don't want to try landing a tall lander. So I go wide. Probably, but the other issues need to be sorted out first. 5500 research for something as important as Mainsails would be a real bottleneck if we put an end to 4000K Mun missions. Sort out the other stuff, and then see if the tech tree costs need to be rebalanced. There's also the point that the tech tree isn't the end all be all of career mode, it may be less important once we've got a budget and other career mode features. Or have diminishing returns kick in harder on transmitted results so that you can only get 50% of the max research from transmitted data, the last 50% has to be with recovered experiments, for those experiments where it makes sense that a recovered experiment would yield much more data. Sample returns (including atmo samples), Goo and Material Science would definitely fall into this category. Maybe make the diminishing returns cap for transmitted results be the percentage loss, so materials science could get the first 20% with transmitted results, past that you'd need returns. EVA reports would get 50% transmitted results, and crew reports could do all 100% with transmitted results. Another option I've seen proposed would be a limit on the number of times certain experiments can be run with a single part. For example, a materials science bay could have enough materials to run the experiment at most 5 times. If you wanted to run a materials science test on each of the 14 Munar biomes, you'd need to take three Science Jrs, or run multiple missions. Disagree. Timewarp makes any time-dependency pointless unless we get life support, and even then, it wouldn't be hard to get around. I suspect that this is coming. The devs have already talked of having satellite relays, and that wouldn't make any sense with this antenna. Nice, but not necessary. Some of this other stuff is necessary. It would be nice, but it could exacerbate the problems with science points being too available. Especially since most science would just be sensors where it would be hard to justify a big hit on transmitted results.

Moar Boosters is right. Turbo fuel pumps are one of the most frequent non-human causes of rocket failures, and asparagus staging would make a rocket even more dependent on them. On the other hand, even basic cross-feeding between two fuel stacks, both with an engine, took 60 years from the time someone pictured it to the time someone thinks they'll actually fly something like that. SpaceX's Falcon 9 Heavy will be doing that, and there's a proposed variant on the Delta IV Heavy that will do it as well, despite the idea first being proposed in 1947. So it's too early to say that we'll never see asparagus staging in real life, but yes, there are some technical issues that need to be resolved before the launchers would be considered reliable.

I didn't have landing legs so I was kind of limited, but if I remember right, it was several hundred but not a thousand. I think my next play through the tech tree is going to be a deliberately non-grindy play. No more than one radio return per experiment per biome per mission. So the only experiments that get doubled up on are the ones that I bring back. To be honest, I'm expecting that to at least cut my returns per mission in half on post-solar-panel missions.

Your statement that I'm missing your point is missing my point. I do understand that it would be useful and I actually think it would be a good idea. Where we disagree is that I don't think it's necessary except for the extreme minmaxers, so I think your criticism of your critics is a bit harsh, overstated, and dismissive. Let's look at what I quoted. I'll admit that some of the people are disagreeing by thinking you're wanting something more than you are, but this hardly means that everyone that disagrees on those two issues is completely misguided. My first orbit of the moon, I got EVA reports from six biomes. This was without looking at a map on the web or even knowing how the biomes were broken down. It was basically "warp to just before an interesting feature, EVA, take reports until I'm past the interesting feature (so about 15-30 seconds worth), then warp to the next one and repeat." "Hey, there's a big crater, let's try that." "How about over here where the soil looks darker." Not every interesting feature was its own biome, but in 5 minutes, I had six reports and hadn't started feeling like I was grinding yet. I'll admit that when I looked up how many biomes the Mun had I wanted to go back and get more, but not because I needed them for anything, but just because I wanted my collection to be complete. So yes, while it would be useful, it's not necessary unless you feel you need to get them all or have a very low tolerance to anything resembling grinding.

I would like to see in 0.23: Altered diminishing returns from transmitted science results so that you can exhaust what you can learn from transmitted results, but still learn more from recovered experiments. Being able to cap out science in a single trip with just one science module, a solar panel, and a transmitter will make balancing the tech costs wonky because science is so plentiful in that model. Something to make rovers and space stations play a part in science. I don't like the idea of a science module that just generates science though, so I'm not sure what to do for space stations. Budget as the next part of career mode. Things I'd like to see but I think 0.23 is too soon for: Resources, duh :-) Improved aerodynamic model, including reentry heat (the model the devs had previously discussed that doesn't involve heat shields is fine, since we're reentering at a third the speed, if not slower). Rebalanced scaling on the science returns/cost of techs. I'm fine with your first mission unlocking the second tier tech and all three third tier techs if you do a decent orbital mission. Where the current situation goes off the rails is that you can easily continue to pick up a full tier or two of techs per mission as you progress, even when you're on the last tier. It just feels like tech is going to be a non-issue long before you get very far in the solar system. Even if it's just one last, very expensive tier of very nice parts, it would be nice to always have something to look forward to in the tech field, like airbags or skycrane winches. I don't think that now is the time to look at this, because maxing the science for a biome in a single mission needs to be looked at first, and will affect the science returns, which will affect what the reasonable cost of techs should be.

Not really. You don't have to collect all the biomes of the moon to finish the tech tree. Heck, I've completed the tech tree in a save where the only places I landed at the time I finished the tech tree were on Kerbin, Minmus, Duna, Ike, and Gilly. One Munar flyby got me five EVA reports (one high space, four near space over biomes), and that was the extent of my contact with the Mun in the entire save. That said, I'm not actually against your suggestion, I'd like to see it, but really, "if it's boring don't do it" is a valid answer in this case. If it's not fun and isn't necessary, why do it? The game itself isn't compelling you to do it. I think this is at the heart of the issue. The way you play the game is not the way most people do (I'm probably closer to your style than normal people's style), and you're asking for a feature that suits your playstyle and dismissing the opinions of people that don't have your playstyle. As I said, this really isn't a critique of your suggestion, as I'm in favor of it, but rather of your way of dealing with criticism about it.

This is not true, they all have the same rate of loss. Relative to the starter Communotron 16, the medium dish takes 80% as much time and 150% as much power for the same amount of data. The large dish takes 60% as much time and 200% of the power. Because of the power increases for transmitting the same amount of data, unless your craft has enough power to keep an antenna transmitting 80% of the time, you'll actually be able to transmit faster using a lower antenna.

Actually, there's one mod that makes it easy. TTModularWheels has an omniwheel that allows the vehicle to move in any direction, and even has ram lifts to adjust the height of the docking port. Makes ground docking even easier than orbital docking.

I have no clue what they mean by throughput. Here's the real numbers, with the 16 being baseline. DTS-M1 transmits in 80% of the time using 150% of the power, given the same data. 88-88 transmits in 60% of the time using 200% of the power, given the same data. So unless your ship has enough power to run one of the dish antennas with at least an 80% uptime, the 16 will actually turn out faster, since it takes less power to send the same info. Multiple antennas can be a mess, the data queueing algorithm looks for an antenna that isn't sending anything, and if it doesn't find it, dumps it all on the first antenna it found, resulting in the first antenna having a massive queue and all of the other antennas having a queue of one item.

Actually, I've used those on a lot of my motherships that drop probes because it detaches from both sides, so I don't wind up carrying unneeded mass on the mothership, and my probe isn't lop sided.

The actual numbers: The middle antenna takes 80% as long as the -16, and 50% more power for the same amount of data. The big antenna takes 60% as long as the -16, and 100% more power. This means that if you don't have enough power to at least keep the antenna mostly active (transmitting about 80% of the time), you'll actually transmit the data faster with a slower antenna. This also means that multiple -16's are almost always better than fewer of the other antennas provided you're continuously generating reports, not doing one huge batch. The reason for this is because the queueing isn't done very reasonably, if all the antennas are busy, the new report gets queued to the first antenna that was found, which means that if you do a big batch of reports where you finish queueing them before any finish sending, you'll get one report each to all antennas other than the first one, all other reports will go out the first antenna.

All five will register, but diminishing returns will mean that each one will get less than the one before it.

In what way are they ditching the hardcore crowd? I haven't found any aspect of 0.22 to be easier than 0.21. If they can aim the tech tree at new players or the hardcore crowd and let the other group mod the tech tree to fit their desires, which do you think is more capable of modding, the new players, or the hardcore crowd? I don't agree with every decision that they've made, but I can understand the reasoning, and it's really not going to affect my enjoyment of the game. Not sure I'd call myself part of the hardcore crowd, but I'm certainly not a casual player.

I have to disagree on almost all of this. Career mode isn't just the tech tree, so it's way too early to be saying that it's done backwards. Once there's an actual budget in the game, there could be penalties for going over the budget, but achieving all assigned tasks and then going farther on that same budget shouldn't be prohibited.

The way electricity works, it can't be used until it's stored in a battery. If the stayputnik itself doesn't have enough capacity to send a packet, then no number of solar panels will get you there.

My Eve lander probe was broadcasting high-atmosphere results for over an hour after it touched down, you can most definitely spam the science on the way down. It was still broadcasting "flying in eve's atmosphere" when I went to bed. I may have overdone the spamming (as in definitely, by the time it got towards the end, all the experiments were returning 0 science), but when you see 1200 points for a single experiment, you don't want to miss a single chance at getting more of that. The way I do it is to put all my experiments on an action button. Hit the button, click transmit on each popup. Wait a few seconds after clicking the last one for all the animations to complete, then hit the action button again (the delay avoids a popup that you may be running into that does cancel the previous experiment). I found that multiple antenna's didn't help much, so it may be buggy, or it may just not work. I found that it would start using the first antenna, then start using the second antenna. From the time it started queueing things for the first antenna, it never queued anything for the second antenna. Ah, a little experiment, and now I understand better. The system that assigns an experiment transmission to an antenna doesn't load balance very well. It seems that if all the antennas are in use, it assigns the transmission to the first antenna it finds, even if that one antenna has a lot of items queued and the other antennas only have a single item to transmit. So, as long as you're generating a constant stream of experiments, it seems that you're better off with multiple 16s instead of the dish antennas. Dang it, and I've got a Jool impactor already in system, and now I want to redesign it.

If you transmit an experiment until you stop getting science points for it, you'll be at the same point as if you recovered the experiment until you stopped getting points for it.

Just to clarify, that's one sample per biome. So you can (and I have) brought back multiple surface samples in a single capsule, you just have to go to more places.

With my limited background in radio theory, I do think the 88-88 should be more efficient power-wise (the data speed depends more on the frequency than the antenna). However, in game, the 88-88 takes twice the power to transmit the same data, though it does it in half the time. Just to clarify, that's twice the total power, not twice the power per second. The smaller dish is between the two in both speed and power usage.

Actually, that's the difference between manned and unmanned craft. An unmanned craft with no power is a ballistic projectile, a manned craft with no power can still do anything that doesn't require power. As for the engines, some engines generate power, some don't. The larger the engine, the more likely it is to generate power, but that's not a hard rule, the Atomic Motor for example, doesn't.

While I agree with this whole point, samples from different biomes don't count against each other, you can actually get multiple non-transmitted return samples by hopping around the Mun, I've done it.

The worst is MechJeb controlling the reaction wheels. It always wants to correct the heading, and it always corrects at full power.

True, and it is, even in career mode, the thermometer is two tiers closer to the start than the atomic engine. I don't know who started the whole "NERVA comes before ladders" thing, but it isn't that way in 0.22, and wasn't that way in any of the videos shown during the last livestream weekend.