boomerdog2000

Invest the money going towards a rescue mission into cloning facilities. In all seriousness I believe Jeb will respawn even if he does die. So you don't have to worry about losing him completely.

I recognize your other points however, if someone can reuse a lander for multiple missions by docking it to a mothership in orbit, is that a bad thing? That is a fairly complex mission, that requires forethought and planning. Not to mention, as you said, the vessel will not be up-to-date. Engines, fuel, science equipment, solar panels, a lot of these would probably be swapped out as the design grew. Compared to the Apollo program, reusing a lander already in space is incredibly efficient and I feel we should not punish the player for doing that. Plus the techs required for these sort of dockings and reuse are still a little ways down the tech-tree requiring the player to do more typical missions beforehand.

Maybe something similar to the inline docking port? Shielding to protect them on ascent, then they can deploy. Maybe just 2 times symmetry?

Yes and then you answered that with saying the time-frame will only be a few days, to which our argument is now that construction time is meaningless. You are adding waiting, for waiting's sake. Right, because there's nothing to do during that time. You would just be sitting there waiting. Timewarp or no, that is bad gameplay. Because it isn't gameplay, it's DMV Simulator 2013.

I guess that's our point. Either construction will take exceptionally long and keep you from playing the game. Or it will be short enough to not mean anything. Construction taking time doesn't seem to add anything to me. No matter how you look at it.

Place your first satellite in the desired orbit. Have your second satellite in a different (higher or lower) orbit. Target the first satellite then rendezvous with a point 90 degrees ahead of the first. Repeat. It's what I've done for all my remotetech set-ups. Only hard part comes when doing long interplanetary missions, since the satellites aren't perfectly aligned they tend to drift a bit, but that's only noticeable after many months if you do it right.

Time for a rescue mission?

I was under the impression that it was the opposite. That all planets equators are aligned with the same plane as Kerbol's equator, since the game couldn't deal with planets on a tilted axis. Regardless, wouldn't it be more efficient to do the inclination change in interplanetary space anyway? As long as it's not too extreme.

True enough but, 1. The scanning was probably the slowest part of the game considering nothing was happening and you were just waiting. 2. The amount of time you were skipping was measured in days or weeks, at most a month if you were unlucky. All of this was time you were waiting to actually play the game. Which isn't very good gameplay. 3. Rocket construction takes months or more for the rocket to be finished which can all be for nothing since your rocket might be missing that one crucial strut.

-Every live kerbal that can be returned will be returned -For long duration mission (7 days >) the kerbal capacity must be at least twice the number of kerbals on the mission -Interplanetary missions must have at least 3 crewmen -Any craft carrying kerbals must have parachutes

Fair enough. I forgot to consider time requirements for missions. Although the times could just as easily be toned down to work with the current system. I see your point, and I love XCOM, but the difference is the game gives you missions and things to do during the waiting. The facilities and things you are waiting for may be necessary to succeed in your next mission, but they are not necessary to attempt the next mission. Waiting for rockets to be built would be waiting to even play the game, which I am not a fan of.

Cheat and have a perfect game in a single player game? The point of the game is to have fun. If you have more fun making sure all your missions go perfectly, do it. If you have more fun with the reward from making sure the mission will go perfectly beforehand or living with the failure, do it. There is no right or wrong way to play a single-player game. The only way to play is the way you have fun.

How is it any different than other games allowing you to save and load in case something goes wrong? Virtually any strategy game with a save function falls into this category. The issue of what to do with your save function lies with the players. Take Xcom, if you're willing to do it you can save before every mission to avoid anything going wrong. That is not a fault of the game, that is a player lacking self-control, or who don't have fun when things go wrong.

Why does the in-game time matter so much? The achievement in your satellite relay isn't "It took 90 in-game days to do this." The achievement is "I launched all of these satellites into the exact right orbit and they all do exactly what they are supposed to do. I'm awesome!" The rewards do not lay in some imaginary manipulable game clock. The rewards are the satisfaction you get from your idea working exactly as you planned, or even better, your idea finally working after many failures.

How is it bad planning if my mission is already on its way when the game autowarps it past its encounter because I was trying something else around Kerbin? My point was merely that just having time warp automatically, even if it is instant, will mess people's games up unless you give them an option to warp or not.

This discussion somewhat reminds of me of the construction system in the game Warframe. In order to build a new set of armor you have to wait 3 real days for it to be finished. This isn't nearly as much as a problem since you can do missions normally and still gather resources and things. This is the key difference in ksp and other games that can pull off a waiting mechanic. If you're going to have a time based mechanic you have to give the player something to do during the meantime, or else they are just waiting for waiting's sake. In ksp the times required to do most of the things people want (rocket construction, timed experiments etc.) would realistically be measured in days. And all of these things would be required to play the game. To build and fly your rocket (the core of the game) you would have to wait. To perform an experiment (to get better rockets) you would have to wait. In that other game I don't need that other set of armor. My current armor works fine and can get me through most situations, but I want that other suit of armor. The armor is not necessary for me to advance, but since I want it I am willing to wait for it. TLDR: If you're going to have a waiting mechanic it has to be for something non-essential but useful and you have to give the player something useful and fun to do in the meantime.

And what if that interferes with current missions you have going? Sorry your interplanetary mission swung around the planet and off into deep space because we were autowarping. Even having time costs for parts instead of the whole rocket doesn't add anything to the game, it just adds something that takes time for no other reason than taking time, with nothing to do in the meantime.

I think the different color might be a little too discrete. Maybe just an indicator like on the velocity display, sea level and terrain perhaps?

Built a rigid hull interplanetary craft as a joke, then managed to get it into orbit and to Duna with a full payload of probes for Remotetech and Kethane. That was a fun mission.

I was already really interested in a career focused on space, but KSP taught me a lot more about the orbital mechanics that go into. It made it much easier to visualize what was happening and why burning in different places would do different things.

As far as gameplay is concerned I think the current values are fine. Besides if we're going to design a whole new solar system we might as well make our own right? Instead of copying the one we have.

I don't know about mastered but one of my favorite dockings was replacing a station core with a new model. I undocked all the the separate modules, slid the old core straight out the bottom and the new core right in the top, everything went flawlessly... the 3rd time...

A step button might be cool, since odds are if you didn't revert fast enough most of your craft has failed by that point. It could highlight the first failure, you click a button, it highlights the next failure including the first one.

You can physics warp with it on, but in the water that would probably be even hairier than in space or atmo.

One thing I just thought of. Wouldn't a teleport to x function kind of ruin the feeling of how far those planets really are? When you're watching your interplanetary missions, possible doing others closer to Kerbin with KAC helping, it really feels like the kerbals are way out there. Travelling for a long time may be somewhat boring but it seems within the feel of the game to me.