Crush

Believe me, the ****storm has just started. It will get worse and worse with every future update. Squad is in a very bad position right now. There is this long-missing, over-hyped vaguely-defined feature "career mode" on the one side, and a die-hard player community on the other. Everyone in the community has their own expectations how "career mode" should work and feel. But the expectations of everyone are completely different. No matter what they do now, some people will be disappointed. With every future update, there will be people who shout that the game is now "ruined FOREVER!" and would they have listened to their personal opinion (which is of course infallible because they are the only TRUE hardcore fans) they could have saved it, but no, these stupid game developers just did what they thought was right instead of listening to them. There is really nothing Squad can do about that except for further treading water like they did during the past year. But that won't help either, because then there will be people complaining that the game isn't moving forward. Unfortunately there is no "right" direction to move into. Whatever direction they choose, there will be complaints.

The biggest danger for KSPs further development right now is Squad getting frustrated with the vocal minority of whiners while not noticing the silent majority who thinks that they are on the right track.

On a completely unrelated note I would like to ask: Is there still someone who thinks I was wrong when I predicted that career mode would split the whole KSP community and turn a large part of them against Squad, no matter what they do?

Wasn't that from a short story by Isaac Asimov?

An aquarium with that squid-thing from the trailer:

- Magnetometer - Particle detector - Radar for height mapping (see ISA Map Sat mod) - Infra-red and Ultra-violet cameras These would be more useful in open space and in orbit of planets than near the ground. The latter could have a practical use by showing a biome-map of the planet.

For the simulationists: The tech tree is not just about what's technically possible, it's also about inspiring the scientists to try things in the first place. Like after you launched some rockets into orbit, a scientist gets the idea "hey, how about measuring the temperature up there? Let's get a thermometer!".

Paradoxes don't exist in reality. Regardless of scientific discipline, you only encounter paradoxes in theory, and when you encounter them it proves that your theory is incorrect, incomplete or based on wrong information. Take the liars paradox, for example ("Everything I say is a lie!"). The paradox proves that the data got to be wrong.

While the pure apollo-style doesn't make much sense anymore, you can easily get the full science when you modify the mission profile slightly: Just put the parachutes on the LM, take the LM back to Kerbin with the CSM and land with the LM.

Both Duna, Eve and their moons should be within your reach with the tech you've discovered. Don't forget to perform experiments in the open space on the way. There are also a lot of science points to earn there. By the way, when you can get to Eve, you can get anywhere, when you master the art of the Gravity Assist. Scott Manley has a video where he brings the Kerbal-X (that stock ship which usually makes it barely to the Mun surface) to Jool:

I used to play Minecraft, I played Dwarf Fortress (but I am frustrated with the lack of updates) and I occasionally play Terraria. I never played Eve. What I read about it seems too much like serious business. looks promising. Could be another interesting time-waster one day.

But it is an incentive to do things. Science and the tech tree are a reward-based game mechanic. When the player is successful at difficult tasks, they are rewarded with new parts to play with. Bringing a heavy 3-kerbal capsule somewhere is a harder task than doing the same with a lighter 1-kerbal capsule, so there should be a reward for doing so.

Counter-Proposal: Add a sample-capacity to each command pod which is independent of the number of crew. Less for plane cockpits, some for capsule-pods and lots for lander-cans (the interior model even has a box for surface samples). Currently the 3-kerbal capsule hasn't much use because there is hardly a mission which can't be done by a single kerbal (and maybe a bunch of probe cores). But it might get more interesting when astronaut training gets more complex. Some missions might require lots of different skills, but you won't find a single kerbal who has every skill, so you need an especially trained pilot, a geologist, a driver, a mechanic...

Another potential use for space stations could be when astronaut training gets implemented. When I understood it correctly, kerbonauts will gain experience in the future which gives them new skills. When some skills can't be improved unless the kerbonauts apply them in space, an orbital station could serve as a training facility.

Seems like a good idea. In order to do this, surface samples should be handled as inventory items which can be transfered from pod to pod, are kept at the KSC after recovery and can be put onto a pod before launch. I could also imagine experiments which involve bringing samples from different locations together (what happens when the liquids from the oceans of Eve and Laythe are mixed?) Add a large energy consumption to the laboratories and we also have a reason to put some huge solar arrays on them.

A return mission from Mun is possible on a much lower tech level. A rocket consisting only of a parachute, a command pod, a FL-T400 fuel tank (full) and a LV-909 engine has enough power to get from the Mun surface back to Kerbin. To get it full to the surface, you could attach some tanks to it with radial decouplers which you leave behind on the surface. You can also attach the landing legs to the tanks, because you won't need them anymore after leaving the surface. Note that you can only return a single soil sample per command pod and biome. But you can "suck a biome dry" by repeatedly collecting a sample and transmitting it.

That's a typical misconception for beginners in game design. Gameplay is always more important than Simulationism. Tech progression shouldn't depend on what would be realistic. It should depend on what makes sense from a gameplay point of view. New features need to be introduced one after another in a logical progression. Core features first, specialized features later.

I already think that the tech tree made the game a whole lot more interesting. But I think the game will become even more interesting when money is added. Currently you can still solve problems easily by throwing lots and lots of hardware at them. No large fuel tanks yet? Just stack plenty of small ones. Rocket doesn't take off without Mainsails? Moar boosters! When limited budget starts to force me to reach my goals with a limited number of parts I will have to get even more resourceful.

Any science activity loses value the moment you receive science points from it through recovery or transmission. When you don't do either and repeat the activity, it will still have the same value. It isn't possible (to my knowledge) to devalue an experiment without receiving the science points for doing so.

Considering that the Aeris4a just barely makes it to orbit and back, I don't think you can add much payload to it without upgrading it with additional rocket engines and rocket fuel. The inline docking port on top can't be used to attach a payload in the hangar, because you can't open it during construction mode. Docking a payload on the ground would be quite insane, unless you use some mod like Damned Robotics which allows you to build a controlable crane. Your best bet would be to use a radial decoupler to attach the payload to the fuselage.

I encountered this bug several times. When the time-warp level is high enough, there is a high propability that you will fly straight through a planet instead of colliding.

You should publish your findings on the wiki. Any research you publish on the forum will get lost too quickly. This information belongs both into the general science article and into the articles about the different celestial bodies. By the way: Kerbin and Mun have multiple biomes which could have different science multipliers. On Mun, each of the large craters is an individual biome. On Kerbin it's the terrain type.

He hasn't researched them yet?

When you have multiple unrelated suggestions, you should break them up into multiple threads. That makes it easier to discuss them. For 2): Rovers make sense for planets with multiple biomes, because they allow you to travel between the biomes and do experiments. Currently only Kerbin and the Mun have more than one biome, and doing multiple missions to the mun takes less time than driving to another biome, but when biomes are added to the more distant planets and moons, it could make sense to use a rover to visit them. There are mods for 3), 4) and 5).

The "Advanced Science Tech" node in the tech tree unlocks two of the most effective experiments, the Sensor Array Computing Nose Cone and the GRAVMAX Negative Gravioli Detector. But Advanced Science Tech is also one of the last and most expensive tech nodes. When you can afford the science points to unlock this node, you don't need many more science points. This makes these parts a lot less useful than they could be. It doesn't make much sense to place sources of science-points so late in the tech tree. It would be better to move them to an earlier node. This also applies in part to some other scientific parts like the accelerometer which also comes into the game when it's hardly useful anymore.