GluttonyReaper

Indeed! It's not that big a deal yet, but around Jool, solar panels only produce about half the electric charge as they do around Kerbin. Presumably, once Squad adds some more planets further out, this will be far more problematic. Oh, and if you were wondering, that efficiency doesn't actually do anything yet, so don't worry about that.

RTGs produce power continuously, although less than solar panels around Kerbin. They are generally useful for unmanned craft, just giving them enough juice to never run out and go offline. Just put one on and it should work.

Consider me in for this. Like many others, I've never used multiplayer before, but this is a definitely a good starting point. Does KMP give any server tools or anything like that? If so, it might be possible to just roll back the server a few hours and revert any damage done.

Yeah, this is basically my stance on the matter. As much as mods allow you to customize the difficulty to an extent, it is a pain to keep everything updated. I don't really see any drawbacks from implementing them stock (although not actually just copying the code from the mods - the problems with that are detailed here). Although, as I mentioned in my last post, I doubt we'll be seeing any of these any time soon, seeing as Squad are currently trying to get the game "feature-complete" - a lot of these things are just polish really, and the placeholders we have now are probably going to be around for a while. Of course, I'm not a game developer, or even a coder, so I don't really know what I'm talking about.

I agree with you on a lot of points here, but I can see some issues with this kind of approach. The main problem being that believability (for lack of a better word) is entirely subjective. While you and I may consider pancake rockets to be totally absurd, for example, to a lot of people, that might not be the case. And that's what makes this so difficult to balance. I guarantee that there have been plenty of people playing KSP who just thrusted, straight up, into space - and were confused when they fell back down to Kerbin. In that way, being realistic may even stop the game being believable for some people. But, overall, I do agree with you. Even though we are playing a game with little green men who occasionally die of shock, the link to reality in the form of believability is what makes KSP what it is. Without it, it's just some fun little game that might entertain you for a few hours. But, having that link allows the game to work on so many different levels - from MOAR BOOSTERS to hardcore pen-and-paper orbital mechanics. And I feel the ease with which the game can be modded exists mostly for this purpose. Are more realistic aerodynamics believable for you? Then download FAR. Want to design your rockets perfectly for the task at hand? Kerbal Engineer. So, in summary, I wouldn't worry about this too much. The way I see it, the game has only been getting more and more believable with time, both through stock development and mods. Chances are, the career and multiplayer mode stuff might put it all on hold for a bit, but I doubt it will be forgotten.

HarvesteR posted something about this which you might find interesting: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79071-Devnote-Tuesdays-The-0-24-Experimentals-Edition/page7

I believe the third thing is science.

Just wanted to say that I've thoroughly enjoyed this series, and can't wait to see what you've got in store for the future.

Has anyone tried this in Alternis? I think that the shadows are more pronounced there. EDIT: Never mind.

Yeah, all the spaceplane parts are pretty outdated now. They used to look kinda alright, but then all the rocket parts got new textures, leaving these looking really weird.

To be fair, you can simulate this in stock by using tweakables to empty all the fuel tanks.

Also, for later reference, the second command pod probably disappeared because it moved out of physics range. While in the atmosphere, any ships that are more than 2.5km away from the ship are currently controlling will disappear, resulting in any crew in the pod being lost. It's probably better to just keep the two pods as one piece, and add more parachutes.

Interesting idea, but how would this actually be useful, gameplay-wise? Isn't the whole point to have a really efficient engine?

Yep, this is a thing. It works because those Rockomax engines are incredibly light.

Kerbals are able to transfer science between capsules - right click on a capsule, and it should give you the option to take the data.

"Hey guys, watch this!" *takes off helmet while on EVA* That would be entertaining.

Perhaps, instead of leaving the kerbal body in orbit, they could just explode into dust like normal, just leaving the helmet as debris? Y'know, for consistencies sake.

You can right-click the parachute, and it will give you the option to deploy.

Alt + > allows you to activate physical time warp outside atmospheres. This will only let you get to 4x warp though.

I think that not owning something personally is kind of a hard fact of multiplayer, which people either love or hate, rather than an actual issue. Minecraft is quite a good example. In a large, hundred-player server, creations tend to blend together, giving a general sense, rather than an individual one. Whether or not you would like this is simply preference. Of course, this is different with small servers between friends. Here, each person naturally can associate a creation with a specific owner, giving a sense of ownership that is recognised by both the creator and the viewers. It's this second type which KSP seems to be moving more towards, if only for the vast computing power needed to simulate hundreds of ships at once. As for a Spore-esque system, I think the Spaceport is based around a similar idea - people can use other's creations, but the original still stands as is.

Isn't Ceres already analogued by Dres?

If you have an SOI change at high time warp, strange things tend to happen. Maybe this is the cause?

Oh. Right. Forgot about Duna.

I always thought it was the oceans causing this lag. I suppose it's kinda hard to tell though, because all planets with atmospheres also have oceans.

From what I know, this is a technical thing - the lighting in the VAB/SPH isn't real, it's all pre-rendered. If a day/night cycle was implemented, it probably wouldn't look as good, or there would be more lag.