Tw1

Doesn't seem too big to me. I but I tend to use it on larger rovers. I guess you're trying to fit these craft into places, or need things streamlined though?

I pushed my EVA pack piloting skills to the limit to finish setting up something I started back in 24.2. I break my usual habit of including lots of pictures, because they'd be minor spoilers for Oceans of Eve.

Always let the main theme play though after loading, for luck. Actually, I don't do that. - I like to timewarp when landed s o it's like the Kerbals did get to have a good stay on whatever body they landed on, even if I only walk around for a few minutes.

Not bad. Ages ago someone made one called "Plaid" which expolted physicsless parts to reach the Mun. It probably wouldn't work now, due to atmospheric heating.

I think specifying parts of a mission is redundant. If we had a budget system based on achievements, there would be no need to specify beforehand at all. Plus, you'd avoid missing out on the reward for stuff you did do, but forgot to tick off before hand. While I agree stations should be a bigger part of the game, this just sounds like more busywork. Maybe it could work if the flavour text was done well, and it was a request that made sense, like a kerbal's family wanting him home... But IMHO, the game should move away from trying to tell us what to do, and instead try to set up reasons for us to do stuff. Perhaps station one is in a good position to run some long term experiment, but that would need more Kerbals and another lab. That's a reason to go shuffing things around. No need for arbitrary requests.

That was a risky move. He's already made one unintentional breach of the canopy, wouldn't want to risk another.

That lego style gameplay is what sandbox is for. KSP does that very well. In fact, I tend to recommend friends skip career, just play sandbox, and do their own thing. IMHO, career should have continued with that kind of approach, giving us a framework to work in, rather than a bunch of tasks to work through. Personally, I think Career should not have been built around earning points. It should be about the experience. If it where my decision, I'd put in several more gameplay systems to represent other space program activities, like running stations, exploring planets, etc, and give each of them their own benifits (like scientific gains) and costs (such as needing life support and crew salary.) Indicators of success would be more abstract, such as meters indicating how much you'd contributed to each feild of science that year. (That's another thing. I'd make it more about sustaining, and continually improving your space program, so there wouldn't be a loss of focus when you inevitably finish unlocking the tech tree, building the space center, and other finite aims.) One thing I've always liked about KSP, is how you do get to be involved in the space program at multiple levels. You're the engineer of all spacecraft, the astrophysicist who plots the course, the pilot who executes it. You also get to be the astronaut hopping about on another world, and the one directing the whole thing, but these roles still feel lacking. It saddens me to hear how your nephew responded to lego. Best of luck inspiring him to make some things of his own. Perhaps the types of radiation or heat, tentative atmosphere, or other things coming off the body could have an effect ? I think contracts are a perfect way to represent some types or experiments, without needing to fully model things, (my fave example, cassini's relativity test), but yeah, atm, it's not up to scratch. Definitely agree about the delivery/launching stuff contracts. It makes sense for you to loose control once everything is in place, (contract should be failed of you then go and damage it,) and disappear from the tracking station soon after. With the tourists, I had hoped you'd need to set up stations and basses to gice them somewhere they could be accommodated first. That'd keep you in charge of possible destinations, and be a real reason to build them. In general, contracts would work better if they were grounded in reality, then given a bit of Kerbal-silly flavour, rather than completely pulled from a hat as they are. But, I'd still rather see them become part of a more elaborate system, where you'll also be doing things because it's useful to you, rather than being told to.

I can vouch for this. Tater has been one of the more active contributor in many discussions. You miss his point entirely. The part he considers dumb is the contract system, and the way many of the things you're asked to do make little sense: Yes, we're doing it with goofy kerbals, and the game is an "imaginary" simulation of space conditions. But that's no reason for it to sell itself short. The kerbals add a nice touch of whimsy to the game, but that touch needn't take over the core of the game, which until lately, has always been player vs the cold realities of physics. This game is hard, kerbals take the edge off. I have mostly given up on the current career mode. The game is advertised as "game where the players create their own space program". It hasn't lived up to that. It's a building game, and spaceflight sim, with some space program themed challenges tacked on. Contracts like "deliver 5000 tons of ore to X", or "fling an asteroid out of the system", etc, don't make me feel like I'm running a space program. At best, it makes you a space services provider like SpaceX, at worst, it breaks immersion completely. IMHO, contracts would be better as one part of a bigger system. KSP could be/could've been developed into a far more complex game, where exploring, setting up bases, etc, all benefit the player directly. This would give you motivation to set them up on your own, rather than just because you're being paid to do it. The direction of your space program would be yours to chose, rather than set by the contracts. At the moment, contracts is being used as a shortcut way to include many aspects of a space program which could be better done in other ways. IMHO, KSP could be a much more sophisticated game, with time based budgets, more involved science, and planets worth exploring in detail. If these features eventuated, the odd silly contract would seem more like an optional extra, and not a bizarre job you must do for funding. It is true Squad is not required to do what any of us says. But, if someone a feature lacking, and wants to propose improvements, why should they not be allowed to express themselves, if they do so in a reasonable way?

I've always had an interest in space, and liked exploring. I still follow astronomical events and new discoveries in space. I also made spacecraft out of lego when younger, and drew blueprints of starwars based starships for my friends. I haven't worked in aerospace, but I've definitely got quite a science and design bent.

Yeah, it's been far too long. Life and uni were being sucky, and I needed to see other games for a while. But excuses/reasons aside, it's hight time this updated. Depending on if I also decide to do an Apollo recreation this year, the next bit will be realised in 10 to 15 days. Thank you for your patience. There has been technical difficulties with the Bill Bob and Jeb segment. Currently working on an alternate solution. Please stand by.

Got an old KAS part mostly working with the KIS system. None shall escape my wrath. Been trying to beat my old saves into shape. The tech tree is a little messy, with lots of duplicate entries. Genderbending Kerbals is harder than you'd think. Basically had to create new, slightly different ones, and edit them into place. Accidents happen. And this: Photography for something...

My favourite thread on this from the past. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/120014-Procedurally-generate-surface-objects-of-scientific-interest Same basic idea, which I expanded on im tje second post. The idea was not only having the points of interest, but also using the science instruments to track them down. This will bring rover trips to life. This sort of science like this would be always available, available everywhere on each planet, and wouldn't be a one-off thing.

Water ain't cheap. You'd think it'd be easy to fill up the pool with water from the nearby ocean, but noooo, it doesn't work like that. They need every bit of water they've got for more important things, so they fake the pool's water using a hologram.

I got some photos. Note that the date on the second row is wrong, and should say 1/7. This was last night: (Also, Cherrybrook Observatory is really just my house.)

It's a pity about that new docking ring they were sending up. Falcon 9 still has a pretty good record. Though the ISS isn't having much luck, with these last few missions all failing.

Either alt or double tap sounds reasonable. Alt's already used to change modes, but double taps may occur naturally, as people button mash. But thinking about it, are there really that many situations where directly going from phys warp to regular would be possible, that could cause a problem? When moving along the ground, or in atmosphere, going into regular warp is already prevented. I'm sure there'd be some situation where it could cause problems, but most of the time the automatic thing would stop you.

I like this about the stock aesthetic. To me, the Porket parts are far too smooth. I like turning an old tin can into a sleek space machine in spite of its deficiencies. Sometimes, I go out of my way to fit an orange can, or other 2.5 meter tank in to break up the whiteness of all the new parts.

I personally agree with this approach. Planets, even KSP's shrunken ones, have a lot of room on them. If they could be made more interesting, then each planet would have a lot of things worth visiting on its own.

Yes. As I, and a few others have long been saying, these two points are why the career mode design is fundamentally flawed. Career mode's main features are things that will come to an end. Contracts keep going, but a lot of them feel like busywork, just there to let you earn the funds you need to do other things. A much better approach would have been to make gameplay more about sustaining, than completion. Yes, you'd earn stuff and make new discoveries, but the main career mode challenge would come from management. Can I afford to keep restocking my research station? Do I need to hire more crew? What park of the solar system has not been investigated recently? Feedback would be telling you "you're doing well in this area", rather than "You've done that bit! Good!", encouraging you to continually refine and improve. In addition to that, a lot more could be done to make it feel like you're actually exploring space. Visual enhancements would be one thing, but there actually being interesting things to do while on a planet's surface would add a whole other layer to gameplay. A great experience could be its own reward. At the moment, KSP shoots itself in the foot a little bit here, as it sets you up to want to get things ticked of fast, then move on to the next thing. Some of my best KSP memories come from times when I've been taking it slow, absorbing the scenery, or investigating something for myself. I've written more about alternate game set up ideas here, http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/3444-An-aproach-to-Time-based-funding and here, if anyone's interested. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/1767-Science-is-pretty-shallow-Could-it-be-shaken-up-a-bit With a bit of smarter planning, KSP wouldn't have left any need for any final missions, or anything like that. You wouldn't run out of things to do- you'd do it until you'd had enough.

I like this one. It's got the best of both worlds.*Definitely doesn't start singing Hanna Montana*

My reaction: Meh. I suppose someone out there with a potato of a laptop might have better luck running it on the PS4. But, IMHO, there are better things the Devs could've got to doing first: 1. Working out physics multi threading, and on demand asset/(or at least texture) loading. 2. Procedural items of interest on all planets, and associated modifications to science, so a basic mission gives you at least ten minutes worth of stuff to do when landed, as opposed to the current 30 seconds. 3. Create more game modes and features- maybe even a time budget mode for people who actually want to play space program, rather than space dogsbody. 4. A basic built in real size solar system mode, and/or visual enhancements. Playstation is going to create a lot more testing and debugging work. I hope they are ready for it. Oh, Ok. That's not too bad then.

I think one reason, is because of the kerbals. It would be odd if there are aliens living where you expect humans to be. Some games do have "Earth after humans died out" as a setting, but IMHO, that's been done to death. Not saying a game which uses this setting must be bad, but unless you've got a really good reason for it, it's a little cliche. I quite like it, it's different enough to be a fresh experience for people who know the real solar system, yet similar enough for there to be some relatable experience. Some places are comparable to parts of our real solar system, like the cratered Mun, and thin(ish) atmosphere'd Duna, but there's also room for variety and challenge- like the oddly high gravity of Tylo, or oxygen rich atmosphere Laythe. It's probably worth noting, for me it's not so much about the numbers. When comparing the solar systems, my mind jumps first to aspects like geology, and appearance of the planets, rather than how much delta V you need to get to X. They could have modeled Callisto, Ganymede, Enceladus, Ceres, etc, but ultimately, that would still offer a false experience. Our knowledge of these places is incomplete. Someday, probes will visit these places. A stay on a simulated Io might turn out to be as much of a fiction as a stay current KSP's Pol. But, what you experience on Pol, would always be true for Pol, while what you see on "Io" might not be true for the real Io. Sure, KSP's planets aren't real, but I have friends who will happily talk about things on Tatooine, Krypton, Gallifrey, etc. KSP's planets belong to that category. That said, I can definitelly see where you're coming from, though my taste differs. I found RSS a little disappointing-driving on terrain was glitchy, and terrain was much blander than in stock KSP. A rocket is a delivery system, on the ground is where much of the exploration should happen. IMHO, a lack of stuff to do when you get to a planet is where KSP falls down. It's better if you stay really close. I had wondered for a while if rendering the planets at a lower field of view to make them seem wider would work, but after playing around with the FOV zoom, I think this could be a little disorientating. Also, Lazy8, your name reminds be of Lazy 8 studios, who made Extrasolar. Now there's a good planetary exploration game.

There's also this... http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/39569-KAS-Crossbow-Constant-escalation-of-insanity

It's much more fun for visitors if they get to experience that archaic system when over there. So... no? [/flawless logic] But yeah, that date thing is really weird, and you guys should stop doing it.