KSK

This. Assuming we're not in total sci-fi territory then I'd argue that firstly, the amount of effort it takes put a large weapons platform into space is disproportionately higher than the effort it would take to destroy it with a cheap and cheerful chunk of metal moving at sufficient velocity. Secondly, all the really important stuff that the combatants would be fighting over is likely to be planetside. I don't think a space battle would even get as far as a siege - it would be MAD all over again but with swarms of kinetic impactors produced as cheaply as possible, with just enough onboard guidance to aim at a planet and a solid rocket motor to hurl it at said planet as fast as possible. Shoot one down and there's another half dozen coming in right behind it. If you're lucky they're aimed at your military infrastructure, if you're not, then your major population centres are about to have a very bad day. Sure, it might be possible to defend against that sort of threat but it would be enormously expensive, to the point where the best defense is making sure that you have an equally good offense. At which point those who have the biggest economy will 'win'.

Sorry about that - fixed.

You sure? I'd place a small wager that there were probably a good few grumpy threads on alt.fan.pitfall.

I can't speak for it's technical correctness - I've been on forums where folks get very...particular about formatting - but for my money, the new style is a lot cleaner and I prefer it. Heh - I'm just up the road, relatively speaking, so our lunchtimes should more or less coincide. If you're ever up around Edinburgh, give me a shout.

It's just going back to your first idea but a cold water bath (using the kitchen sink) is the way I normally do it.

And lunchtime - never forget lunchtime. Personal opinion? World building and character development never get boring and they give all the science and rockets and explosions their point.

Oh man - it's been a long long time since I read that. Good story though. Greg Bear's 'The Forge of God' is kind of relevant to this thread too.

I play games. I'm not a gamer, real or otherwise and have absolutely no desire to be labelled as such. In fact I'd prefer to admit to clubbing baby seals as a hobby.

Nah - if it works, feel free to use it.

Why not both? It could be quite an interesting parallel - Bill and Bob bashing away at the decidedly low-tech (but critical) roof repairs contrasted with the high tech rocketry stuff. The chapter ends with them both sprawled out on their backs on the newly repaired KSC roof, watching the plume of smoke from Athena 1 disappear into the sky. Two jobs - both well done. Or, if you wanted to be a bit meaner, Athena 1 could go off course, plough straight through said newly repaired KSC and the chapter ends with a bunch of disconsolate kerbals walking through the rubble!

Nice pictures and I like the design for Discovery 1. The story seems a little short right now. I can imagine James' desk diary for the week: Monday - to do. Found space program. Friday - to do. Launch satellite into orbit. But that's OK because it completely depends what you want to do with the story - and as a reader I don't know that yet. It could be a bit of text to add some background flavour to your pictures (which it does very well). Or it could be that you're skimming over the early days of both space programs before focusing on the big events to come. Either way, keep up the good work.

A de-cluttered forum without so many duplicate threads. Seriously - we have a whole sub-forum for this kind of stuff - go and have a look at it. Edit: Sorry, that was a little abrupt. But please have a look around before posting, especially if you're posting such an open-ended question. Given how long KSP has been out, there's a good chance that your question has been asked somewhere else on this forum.

Apologies in advance for the length of this post but I figured that Ten Key's considered critique deserved an equally considered response. So here goes. As a general point, the critique was hugely encouraging but also gave me much food for thought. The take-home message (which I got loud and clear ) is: too many characters. As well as some missed opportunities for added drama, this also results in core characters being lost in the noise which, (although Ten Key didn’t say as much) makes it harder than it needs to be for readers to follow the various plot threads. Thinking about it - and I offer this as a reason rather than an excuse - quite a bit of that can be traced back to not being quite sure what I was writing to begin with. First Flight was originally going to be all about the KIS’s peaceful exploration of space, segued into a ‘plucky underdogs vs corporate might’ Space Race and then finally became much more of a Kerbin-wide story, with the KIS and Rockomax only being part of it. End result - a good many characters that were originally intended to be far more important than they ended up being, and who ended up stumbling awkwardly between ‘bit character’ and ‘main character who didn’t get enough page time.’ That’s definitely something to take on board for the re-write. Which will happen eventually, if nothing else, to fix a continuity error that’s been bugging me for a while. In the early kermol chapters, Jonton plants a new Grove, which is described as being a new Kerm seed plus another 36 saplings from an existing Kerm. Later on we find that this would have been a Really Bad Idea. Taking the rest of your comments in turn. Agreed - that’s instructional all by itself. You know what - I know the woman with the wrench that you’re talking about but I can’t recall her name either without going back to the chapter in question. I think that says it all. I do remember she was a minor character in a previous chapter, where the President comes to visit the half built KSC - she gives him a chance to demonstrate his technical understanding, or at least that he’s been very well briefed. Why don’t I just leave her there. I confess that this caught me by surprise, since James and Sherfel had two, fairly meaty, chapters to themselves. But yeah - there is a very large gap between those chapters and the ones you’re talking about. Could be fixed by re-arranging some of the chapters and including a small section where they both come home safely and Rockomax wins the Probodyne prize for keeping four kerbals on orbit for a month. That would close out that particular plot thread and remind the reader who James and Sherfel are. *snip* Erk - there’s something not quite right if Bill, Bob and Wernher melt into the background. Not quite sure how to fix that directly but maybe cutting back the number of minor characters would help. I really appreciate that and all the more so because its a considered opinion with some well articulated caveats attached. Thanks. (Which isn’t to say that I haven’t appreciated all the kind words, positive comments and general support from everyone on the First Flight thread. That’s the kind of thing that really keeps you motivated!) Not without a re-write, since that part of the story is largely done. It’s something to bear in mind though. The way I’ve presented the Kerm crisis has resulted in a fair bit of duplication along the way as various different groups learn about it. That was deliberate but maybe I can figure out a snappier way of doing it. Don’t recall him/her getting one. Gusden was out there in a cutter because he was present in all the preceding ‘military buildup’ chapters. Actually, ‘Lightning’ as a chapter wasn’t too bad for extraneous characters - none of Gusden’s crew or his seconds in command aboard the other boats were named. But, as I said earlier, I do take your point.

They're not wasting it at all. They're using that lead to capture as much market share as they can by porting to different platforms. That gives them a more secure income which they can then use to further develop the game. In the longer term, they're far better off doing that than wasting their time trying to 'finish' one version of the game on one platform. Especially since development on that platform clearly hasn't stopped. If Squad are still releasing parts and pulling in licensing rights from NASA in two years time, then I'd say they've picked exactly the right strategy. Why? Because they'd still be focusing on the core strengths of their game, which are a) the ability to build your own spacecraft the kerbals themselves and c) all the good publicity from NASA etc. Space simulators, with realistic orbital mechanics are not a new thing.

You can make pretty decent scrambled eggs using a microwave although I don't know how well it would work in zero-G. Cooking them in a sealed container wouldn't be hard but I suspect the texture would be fairly weird. But yeah - keeping your flock of egg-laying space chickens is probably more hassle than it's worth.

@ Ten Key. I think all surplus King characters find their way to Mid-World don't they? I too would recommend 'On Writing'', folks - it's pretty short and to the point, with some interesting worked examples. Please do post your comments on First Flight - and thanks in advance for taking the time to write them down.

Well I'm not sure we know that the intermediate neurone aren't adding anything but I'll concede the point. Association fibres only make particular links between regions of the brain, in general a neuron cannot make an arbitrary connection to any other neuron. Sorry - misread your original question slightly. http://www.triniti.ru/CTF%26VM/Articles/Ezhov1.pdf Thank you very much for this link - and have som rep. That does look very interesting and I look forward to reading it! True - but my point about it still needing humans to carry out it's plans still stands. And I don't think it matters how reasonable something might sound, some people will automatically distrust it (and so not do it) if they know they're talking to an AI.

With the 16K RAM pack of course if you want to install mods.

Uhh - actually that sounds kind of fun. I'd buy that, although finding a group of friends to play it with might be a bit harder. Edit: Next platform should definitely be the IBM AP-101S. Yo dawg...

Well I put a fuller answer on the 'writing about writing' thread but if you had to push me, I'd say Space Race of the Cool Schools. That looks very interesting. Thread added to the Fanworks library too.

Oh, I have! And to answer your question - whichever bit you feel like writing next, even if you don't necessarily want to release it next. I've done that a couple of times with my story - when I've been bogged down with one chapter, I've skipped ahead a bit and started work on another one. Your anthology seems perfectly set up for that!

No it doesn't but I think Aqua was making the point to put things in perspective. Firstly, that we've known how to do things with ANNs for a while, so lets not get too excited that they're starting to become popular again. And secondly, that despite the advances in hardware, we haven't progressed quite as much with the underlying theory. Depends what you mean. Identifying that one letter is not another (in other words, the differences between them) wouldn't take long at all. Memorising the full set of shapes would take longer, learning the discrete names and sounds for each letter (which is arguably the point where they become useful) would take longer still.

Thanks for the thoughts and feedback folks. GregroxMun - an anthology/kerbthology sounds like a great plan! A set of stories, made as long or short as you like, all set in the same general universe. That sounds a lot of fun actually since you could jump about all over the timeline depending on what you felt like writing about at the time.

I bet Igor is about ready to bite the head off a mosquito and spit the pointy end at somebody. And that final paragraph...Yeah, just like that. Great work and shaping up to be a more than worthy prequel to Shadows.

That was an epic update... I'm loving the mix of world-building and 'starting from the absolute beginning' rocket science (and yeah it's actual science at this stage) and engineering. All that plus vivid characters and a tangy splash of politics on top. I may have made a slight tactical error by reading it at lunch break today - which turned out to be a rather longer lunch break than anticipated. I regret nothing!