JumpsterG

Hey tater! Let me start by saying it's very clear that you prefer to play a more challenging and time-sensitive game than I do, so take my opinions below with a grain of salt. I'm not a fan of the existing life support options for that exact reason. I'm very excited about RoverDude's proposed system, because it requires the player to be concerned with life support, and perform resupply missions, while letting you ignore stations and flights in progress that you aren't interested in playing with. This seems to be a very small change that mostly comes down to the names of things and changing the rewards around. I'm not saying it's wrong, since it sounds more logically laid out (the contract types being separated by funds-generating and science-gathering is cool) but I don't feel it changes anything in the long run, since players will still be doing the same things. With the right balancing and tuning, this would work fine, but the impact wouldn't be huge. Here, I have to disagree. Sure, if you want to eliminate redundant part-testing contracts, a good rebalance might be in order, or maybe give the entirety of "Mission" contracts payout right away, so you have enough to do all steps of the mission as you go. But why would you ever enjoy sitting at the space center and playing the timewarp-stopwatch mini-game? If you are playing a more complex game that manages ongoing incomes and expenses and there are other time-constraints, THEN it makes sense. But the base game is very likely not going to go that route. I personally would not enjoy that level of management, since it detracts from the time I would otherwise be spending building things and flying missions, and I think most players are in the same boat I am. - - - Updated - - - Ultimately, I agree, the tech tree shouldn't appear to be the goal of the game. How specifically to fix this should probably be the subject of a larger discussion. The suggestion in this thread has some merit beyond fixing the tech tree though, since it would also affect Sandbox mode and create new and interesting design challenges. The OP is offering that Life Support is a feature that would enrich multiple parts of the game at once, including helping tech tree progression.

Agreed, there would need to be life support parts cheap enough and low enough on the tree to be worth it, since it does become a requirement to going interplanetary. Although, life support in no way restricts probes, so even if the parts were very expensive and/or high in the tech tree, that would push probes as the natural option for early interplanetary missions. I actually agree with you 100%. I do not like revisiting a biome to do the same experiment. When I play, I already skip revisits almost entirely for going to new biomes, since these individual missions maximize the player-time : science gained ratio. And you're right, adjusting the difficulty slider for science rewards up and down effectively adjusts how many revisits to biomes needs to be done, so maybe this isn't too critical a balance issue.

Much simpler than that. Others (and of course RoverDude) have already tried to explain it but I'll take a shot at it, too: Kerbals will constantly consume supplies the same way a probe core constantly consumes electriccharge. We don't know the rate of consumption for supplies yet (and it will be configurable so it can be different in your game) but once we do, it will be easy to calculate x supplies per kerbal per day. If at any point the kerbal has access to 0 supply resource, his time-to-starve counter will start counting down from 15 days. During early career mode, no life support parts are necessary because 15 days is plenty of time to accomplish mun and minmus round-trips. Once a kerbal's time-to-starve counter hits 0, they will break into any locked supply container, since kerbals will not tolerate starving when there are accessible supplies. A starved kerbal (the first to randomly reach it) will greedily consume all the resources in the container, so this is both humorous and penalizes the player for trying to game the system. If a kerbal's time-to-starve counter hits 0 and there is no locked supply to break into, they go dormant (or die depending on your settings). Dormant kerbals can be "awakened" by docking a new source of supplies, at which point they go back to normal and resume consuming supplies. EVA is a special case, where each kerbal on EVA has a 3-day time-to-starve counter which begins upon exiting a vessel. If they're still on EVA when their time-to-starve counter runs out, they will go missing and eventually wind up back at the recruitment building (or die depending on your settings). Presumably, the kerbal will maintain that 3-days-to-starve countdown upon entering a new vessel with no access to supplies? Maybe go back to whatever their previous countdown value was, minus the time spent in EVA? (This may be something that has not yet been fleshed out by RoverDude) --- RoverDude, it occurs to me that a player could still game the system a bit by locking a supply container, waiting 14 days (just before the starvation countdown finishes), unlocking it to let kerbals consume a little supply (resetting their starvation countdown), then locking the supply again. It's another exploit that anyone seriously playing with the mod wouldn't use, but I thought I'd mention it.

I think OP is in agreement with you. Right now, he's able to finish the whole tech tree without going further than Duna orbit. He's proposing some new tech nodes (related to life support) to the game to spread the tree out (costing more overall and requiring more science from further places). Although maybe what you suggest will provoke players to go interplanetary sooner, I think it will unintentionally make the game more grindy, since way less science will be generated over a comparable period of play. I'm also not sure that players should really be pushed too hard to go interplanetary. If a player is not yet sure about how to go interplanetary or is just enjoying themselves scraping every biome of Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus, that's fine. Once they grow bored of it, or want to reach the last segments of the tech tree (probably their least favorite nodes, since they would already have picked the best for their playstyle by this point), they'll go interplanetary without much prompting. Finally, Some rebalancing of science rewards and costs of tech nodes is needed (and currently being worked on by the devs! We'll have to see what Harvester came up with). Life Support doesn't have to be extreme. The proposed mod by RoverDude is interesting in that it doesn't enact permanent consequences (by default, anyway) for failing to meet its requirements. Kerbal ships essentially become uncontrollable once out of supplies, just like probe cores do when they run out of electricity. There's a little more complexity (and fun!) to it, but that's the idea. Also, the parts for life support can vary by tech levels. Assuming dedicated life support is not required for the short trips within the Kerbin system, the first life support parts can come along around the time the game starts giving space station and planetary base contracts, which is suitably mid-game and should be enough for easy trips to, say, Eve, Duna, and Dres at least (creative players will always be able to go further). A few more parts going up the tech tree can give more flexibility the further along the tech tree you go (different size containers, recycling capability, generation of life support resources in the field).

Ah! Ignore my previous suggestion then. A single standard supply run will replenish a neglected station in this model, which is exactly what I want. I absolutely love the system you've got going on. There's a remaining possible exploit of sending supplies in a separate vessel from your kerbal ship and docking the two together at destination; which I thought was covered by the starving kerbal mechanic (hence my suggestion). I don't think you need to worry very much about this or further exploits, though, since anyone actively trying to avoid the life support requirement should probably just uninstall the mod instead.

I don't know, I've experienced some obnoxious bird performances at 1 AM... Crazy birds. But in-game, yes, more variety, please!

Thank you for pointing to that, I was unaware of his plans for that new life support addition. I second that it is exactly what this OP is proposing and would work beautifully at not creating distractions from the missions you really want to focus on while adding interesting challenge and requirements for the interplanetary mid/late-game for career mode. I heavily agree with your take on the proposed "Bad Solutions" also. They all "fix" a problem or two but in my opinion come with many new problems that would need further features and refinements to work.

I just want to say that I'm thrilled with what sounds like a timewarp-friendly life support implementation. My ultimate problem with all the life support mods thus far is that I cannot safely timewarp through a mission I am focused on without needing to stop what I'm doing to make supply runs to existing stations (potentially MANY, MANY supply runs during a long mission to Eeloo). The way this life-support system works, I am required to make sure my ACTIVE mission has the supplies it needs at all stages, with appropriate mission-fouling consequences for poor planning MEANWHILE other stations or ships I don't care about can wait to be resupplied for when I am interested in doing so. If at some point I want to play with a ship that's been docked at my neglected station, I will THEN be required to do a resupply mission, rather then every time the supply drops low. Individual kerbals gorging themselves on new supplies (throwing away a bunch) may complicate this playstyle but I betcha there's a good workaround (Specialized resupply boat with a bunch of 1 supply radials, ) or a potential new feature to cover it... Off the cuff: Instead of the "first starving kerbal eating everything in a container" mechanic, maybe just track each kerbal's supply deficit? In other words, track how much supplies each kerbal has missed out on consuming after running out of supplies. Then when a locked container is opened in desperation or a supply ship docks with starved kerbals present, the starved Kerbals will attempt one-by-one to consume enough supplies until they've brought their supply deficit back to positive. Seems like it would have the same effect, would allow resupplying starved kerbals in a logical manner (current system, 3 1-supply containers revives 3 starved kerbals while 1 100-supply container revives only 1 with no resources left behind), and doesn't let the player get away with depriving Kerbals for months without resupplying a corresponding amount of supplies.

Time limits can induce challenge and provide an offset to the "timewarp for maximum funds/science" problem, but we're still talking about solar system scales here. If there's a time limit for rescuing a kerbal from Kerbin orbit, how do you set it to be fair? If he's in an easy orbit (0 degree equatorial) it easily can be done in less than an hour if you know how or many orbits if you're still learning to rendezvous; If he's in a weird orbit (high inclination, high eccentricity, high Ap), you'd have to give a wide enough margin of time for a regular player to figure out the more complex rendezvous. If the game places the kerbal outside the Kerbin system, you're not picking him up within a day, and he could be anywhere in position around the sun, so you'd have to give a wide margin to include waiting on a transfer window, transfer time, and time for rendezvous maneuvers. This leads directly to problems with other interplanetary contracts... How do you set a fair time limit for getting to Duna? Too high and it's not a challenge for anyone; too low and newer players could fail a contract even if they succeeded in getting to their destination and returning if they took too long. If you also have a mechanic of generating funds/science over time, then there's the min-maxy situation of a player trying to timewarp just enough to get as much funds/science as possible but not too far as to miss a deadline, which doesn't sound like a fun minigame at all (playing stopwatch with the time/funds indicators). I'm not saying time limits couldn't be done well, but it's my opinion that it's very difficult to tune these limits to a satisfactory levels (especially if you're trying to please everyone). If I had to implement a system of monthly expenses, I would go your route by offsetting monthly expenses with some form of monthly income. In such a way, players could build infrastructure to make their space agency self-sufficient, and thus would not have to worry about hemorrhaging funds while timewarping during missions. Preventing players from having infinite funds through timewarping becomes a problem if you aren't using some kind of constraint, though (see time limits above), so I'm still not 100% on board with this implementation, but I could see it working if a clever workaround could be made. All of this adds complexity and some degree of grinding to the game, so keep that in mind. I feel the devs have tried to design the game to reward the player's exploits without forcing them to do things in a specific way or with heavy requirements. As an aside, I'm enjoying considering the consequences of various implementations. There's many ways the game could be done that would all be valid but require different paradigms. - - - Updated - - - True, there's a style of play that never needs to hire any kerbals whatsoever. In this case, the problem of salaries doesn't even come up, really. Though 1 mission at a time doesn't mean a player doesn't maintain a space station or set up planetary bases populated with Kerbals. Just that they will timewarp whatever craft they are focused on until the whole mission that craft is on is finished. There's also some leeway in that a player that typically plays 1 mission at a time may sometimes not do that and instead do multi-mission things, like constructing multi-vessel ships in orbit, or having an armada meet up at another planet. the point is that they focus on a project rather than their space agency as a whole, and they may very well not want to be distracted from their current project because funds drain at a constant rate. On the other hand, I do agree that offsetting monthly costs with some form of monthly income could be made to work. See my last post above for some of that. But there are consequences: If income > expenses then timewarping provides infinite funds (making funds irrelevant). To fix this, some form of time limiting mechanic is needed, so that timewarping too much causes the player some kind of setback they'd want to avoid. In my post above, I laid out a bit how time limits are tricky to set in the first place, but they can be made to work. My biggest fear for time limits is that they force players to pay attention to them instead of the mission they want to focus on. Basically, there's a cascade of new layers of complexity once you allow one time-based mechanic into the design. It can be made to work, but ultimately it adds more things a player needs to keep track of. There are definitely players who like this level of complexity, but to enforce it on all players may be too much.

On one hand, I'm with you, because I feel that managing finances and multiple projects with respect to time is within the realm of a space program tycoon game, and if you don't want to go bankrupt, of course you wouldn't timewarp blindly. But here's the thing. Right now, there's two styles of playing: -Flying one mission at a time Launch and orbit timewarp to transfer window transfer burn timewarp to destination do stuff timewarp to return window return burn timewarp to home Land ... Repeat for next mission -Flying multiple missions Launch and orbit Flight 1 Timewarp to Flight 1's transfer window Transfer burn for Flight 1 Launch and orbit Flight 2 Timewarp to Flight 2's transfer window Transfer burn for Flight 2 Timewarp to Flight 2's destination Do stuff with Flight 2 Timewarp to Flight 1's destination Do stuff with Flight 1 Timewarp to Flight 2's return window Return burn for Flight 2 Timewarp to Flight 2 return Land Flight 2 Launch and orbit Flight 3 ... Continue launching new flights and managing existing ones Both styles are valid and work with the proposed system. Using a time-based mechanic, like monthly salaries, the first style becomes problematic for anything interplanetary (especially if we're going by Kerbin months and not Earth months): According to http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/, a simple Duna trip will take 66 Earth days (233 Kerbin days) just to arrive at the planet. That's about 2 (or 7) Kerbal pay periods if you're paying out salaries monthly. So, the player trying to do 1 mission at a time is going to bankrupt himself on salaries since he isn't accomplishing contracts during the time he is following a mission. Sure, if the salaries were made insignificant enough, then it could work, but then what's the point of having salaries? Furthermore, the player who is managing multiple missions will certainly not bankrupt themself, but how many short, Kerbin-system contracts will a player want to do while waiting for their Eeloo ship to finish transferring? As a reminder, Eeloo is about 1 year 106 days transit (Kerbal time: 4 years 184 days), so we're talking 15 months (57 Kerbin months) of contracts. Even if one mission a month was enough to cover the costs, that's 15 separate missions before you could finish the one you're waiting on. Again, if salaries were small enough not to matter, you could skip some or all of these missions, but what's the point of the salaries then? On the point of salaries: A salary mechanic means that having more kerbals costs more funds, and that's all it should entail. Managing monthly budgets (and interrupting my missions to have me grind other missions) is a layer of complexity beyond that simple concept. Feel free to disagree with my opinion here. I've enjoyed mechanics like the Snacks! mod where I DO have to halt missions in progress to go maintain something else, so I know it isn't all bad. I just fear it being the ONLY way to play in a game that encourages players to do things their own way. Summary: I feel this is the reason the developers are steering away from time-based mechanics. It isn't the fact that we can just warp through things but rather that players would be forced to divide their attention (some of which may enjoy it, some of which may not). With the simpler system, players who want to manage more than one thing can do so, but with built-in time-mechanics, players would have no choice but to multitask (or eat severe costs by timewarping too much).

How much funds are we talking here? And what kind of curve are we looking at? If it starts really low (as it sounds like it will), I'd expect the first 5-10 kerbals to cost practically nothing, which doesn't change the early game much at all. Only mid and late game will be significantly affected (and with the funds you probably have at that point, will it really?) If at any point a Kerbal would cost the same as a rocket (10,000-ish?), is that what should be considered prohibitively expensive? If they implement a simple curve like (100, 200, 300, 400, etc.), it would hit 10,000 for the 100th kerbal. A lower increment might create a curve like (100, 150, 200, 250, etc.), which would hit 5,050 for the 100th kerbal. It's very simplistic, but I think this can be tuned to work. It also sounds like a perfect candidate for a difficulty slider. As far as managing salaries on a time-based system (and anywhere that time warp is concerned), I don't think the core game will benefit from players being required to juggle things if they aren't interested in doing so. Using Kerbal Alarm Clock is awesome, managing monthly expenses could be cool, maintaining life support among multiple crews and missions is neat and challenging, but all of these things are pitfalls for a more casual player: "Oops, I timewarped to finish my Eeloo mission, and now my budget is in the red..." or cause frustration for more knowledgeable players, "There's no WAY I'm doing an Eeloo mission, I'll need to interrupt it like 24 times to do other contracts just to keep my budget from going into the red...".

Should I post this in it's own thread? I guess it belongs here: Musician is my wife, Cat is our cat, Icons created by a friend. The April Fools joke is that this channel is not an April Fools joke, and should receive more videos over time.

I attended the recent performance in New York. It's just as fun as any concert you might go to, and it is very much a "live" performance; the vocals have been recorded in advance using the vocaloid software, but the instrumentals are played on stage by musicians. Using a projection system, they're able to have 3d models dance and perform on stage, which is not much different from watching an animated music video, with the added effect that the model can work the crowd to some degree. Throw in an obligatory lights/lasers/pyrotechnics show and you have a pretty cool event. The songs themselves range in genre; you can find pop, rock, r&b, and other styles rendered with the vocaloid voices. I think that this flexibility is really why the whole vocaloid thing has taken off: the vocaloids themselves are better thought of as instruments, rather than as "personalities", and the enormous body of music now available shows how interested artists are in the technology. The fact that vocaloids have different capabilities from singers opens up new avenues for artists as well. Unnaturally high or low notes, high tempo singing without loss of diction, the ability to generate the exact same sound repeatedly and reliably, never needing to stop for a breath. It's cool to see what composers are doing with these tools. Applying a "character" to the voice is just very good marketing. It's easier, more recognizable, and more fun to stamp Miku's image as a pop star on an album cover, rather than try to market a generic synthesized album created by sound engineers. Finally, I don't think there's anyone who expects vocaloids in their current form to replace traditional singers. There may come a time when synthetic voices are easy enough to work with, and widely accepted enough that studios will be able to replace singers with software for automation reasons (reducing payroll, reducing time requirements, etc.) but I have a hard time believing society at large would prefer vocaloid music in their top 40 charts any time soon. And now that I've already outed myself as a vocaloid fan... Any Civ5 players should try the vocaloid faction mod. There's an enormous soundtrack to go with it (see description for soundtrack mod) and the gameplay style for the faction will amuse you (replaces all great musicians with special vocaloid units; spring onion farm tile improvement; lots more space for great works of music).

If you are saying that you question the big bang theory, that's fine, a discussion can be had about that, but why post about it in a thread called "What's the stupidest space-related thing you've ever heard someone say?" Are you making a joke?

Thanks for the beta invite, Blizzy, I did get it. Life is hectic at the moment (I am salaried and there is a big deadline coming up, so working nights and weekends it is!). While I personally can't promise any time over this coming weekend, beta testers interested in testing the multiplayer functionality would benefit from a rough time to expect each other to be logged in. If not for my project, I would propose a late Sunday hour (for me, this is US Eastern Time). If anyone else is interested and think they'll be able to test at that time, I'll make myself available also. Blizzy, are you looking for issues with performance/latency or do you just want feedback on gameplay mechanics/user experience? You might not have direct control over the net code or may be using a minimal server for beta testing, in which case us reporting on (non-game-breaking) lag isn't as useful.

While I'm in agreement that we need maintain respect for all people (see #4 below), I want to make a few points in defense of this thread: 1) We are sharing humorous anecdotes while simultaneously relating to one another our shared concern about the state of modern education. Examples of the failure of said education systems are inherently sad and potentially hilarious. There's nothing wrong with sharing these responses on a forum of like-minded people. 2) There is no bullying involved whatsoever. We are anonymous Kerbals on an internet forum and the people being discussed are in no way being harassed. 3) We did not put the words into the mouths of the people who said them. Whether borne from ignorance or stubbornness, there are consequences for speaking lies or misinformation. I believe EVERYONE should expect ridicule if their actions deserve it or they are maintaining a contrary argument. (Including me, bring it! ) 4) Despite what I say above, I, and it seems most in this thread, wouldn't rub mistakes into the faces of the people making them. Calmly explaining and correcting is a more mature response, and we all seem to maintain that knowing and teaching the truth is the priority, with laughing about misconceptions coming second. Sometimes attacks on people's intelligence are made (hey, we're human here, after all), but I think the majority opinion here is that misinformation is the enemy and not people. In summary (TL/DR), I believe this thread is harmless and I feel that the community continues to prove it's maturity because, even in a thread about "how stupid people outside of it are", members can be found elaborating how they tried to improve things and discussing the root causes of "stupidity" rather than just bashing people. Although some bashing does happen, because it is funny and we can't all be high-brows all the time.

I was taught, in early grade school (2nd grade?), that winter came when the earth was farthest from the sun during its orbit. Sounds reasonable until you later learn that the opposite hemisphere experiences summer at the same time...

There was an SSV Normandy mod floating around a while back. Would love to see that, again.

This is a 3-day late response but if you're still looking for info, you're already in the right place. Check out this section of the forums for all kinds of tutorials and information: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/forums/54-Tutorials And post any questions or requests for assistance right here. The community is awesome. The game is still early access and mechanics are still changing, so even if there was a manual, it would likely be out of date by the time the next patch lands. (Purportedly, the next patch will be the 1.0 release version, so in-game tutorials will be cleaned up and expanded to be more useful than they are now).

I am also waiting for 1.0 before playing any more. Not only did I burn out, but the looming aerodynamic and balance changes are big enough that I want to unlearn my previous habits before picking it up again. Just finished a binge of Civilization 5, and planning to try out Besiege. Still active on the KSP forums, though. Excellent way to spend time during breaks at work. I love this community!

I've heard that the app store can be annoying when it comes to testing. I'm afraid I don't know anything specific as this is basically hear-say from other developers in my last job. Obviously you're not that far along in the process yet, but if you haven't already, you should look into their procedures and requirements for handling in-development software and updates just to be sure you know what's going on. Of course, let me know if it turns out this is baseless rumor.

Just noticed this thread. Only apple phones and tablets in my household at the moment but I'm interested to test it out and give feedback when available. I've subscribed to keep an eye on progress. Good luck pushing this project forward!

Thank you so much for appreciating artists' labor! Mini-rant: My wife is a classically trained opera singer with a master's degree in music. She just quit a job singing at a restaurant because they stopped allowing her to accept tips ("it looks too much like panhandling") and refused to increase her pay (minimum wage) to compensate. She has tons of stories of being expected to sing at events for free or for a token amount (No offense but $20 and a beer is great for a friend lending you his truck for a move, not for a professional entertainer who studied their trade for 15 years). Especially considering artists with less experience, it is immensely difficult to convince anyone that their time, labor, and product is worth anything at all. I think I will put my money where my mouth is and follow your example by commissioning something as well... I might create a thread here in the space lounge to share the result and give "exposure" to some deserving artists as well. Bravo for being an inspiration to this community in so many ways.

I've only just stumbled on this thread! Have my late congratulations! This thread is experiencing Happiness overload! You are awesome, dude. Keep bringing joy into people's lives. Following your example, I'm gonna have to do something nice for my own significant other. There's much too long of an interval between Valentines and her birthday (September)...

Trying to prove between them which is the "real" Aldner: Aldner 1: How fast was I going when I buzzed the KSC tower the first time? Aldner 2: In the old Kessna or the trainer jet after the new KSC tower was put up? Aldner 1: Kessna. Aldner 2: Nice try. The air speed indicator was broken. What's the best way to land "Old Brakes-less"? Aldner 1: Seriously? Down to 10, pitch up stall, tap window for good luck, pulse engine, flatten out. Why didn't I test the Sidewinder, Spin-Stabilizing, Tail Operating Plane? Aldner 2: Oh come on. The SSSTOP shouldn't even have been called a "plane". Bill flew it once and I declared the cockpit a biohazard. Which girl back home is planning a "Welcome Home" party for me when I get back? Aldner 1: ...I don't know? None of them? Aldner 2: Darn. Aldner 1: I know, right? Aldner 2: No, I meant... Let's just stick to aircraft questions. Not at all canon, of course. Just some fun.