chaos_forge

Do you happen to remember where you heard that?

to anyone discussing possible improvements to science, I would like to point you to this excellent thread. It has several great suggestions.

Personally, I like the B9 approach of making a size 2.5 capsule that looks good on planes and forgetting that the mk3 fuselage ever existed

Ah yes, this seems to have fixed the always-deployed problem, although now it seems it is impossible to have the centrifuge enter a state where it is *not* spinning. This is, however, far less of a problem. Thank you!

Hello, I tried this fix but I still seem to be getting the same error intermittently, and now the module will always start deployed and spinning no matter what, which wreaks havoc with my fairings. Does anyone have a fix/is getting the same behavior?

yep, I think a lot of people on here would agree that integration with a discovery mechanic would make science feel a lot less pointless (if you'll pardon the pun).

I've been lurking the forums since v0.8, and I agree that the dev communication with the community is not what it once was. On the other hand, I can see why they wouldn't want to. There have been several ****storms on the forums due to misuderstandings/miscommunication between the fans and devs. And the bigger the community gets, the more people there will be who demand bigger, faster, AND more stable updates, and the more people there will be who take everything the devs say as an unbreakable promise. People are still mad about the resources thing, for Christ's sake! However, I feel like more communication from the devs could have helped alleviate this. Instead of a short, cryptic announcement from HarvesteR, maybe a longish dev blog showing us, "this is the idea we had for resources, this is how we implemented it, and this is why it sucked". But then again, this is just the speculation of a random bystander, I have no experience managing a community. This probably isn't a problem that has a solution as simple or easy as just "be more open". Even if they don't talk about tentative features, I do think that the devs could definitely talk more about already implemented features. A lot of the dev blogs were talking about features that had already been implemented for the next update, the interview by Scott Manley prior to the release of .23.5 (which I can't find right now) was also in that vein, and I found it excellent. I think these sort of already-implemented features could stand to be talked about more by the devs, even if they don't talk about planned features. I for one would love to see how they went about implementing Asteroids, for instance, I'm sure there were a lot of unforseen complications . . . Anyways, that's just my two cents.

Since I assume .25 will still be working on career mode, I would like to see science revisited, maybe including some of the very good suggestions from the "incorporate features from BTSM" thread last week

I think one thing to keep in mind here is that the space plane parts are some of the oldest parts in the game currently. I expect that once we get the long-awaited atmospheric model update, we'll also get rebalanced jet engines (although I for one hope they're not nerfed *too* much). Also, fixing the ISP to scale thrust instead of fuel flow would help with this.

While I appreciate the meta-commentary, this is borderline trolling.

oh man . . . I started playing in .8.4, and let me tell you, this game has changed a lot. No struts, no larger parts, no map view, no persitence. The very first thing I did was make a massive pancake of SRBs and see how big I could make it before it started overheating. I think I actually managed to get in orbit a few days later, but since there was no map view i just watched my ship orbit for 45 minutes. I tried to reach escape velocity, but the only could tell would have been leaving the game running for several nights. I left it 8 hours, and then shut it down when I saw that my altitude was still increasing after I woke up the next morning.

That's . . . actually a really good idea. I can see how these changes would make the science system feel a lot less game-y and more like real science. I have one question and an extra suggestion: Question: How would science labs fit into this? I think they should allow you to transmit collections at 75-100% the science points of returning. Now comes the extra suggestion: I would also like to see, in addition to this, more science parts that reference *actual* science instead of just being black boxes (for example, it'd be pretty cool to have magnetometrrs and spectroscopes). Generally, I think the original science parts (thermometer, etc) are the best because you have a reason to clikck them out of curiosity, not just to get science points. In that vein, I'd like the atmo sensor to have an extra display showing atmospheric composition without generating a science report. I'd love to know what you think about this, OP

It's in my sig. Also, link for convenience: click here The main problems with the system were 1) how to deal with two object rotating at different distances from the barycenter but with the same period, and 2) how to implement non-spherical SOI's. Also, because of the game-engine-central nature of this idea, it's very unlikely that a proof-of-concept mod could ever be created. Either the devs hop on to the idea, or it doesn't happen.

I think an implementation of the Barycenter system discussed in this thread almost a year ago, now, (link in my sig) would be a better approach than the more ad-hoc method of handling the SOI's that you describe here. Also a barycenter system is more easily expandable in general.

I think one possibility is to relate it to a possible discovery mechanic. As in, at the beginning of the game, all of the radius/mass/etc information would be unavailable, and as you sent missions and did experiments, you would unlock more data and possibly even more flavor text in the descriptions tab in the map view. This mechanic would also synergize very well with a rover/lander simulation facility: first you send out an unmanned probe to take some data, and then you can use that data to build a good lander/rover for your kerbals. Keeping with the theme of discovery, a dedicated mapping part would be pretty cool. Another big thing Squad should fix is relating the science parts more to actual science. I don't want magical science point generating black boxes like a "Mystery Goo Container". Give us spectrometers, magnetometers, cameras, what have you! Don't give us a "Negative Gravioli Detector", give us a camera that measures mass through gravitational lensing! KSP has one of the nerdiest communities out there, so why not relate the science parts more to real science? It would both please those who already know what the instruments are, and encourage those who don't to learn about them. Actually, I feel like the original science parts (thermometer, barometer, accelerometer) do a lot better job of this than the new science parts. As in, when I land on a new body, I will check the thermometer not to get points but simply out of curiousity. I still remember landing my first probe on Eve and going "wow, this place has 2g of gravity and 5atm of atmosphere!" The new science parts, particularly the goo and materials bays (the atmosphere sensor could easily be made to display atmospheric composition or something like that), have really lost this sense of curiousity. In general, I think Squad should go through all of their science parts and make sure that for each one, there is a reason to click it out of curiosity, not just to get points. Take advantage of the nerdiness of your community and your game. In general, science should feel a lot more like making discoveries than simply collecting points. EDIT: TL;DR: The only science parts worth keeping in the game are those you'd want to click out of curiosity, not just to get points.

Sweet Jesus what a glorious necro

The problem with this is that implementing Steam workshop would most likely require the game to be Steam-only, which would be bad for those of us who do not want to use Steam

Would you mind showing us a picture of it here, for those of us not on the FB group?

Here's an ultra-light SSTO I just made. It uses 4 intakes and 1 turbojet to reach an apoapsis of 100km, then circularizes using 2 ions. It carries 1 kerbal, and 1-2 of every science instrument. I launched it, and got to a 130km x 130km orbit, with 3.5km/s of delta-v to spare. I might take it to Jool. The transfer burn would be 30 minutes, but hey. I'm loving the new, actually useful ions. Currently, I'm trying to figure out a way to make it land and take off more reliably without adding too much weight.

Possibly a better idea would be a separate "hinge" part that has the same hinging behavior as the claw, but has attachment nodes on both sides. Also, I know that tweakables are currently not a priority, but by the time 1.0 comes around, I would love to see an amount of tweakability matching or surpassing that of the TweakableEverything mod

^same. also, I use LES to prevent deaths during launch. the only deaths I've had happen lately were a plane that crashed while I was trying to land on Duna

As an experienced player (and by no means a "noob"), I think this addition is unnecessary. If it is added, however, I would ddefinitely want it to be the method described on page two, and not the method in the OP.

Agreed. More mission planning tools in stock would be a great thing.

One extremely useful mod that I think nobody would be against adding is Kerbal Alarm Clock. Having multiple missions at the same time is virtually impossible without it. Thankfully, with the advent of persistent maneuver nodes, it seems the devs might be planning to implement it.

There is already a color for that, it is purple. I'd rather not use both red and green in the list because it becomes very difficult for color-blind forum users to see.