lazarus1024

It would be nice to see at some point. As several mention, there is a lot more science than you actually need to unlock everything right now and I assume more Biomes will be added in the future. I do assume more parts and possibly more branchs/steps will be added in the future (hopefully). It would be nice to see other options on the tree or a seperate tree for things like efficiency improvements. As mentioned, I'd keep them very small, but they could still be meaningful. For example, lightweight parts reduce mass by 2% at first level, another 2% at second level and 1% and third level. Maybe better turbocompressors increase thrust by 2% at tier 1, 2 and 3. Better nozzels increase all engine ISP by 1% at tier 1, 2 and 3. Better solar panel materials increase energy gathering by 5% at tier 1, 2 and 3. Better battery chemistry increase battery storage by 10% at tier 1, 2 and 3. They wouldn't have to be cheap to unlock, say 50 science points for tier 1, 150 for tier 2 and 450 for tier 3. It would be vaguely realistic too as materials sciences and others, like computational fluid dynamics improve designs over time.

Yes, but the biggest issue is that you have to take so much fuel to do something like that, the mission would be a bear. Considering the overall low cap on science earned by transmissions now, I think the use cases for the science lab are relatively low. They exist, sure, but they still aren't huge. I think to rebalance it, SQUAD needs to change the mechanic so that the max science earned with a lab is 60-75% of the total, instead of the same 40% cap that transmissions have. THAT would add a large benefit to having a lab. Just my 2 cents. Otherwise I don't see many instances where it makes sense to have a lab. About the only time I think it does is rather low gravity moons, like Minmus or future ones like Ike, Bop and Gilly if they ever gain Biomes, because the dV cost to get to those moons is high, but the dV cost to travel to different spots on the moons is low. So having to schlep half a dozen materials bays and goos along is much more prohibitive than a lab, one of each and then just redock with the thing several times. Something like the Mun, Duna, etc, even with Biomes, you are possibly better off just carrying everything with you, extracting the science through EVA and then returning a small craft back to Kerbin with all the experiments on-board. Overall I like the balance of science in the update, but I do wish that either transmissions could get a slightly higher percentage of the overall, especially for things like Thermometer readings, or else the lab allowed for a higher overall percentage of science by using it. As it stands, transmissions seem to only be worth while for places where return missions are very prohibitive, like Eve's surface, Tylo's surface and Laythe's surface and maybe some out of the way places like Moho and Eyloo. Which again, it would be nice to have labs allow a somewhat higher max science value for transmissions in this case, because a 40% cap is a little low when you are using a full on lab (yes, I realize that if the experiment transmits, say, 40% normally, you'll get 55% total with the labs +15% bonus, but that doesn't help things like the materials bay which is only 20% transmision to begin with, because it still caps at 40% total).

Especially with the implementation of the science archives, I think it would be cool to have a camera science part added. A) You could do science with it by taking a picture with it. You could also then store the image and look at it in the science archives as a cool snap-shot thingy(ies, assuming more than one picture). (Hey, I did science, and look, I can even see the picture that I took in the Biome!) C) I'd suggest it has static orientation based on how you affix the part to your ship and also possibly be able to look out through the camera before taking the picture D) If transmitting it, you get a low resolution image (Maybe 320x200, Kerbal technology just isn't that good), but if you return the image you get a high resolution image that provides more science points (because we can take out the film canister to develop the film instead). Magnometers. Well, because those are some of the most common science instruments on space probes. They'd be able to work anywhere and, is it a shame to have more options for doing science?

I like this. It also makes a lot of sense. Someone send to devs as a suggestion. Should be easy enough to make a survey report and crew report or EVA report be the same on the back-end, but maybe have the survey report carry somewhat less science value than having a real kerbal there. It doesn't make a lot of sense that a probe part can't do any science at all without an instrument attached to it. Oh, maybe a camera science part?

Okay, I think that all makes sense. Any rebalance in how much science things earn and/or how much science it takes to unlock things? I wasn't a big fan of science spamming, but it sounds like under the new system its going to be much harder to advance things. Also for the mobile lab, its kind of a shame it is limited to 40% value on transmission (other than the exception you mentioned). I'd think it should be closer to 50-70% of the overall science since you can learn a lot more in the lab than you would be able to otherwise. That and it seems like it diminishes the value of the lab a lot. It seems like the only point would be to use one for non-return missions where you would otherwise need to load a large number of goo or materials to do the science you were planning on where the mass of the extra experiments would outweigh the mass of the lab module. On your first point without the ML, with the transmission limitation, is that one transmission per location, per ship still allow a transmission AND a return? So for example I could transmit an EVA report from LKO, log another EVA report from LKO and return the report for more science than just returning the report would have netted?

SABRE engines use a turbocompressor to compress incoming air and feed it in to the combustion chamber burning hydrogen fuel. At roughly Mach 5/28km altitude it switches over to pure rocket propulsion pumping oxidizer in to the combustion chamber. RAPIER engines are just what a real life SABRE engine is called in KSP. There are also other concepts (probably has a name, can't recall it) that use a ramjet/scramjet and rocket combined cycle engine. Effectively it is a ramjet at lower speeds and altitudes, as velocity and altitude increase it transfers over to scramjet operation (supersonic flow through the entire engine) and then rocket operation (oxidizer pumped in to the engine). Basically it is a variable position inlet spike and can be pushed all the way forward sealing the combustion chamber when in rocket mode. A concept I have seen allows it to function as a rocket at take off until sufficient velocity is built up to open the inlet spike and operate in ramjet mode, then scramjet and later close it up again once high engine to resume rocket operation.

Hmmm, interesting. So even with a thermometer and such you are limited to one transmission no matter what? I assume you can also at least return the data as well as transmit it with the same ship though? I can't wait to start playing tonight. I tried to grab it last night before bed, but it was downloading too slow, so I'll have to start again tonight. I hope things have been balanced a little better as to how much science stuff earns then. It would kind of stink if it takes several times more missions to be able to advance as far.

So, are any of them? If so, which ones are not resetable? How can you reset them? It mentions in the release notes that if you remove the data on EVA it renders the thing inoperative, would this apply to, say, the thermometer? Or just the goo and materials module? Gah! I really need to get home and download the update. I don't know that I will be able to tonight. I have to bottle two batches of beer after getting the kids to bed. Sigh.

Yowch. That sounds more like really bad coding or extremly intensive 2D graphical resources than anything though. I've seen bay trail run things like Medieval total war 2 just fine (heck I've seen old Cedar Trail netbooks run it, on lower graphical settings). At least looking at single thread, a Bay Trail seems to have around 1/3rd the grunt of my laptop, which with the current setup can do a 200-300 part ship and hit around 30fps most of the time. So 10 fps? Pre-optimization, which sounds like it might net roughly double the frame rates. Not saying it would work great and it might not work at all, but I am curious to see if it will and hopeful that maybe it will.

You know, Humans managed quite a bit with their repurposed drive system in Man-Kazin Wars in their first encounter. That said, in KSP. Yes, that would be the difference.

I am deffinitely the most excited about all of the science changes. Minmus with Biomes, is pretty huge to me. I am guessing no "re-map" of the place like the Mun got though? Kind of a pitty. It could be cool to see those going hand-in-hand. At any rate, I know it is WAY early, but any talk about how the other planets and moons are going to go? Are the devs thinking they might be looking at just mapping a planet or moon per release? Or try to do a bunch at once in a future release? Not expand biome maps any further then Kerbin/mun/minmus? Also, Rapier type engine is cool. If we are looking at adding new engines though, can we please have another radial engine? We have the "big" effectively rockomax size engines, the tiny barely bigger than probe sized radials and the itty bitty probe sized radials. It would be nice to have something akin to the LV-909. IMHO, the Rockomax Mk55 seems light and low powered for its visual size (120 thrust). I feel like it should be more like 200-300 thrust and weigh in around 1.5-2t and then have an inbetweener that is visually sized between the Mk55 and the Rockomax 24-77 with thrust in the 50-80 range and weight around .6-.8t.

If true, that would probably be huge. I run around 20-30fps on my i5-3317u laptop and HD4000 graphics with 200-300 part ships. I don't need a big boost in the part count, but slightly smoother would be nice with those ships sizes (and I am sure I'd build a big space station at some point). Also that might well mean it could get smaller ships to run smoothly on my tablet (T100, getting it for Christmas, no idea how well or if it could possibly run KSP with no add-ons. I am guessing yes, but very slowly. At least with .22)

Sure, that could possibly happen. I like the idea of multiplayer, especially if we can run our own servers like Minecraft, because it would give me so much more flexible play. Currently I run KSP on my laptop, pretty much exclusively, because that is what I happen to use most of the time. I have it loaded up on my desktop, but I basically never play on it. Reason why, I am not on it as much and it is a mild hassle to remember to upload my save and craft files to my server so I can grab it with my other machine when I am done playing. However, if I can run a server where I can interact with the same world instances between the two machines, I'd probably play on my desktop occasionally and I think in some ways it would be cool running missions from two different "space programs" operating together. Or for that matter, I am getting a new tablet for Christmas, a T100 (bay trail). I don't know if or how well it could handle KSP, but especially if it can handle some basic rockets and the server can offload a fair amount of the "other mission management", then it could be viable to play on that thing as well (with dock and mouse). I don't see playing with people outside my LAN at all. Internally it gives me a lot of flexibility playing between machines. Also my son is almost 6 and asks constantly to play. I don't want him accidently running one of my saves, but if I can load up a seperate KSP instances on one of my machines, we could actually play together symetrically or asymetrically, which would be cool. That said, there are a number of other features I'd like to see fleshed out more. Economy in terms of earning/spending money for career. I'd actually like to see resources added first, before multiplayer. Maybe fleshing out the solar system a little more. Actually one of the whicked cool implementations to go along with multiplayer I think would be other solar systems. Each one has its own mission control and in Sandbox mode you could choose to launch from any solar system (that is within the game). In career mode you have to pick your starting KSC and expand to other solar systems. In multiplayer this could be cool to start from other solar systems and meet up with other space programs in other solar systems.

Later Intel IGPs are much better though. My i5-3317u and its HD4000 have no real problems with KSP. I can play at native resolution, 1366x768, on my ultrabook with medium detail and NO AA at above 30fps most of the time. Occasionally a bit of lag and lag does become a problem with very large ships. That is likely more of a processor than a GPU issue though, though possible both. At any rate, I play KSP on my laptop about 30x more often than on my desktop, which is an i5-3570 and 5570 GPU, which can easily manage 900p at high settings and no AA (IE much prettier) and I've yet to build a rocket that has slowed down my desktop. Older Intel setups probably were too limited, but as of Ivy Bridge and especially Haswell, they'll do very dandy for playing KSP so long as you don't expect super gorgeous graphics and/or massive, massive rockets.

Also, even though this is whicked cool to watch the launches from my own backyard (I should probably go to the field nearby which would have a better view) and it is close enough I could go see a launch, I am almost more excited about the New Horizons mission. A friend from high school (who sadly I've lost touch with) back when he was at John Hopkins engineering program, post grad, worked on the guidance team for the probe designing the guidance programming. That and...its Pluto man. That place gets no darned respect and its the only [ex]planet that we haven't had a probe orbit or fly-by. I just hope once it gets past Pluto they'll be able to redirect it to fly-by some other interesting Kuiper belt object(s) on the way out-system (IIRC the plan is that New Horizon will have something like 70lbs or so of propellant remaining after Pluto fly-by and they are attempting to plan to redirect the probe towards object(s) of interest post Pluto fly-by). Also the probe is going to be so far away that it'll take a long time to flush the memory storage system of all of the pictures and sensor readings its going to take is it goes by Pluto. Also, because of the distances involved, New Horizon actually studied Jupiter in more depth than it'll be able to study Pluto, as when it flew by Jupiter getting a gravity assist it was able to load and flush its memory twice over in the time it took to pass Jupiter, where as Pluto it'll only have the once. Total data storage is 8GB on two SSDs (a primary and a back-up, both of 8GB size). Data transmission rate by Jupiter was 38kbit/sec. At Pluto it will be 1kbit/sec. Though the Wikipedia article I don't think specifically mentions it, during New Horizon's trip, work on the Curiosity, Spirit and Opportunity Mars missions actually figured out a way to increase data rates by double when was previously possible for radio deep space communication at similar signal strengths (I assume an improvement either in character sets used and/or noise filtering algorithms). So I think the actual data rates possible are closer to 2kbit/sec at Pluto orbit (I think the Wikipedia article is mentioning the originally planned data rates). At any rate, with 64Gbit of data (8GiB) at 1 (or even 2)Kbit/sec, you are talking 1 or 2 years to flush everything back to Earth. Also specifically mentioned in the article is that both the signal link is proving stronger than expected and that the space probe has two downlink channels, possibly enabling mission planners to gang them to double data rates. So actual rates might be closer to 3-6kbit/sec. Still a long time to get all the data back. The first images at better than Hubble resolution will be around 70 days out (in/around 2015). These plus earlier observations that'll begin 6 months out, will be used for plot final approach manuevering and mission planning. That said, during the primary obsevations we'll see nothing as the probe does not have a rotatable sensor platform like a lot of space probes do (to cut down on weight and complexity/possible failure points) so the whole craft has to rotate for sensor readings and then realign the high gain antenna with Earth to transmit back. So there is probably going to be a several week to possibly month or two "black out" with nothing coming back (I'd assume at least in the week or two leading up to encounter and the week or two after during the primary obsevations). That said, I'd assume we'll get at least an image or 10 back leading up to this that the mission planners are getting to plot trajectory and final obsevation mission program that they'll upload to the probe. Its a slow data date, but fast enough to only take 10 or 20 minutes to send back a couple of highly compressed moderately high resolution visible light and near infrared images.

I actually saw the first stage jettison and second stage ignition with the ole mark I eyeball this time. LADEE was a better launch from my location though. I guess just the direction they choose to launch each on. LADEE seemed (from my perspective) to head more due East and this launch was a bit to the south east directly away from me. So LADEE I actually got a bit of profile to it and this launch was more nozzle on. I am around 130 miles from the launch site. LADEE I caught through the trees in my backyard about 20s after launch and was in view until around 150s or so post launch before it went over the curve of the Earth. This launch took longer to see, in part because I wasn't looking at the right patch of sky and didn't notice it until around 60s post launch and was then observable until around the same time or somewhat after, except it was lost site instead of around curve of Earth (still nice and high up, just too far away to see and/or after second stage burn out. I lost site about 5-8s before the video stream showed the stage burn-out/shut down). Smaller and harder to see the rocket burning. Though it was cool because A) This time I climb up on my roof for a better view and it was early enough that my boys were able to say up to see it (5 1/2 and 3 1/2 and NUTS over rockets and space. I liberally feed that hunger whenever I can). They were still talking about it this morning when I had to leave for work. I WILL go and see a launch in person one of these days (my in-laws live 20 miles from Wallops).

7:30pm EST, Minotaur rocket is going up. Should be pretty visible around the mid atlantic area since its calling for nice clear skies. Just thought I'd "what up" everyone.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/19/tech/innovation/multi-satellite-launch/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 Just a heads up to those in the mid atlantic. Should be awesome weather in the Maryland/Virginia/Deleware area to view the launch. Last one we managed to catch it about 10 seconds after launch, but it didn't come in to the clear until it was already about 45s up and starting its gravity turn. Also since it is an earlier launch I can get my kids to watch it. Going to go for watching it on my roof this time for a clearer view.

The trend I notice is ~10% slow down with 5 flights, ~20% slow down with 20 flights and ~30% slow down with 35 flights and 40% slow down with 55 flights. So it seems like the biggest impact is in the first few flights and then it progresses at slightly less than a linear fashion there after. I am sure it depends a lot on the processor involved, out of curiousity, what are you running? I'd think the on-rails stuff would be things easily farmed out to one of the core not doing physics calcs (could be wrong). At any rate, very good for me to keep in mind, both for my laptop, which already struggles a bit sometimes and for my future failed attempt to run it on a Bay Trail tablet (I am assuming it'll fail, but I won't know until I am in posession of the tablet). It seems like based on this, I probably don't want to be running more than MAYBE 30 flights at once, no matter what. I would be nice if there is a way to remove the load for things that are landed and/or flags (especially flags) at some future update. Otherwise it is rather limiting if you have in the back of your mind "welp. I can put down a couple flags on each moon and planet, but I can't do more than that if I want my two space station up and running, that mission on Jool running in the background AND the flight to Dres to kick off without some real lag starting to be noticable"

30 I tend to shoot for as close to real world examples and/or actual developed concepts as I can. Obviously that doesn't work out sometimes for a variety of reasons, but it is what I try to strive for.

Yes, I noticed that too. That does appear to be the case. Though I suspect what it amounts to is that if you reboard your capsule, your EVA pack is either A) Not going to refill automatically and you must opt to do it, using a small amount of monopropellant to refill it Will refill automatically, using a small amount of monopropellant Hopefully it is really small, like 1 unit or something. However, it seems welcome to me. Both it removes the cheaty "you have unlimited propellant" aspect of pushing, boarding, EVA, push, board, etc and seems slightly realistic.

What is more amussing is our agency STILL uses EBCDIC on our mainframes. Good old z/OS. So when we take stuff in we have to convert from ASCII to EBCDIC. Sigh.

My only real fear with that is the unanswered, "what happens if your rocket fails?" I am hoping it is more of a max budget for each launch is what you are earning instead of straight up cash which you then have to pay out for each launch (succesful or failure). Otherwise if you bork a few launches, you'd have no money. Or you'd have to go back to being grindy if you miss a few launches and then have to do 10 "get a capsule in to orbit and back down safe" missions or something.

If you read any of the update news (like the one HarvestR posted on the .23 update news), you'd see it'll be in .23, which would constitute a major update, as such. There will be no release between .22 and .23, unless something crazy comes up. Devs have not mentioned which places will be getting Biomes in the next update, just that there will be some that get added in addition to the other science and research updates. At a guess I'd say they'll at least add Minmus and Duna. I can't see them not addressing those two. It also makes me wonder if Minmus will be getting asthetic updates or not. Though It'd probably be pretty easy to keep it as is and add at least 3 or 4 distinct Biomes for it. You've got one or two poles, you've got high lands and you've got ice seas. Done. I do hope that maybe Minmus will get a cosmetic update too.

Sigh, okay. Its what I thought. Thanks! I think for now, at least for my Munar mission I'll just spam transmissions for the soil and EVA stuff. I'll return the goo and materials bay, as well as science instruments because that part is relatively easy for my to do with my design setup and it doesn't make my ship design that bad. For my upcoming Duna mission I'll probably go an all in one. Make the lander also the command capsule and return ship. I'll leave it a joint though. Leave an orbiting interplanetary stage up around Duna, dettach the lander, drop it down. Once done, dettach ascent stage, rendezvous with the interplanetary section and boost back to Kerbin and then reenter with the ascent stage. I just can't bring myself to do that with Mun missions though. Come on .23