lazarus1024

Once when I had max persistent debris at default when a spent boost ripped through my space station and once when I had it turned off when part of a refueling tug rammed a ship under construction. The first one was absolutely random and the spend booster was probably going 800+ m/sec faster than the station as the orbits were radically different. It happened while I was EVA. Like something out of Gravity almost (not that I have seen the movie). It only clipped the station, but it basically tore it apart and left my Kerbal stranded. I did eventually send a rescue mission up for him. The second was a spent booster. I ran out of fuel in it attempting to match orbits, so I had to use the tugs manuever engines to meet up. We'll, a dozen or so orbits later (saving fuel) it turned out that the spent booster ended up matching the orbit about 2 orbits after my rendezvous. It hit almost directly between my refueling tug and the interplanetary ship I was building. No one was saved. That said, it was a much more gentle collsion, maybe only 40 or so m/sec difference in velocities.

Also new designs are starting to focus more on reusability of stages. With asparagus staging that adds a lot more complication to try to recover the stages. For example, SpaceX (IIRC) actual re-lights the engine on the first stage (or maybe second?) before it splashes down as well as pops a chute. Now figure the complexity of doing that with multiple, multiple tanks/stages and the odds that you are going to lose stages/tanks goes up. I could see how a design that maybe uses drop tanks that are used up very soon after launch...maybe...but the complexity might just not be worth it. Fuel isn't actually all that expensive in the end for a rocket. It is the rocket parts themselves that are the most expensive part of any launch. Not sure on current price of LOX, but Kerosene only runs around $4-5 a gallon for the kind of stuff you put in a rocket (since that is what most use, though not all of course). If you rocket burns 100t of fuel plus oxidizer that is only around $150,000 worth of rocket fuel. If you gain 10% efficiency by changes in staging, that only saves $15,000 worth of fuel. NOW, there is an argument for possibly getting 10% more payload in to space and cutting down on the number of launches you need to do...as the rockets and launches themselves (not the fuel) are darned expensive. However, you can potentially make up for some of that by moar rocket. There comes a point though where it is difficult to make moar rocket, and then you need to do something else, like boosters or asparagus staging. In the past moar boosters was the way to go and it remains to be seen which one is most cost effective as technology improves. Also until recently prototyping and testing was STONKING expensive and time consuming. Test even a modest sized scale model of a rocket with different staging and stuff might cost millions of dollars and take years. Then scaling it up and testing real parts and rockets would take many times more money and lots and lots of time. NASA and others are just starting to get good at rapid prototyping and making cool machines that'll allow you to 3D print complex metal objects, so they can do things like make one-off turbo pumps, valves, rocket engines, etc so they can much more cheaply test things like asparagus staging. It doesn't save much money if you spend a billion dollars on a failed asparagus staging design to allow you 10% more payload in the same rough size, mass and construction/operating cost of a rocket. If it works and is reliable great, but if it doesn't work out, you wasted massive R&D on a failed design. Or worse you chase it for years and years spending billions to try to perfect a design to save you 1 launch in 10...or maybe save a couple of hundred million dollars a year in launchs...but spent billions.

No, SQUAD has said they'll never do random part failures.

So, when people have experimented with abort rockets/stages, has anyone made absolutely ridiculous rockets doomed to certain and quick failure just to test out your aborts? I think for me that has been almost more fun then making a regular rocket is designing something that'll disintegrate spectacularly and seeing if the abort stage can pull Jeb's lilly green butt out of the expanding fireball withour harm. My favorite two instances are blowing up on the pad in a huge fireball (many orange tanks and SRBs exploding at once...that is what happens with 6 large SRBs are pointed inward at the rocket and all the engines turn on at once), hitting abort and getting Jeb clear...only to float back down on the parachute too close to the VAB and have the VAB catch the parachute and collapse it, causing the capsule and Jeb to plumet to their demise. The second was when things went badly wrong and I hit abort, the capsule went tearing off...with the failing launcher below it...still under thrust coming straight up!!! After the seperatrons burned out the launcher caught up and shot past Jeb in his capsule with about 2 coats of paint to spare in distance away probably going 300+m/sec faster than Jeb. The capsule and Jeb were saved, but his space suit and undies were a complete write-off.

If I need them I almost always just stick them on the top of the tank pointed with the exhaust inward. 9 times out of 10 that is enough. It kicks the top of the tanks outward, which is usually the part that ends up colliding with part of my rocket. Occasionally if I need more I'll mount a pair on each side of the tank near midline or two at the top of the tank next to each other.

Speaking of, it would be nice to see a mechanic added in game for heat dissipation and then crank up the heat that engines produce, especially the big ones. The less atmosphere, the more heat produced (you know, because no convective or conductive heat loss, just radiative). I'd love to be able to throw some radiators on my ships to prevent them from overheating when I want some high thrust in orbit, especially NERVAs.

I believe you can set open/close to an action group. So you can manually open and close them.

Is the antenna off center intentionally in the picture? Or does it deploy that way? I am hopping the former and not the later. Otherwise it is going to make it difficult for some of my probes (see comment early about Galileo style high gain antenna). It would be cool to have both a larger version and a smaller version. On balance though I am glad they changed it up the way they did as the older version was more often too small than right sized for my ships (only really worked on probes). So, are there any functional differences in the different antennas? Power/science differences? Or is it all cosmetic right now?

So in all likelihood you'd have to drive pretty darned far. Good to know.

Not unlocked for me either yet. Question on the transmitters...is there any difference other than asthetic between them? Do they only work at different distances from kerbin? Do they use different amounts of power or differences in the amount of science recovered between them?

Hydroponics for long duration space flight would be neat, if or when a life support system is added to the game. O2 tanks and air scrubbers for smaller ships and hydroponics for bigger ships (using power of course) for long duration flights would be a really cool touch.

Question on the Mun biomes, do you get different results being up on the crater wall versus the floor of the crater? Or is the whole area just considered crater? Trying to get an idea of if it is worth, say, putting a mission down near a crater, then driving a rover down in to get a different biome. It would be nice to have actual maps of the Biomes...especially, say, the ability to see them in map view. Suggestion, have a radar dish that you shows you the Biomes in map view when activated if you are in low orbit around the planet/moon.

Also excellent news as I sometimes have landers that break apart on landing, scattering goo and science modules around the place, if I can switch focus to them and hit recover...all is not lost!

Sad face. Oh, well. Still good though that it means probes can be of real use. I am a bit saddened though with the progress of the tech tree. I think it mostly makes sense, but where I am right now, I don't have real access to probe parts, but I have exhausted most of the science around Kerbin...so it is to the Mun/Minimus next...but I feel like it would be more fun/authentic to be able to send probes there first instead of manned capsules, but I don't have the parts for it yet (I have almost unlocked the first solar panel, I do have the first probe core, but I have no probe body/engine/fuel tanks yet). Oh well. First Kerbin problems.

Actually there is an incentive in career mode still. If you are "reckless" with your kerbals you have backups so your mission isn't kaput if you dust one of them. I've had this happen, especially on rover missions in .21 where I managed to tip/flip a rover down a crater wall or something and lose the kerbal. A 2 man lander can meant that the whole mission wasn't lost.

Based on reading a couple of threads in the general section, it got me to thinking about making space stations more useful as well as bigger science parts. Suggestion 1 Make a 2.5m station (research lab) part AND BAA (Big A$$ Antenna) that allows you to transmit any science at 100% value. Requirements, it takes a HUGE amount of power over a period of time (a minute or so?) to transmit, so you are going to need a boat load of big solar panels and a lot of batteries to do it. So instead of possibly having to send you entire mission all the way back from Duna, Jool, etc, you can just dock with your space station in Duna orbit and transmit from there. Also a requirement to have the research lab staffed by one or more Kerbals. Suggestion 2 Other 2.5m parts. A Life Sciences lab that requires 1 or more (maybe up to 2? Bonus science points for more than 1 Kerbal?) Kerbals in it to perform science. Exercise bike, Zero G treadmill, etc. Maybe an astronomical observatory as a 2.5m part with an extenable telescope that allows your kerbal to look at distant floaty ball thingies in space as well as a the ball thingie you are orbiting (but it doesn't work very well, so being parked around different planets gives different science). Suggestion 3 A new probe part for a ground scanning radar to science planetary bodies from orbit.

It would be cool to see something like a 2.5m Life Sciences module that you have to stick a kerbal in, like the hitch hiker, that allows you do to science on them to get research points. IVA view with exercise bike and zero G treadmill for bonus points (and FTW).

Stupid question, I haven't unlocked any of the original science parts yet (All of tier 3 unlocked I think and just energy on tier 4)...but do they allow you to do real science now? Or are the original science parts (Gavioli, thermometer, etc) just decoration? If they allow you to do real science I feel like it means probes are still rather useful. If not...well, okay, that is kind of a problem.

I like this idea. A station part that requires HUGE amounts of power, but allows anything docked with the station to transfer science with zero loss. So you could stick a station in Duna orbit, and you could then just dock with it to transfer soil sample data and stuff...but it requires stonking huge amounts of power to transmit the data...but it is lossless. Alternately or in addition it would be neat if maybe there were a few new research parts that require significant amounts of time to unlock all of the research points AND take large amounts of power to do it...though time based stuff can be a little broken. I still really like the idea of a station part with lossless transmision that takes a huge amount of power...maybe a VLHA that can be mounted on a station, or possibly a "Research Module" in conjunction with that Very Large High-gain Antenna Also maybe other science parts that are just BIG. Like some 2.5m parts, like a "Kerbal Life Sciences" module...that you MUST have a Kerbal inside of (like the hitchhiker) with an IVA view, with things like an exercise bike, zero G treadmill, etc. A 2.5m Hydroponics bay would also be cool to study "how fungus grows in space" or something like that. Have the 2.5m parts require extra power when in use and take a certain amount of time to develop the science and also DISABLE time warp while this is occuring. Not taking too long, but say 1% per second or something like that...but use something like 10 power per second or whatever.

All I know is I am looking forward to getting in trouble with my wife for grabbing the laptop as soon as the kids are to bed and spending several hours ignoring her and going to bed WAY too late tonight. Not that I dislike my wife...but sometimes a man has to have his priorities straight, and v.22 is where its at (for now). That being said, I probably speak for most people (even the ones who are over the mun about this update) when I can't help saying that I wonder what will be next in .23 (or if there will be an interim update with content). The problem is SQUAD gave us this great thing called KSP and we just want more (sign of addiction?)

Oh, yes, I'll mention that too. Scene loading seems like it is between 30-70% faster now. I am VERY happy about that. Booting up the game also seems like it is at least 20-30% faster too. On the hyperbole, just checking. I was honestly curious if there was some shortcut way to do it all (not that I want to). I think Research is just the begining. Budgetting and how money is earned in game I think is also going to make a huge difference and I think it is going to be needed to balance Research out and make the game challenging AND entertaining. That and tweaked and balanced research. Just like when money comes in to play later, it probably isn't going to be a perfect implementation. How many iterations of Sand box have we had now? 21 plus minor releases inbetween? We have effective one release of career now and honestly I think it is a pretty decent first attempt. Just my thoughts. It isn't the end all be all, but I think a good first start.

I think before SQUAD adds better aerodynamics they need to add payload fairings to the game...otherwise it'll cripple a lot of designs. Payload Fairings plus the mention of reducing drag by some amount to everything below a nose cone in a stack could go a long way to making more realistic rocket designs without a complete overhaul of the aerodynamic system. Amusingly my son (5 1/2) whenever he is "investigating" something, like a rock, or how a clock works or something, calls it "Sciencing". For example "Daddy, I am going to go an science that leaf". Its AWE-SOME.

It'll be tweaked later. There are likely to still be a lot of parts and other things that research can unlock down the road. It'll get more robust and I'd be surpised if actual difficulty levels weren't added to the game at some point (probably doing things like increase how much research you need to get to different levels). Maybe I am missing something though. I have 4 flights under my belt and I have...something like 3 total research levels unlocked...or was the "fly like 5 times" thing hyperbole?

I'd like to see an implementation of the whole currency/cost system in Career. I'd also like to see some new parts. Possibly new research unlocking (maybe unlocking things other than just parts?) The Kerbal observatory would be whicked. For general use in both Sandbox and Career seeing more/all of the planets remapped like the Mun was in .21 would be really cool as well as the whole zone mapping being done for each planet. I think that would make a pretty full update. Destructive heat would be a very cool addition, especially with research in the mix now (for things like improved heat shields, bigger heat shields, maybe the ability to increase the heat resistance of parts as an unlock). I want resources and resource extraction...but really I feel like that is still at least 2-4 releases away. Now that Career mode is here I'd bet my left Kerbal that the next couple of releases are going to be focused mostly on adding to it and rounding it out (which makes sense).

I am sure it needs a little tweaking. However, it so far seems relatively fine to me. If you note in Harvs release notes he mentions that Research will be unlocking future functionality also. So I wouldn't be surpised if there was more than just parts that research can unlock at some point...which might be why some things like Thermometers are located at the end of the tech tree. Its a thought...not necessarily a good one. Also some of it like the external fuel ducts add a lot more flexibility in designs and can make them much more efficient and useful (aparagus staging anyone?)...so finding them later on seems resonable, even if they are relatively simple things.