RatchetinSpace

Good suggestion imo. I don't have quite the same problem but my craft generally have many stages and it'd be nice for them to be organised.

The poll says it all. No.

I started a topic like this not too long ago. Check out this post, just quickly though I think weather would be a good addition to the game.

A weather system for all bodies with atmospheres, including wind and rain.

I just don't see the need to enhance the thermal system further. Two craft at any significant temperature touching is such a niche case in KSP, you are almost always dealing with one or two craft in space (ideally not touching until docked), and at those points temperature isn't a concern 99% of the time. Answer me these: How many circumstances would the mechanics you're suggesting enhance gameplay/increase immersion? Is the development cost (time and money) worth it for the amount of gameplay the player will get out of the mechanic? In my opinion, advanced thermodynamics doesn't pass this test. It's too niche.

I've discussed this before, but it makes absolutely no sense from a physics perspective. A sonic boom is a wavefront that moves with/behind the object moving super sonic, it is not heard only when the craft passes the sound barrier. The jet in the video is already moving super sonic but the sonic boom is heard only as the jet passes. In KSP you travel with your craft so you would never hear a sonic boom.

He could be any one of these forum members...

If we want further development on this game the devs need money. I bought the game Feb 2013 and I would be happy to pay for DLC.

Life support is a tricky issue that comes up a lot. Personally I would love purpose-made base parts but I don't think life-support fits the structure of KSP. Life support means you have to constantly maintain stations and bases which would get tedious if you wanted to leave it alone and go off and do an Eeloo mission. When you finally finished you'd return to your Duna base to find all your kerbals dead, not a fun way to play. As I said though, I'm all for base parts.

I have visual mods (EVE, Real-Plume, etc), readout mods (trajectories, Kerbal Engineer), BetterTimeWarp and OPM. Overall 12 mods.

I don't like the idea of life-support so much, I feel like it demands too much of the player to constantly keep their stations supplied. I would like to see regular generated contracts to a station in career mode. That way you can make some money off your station by regularly supplying it but players aren't forced to supply the space station every few months if they don't want to.

If a weather system was added to the game I'm sure modders would make a more realistic version available for people who want to burn their CPUs. I was thinking the system would involve a simple, planet-wide, isobar-based map. A windshear vector and turbulance would be applied to the craft based on which section of the isobar system the craft is loaded in. Then (if it doesn't take a toll on GPUs/CPUs) clouds and rain could be applied to the planet's atmosphere based on the isobar map. My computer isn't particularly beefy and it runs environmental visual enhancements just fine, but I'd like to see a bit more logic applied to the placement of clouds.

I'm imagining Kerbin's weather to be far more predictable than Earth's for balance purposes. In what you're saying though, the crisis could be avoided if you designed a craft to not directly re-enter Kerbin's atmosphere from deep-space, instead aerobraking/entering a parking orbit for greater safety of the crew. Of-course the Apollo program didn't do this, and they took the risk (I'll be-it a small risk) that the recovery zone might not be suitable for re-entry. Didn't ask for it, loved reading it. Anyway, I'm glad this thread has provoked factual discussion about weather in KSP, rather than "Ugh it'll kill my PC", which is what I'm used to at this point

Thanks! I'll give that a try

Is there a mod which makes part explosions look bigger and better? More like the real thing?

Weather is an incentive for the player to think more about landing sites, craft design etc, as well as forcing them to make judgements about safety during a Duna landing, or a Kerbin return, etc. Actually a Space X falcon 9 launch was postponed a week or so ago due to concerns over lightning storms. Anyway, lightning would be a bigger issue during something like a re-entry when the player has wrongfully decided to try and return to Kerbin via a powerful low-pressure system (winds blowing the capsule/space-plane off course, lightning frying circuits causing parachutes to fail). Its not random difficulty, because it could be avoided by good planning, and there is always a chance the craft could survive the storm system and still make it safely to the ground, and it would add an interesting twist to any poorly planned return to Kerbin (when you think its all going so well ;))

Would a weather simulation in KSP burn out most/all computers? Obviously if the game was simulating pressure systems and fronts for every single planet all the time that would be an issue, but could a system be developed with runs only visuals for weather patterns (such as those on the weather forecast), based on pre-determined characteristics of the celestial body, and then only apply things like turbulence and wind when the craft loads in the atmosphere in a localized way? The simulation would be applied based on the current state of the visual representation with respect to the craft's location on the celestial body, without simulating an entire planet's worth of wind in great detail. However, as the title suggests, I'm not a coder, but I hear all the time on the forum that everyone's computer would combust at the first sight of a weather system without much real evidence. Could someone with more experience possibly explain why this couldn't work/would be too hard to implement?

Honestly I think every celestial body needs an upgrade (except prehaps Kerbin and the Sun). The key is coming up with a unique feature for each celestial body which makes it interesting to explore. Personally, I would like to see a large extinct volcano on Duna's surface, much like Olympus Mons. I would also love to see dust storms, which can be a planet-wide event on Mars IRL and could give Duna more character aswell, but that dives into the whole weather/clouds debate which isn't for this thread.

1. As mentioned above you are moving with the craft and thus wouldn't be able to hear the sonic boom 2. A sonic boom doesn't occur as you immediately pass the sound barrier, rather it is a constant wave front of noise that moves with or behind the craft as it flies. Anything that is moving super sonic will make a sonic boom as it passes you, not just when it breeches the sound barrier. So the whole idea of adding a sonic boom sound to a craft you are in is ridiculous. SONIC BOOMS AREN'T JUST MADE WHEN YOU PASS THE SOUND BARRIER.

I see this being something to deal with on other planets rather than on Kerbin. Have occasional winds and rainstorms on Kerbin which are not space centre crushing but may force a scrubbed launch or difficult takeoff, and put extreme weather on other worlds. I can see a bit of an Ares 3 scenario playing out to may kerbals on Laythe, or a dust storm on Duna which depletes my rovers of power. I'm less fond of earthquakes and tsunamis as they are difficult to model and so much rarer than those events.

Maybe there is a monolith orbiting Jool......

I really like this idea! Just turn off this feature for sandbox as it could get tiresome for the player who just wants mess around. Definitely for career mode though.

If it can be made to run fast then yes, definately.

I like the idea of encouraging players to maintain/replace space stations and satellites, but it doesn't fit KSP's playstyle. Lets say you go away on an interplanetary mission (Which can be 60+ years if you're into gravity assists and such). When you finally return all your stations have spiraled inwards and crashed.

Sorry to be that guy but this has to be seen: