Sandworm

Kethane and mechjeb? Weren't they onboard for 23.5?

There's a bug in the faq? Are you saying that the FAQ will be here in the morning regardless of the release?

They all look 'like' things you would associate with a science center, but each is a little off. The big round one with a slot down one side is clearly an observatory. The slanted one on the right looks somewhat like a wind tunnel. The white cylinders look like hangars (they all have large driveways leading to doors). The water tower is too low to push water to the upper floors. In the upper right there appears to be a highschool gym or indoor basketball court. I'd call it a hangar but its pointing the wrong what in relation to the road.

It's not looking good, but on the other hand they aren't talking and that is a normal Squad tactic prior to release. So I'm split about us getting any communication today.

Wow, I meant release the update. We all go running away and the forum is quite for a week. Wow.

If they are having trouble with people on the forum server, there is something they could do to distract everyone. Im heading to the gym in about 20 minutes, hopefully I can start a large download to run for a few hours while I'm out.

So they are no longer listing who is online via the forum frontpage? Convenient given that right before every release a half dozen normally silent Squad people suddenly appear online. Purely a hosting issue?

That is expected. There will likely be no "64 bit" standalone release. The win version will simply come with two executables just as the linux build has for a while. What;s with these 1byte changes. Are they holding back to correct spelling mistakes?

That sounds like a very accurate description of playing KSP. Also works as a description of the community atm. So a very useful review imho.

Good signs: lots of Squad on the forums ... the pattern is being followed. Also, nobody has tweeted #KSPFirstContract in 20+ hours.

Six hours is not enough. If the stranded kerbal's orbital inclination is anything other than 0* then the chances of an intercept within 6 hours is practically nill. Unless they are always going to be in convenient orbits ... ick. The mods could come up with some way to ignore these targets but I agree with the OP in being disappointed that Squad is turning away from life support. The better question is why these missions appear to be available before you have any 2-man parts, mandating the use of silly rocket configs.

Good to see the new vid uploaded. Too bad work just got busy for me. I'll be away for the next 12hours or so. Is it me, or does Scott Manley sound a little under the weather in his vid?

The channel may be irrelevant. We don;t have the contracts so it's hard to know, but we can probably assume that this was a standard media agreement. It all depends on who used who's access to create the vid. If Manley created the vid using his access and handed it to TheMittani, then he is likely at fault for "releasing" it early to a third party. Or maybe TheMittani made the vid and Manley just provided a voice over. Interestingly, Manley did not release an early-access preview for the last update. It's a very odd situation.

At work now, but nothing happening. It's been eight hours since that vid appeared. Something is very wrong. Either... (1) the embargo has not been lifted and Mr. Manley's got some splaining to do or; (2) the other youtubers have grown frustrated with squad and are not releasing preview vids on Squad's terms/schedule (Kurtjmac has made comments in this area) or; (3) Mr. Manley has been given some super-special permission to release vids ahead of everyone else ... see (2).

That process should now be over. The media team have the final build in their hands. Absent some unforeseen and undetected bug, what the media team got a couple days ago is what we will be getting eventually. Watch SteamDB.

I do not believe you.

Your rules 5 and 7 are in conflict. Hauling life support resources radically alters the game's balance. I doubt stock manned contracts beyond minmus will be profitable if you have to haul TAC too.

Given that only one vid has appeared, and that six hours ago, this looks like another error. If the embargo had been truly lifted, all of the early access vids would have appeared practically simultaneously, certainly not six+ hours apart from one another. Also, none of Squad are logged into the forum atm. As a PR firm, Squad would not let an important moment like this go unsupervised.

Like last time? They have basically announced a release date imho. On Twitch we were informed that there will be little/no delay between the embargo lifting on the media team and the release. At least one member of the media team has now unlocked/released a vid (Manley via TheMittaniTV six hours ago). So that means the embargo has probably been lifted as of monday AM. Taking all of these together, and the fact that tomorrow is a tuesday [censored for speculation].

They did say via Twitch that there will be a "difficulty" tab added via the debug menu that should crank down/up the profitability.

Scott Manley's Preview (will add more as they are unlocked) xXLeGoldFishXx Big Reveals Spotted so far: -Assemblies in VAB seem rotated 90* counterclockwise. -Very high (98%) recovery rate for parts returned to KSC. -Contracts for testing of parts not yet unlocked in tech tree (R&D loaner parts). -More detailed contract goals than expected (actions to take at specific altitudes) -"Rescue other astronauts" missions? (in-game spawning of parts?) -No word yet on if we will be allowed to draft contracts. *With the lifting of the embargo on early access vids (if it has in fact been lifted, they goofed the timing of the .23.5 embargo) and the statements made during the twitch stream, I think it safe to say that public release is something closer than soon. Too bad I have to go to work in a couple hours.

Other than the obvious (aerodynamics + life support systems) I'd like to see an overhaul of the fuel systems. Boil off should be implemented, especially with the new liquidfuel-based RCS in the pipeline. Another option would be the tech tree. Not a rebalanced, I mean a conceptual redo. At the moment it is totally part-based. Imho it should be more abilities-based. Maneuver might be something you unlock, or perhaps increase their accuracy. Construction abilities could also be progressive by, for example, weight limits on new launches. Fuel transfer between parts, the jetpacks, the concept of EVA ... all should be researchable but at the moment are granted from moment one.

Except that fuels are the one commonality amongst all mods. That's why you don't see many mods changing the density of fuels. Make them cheaper and all rockets are suddenly cheaper. So then to restore balance you have to alter all the part mods to balance against contracts. Or you have to change the stock+modded contracts. It would be much easier if Squad simply adopted a realistic fuels/parts cost ratio.

I see many people wanting Squad to do or not do something to protect past saves. Squad shouldn't care about anyone's saves. I am no fan of the "it's alpha" argument but we cannot ignore that this game is deep in development. Long-term decisions about the game's direction should not hinge on whether a particular change in a particular patch will break some saves. Career mode should, must, render all career saves practically unplayable. Do we really want Squad making any decisions on how contracts work in the future simply to preserve old saves today? What about a change to a key part? Does anyone really want to prevent a part being improved simply to preserve their precious space station? The contracts system is forever. Your saves will be forgotten in a couple months at most. Abandon them now.

When fuel is cheap and engines are expensive, the most cost-efficient vehicles are those that use the fewest and smallest engines possible --> low TWR. The falcon9 heavy's TWR is 1.22. The SaturnV's was 1.15. Shuttle's was slightly higher at 1.5 but efficiency was never shuttle's primary design concern. Realworld rockets are designed to barely get off the pad.