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Heh, you just reminded me of "The Enemy Below," and the Star Trek TOS episode "Balance of Terror," which was all about that kind of combat. It wasn't about the explosions and the death, it was a game of chess or poker between two well-seasoned commanders. And I agree that wonderful stories can be made about this sort of thing, but its a sad sign of the times that we live in, that such stories will very rarely gain much appeal. Instant-gratification is at an all-time high, and it shows in every aspect of our society, including entertainment. Not long ago in our society, one could expect to wait possibly months to receive a reply to a letter. Then came telephones, and then internet. We once could waste days trying to get a modem to connect to a local system, and now we flip out if it takes more than ten seconds for an app to update. People expect the same thing when they jump into a space war.

More powerful and overpowered aren't the same thing. Overpowered means TOO powerful, and it breaks the balance of the game by making it too easy.

I wasn't talking about modern warfare. Modern warfare still leaves a lot of room for intense, twitch-based encounters. I was extrapolating the direction that war is taking right now, and tacking a couple of centuries onto it. That's pretty much the definition of speculation. Given that this is the science section of the forums, I can only assume that we're trying to be realistic. And there's usually a very wide divide between what is cool and what is efficient. In our current civilization, where budgets and resources are greatly limited, we tend to lean towards what is efficient. Were that not the case, we would be building a Death Star (or the Enterprise, at least) in orbit right now. Ground wars though, yeah... if someone stands a chance at landing without getting blown out of the air on the way down, that would probably still be pretty intense. While on that topic, a little inspirational footage. At some point when I was heavily into designing sci-fi universes, I drove myself a little batty trying to find a nice balance between realistic space travel and cool-factor. This little vid is pretty much what I was imagining. Frankly, one of the reasons I'm really excited about the multiplayer KSP update, is someone will no doubt have a server that allows for warfare mods, and then we can try out all of our wild space war concepts in a 'somewhat' realistic environment.

How often does anyone see meteors in daylight? (unless you're in Russia, on a VERY specific day.)

Depends on the size of the projectile, especially if it sleeps like a typical probe during transfer. Finding incoming missiles would probably not be that easy. We have enough trouble finding asteroids capable of wiping Earth, and those asteroids are a lot bigger than a missile is likely to be. At least until we can start scanning with a MUCH higher resolution. On the other hand, if you know what planet it's coming from, you can just watch it like a hawk and wait for telltale signs of a launch.

Are they actually planning to bring it to Earth? I remember reading they were going to put it around the moon (no idea why, because that would be harder to do, unless some countries are just to paranoid that we're going to drop it on them (even though it wouldn't even survive the atmo)).

Oh, get over it. I bet you don't even read your technical journals every Saturday, do you, DO YOU?

Be careful not to feed them too much. They multiply like tribbles.

If gremlins are real then kerbals MUST be. I've found some striking similarities between the two species, particularly involving their behavior when in the vicinity of complex machinery.

Navigation Lights mod... my payload always has lights on it with colors that are a sharp contrast, and if possible, complementary, to the color of the planetary body its intended to reach. I've never sent Kerbals to rock that hasn't already been visited by a probe. Though that may change if my 'mothership' project actually works.

One of the drawbacks with having 'realistic' speculation about a future space war is, it would be INCREDIBLY boring. Modern war is already heading in that direction, with humans becoming more and more reliant on computers and robots (drones). Dogfighting is a thing of the past, and all most pilots usually get to do is fly towards a target, launch a missile (from 100's of miles away) and go home. This kind of thing will only become more common, and possibly even replace infantry some day. In space, on planets with less gravity and less atmosphere, it's even easier to 'launch missiles' at enemies. If we wanted to take out an asteroid base from Mars, would we even bother launching 'fighters?' Or would it be less trouble to just launch missiles from the surface and let them guide themselves? I'm thinking the latter. Of course, if you want to toss a little steampunk into it and remove a crucial component of modern society, like for instance, in the 21st century, we ran out of silicon, and the computer age came to a grinding halt. That then leads to a decrease in automation, and even though we have learned far more science, we have to do a lot of the work ourselves (or build retro computers the size of small towns to do the calculations for us).

The problem isn't about needing the engines to send up huge payloads. IMO, if you're sending up something that big, you should be doing it in parts anyhow. These engines seem equipped for launching the entire ISS, which is just silly, and aside from the comedic value, not that fun. And then you have the issue of overall challenge. When you can use an engine to lift a monster payload, what will that same engine do when carrying something more conservative? Plainly, SOME bodies in the system should ALWAYS be a challenge to reach, regardless of what parts we have access to. It could be urgent. There are probably a lot of players in this community who haven't done everything yet, because certain things were particularly hard. Those players will be able to hit everything in a matter of days now, and could very quickly lose interest in playing after that. That would be a very artificial exodus, one that could easily be avoided.

Probably not much to go on, but there's a brief moment in this Yahoo article, suggesting that the rocky relations between the U.S. and Russia could actually benefit the future of NASA budgets. As it is right now, the government has been happy to let Russia get our people into space. If the situation worsens, the U.S. will be earthbound until NASA or one of the commercial space programs starts doing its own orbital work. I wonder what certain politicians hate more? Supporting a program that isn't a focus of their party, or allowing the U.S. to fall behind in yet another category? Probably the latter, based on other things going on, but maybe there's still a little 'space race' spirit left in some of these old D.C. fellows. http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-suspends-relations-russia-putin-holds-cards-235300622.html

......whoa.

I don't care if it's not realistic. KSP needs some random silly things like this. Maybe the Kraken is actually out there... living inside a hollow asteroid... *shifty eyes*

I'd actually like it if you could see what vessel the debris originally came from.

I never use the autopilot on it. I just don't care for the stock instruments and prefer the way MechJeb displays it. I can't even imagine what 300 ton payload I would send up. Unless I tried to launch a whole space station all at once, just for the ridiculousness of the idea (and then watch it fall apart in the first 10 seconds).

Do you have any idea how slim the odds are of that happening? You have just as much to fear from your own orbiting debris. A couple of asteroids isn't going to change anything. If an asteroid actually hits your space station, I suggest you go out and buy a lottery ticket.

Heh, given the fact that the game treats it as a ship, does that mean asteroids will float?

KSP is everything a lego game SHOULD be, but never is.

"Customize your flags with adjustable lights and flags" Anyone know exactly what this *coughredundancycough* line was about? Is this actually about having flags on ship parts?

Granted, this doesn't make a coal-powered civilization ideal, but have you heard of this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_coal_technology

...there was a time when it WASN'T the bad guy? Gosh, yes! I remember when NASA released a smart phone app where you printed out a piece of paper with tracking code on it. Place it on a table, point your smart phone at it, and then on the video screen, you saw the table, and a 3D mars rover sitting there. And it rotated seamlessly as you moved the phone around the table as if it was really there. The sheer potential of future gaming hit me like a ton of bricks at that moment. I imagined a wearable gaming device that could map out your entire home and then turn it into a warzone. You just walk around while it learns everything, and then it's ready to play. By constantly analyzing what it sees and comparing it to the map, it could pinpoint exactly where you are. Interactive things could be rendered to utilize the space.. Suddenly a soldier, sorcerer, whatever, is attacking down the hall from your bedroom and then ducking behind a wall for cover. It's going to be an absolutely amazing time. A quantum leap in augmented reality. Nobody will be able to make 'couch potato' jokes about games anymore.

It could conceivably be treated as an end-game rocket.The point in career mode where you're essentially a master of space anyhow and you get a few 'super parts.' Unfortunately, as far as prices go, reality is somewhat counter-intuitive to how 'arms races' work in game mechanics. Typically in games, you gain access to more expensive gear, at a rate relatively parallel to the increasing payouts from your missions. In reality, tech tends to become gradually better AND cheaper. Just look at computers.

MechJeb has a deltaV calculator...