Geschosskopf

There is but I had to dig to find it. This really shoiuld be linked in the OP https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/182708-173-beyond-home-120-after-kerbol-has-died-huge-update/page/17/&tab=comments#comment-3639837

Playing Jenga with colony modules.

The KSP Science! point system might not make any sense from a realism perspective but it makes a lot of sense from a sheer gameplay POV. It creates good mechanic to drive the player further and further afield. Go somewhere to get the Science! points to unlock the parts you need for the next trip further out, repeat. Science at all locations is finite but its value increases with distance, but the costs of the higher nodes also increases. And for those who want to stay in Kerbin's SOI, there's the MPL to squeeze MOAR Science! out of nearby places. So all in all, it's a good, workable, flexible system that doesn't lock players into a single way to progress. If you scrap it, you'll have to replace it with something that's essentially the same thing to maintain the functionality of the existing system.

Not with ARSEFACE. It woldn't stand a chance. Even without the long night, it can't climb the hills of which Ash is largely made. I am, however, thinking of Elcanos elsewhere in this system. Glad you had a good vacation. I guess it's winter down there. Sounds nice as the tropical summer where I live has been rather brutal this year KSP2 is more or less 6 months away. You'll have to fill that time somehow

I see a major philosophical difference between us I see the frustration you speak of as the natural and foreseeable result of biting off more than you can chew. IOW, this isn't a problem with the game that needs fixing, it's totally the result of the decisions the player makes. If you want to avoid this frustration, don't attempt things before you're equipped to do them properly. Unless you deliberately WANT to make things difficult for yourself. But in that case, you know what you're getting into so again, can't blame the game

I don't agree with you in the slightest My motto is, "Life begins when the tech tree ends." The whole point of unlocking everything in the tech tree is to USE it to conquer the universe. Stopping a game when the tech tree is complete, or needlessly prolonging it, is madness IMHO., And likewise, it's madness to attempt something which is as big an investment of blood, treasure, and playtime as a major colony WITHOUT having the best stuff you can get. You're paying for it, so you need to design it for success, not failure. You seem to think interstellar will by your 1st time to attempt a colony. Why wouldn't you practice first closer to home, where it's easier to fix problems? Then, problems solved (IOW, more advanced colony tech unlocked), go interstellar with proven colony tech and the only variable being the interstellar trip. So yeah, maybe your 1st permanent Munbase, Dunabase, or even Laythebase will leave something to be desired but, by the time you're going to another star, you've got all the kinks worked out. So basically, I have no problem with the existing system of Science! points and tech tree. I can see early versions of the new KSP2 stuff slotting into existing nodes and then some new nodes added on the end for the UFO-related speculative stuff.

I'm surprised the lunar lander transfer tug had enough macho to take down the massive mining rover along with the regular lander. And I still don't understand how you play "Tower of Hanoi" with the various lander pieces.

Well, if AMBS is totally differrent from Neptune, I'm not sure how that relates to this story. However, if the Laytheans have had prior contact with Kerbals and there's been violence, I wouldn't expect any major diplomatic breakthroughs. Whenever folks of different tech levels have met, each side has always gone through the same decision trees. The folks with the higher tech always win so for them, it's just a question of how effectively, if at all, the low-tech folks decide to resist, which depends a lot on the relative tech difference, the relative "advancement" of their civilizations, and how valuable the possessions of the low-tech folks (including mere geographically useful real estate) are compared to the cost of taking them by force. For the low-tech folks, it depends how how "advanced" their society was before contact. The more "advanced" their society, the more organized the resistance but the easier it is for the masses to accept a new lord in the castle after a decapitation strike--peasants will still plow the same fields regardless of who wins. OTOH, the less "advanced" their society (IOW, with more personal freedom), the less organized the resistance but the less likely they'll be to accept the existence of castles and lords to begin with, so the more likely they'll be to paint their faces black and say, "It's a good day to die." And the more the various independent tribes will learn from the experiences of their neighbors and see the same thing happening to them. So, like I said, Johnfrid should run away as fast as he can. Just because the Ryagii might have settled an old score with the Clivar with Kerbal help doesn't mean they see the Kerbals as eternal allies. They no doubt see themselves as impediments standing in the way of Kerbal imperialism and, seeing nothing to lose, will rather go down fighting than capitulate.

Hmm. Well, I haven't had time to read your story but if the Kerbals did bad things to the Laytheans, I'd expect they'll want revenge. Thus, sending Johnfrid to Laythe unarmed was a bad decision. So, to answer your question, Johnfrid should run away very quickly. If not, he should write his will.

@Gameslinx, any word on fixing the problem with the Lua base destroying the universe? IKerbal Konstructs has updated twice recently but I haven't had the nerve to try it

#1. Suspect the so-called natives are merely cosplayers until proven otherwise. Only approach with smallarms locked and loaded, flamethrowers lit, and ready to nuke the site from orbit, just to be sure. If they are cosplayers, take no prisoners and leave no spore to sprout. #2. If they're actually legit aliens, hope they speak some variant of Tok Pisin, which is fairly easy to understand. This goes a long way in making up for their horrific anime eyes At least that's my experience with aliens in KSP. Your mileage may vary. The main thing is, unless Johnfrid can defend himself or at least can call on fire support, he'd best stay clear. The natives (if not cosplayers) are undoubtedly the top predators of their ecosystem so will be armed and willing to fight.

I frequently spend time in sandbox doing crazy things that explode a lot. But when I play a serious career game, I aim for something in the middle between reality and totally Kerbal. Total reality is definitely a challenge but it just shows what anybody who pays attention already knows before they start---we're totally stuck on this rock. Sure, we can maybe send a minivan's worth of folks somewhere else and MAYBE bring them back, and even MORE MAYBE they can live a normal life, with normal lifespan, afterwards. But that's all we'll ever do in total realism. I had enough of that playing Orbiter and its predecessors since the 1980s, which is what destroyed all my childhood dreams from the 1960s. So I kicked all that to the curb when I discovered KSP. In KSP, it's still possible, despite Squad's acquiescence to some of the strident demands of the short-sighted realism-mongers, to play KSP with enough realism to satisfy an old Orbiter hand, but with enough fantasy to satisfy the childhood dreams of somebody who grew up in the space race. This is why I ardently oppose all attempts to add more so-called "realism" features to KSP. This fight preserves the middle way.

Well, I'm rather too invested in Beyond Hope Home to switch now. Besides, this system deserves a bit of a publicity. I will anxiously await Whirligig's appearance in KSP2. Assuming that's actually worth playing, or course. I assume our tastes are similar enough that we'll both feel the same way about it. But I'm not really in much doubt that KSP2 will be better in every way, not least for the advertised feature of making life easier for modders. I'm already anticipating the numerous gratuitous explosions in the early game due to parachutes not working at home

It's going to be a real grind getting meaningful Science! out of the Kerbin system now. Got any plans for going further afield?

The lore level in KSP1 is about as intrusive as it can be without ruining the game. You have a few unexplained objects lying around that can be interpreted however the player wants, or even ignored entirely. I don't want any more than that. I mean, Monoliths are a thing and will doubtless be in KSP2, but I never want the game to explain them. See, KSP is all about creativity. This is MUCH more than simply stacking rocket parts in different arrangements, or doing the same mission using different methods. Really and truly, it all boils down to story-telling. Even if you choose not to share your stories in this forum, you still need some sort of narrative outline in your own mind to justify what you're doing and the manner in which you're doing it This justification (what SF authors call "MacGuffinite"), however, only makes sense in the context of Kerbal society as you envision it. So, the more you play, the more you envision Kerbal society, too which ultimately causes you develop your own backstory of Kerbal origins, evolution, biology, history, and social structure, all which focuses down to the need to perform this specific space mission in this particular way. The cool thing about KSP1 is that once you have such a mental image of all things Kerbal, you can change it at any point and come up with something totally different. Kerbals can have any sort of origin, biology, government(s), you name it. This is because KSP1 has essentially zero lore. Adding built-in explanations for how Kerbals got to be where they are now reduces the scope for players to invent their own universes, which ultimately decreases the replay value of the game for them. Furthermore, it robs this community of entertaining stories told in vastly different Kerbal universes. This is why built-in lore is bad. So, returning to the above quote, I define "boring" has having a lot of built-in lore. It might be fun to unlock the story once, but then you're stuck with it forever and it's always the same story, no matter who tells it. "Living", OTOH, is making your own story, and reading the stories others have written.

Right. I don't want to see ANYTHING that imposes preconceived conceptions of what Kerbals are, how their society is structured, or anything like that. And I don't want any explanation of Monoliths or any other anomalies. Let the players spin whatever yarns they want off what's provided, so the game should NEVER give any definitive answers. So basically, I want ZERO "lore" incorporated into the game. None, nada, zip, zero, zilch.

In BARIS, you COULD (I use the past tense because @Angel-125 tells me BARIS is out of date and he's not currently working on it) select which general classes of parts malfunctions could occur in. Then you could set how severe any malfunction were, from minor annoyances to exploding, and which few or many of a wide selection of events caused a check for malfunctions. And then there was the reliability of each individual part which began at near-zero when first unlocked and only improved through EXTENSIVE testing and use in flight. There was also a "test bench" feature to short-cut this process but it cost such an exorbitant amount of Science! points that I never, ever used it. And all of this could be toned down A LOT by how much you let the presence of an artificersmate Engineer fix things on the fly before they malfunctioned. The way I had it set up was brutal to start with, even with extensive launchpad testing, but the few artificersmates Engineers who survived the early missions eventually became able to circumvent most malfunctions of relatively proven parts before they happened, although all new parts still required extensive testing. This killed LOTS of Kerbals and ruined countless missions but such are the necessary sacrifices on the road to greatness Well, it depends on how you define "fun". I have never wanted to emulate real life stuff because the harsh laws of physics will keep us stuck on this rock no matter what various dreamers and madmen say (at least until we get UFO technology, which the same harsh laws of physics say can't exist). Thus, I use KSP as a vehicle to play out the ill-founded dreams of my misspent youth during the height of the space race, when I was easily led astray by false prophets before I learned the harsh laws of physics.

Me like Caveman! Ooga Booga! I look forward to a Caveman Jool 5

Yes, I totally agree. I regret not having known of its existence until a few weeks ago or I'd have done it long since. I read A Mission of Gravity back in the 70s and it's been one of my favorite SF (as opposed to sci-fi--an important distinction) books ever since. Way back when mod systems 1st started appearing (which I think was even before Kopernicus), I requested a Mesklin-analog and have been hoping one would come along ever since. But every time when I've started a new game and searched for lists of Kopernicus-capable mods (many times), I never saw Whirligig @GregroxMun needs to advertise it more. So, once I finally learned of it, it was my intention to do that system for my next game. But about a week after that, KSP2 was announced with a release scheduled for about 6 months from now. Thus, I'm thinking Beyond Hope Home will be my last hurrah in KSP1, unless KSP2 totally sucks (which is entirely possible--we'll have to see). But assuming KSP2 is sufficiently better than KSP1 to pull me in, most modders will certainly feel the same way. And it's likely we'll all only have time to deal with 1 or the other, so that will be KSP2. In this scenario, I see KSP1 mod support drying up and blowing away as modders move to KSP2. and for Whirligig to appear in KSP2 fairly soon. Thus, my future in KSP would be mapped out. Go as far as I can with Beyond Hope Home prior to KSP2, do a game or 2 in the stock KSP2 universe, then do Whirligig in KSP2.

Well, congrats on getting down safely despite all the malfunctions. Especially the bay door motors, which could have been a real problem. Also, it sounds like it's a good thing lithium batteries haven't been invented yet or their failures might have been more of a problem I've never used Dang It! but I have used BARIS. How do they compare? Is Dang It! as configurable as BARIS? Do parts get better over time? Malfunction mods can definitely cause frustration due to missions failing even if you design a perfect ship and mission profile. It took me a few failed missions to get used to it because, being an engineer, I take pride in designing capable ships. But eventually I discovered a coping mechanism. I decided not to take the save as seriously as I normally do, crank BARIS up to 11, be disappointed when it did NOT give me gratuitous explosions, and have a sense of triumph for finally bringing part reliability up enough that ships only exploded 10% of the time instead of 75% All the while slogging on with the usual KSP shtick of exploring planets and grabbing Science! In the end, I found it quite enjoyable and would be using BARIS in my current save if it had been functional when I started. But that was easy for me to do because I run the Circus, not a NASA-emulator. Thus, I salute you for running a serious game with a malfunction mod

Ah, a fellow Fender fan and playing a Telie at that. Salute! I could never get a good sound out of a Telie so stuck with Strats. Really, my stubby fingers would be better suited to a Gibson but I prefer the sound of the longer neck and single-coil pickups. But DAMN! 100K+ MM patches?!?!?!?!?!? I think my all-time max was 16K but I try to keep it below 1500 these days. Congrats on beating the real world by 4 years

Quite stylish!

Done a bit of catching up. Yay, getting a Kerbal out to push

I agree that much of what Musk says, and the whole Starship thing, are ridiculous. And I question (along with Forbes) if reusing rockets is really saving any money. You need about 20% more rocket to do the same job as a 1-shot deal. But OTOH, it does increase your tempo of operations if you can refurb a rocket faster than you can build a new one, so you get more jobs. But wouldn't that have the same problems as a fully reusable lunar lander as we just discussed? Of course, it takes a lot longer to get new stuff to Mars so there's more incentive for it, I guess. Oh, I agree that permanent human habitation anywhere else in the solar system is more trouble than it's worth. Either gravity's off, or there's no air, or there's no magnetic field, or all of the above. So I don't see that happening. But the same can be said of any crewed mission, yet they continue to happen, seemingly more due to emotion than necessity. Thus, it wouldn't surprise me to see a permanently crewed lunar base someday, for just a few folks at a time. As long as they get incinerated during the launch, that's a good thing Congrats on another successful mission and nice save from keeping the lander from tipping over. I've noticed a lot of bounce in your lander legs. What spring/damper ratio are you using? I'd recommend increase damper a lot and reducing spring down to 0.5 or so. Just be careful this doesn't make the engine bell touch the ground as such settings make the lander sit lower.

Your names are better than mine I'm the other way around on that.