Lord Aurelius

@Yemo I can see how some diameter restrictions would be beneficial as long as they're not as restricting as they are currently, that would also serve to give a purpose to a Saturn IB style rocket. Agreed, a greenhouse minimod should be separate from the main SETI install. It sounds like the least work, and it's minimally more effort for someone who is already going for more than the minmods install (which doesn't even have life support anyways). Also, USI Survivability is in the gameplay/info section on the OP, wouldn't it make more sense to be in the part mods section?

I've built some miniscule stack probes out of an OKTO2, .625m RCS tank and 4 thrusters (plus batteries, comms, science, solar, etc). It's capable of landing on any of the low gravity bodies and work great for missions to Jool for those low gravity moons. For these probes, RCS is used for everything (except docking, these are disposable probes). Other craft use it primarily for docking, and large craft use it to assist with turning as well.

What would make KSP perfect for me (in no particular order): Engine/Video/Audio Improvements: 1. Rock-solid stability (including full 64-bit support so I can use as many mods as I want), that means no bugs/glitches 2. Highly optimized, multithreaded physics, i.e. minimal lag even with high part counts 3. Graphics that makes people think I'm watching a big-budget sci-fi movie instead of playing a game at first glance 4. Epic movie-like soundtrack and sound effects to go along with movie-like graphics 5. Full VR support for something like Oculus Rift 6. Full mod support for ALL parts of the game without having to use workarounds 7. Integrated mod manager (think something like Steam Workshop) that makes discovering/installing/updating mods trivial 8. A LOT more stuff on Kerbin (i.e. cities), it's pretty barren right now 9. Full readouts that give all the information you need at any given time without cluttering up the screen Gameplay improvements: 1. An epic main quest for career mode that sends the Kerbals to the far reaches of the Kerbol system and beyond where they follow the clues from one anomaly to another, unlocking increasingly advanced technology along the way 2. Sci-Fi tech in endgame (i.e. FTL, antigravity, shields, etc) 3. More surface exploration parts/tech, i.e. micro rovers, helicopters, airships, boats, subs 4. More interactive Kerbals (similar to was KIS is trying to do, also more functional IVAs with working MFDs, combined with VR support gives the ability to fly an entire mission from first person and interact with everything you need to) 5. More scenarios, especially Kerbalized reenactments of real life missions (both completed and planned) 6. Upgradeable/customizable/tweakable parts (including multifuel engines) 7. A new tech tree that lets players choose the path of their space program (with a lot more focus on upgrades instead of just part spam, although a few new well thought out parts would be essential to fill in existing holes) 8. A new progression system, where funds are the primary resource used for unlocking/upgrading parts (instead of science), remove points system from science 9. Specific science experiments unlock specific things in the game, i.e. part upgrades that will be useful for further missions to a particular location now that you know what to expect, or reveal more anomalies for the main quest 10. More science experiments, especially long term ones 11. Full mining and offworld base mechanics, including extraplanetary rocket building, also applies to building additional facilities on Kerbin (and no, we shouldn't have to launch a rocket on a suborbital trajectory to build a base at the poles, there should be a better way of doing this) 12. Easily programmable mission computer (functionality similar to kOS but much easier to program, mission program for a craft saved in the file so it can be easily distributed) 13. Ability to set Kerbal/Advanced probe tasks, Kerbal will perform task automatically even if not focused (so you can tell a pilot to fly a predefined flight path, or a scientist to perform various experiments at a certain time). This could be a real game changer. Imagine building a two-part SSTO with a carrier vehicle and an orbiter, and being able to tell the (auto)pilot to return to KSC and land after separation. 14. More planets 15. Procedural content for more replay value (even if it's just randomizing some of the anomalies each game, also would be cool to see something similar to the warp drive mod that teleports you to a randomized system when used) 16. Multiplayer 17. Some kind of competition in career mode, maybe a rival space agency trying to hunt down the same anomalies 18. Customizable Kerbals 19. Infernal Robotics style parts 20. Lots more interesting stuff on planets (maybe one anomaly can be an entire ruined city with lots of cool stuff to explore) 21. A much more realistic physics system overall (aero, temp, pressure, n-body orbital mechanics) 22. An easy to use mission planner that lets you program computers, assign tasks, etc all in one place across multiple craft so a team of sufficiently skilled Kerbals (or sufficiently advanced drones) could fly a full mission themselves, for those who prefer the planning/building aspect of the game over the piloting aspect. There's probably a bunch more cool ideas I haven't thought of yet, but here's a wishlist to get started.

@Yemo Doing away with the procedural parts size limits makes sense, I've been frustrated many times in the early game with the size restrictions. It's not like it's hard to work around (8x symmetry around a central core for width, keep stacking tanks for length, just like in stock) but it takes a lot of parts. One thing I would do to balance is to make the larger tanks exponentially more expensive as the volume increases so it's still more cost effective to have a cluster of smaller tanks, in real life the Saturn IB used a cluster of smaller tanks from existing rockets for its first stage and it would be nice to have some advantage in game for using that approach.

@Barefoot Friar Don't forget that ISRU/mining was also scheduled for 1.0, but we haven't really heard anything about it since the initial 1.0 roadmap.

@Yemo Thanks again for this amazing mod. Looking forwards to trying out the latest update. One quick thing: on the OP USI Survivability is not listed as being supported, the only place it appears on the page is in the development section.

Agreed, Squad made the 1.0 decision behind closed doors and when we voiced our concern, Squad basically said they had it all under control and were confident they could do it. Likewise, we didn't set the deadline, we just found out about it now that Squad is worried they can't meet it. Much of the community has been trying to encourage Squad to slow down and do things right, moving the deadline would actually generate more goodwill from the community than anything else at this point if it meant that Squad could do a proper release. A proper beta with a few interim bugfix releases would be even better. This whole situation is still kind of strange, and I'm not sure if Squad is having issues with management/funds, they've been overly optimistic and overpromised themselves (the devnotes keep mentioning licensing and merchandise deals, I wonder if the deadline is from those), or if there's something else going on. Either way, I hope the deadline isn't as set in stone as Squad is claiming and that they realize that if they're having to go back on promises to meet the deadline, then it needs to be moved if at all possible.

Just found this thread (hiding in plain sight stickied in the general discussion forum...). If the 1.0 deadline is truly immovable, call Jeb and have him help build an unstoppable object to ram into it and summon the kraken to make it glitch out of existence (or destroy the universe in the process). Joking aside, my opinion on the matter is that KSP isn't ready for 1.0. Even if all the initially announced features make it into the game without adding any new bugs and manage to fix all the old bugs and balance and polish everything (a really big if) the career mode is still fundamentally broken. All the systems might technically be in place, but they're not implemented in any cohesive way and progression is basically broken, and I'm not sure a simple balance pass will really fix the fundamental issues. This is the mode that reviewers and new players will play because they assume this is how the game is meant to be played, which simply isn't true at this point. This game is still just a big sandbox, and career is sandbox that holds you back early on by forcing you to grind funds and science points instead of guiding new players through the game as was originally intended. I'm still puzzled (and more than a little annoyed) by this whole thing, it seems like starting with the curse decision Squad has made major decisions behind closed doors with minimal community input (replacing spaceport with curse, the jump from .25 to .90, and now the 1.0 release) and haven't relented at all despite the massive community backlash (i.e. to all appearances they basically ignored the community), yet now that there's a hard deadline and Squad is getting worried we're finally being asked for input. I'm not trying to put down Squad, but I am kind of frustrated with this whole situation, as there's obviously something going on behind the scenes that's not being communicated that has the potential to really harm this game by forcing Squad to cut corners and release before it's ready. That said, if you really must go forward with 1.0, my priorities would be as follows: Critical (i.e. don't even think of shipping without these) Fix frustrating bugs (anything gamebreaking, memory leaks, gui bugs, EVApult, editor, decoupler, etc) Polish (consistent textures and UI, fix typos and small glitches, IVAs for all parts) Part Balance (doesn't have to be final, but don't ship with broken placeholder values for parts) Aero & heating (these are way overdue and have a large effect on the early game, you don't want to be changing this later) Career balance (fix the nonsensical contracts and tech tree, fix early game balance and progression) Proper tutorials so new players and reviewers aren't totally lost (make these easily discoverable, maybe have a way to jump straight to a tutorial from career instead of having to back all the way out to the main menu) High (Highly recommended for 1.0) Fix more bugs (planet destroyer, occasional kraken attacks on very large vessels, stuff that takes a fair amount of effort and knowledge of the bug to reproduce) Performance optimizations (game loading time, physics performance, memory usage, etc) DeltaV readouts and engineer reports (makes rocket building a lot easier) A few new parts to fill holes in the current lineup (nothing too fancy) Medium (if there's time, otherwise push to 1.1 or whatever) Some kind of main quest series of contracts for career (visit all the anomalies and bring back samples?) Female Kerbals Robust modding interfaces for everything (i.e. nothing hardcoded, should also include a planet modding interface) Improved graphics (especially planet clouds and textures) Low (probably best to push to the next update at least) ISRU/mining (doesn't affect early game at all, can be easily added later for more endgame) More planets More launch sites Other features Unity 5 (wait until it's ready first) Really hoping that this next update does the game justice regardless of what number it is. Edit: In light of the post below, I would also agree that Squad should focus more on parts of the game not accessible to modders. My list above would be for a situation where Squad is committed to continued development and wants to make the best initial impression given limited time constraints. If there is any chance at all that this game won't receive the dev attention it needs after release, then Squad needs to double down on bugfixing, performance and implementing a robust modding interface to build a solid foundation that the modding community can build on top of. Games that are mod friendly tend to have much longer lifetimes (and sell more copies in the long run because of it) even if the initial release isn't perfect (case and point: the elder scrolls games).

Yemo, good to see you back. Looking forwards to the next update. As far as adding antennas to command pods, I would be all for that, if there's room to add a 160km omnidirectional antenna to the OKTO2 core, then there's room to squeeze it into all the manned pods. This would especially help with the early aircraft and manned flights when we're still stuck with the 30 part limit.

@Svm420 That science mod looks great, much more complete than what I found, although it probably needs balancing to mesh well with the rest of SETI. Thanks for the info on KCT, I'll go ahead and start using it now.

Yemo, if you're still considering some kind of telemetry style experiment for the probes I came across this. It's pretty old, but could still serve as a starting point and could be implemented as a microMod. Edit: Also was looking at Kerbal Construction Time and remembered that you had mentioned it earlier in this thread, are you planning on integrating it at some point, or does it pretty much work as-is already?

In the Alt-F12 debug menu there's a contracts tab that has an option to add a specific contract, I would start by looking in there.

Totally agree, that's a huge oversight on the part of whoever set this whole system up. The kind of people who would be most interested in this would likely want multiple models at the same scale (i.e. to show off the multiple stages of their awesome interplanetary mission). The price and material adds insult to injury in my opinion, $99 for a model that you can't even really play with (because if you bump it too hard it will break) means only a very small number of players will actually use this, and from the latest devnotes it sounds like Squad devoted a significant amount of time to this "secret project" when they're going full-bore for 1.0 and need all hands on deck for that. I would love to have a 3D models of some of my craft, but they need to be a lot more flexible (i.e. separable stages, not just all fused together) and need to be cheaper and more durable, plastic would have made much more sense than sandstone.

When playing stock, I occasionally get crashes from the memory leaks and I've had the editor become unresponsive a few times. With a lot of mods, the out of memory crashes happen all the time (about every 30 minutes with a large mission, or after about a half-dozen quickloads/scene changes) with occasional glitches from the mods themselves, but by and large most of the problems I experience come from the game's poor memory management (having to load ALL assets into memory and memory leaks).

Nice, I'll give that a try. One quick question: do these procedural cores come with a remotetech omnidirectional antenna like the other cores?

Another quick thought: could we get some non-universal storage inline/radial fuel cells? Having to use a universal storage frame just to get a fuel cell is annoying sometimes since you need at least two modules to balance the craft and tends to bloat the part count if you don't need the other modules.

I've been looking for a good RSS config, this one looks quite interesting, I'll definitely give it a try. Are you planning on adjusting any of the science values/messages to reflect the changes you've made?

I was just reading this and it reminded me of the Hooligan Labs mods which add submarines and airships. The airships especially are kind of unbalanced (you can adjust the lift by simply moving a slider and it magically floats up) so it would need a lot of work, but it would open up a lot of neat mission possibilities, especially if there's a way to add underwater biomes.

Glad to see that Stock Revamp is now a part of SETI, it does a really nice job of sprucing up the stock parts. The engine rebalance is also a great step in the right direction. Yemo, thanks again for all your hard work with this mod. Edit: And I managed to get the first post on yet another page...

Another random thing I just noticed: Tweakscale lets me rescale command pods, I just rescaled the Mk1-2 pod to 1.25m and it now weighs about .6 tons but still holds 3 Kerbals and looks silly with a Kerbal hanging off the side of it. As much fun as this is, it outright breaks the pod weight balance (not to mention the physics of cramming 3 Kerbals into less space than the Mk1 pod). Is it possible to add a flag to a part file to tell tweakscale that the part isn't scalable? Edit: The KAX Horzion cockpit is even more ridiculous, it goes down to .625m scale with no loss in Kerbal capacity.

Nice, another update. One quick note: the OP with all the install instructions in the ALCOR thread is significantly out of date so some of the links/downloads are to old versions of mods, specifically for RPM and Scansat. You might want to provide some notes on how to install this with links to updated versions of the required mods. Your OP also still lists RLA Stockalike in the development section. Otherwise, looks like another amazing update.

@Yemo Thanks for the suggestions, I'll take a look at those and try to come up with highly portable/packable rover. If I come up with anything decent I'll post it up here. Are those mods you mentioned (the extra IR parts and Kerbonov parts) on your backlog of potential additions to SETI?

@SwGustav That rover looks nice, I like how it folds flat and can be assembled without needing a structural pylon like the USI exploration rover. I'll give it a try and see if it will all fit in one container that a Kerbal can carry on their back. I'll also try the tweakscale/IR idea, I remember seeing a few rovers on the rover megathread awhile back based on that concept but had forgotten about it. Thanks for the suggestion.

Ok, that makes sense, I'll just take the monoprop out of my landers for the time being. That rover (and other small parts) looks neat, although I was thinking of something even smaller (the size of a go-kart) that's just one piece that a Kerbal could carry around on their back and place down and get on when they want to drive, kind of like how they can quickly grab the EVA pack and go.

Just out of curiosity, why does a lander can need that much monoprop? I know Squad added it to all the pods initially because they intended on making the EVA jetpack use monoprop, but that was never actually implemented (unless one of the recommended mods added that back in and I just haven't been paying attention). On the low gravity bodies, reaction wheels and thrust vectoring are usually sufficient unless you have a heavy lander, and for docking I just put RCS on the other vehicle in orbit, so my small landers don't usually need monoprop at all unless they're purely monoprop powered. The large amount of KAS storage makes sense. Another random idea: are there any mods that add a KAS compatible packable mini-rover to complement the EVA pack? Scott Manley tried to build a rover using cubic octagonal struts, the small wheels, a command seat and an RTG and it was a pain to assemble and summoned the kraken shortly after completion. I always liked the idea of a packable rover (that's what they did on the Apollo missions) and it would save me having to figure out where to strap one on the side of my lander without sticking way out and throwing off the center of mass. Edit: For the hitchhiker, I consider it to be a long term habitation module for space stations, interplanetary craft and surface bases. Like SwGustav was saying, it should have substantial storage and life support, although I think a year is a bit excessive since we already have the life support tanks and by the time the module is unlocked we'll probably have already upgraded the launch facility so we won't be on such a tight part budget. I think a month of life support for 4 Kerbals would be more reasonable, that would make more sense for a space station and it could be supplemented by additional life support modules for longer stays. I wouldn't increase the weight too much, this doesn't have reaction wheels or the ability to control a vessel so another pod is still needed. Yet another random idea: a mod that lets Kerbals hibernate (medically induced coma? cryosleep?) so you don't need to have all the Kerbals wide awake using all the life support for the whole trip.