Superfluous J

I will never support "do this action multiple times or we won't allow you to go to Mun." If I can land on Mun on my very first rocket, go me. Don't lock down the ability behind doing any number of orbital flights, even if that number is 1. Everybody complains that science points are arbitrary but so is XP in pretty much every single game ever made. Lara Croft learns how to craft better shoes by shooting dudes with arrows. In Factorio you learn how to build a rocket by shoving gears and circuit boards (and a dozen or so other semi-random items) into "science" bottles and disintegrating them. Is it realistic? Of course not, but what it does do - in every good instance of it at least - is create a gameplay loop that rewards the player for doing the thing that the game is about. Tomb Raider, it's killing dudes with arrows (and raiding tombs sometimes though not all that often these days). In Factorio, it's setting up factories to make stuff. In KSP, it's building rockets that go places. Is science perfect? Of course not, but the problem isn't that the points don't make sense. If anything, it's that there are far too many of them available and also that once you unlock the tech tree they're not useful anymore.

Naw I don't think I'll have to do that again. I'm far less concerned about image links on the forum breaking now, than I was 5 years ago.

I disagree. You make many fine points and I personally agree with them, but there is a segment of the population that values ease of use to simplicity of design, and for these people a Smart TV is a boon. Buy a TV, Plug it in, Give a few companies a credit card and bam you're watching Grey's Anatomy in no time. I just wish that - along with all the Smart TVs - there was even the option to not buy one. And don't get me started with trying to find a refrigerator without a built-in ice machine. Box (at least my Roku) breaks, buy a new box for $50. TV breaks, good luck finding a good one for so cheap.

When I self-hosted all my images it went great, until I decided to give up the whole "have a website" thing and then I had to load all the cached images up on Imgur and re-link them. The ones I found. I'm sure there are dozens or hundreds that are still broken, all over the dark corners of the Forum (and the rest of the Internet)

How dare you not get warm happy feelings buying a new kitten calendar.

Are you sure of that? In my experience, you stop paying the license for licensed software, you stop being able to use that software.

HarvesteR was in a bad situation with no way out. He didn't own KSP because he made an agreement with his company (Squad) early on that the program was Squad's property, in exchange for them letting him stop doing whatever he used to be doing and instead work on it. That sounds like a crazy agreement considering it's about the only way the game would have ever existed I'm glad it went down that way. Then when things stopped going his (and our) way, he left instead of getting walked all over. Thankfully KSP1 survived this and IMO is better for it. KSP2, not so much None of that is official record and I have no insider information. I just connected dots based on what I've read over the past decade plus.

Steamboat Willie's Space Program, with Popeye and Tintin DLC!

For things like this I unashamedly go into the cheat menu and complete the contract there, giving me full rep/science/money.

A moderator told you over PM but won't post in the forum? For what it's worth I believe you. Not like it makes any difference in the long run anyway.

It implies it, but remember the forum software is apparently registered by the year/month and it's only renewed until either March or September 2025, depending on if you only believe the forum post, or trust hearsay (not throwing shade just using the term as its defined) from a trusted source.

It lasted all of a fraction of a second but I actually saw detail, like fire or plasma or whatever blowing off. Then I had a green/orange line through my vision for a half hour

I tried too (I own the game both on Steam and from the website) and can't find a download link. I've reported your post so hopefully a moderator who knows more than I do can help, but they're not employees so may not have any more info than us. One thing you CAN do, if you have access to your old computer, is just copy the entire KSP directory over a network or on a thumb drive and it'll 100% work on your new computer. There is no copy protection or anything like that and you own it so there's no legal issue copying it in this way.

I had a shooting star go through my view and it was awesome. Ruined my night vision in that eye for a while but well worth it.

That's the problem (and the difference). You were certified as a hospitality manager. Chet at the drive through is at work instead of at his girlfriend's house because he needs money for gas to drive to his girlfriend's house. His priorities start and stop with getting his minimum wage paycheck and you literally do not matter to him and never will. And as Nuke said, you're better off eating pretty much anything else as the fast food companies care about making good food about as much as Chet cares if you get ketchup.

You drop the first reflector

Long before I understood all this (which frankly I still don't but I get the math now ) I wrote a story where the bad guys loaded a space ship full of antimatter with the attempt (thwarted at the last second by the good guys of course) to smash it into a planet at 0.1 c. I calculated they'd need some ridiculous amount of antimatter (20 or so cubic meters of solid antimatter lead, iirc, which had its own problems). Who knew all they needed was to let the ship just hit the planet with no cargo at all.

I'm hoping for 50

In happier and more personal New Year's news (olds?), I have not smoked a cigarette for over 20 years. I smoked my last one right after the ball drop on NYE 2004 (so Jan 1 2005)

Meh

Normally I say something along the lines of "It can't get any worse" but we all know that's a huge lie. So here's to it not getting as much worse as I think it will.

The same way many probes over the past decades have slowed down after reaching their destination. You don't.

Don't cry at your failures. Revel in them. When you make no more mistakes, the game loses a lot of its fun.

You just described pretty much every game out there. Is Skyrim on your list of 'abandoned' games? Or are you only concerned about 'abandoned' EA games that left EA (nearly) a decade ago?

Nobody cares enough to update it. If you care enough, update it. If you don't care enough, you have joined a very large group of us who don't care enough to update it. That's how Wikis work. People care, it stays up to date. Nobody cares, it doesn't.