Superfluous J

All of these "problems" with the movie just don't seem like problems to me. There's a huge difference between inaccuracy to make an otherwise unworkable plot function (all the "orbital mechanics" in Gravity, for example) and those done simply to give a better experience to the viewer (Being able to see Matt Damon's face through his visor, for example). From what I can tell every inaccuracy in the Martian movie - other than the sandstorm - falls into the latter category and is alright to be there.

Because you can't put a "Reveal the Stock Toolbar" button on the stock toolbar...

I was about to ask if they actually had any back-and-forth in the movie. They did not in the book. In fact, I recall someone at NASA saying something like "It's happening right now and we won't know if it worked for 12 minutes" or something like that. But now I don't have to as:

I haven't seen the movie yet (Hopefully tomorrow!) but did read the book. #1: No it's not. The author of the book conceded that, saying it was necessary to set up the rest of the book. I'm cool with it. I can't think of a better way to set it up. But it seems weird that a Mars Mission wouldn't have a contingency plan for the - presumably - expected maximum dust storm level. #2: As this isn't anything that hurts the plot (He could have worn his suit. IIRC in the book he did take precautions) I think it's fine. It's the same as when in TV shows the main characters don't wear face protection when storming the enemy base. They WOULD IRL, but having the audience see their faces is more important than strict adherence to realism. Interesting about #3, as that was suggested in the book (I think by Watney himself) and rejected. I was kinda hoping he'd be forced to do it anyway. I think it would make you spin but not necessarily uncontrollably. You'd surely need practice at it to be good enough to do it, but rule of cool would allow it. I think. I can't speak on #4, but his ability to do things impossible in Earth gravity is mentioned several times in the book. #5 I don't see why the suit shouldn't offer reasonable radiation protection. I do recall several passages about it in the book, but not any specifics. I don't recall any mention of the descent vehicle in the book, other than that they used one. Regarding the rocks, they make the scenery pretty and don't affect the plot at all (I assume). So that's fine IMO. So far, I've not heard of anything unreasonable in the movie or book. Nobody else seems to mind that Watney seems to have NO IDEA THERE ARE MANY SATELLITES OVER THE PLANET THAT WILL BE WATCHING HIM, so I'll let that one go too.

Yes and no. 3 is pushing it. I've never tried but clipping may be a problem. Also, the 1.25m (not mm. That's TINY ) bay is small even for 1 Kerbal. Do they even fit in there? Also, you won't get the benefits of a command pod. Most notably, it won't store science nor will it refill suit RCS packs. Also, no reaction wheels. Having chairs will give you control, at least, though "forward" will be whichever way they're facing. And finally, command pods always weigh the same regardless of if they have passengers or not. Your custom-made command pod won't.

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I would suggest GPOSpeedFuelPump instead of TAC. It's a different paradigm for fuel pumping that I think is far superior and has a much cleaner interface. If you want to go stock, disable the front tanks, then (possibly quickly) re-enable them when you drop the back tanks. Or set up action grou.... Oh never mind stock doesn't have that either does it?

Sorry, that is true. 50x was fine and you could hack it to work with 100x IIRC. What I meant was, while the vessel was not in focus. I wanted to put my vessel in orbit, go away and do interesting things, and then come back to find the planet scanned. Not get into orbit, hit 50x warp, and then watch TV for 2 hours.

Kethane WOULD HAVE had a superior protocol if it allowed scanning during time warp. I miss the result but will never miss the "Set up the orbit and go watch TV" aspect.

You never want to attach or detach anything to or from your ship so that the new thing is between your root part and that other ship. So extendable/rotatable booms with solar panels or radiators or the like are fine, but those with docking ports (or - in my experience - decouplers) will cause wonkiness.

I saw a video for this about 6 months ago I think. It's come along since then. I'm seriously considering nabbing it. Thanks for bringing this back to my attention!

You do. Will this guy ever stop mowing my lawn so I can get back to sleep?

Common term for a rocket that can land - preferably back at the launch pad or runway - so you can recover it to make back some of your launch cost. Like what SpaceX was landing on that barge recently.

Why would you do that?

Sorry, what I meant was that QuickScroll is so intuitive, natural, and obvious that I'm surprised that it's NOT stock. Whenever I play without QuickScroll, I'm confused for a moment whenever I try to scroll wheel and it doesn't work. It was a compliment

Thanks! I'm sure I've said it before but QuickScroll is one of those mods that - when I've not got it installed - I wonder what broke in KSP because this obvious stock functionality suddenly stopped working. What do you mean, scroll wheel on the parts list doesn't paginate in stock!?

I love awesome stuff! And yes, the Kerbal profession thing is - in my mind - the biggest mistake in the game so far because it's SO inane and they obviously did it on PURPOSE. If bits are so precious, remove the badS flag and replace it with "Profession." Why not just have 100% courageous Kerbals act the same way badS Kerbals act now? Okay I feel a long rant coming, so I'll cut this short now.

Immersion has nothing to do with how long you play the game. If it did, KSP would be the most immersive game I've ever played, hands down. FTL would be next, followed by Minecraft. Immersion has to do with - surprise - how immersed you feel when you play. How much you forget it's a game and just experience it. KSP always feels like a game to me, so immersion is pretty low. Games where I control a single person (FPSes mostly) are the most immersive, but I don't play them much. Any game where lots of people say "After X hundred (or thousand) hours of playing I got bored" is not a bad game. That's a resounding success. All true. In Astroneer, what is the ultimate purpose of all the stuff you build on-site? Hint: It's pretty much the same. All sandbox type games suffer from this. Either there are puzzles to solve so you feel good about solving them, or ultimately useless things to make so you can feel good about making them. Then there's nothing to do so you move on. I hope this game does well. I hope it's fun. If it is, I'll probably play it and if I do, I hope years from now I'm on a forum where people are talking about the next big open game that fixes all the problems in Astroneers that force ITS players to stop playing out of boredom after hundreds (or thousands) of hours. I also hope No Man's Sky is great. It surely looks it though I'm still wondering if the 1000th planet you visit will be interesting, considering it's just a random combination of all the stuff on the first 999 planets you visited.

My boss was one of those 6500 people. He said it was like waking from a nightmare into a fantastic dream.

Pre-1.0 it was the 48-7s. Now it's probably the 909. But I agree with those who say the Skipper as well. It's really hard to pick just one.

If it was for a video the wouldn't have to tweak it to match a bunch of different colors.

If KSP's VAB paralleled a CAD program, it would not have been remotely as successful as it is today. The beauty of KSP's build interface is that it's intuitive to use (at least most of the time).

You are right about that. It's been asked so many times I even made an image for it.

If you install the Field Experience mod your Kerbals will likely instantly have the experience required to change the tires. It lets your guys level up without having to go home first.

First, we've all been saying this for years. I almost quit the game in 0.21 because all there was to do was go places. If it wasn't for Science mode in 0.22 I may not be here today. But that was just a little bit of what I wanted. Astroneer looks pretty cool, but I don't see it as a "better KSP." I don't see a VAB, I don't see a space program at all. I see a lot of shots of a 3rd person building game with a sci-fi theme. I'm not saying that's bad. I'll probably buy it. But I'll still be playing KSP when I want to run a space program. (even though there's still not much to do when you get there)