innovine

I've done a rendevous and dock entirely in IVA and map views, stock ksp. I didn't look out the window all that much either, just from a few km out eyeball the range. That was in a perfectly circular equatorial orbit though. I think it might be possible with inclined orbits with a lot of head scratching but I'm not about to try it I'm not sure I could handle getting onto the orbit normal just via the navball, probably end up docking sideways or something. Then again, if you look out the window it might be possible.. I was glued to the navball for my docking.

I made it to Duna, AND BACK, on my very first manned attempt. I had only sent one little probe beforehand, to see if there was an atmosphere and if aerobraking or parachutes would be required. Then I just took a good guess and what I'd need (not a single dv calculation, just eyeballed the size of the rocket).

I think indoor testing of rocket motors tied to bungy cords sounds like a lot more fun.

Way to go with a spoiler, putting it in the subject line. You should be ashamed, and banned.

I don't like the Science points. It's boring, and feels arbitrary and forced, like someone is trying to come up with a Career mode but doesn't really know how to make it fun or how to get it to progress, so they dumped this scoring system on it. It's outstandingly average game design (meaning it's very disappointing, coming from Squad) and it, for me at least, adds absolutely nothing but limitations to an otherwise fun, quirky and deep game. In fact, it kills most of the fun, and frustrates me because instead of figuring out how to fly space missions I'm trying to figure out what Squad think I should do to earn points. The only reason it's difficult to earn points, is because they deliberately left out the instructions on how to score points. I am not playing a space mission in a realistic universe with physics as the obstacles to overcome. Instead, I'm being constantly reminded that I'm playing a game and I need to figure out an opaque game mechanic before I can progress to more of the same. This is not good game design, it's actually quite BAD.

I managed to land Bob on the wrong side of Kerbin, and got the bright idea to create a mission to go get him. I thought I'd do a quick suborbital flight to get there, but since my precision landings aren't, I thought it'd be a good idea to bring a solar powered rover along to cover the remaining distance. This led to a few rover tests at the pad, then a few straight up shots to test the parachutes. I put the rover on the top of the launch vehicle and finally took off, went up and got a suitable trajectory. I detached the rover (it had a command module on it with the Kerbal inside) and I did a spectacular reentry with the rover, parachuted down, and landed 30km from Bob. I was feeling very pleased, and happy that I'd remembered to have two seats on the rover. Then it dawned on me that I'd completely forgotten the return journey and would just have Two Kerbals on the wrong side of the planet. Bah.

So why is mine rolling uphill, if I just disable all the motors? And what is the break key? The key assignments are left, right, and throttle up and down. If there is no throttle, the input settings menu is incorrect. My rover also has solar panels, it clearly says so in my original post. Please read it before replying.

So I just landed my first rover on the Mun and I can't seem to control it's throttle at all. Rover is basically just 4 wheels stuck to a metal plate, some solar panels and a kerbal in a control seat. I was using WASD until I realized it was also pitching the rover, so following a tip on the wiki, I remapped the rover controls to numpad 8456. I can use 4 and 6 to turn left and right, but here's the thing, no amount of 8 and 5 change the throttle. It's like 8 and 5 have no effect at all. I think the throttle is stuck on at a low amount, as my rover just starts off rolling and picks up some speed and actually rolls up some hills. I have been unable to stop it from moving (I just end up rolling it and exploding). I can even disable the motor for all 4 wheels and it keeps on going... I am in some hilly terrain which makes it hard to see the horizontal, but I drove for a while in one direction and did a 180 and drove all the way back, so I don't think I'm rolling downhill! I don't have SAS or ASAS enabled. Please help!

It would be awesome to have an aimable antenna, and when you point it to kerbin (or a relay satellite) you start to hear radio chatter. Have the chatter fade away again as the antenna drifts off target

My first landing was a bit hard, and one leg of the lander broke off. The lander fell over onto its side and landed on the door, obstructing it. My second lander touched down softly, but due to a last minute redesign which hadnt been tested, the poor kerbal discovereo that the ladder blockeo the door and prevented it from opening. My first landing on duna went well, and my kerbal managed to get out the door. I was just thinking of some first words when he tripped on a bend in the ladder and faceplanted into the dirt Ksp is awesome!

I wouldn't mind having little canisters that would pop open and release little poodles or chihuahuas into the vacuum of space. They could wiggle and get bulgy eyes, before they pop. For, uh, science purposes.

You should be allowed to use animals in your crew roster, just like kerbals but with reduced mass. And salary. And possibly higher stupidity too.

It would be awesome to discover some new asteroid or comet or small moon, and get to name it!

The Apollo program lunar lander was never really tested.. it's flight capabilities were tested in LEO but it's landing capability wasn't really tested. I strongly dislike the idea of computer simulations. A wind tunnel would be good, as would some kind of bungie cord from the roof to 'simulate' low gravity, but I think it should be really primitive, rather than a high-fidelity sim. Just more fun isn't it I get a lot of playtime by lofting my re-entry, land and re-ascend vehicles up to 10km and parachute down, do rover activity and fly up and away again. Its cool to not really know for sure if it will work somewhere other than Kerbin, but still try to come up with a test program on Kerbin. Please don't remove that challenge by offering me a simulator. Plus, a good sim is more or less the same as just teleporting to your destination over and over and re-doing the landing until you get it right. If you are instead forced to launch, rendevous, refuel, navigate, arrive and begin a descent EVERY TIME, you sure as hell have a lot more riding on it, making the first time somewhere new very exciting indeed. I think sims would reduce that tension by far too much.

I suggest you link to the original discussion instead. It had a lot more debate and viewpoints, and a lot less bickering. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/43712-Kerbal-RCS-strength

You could introduce this with Career mode... when you finally manage to put an orbital telescope into place, it then starts discovering small asteroids and comets, which you could then target and fly to to investigate. I'm sure some of these could be made very attractive, and work as a natural stepping stone in career (think NASA's current ideas on capturing an asteroid for research/mining)

Implicit achievements are much better. For instance, the easter eggs provide several very interesting 'achievements', finding them, precision landing on them, or landing a rover nearby and driving to them, etc. Finding out what they are and getting there has provided me with loads of mission ideas and adventures. These kind of carrots are very good for driving the gameplay when done right. Orbital construction yards would probably be an interesting driver for late game development. Right now I find myself flying (always manually, no mechjeb) modules and rovers and fuel tanks, and rendezvousing and docking them in LKO to build a bigger interplanetary ship. It's getting very routine. Career mode should probably recognize this and eventually say "ok, he knows how to get 25ton masses to orbit, lets have our Kerbal engineers come up with an autopiloted lifter capable of doing that". And by autopilot i don't mean mechjeb, I mean something that I don't need to sit through and watch. One idea might be that I'm flying a little tug around my orbital dockyard, and request a delivery of a particular module which I built and saved in the VAB. Then a little while later an automated lifter arrives and drops the module a few km from my construction site.

The same kind of optimizations can be applied to space stations and zero-g vessels which are not currently being piloted. Eventually a station should dampen itself out and enter into a steady state. It may be rotating, but if you are not piloting it it's not possible (afaik) to impart a force on the station that would require physics and structural integrity calculations, at least until you collide/dock with it. I'd very much favor disabling these calculations, or simplifying the whole station into a single rigid body.

Understood perfectly. But are you saying you wouldn't accept 5 Mun launches, paid for with a big VIAGRA logo on the side of the main tank?

maybe using real advertisements is a bit ambitious, but I'm willing to bet there's miles of gameplay to be squeezed out of this. I mean, you could do science and sell the results, or you could land on the Mun and unroll a giant flag with some sponsor on it and take a screenshot for cash...

A big, badass logo on your parachutes

Exactly! I hate this idea too. After building a lovely spaceship the last thing I want are corporate ads all over it. But if that's what it takes to make it fly, have I got it in me to compromise? It is challenging and deeply affecting, and that often makes for interesting game mechanics. just my 2c.

Yes, but it was in the 'Things in KSP that make me sad'. Not feeling like an astronaut piloting my own ship makes me sad, but I think the suggestions should be posted in a more suitable place, where they can be discussed and perhaps improved upon. It would be awesome to have some kind of comms panel on the IVA, where you could turn some knobs to adjust the VOX levels and 'frequency', ie, how often there is chatter, etc. Or a radio master on-off switch. The more switches and buttons to mess with, the better IMHO! I always loved the cockpits in Orbiter and SSM, but KSP won me over with it's construction...

That's exactly what I am suggesting, on the side of your giant rockomax tank. Why not? Of course, you could do it with a fun in-game only mechanic, like being offered enough to buy some boosters, if you have a disgustingly Pink kerbal-kola logo all over them, but then it struck me, it'd be quite possible to allow real adverts there too, perhaps lowering the price of the game. It's a suggestion, alright? No need to panic I've not seen anything yet that indicates that the Kerbal Space Programs are government funded, or bowing to commercial pressures.. Of course, no one LIKES advertisements, but the simple fact is that as long as we are in a society driven by capitalism it's a large economic factor. In reality, the only thing to motivate KSP-size budgets, besides corporate interest, is an international cold war between superpowers. There is a lot of discussion regarding the balance of realism in the game, and one issue which strikes me as incredibly unrealistic so far is the economic support for a space program of these sizes. We're not afraid of including hardcore, real-world orbital mechanics and physics models, so lets at least look to see what sort of challenges exist within the economic model.

Add switches and buttons for all action groups. Add switches to toggle external light (groups) on and off. Abort handles, alarms and warning indicator panels. Lots of analog gauges and number readouts, more plumbing and valves (think WWII submarine interiors Furry dice hanging/floating from a rearview mirror. Cockpit noises. Add backlit control panel labelling. Add a 'range to target' indicator. Better lighting and texturing all round, toggle internal cockpit lights on/off. Would be really impressive to turn out all cockpit lights and have backlit controls, and then experience a sunrise where sunlight pours in the window and illuminates and cast shadows around the cockpit. Although KSP makes me feel like a space engineer, I almost never feel like an astronaut.