Kerbart

But you have the big advantage that you *know* from where the enemy is looking. It shouldn't take that much effirt to build a heat shield on the exposed side and a radiator on the dark side that dumps excess heat. Since the surfaces radiating heat are not visible from earth (or whatever planet you're attacking). You can then setup base on the far side of the moon (either on the surface or in an orbit that keeps you locked on the far side) and come all out in a surprise attack. I do agree with you -- space battle will not look like anything we've seen so far. How it will look exactly? Time will tell.

But even that wouldn't deal with the problem of the lights pointing in the wrong direction (due to not rotating while in orbit) and the problem that, when docking, you're shifting the station around ever so slightly so eventually it'll wander off (unless you're willing to edit the orbit parameters of the station over and over again)

When you look at the first image you can see the "next" arrow right next to the crew cam. That's a hint that there's a camera view #4. Now, how did you get there? If I were a betting man (and I can be very wrong, which is why I don't bet) I'd say that the lander can was your primary vehicle (and thus populated). You went to crew roster and fixed that problem. And then you saved before take-off, causing the "primary" seats to be filled automatically (I really hate hate hate hate that behavior).

When you're looking at a photo and you're frantically dragging over the screen with your right mouse button to look at it from the other side. Admit it, you've all been there.

In KSP? Not even theoretically possible. IF, and this is a big if, you mention to set up orbits in a perfect way so that your lighting probes will indeed light the space station, you will have the challenge that spin is not a variable when on rails. And if your probes are not spinning.... They'll continue to point in one direction, so while your probe might be pointing *toward* your station at one point in orbit, it will seem to be pointing *the other way* half an orbit later. Then, they need to be in *exactly* the same orbit, just a few seconds ahead or behind. So you'll have light on a single axis, coming from two opposite directions. Any photographer can tell you it won't look too good. From the side of that axis? Well now you're on a higher (or lower) altitude so your probe will drift away. And all that is based on the assumption that you have perfectly matching orbits. Try getting a perfectly circular orbit in the first place (ignore the AP/PE markers racing around like crazy) and you'll notice that it's pretty impressive to get them lined up within 500m of each other. Which, when it involves another spacecraft, still represents a variance of ±250m, way more than you want it to be. No, your best bet will be struts and beams and lattices.

Do a bit of retronaut exploring. See how "airwarfare" was perceived in the 19th century. Ideas of floating fortresses, slow lumbering beasts loaded to the gills with guns. Even in the 1930s we thought that was the way to go. The B17 was a succes despite it's design; the original concept of a heavily armed bomber being able to fend of fighters all by itself turned out the be completely wrong. Discussing combat in a mode you're not familiar with means you'll end up thinking wrongly about it. What do you know about medieval fighting? What the movies are showing is generally wrong. In the time of the crusades fighting in general was fast and brutal. Knight to knight encounters didn't last minutes, most encounters were decided in seconds with the loser left laying on the ground screaming in anguish as he bled to death. I don't know what space combat will look like, but probably nothing like we imagine right now. Certain weapons (guns, missiles) might be useless. Lasers sound good but require huge amounts of power. Stealth seems easy in space (look at how hard it is to spot rogue asteroids on a collision course with earth) so the initial space cruiser would probably basically be a nuclear reactor to provide power, lots of capacitors for multiple shots and one big ass laser to provide a deadly punch. And maybe a handful of nuclear weapons for orbital bombardment. Defense would consist of many tiny little probes (impossible to spot at a distance) that would communicate with laser pulses or tight radio beams to prevent detection. Information will be key to both sides. I doubt there's any dogfighting. Detect, locate, kill; it'll be as simple as that. You know you've been spotted by the enemy, as you ships starts to heat up rapidly. You also know that your life will be over in the next half second, in that case.

A suggestion could be that a science station can transmit data (after "analysis") with only half the losses (or some factor applied) to regular transmission. So, if transmitting a surface sample delivers only 40% of returning the sample to earth kerbin (60% loss) than doing the same through a science station would deliver 70% (30% loss) This would also be an incentive for adding more complexity to your missions, docking, etc.

Surface samples should definitely be transferable. There's an annoying discrepancy now: you really want to bring your surface samples home but it either means re-entry with lander cans (not realistic, even in the Kerbal universe) or totally dismissing the lander cans and doing expeditions with regular capsules. Both are not satisfying.

There's disinformation on teh interwebz?

I use camtasia. Of course, I also have to do screenrecordings for my job, so that makes it easier; Camtasia is not exactly free. But it's very, very good with lots of options like mouse-click effects (visual and audible) and the video editing software that comes with it is top notch.

Don't forget the struts. Always add struts!

The Zynga model (sell a decent game, get people hooked, and charge them to advance in the game) is despicable, but that doesn't mean the micropayment model is. To be honest, the classic "pay once and you're set for life" is a bit of a ponzi scheme. As long as new buyers flock to the market things will be ok, but once the market is saturated, development of the game will stop as it turns into a loss maker for Squad. There's only so many people you can sell KSP to. Micropayments, when done properly, allow for continuing development even when sales of the base game taper off. There are good examples of micropay games where paying real world money merely speeds up gameplay instead of allowing gameplay at all. I've never paid a cent for Real Racing, and on the other hand I've donated many dollars to Hitgrab because I really do like playing Mousehunt. In both cases the game just moves along slower if you don't pay. With KSP, the obvious places for micropayments would be unlocking parts of the science tree, or maybe the ability to make a science transmission count as 100% instead of a limited percentage. An autopilot that charges credits for launch, docking and pinpoint landing (say, 1 credit each at $0.25 per credit). Nothing that cannot be done by players themselves, but for those who can't or don't want to wait it's a good way to overcome those obstacles and it generates some income for Squad as well. I would welcome such a development; as a player I'm more than motivated to see Squad thrive and continue development on the game, as long as the payments are truly optional and not a requirement to get deeper into the game.

Weight is huge factor, especially since the mainsails are all the way at the end of the tree. Materials & Goo take at least three round trips before they've exhausted a biome (maybe more but at that point returns are seriously diminishing) so it makes sense to build one large science station with four labs and four canisters and send it back and forth. That way your manned capsules do not get overly complicated by having to carry around more weight than they need to.

This image needs to be stickied somewhere. It seems the perfect "your argument is invalid" rebuttal for practically any discussion on this forum.

Hey, it flies! Or it flew. You're doing better than me, and I enjoyed the video.

Animation would be awesome. But it would cover only a very small percentage of the lifetime of the habitat. Why not work on no animation first, and have the ability to switch states in the first place. Besides, a kind of pop! appearance once activated would in some way be very kerbalesque. A sane astronaut would never set foot in such a contraption but I'm sure the Kerbals are lining up for it!

Impact area is quite well known: earth's surface. And they narrowed it down to either land or ocean. As it will break up in reentry this will be a non-event anyway.

I think he voided the warranty once the threw in the extra-planets mod.

I think most of us have higher standards than that.

Personally I think the point is rather moot. If you care for “realism†(which is always the holy idol in the “this is what is wrong with the tech tree†discussions) then don’t use timewarp in the first place. Yes, missions will be long and grinding. Just as in reality, and isn’t that what you want? (well the ones that want reality, I mean). It means you will have to be a lot more careful about what you do, and when, and make sure your mission succeeds the first time because the next launch window will not be here for a long time. Just as in reality. It’s a beautiful concept, because it immediately quiets the whining about how small the Kerbol system is and that all orbits fit within a Venus orbit. Because well... that would make it even worse (having Sol-like orbits I mean). Once you have decided to use time-warping you’ve ventured into the territory of “cheating†and there is nothing wrong with that, it is all about keeping the game fun and enjoyable. Sure, there are certain gradations and techniques that allow you to overcome in-game obstacles, allowing for additional “cheating†but in reality that is just a matter of setting yourself restrictions. What I do not understand though is the constant desire to impose those restrictions to other players. “It should not be possible to unlock the entire tech tree with a single Jool mission with 30 minutes of real-word gametime.†Well here is a really, really easy and effective solution to it: if you do not like it that the game is played like that, do not play the game like that. Personally, I like advancing through the tech tree, stepping from simple missions to more complex ones. I'm sure if I really went for it I could unlock the entire tree in one go but what would be the point? I could send a monster ship to Duna loaded with eight capsules, twelve science modules and twenty goo containers “to get all my science done in a single mission†but if I'm that desperate to unlock the tree then why even do the mission? As pointed out before, just go in the text file and give yourself a million science points. Career mode provides a structure to the game. You can enhance that structure in any way you see fit. As long as the game is not a competitive MMO (and by now I can perfectly see why the devs won’t go that route, the whining would never stop and with the majority of the players living in the USA there’d be lawsuit after lawsuit) who cares? If you feel that the game needs certain limitations then go ahead, and play within those limitations. If you feel the game would be intensely frustrating with certain limitations in play then thank god, the devs do not enforce those limitations. There is only one wrong way to play the game: to do it in such a way that you are not having fun.

How can probes first be realistic? Kerbals didn't start with the technology required for remote control until they're halfway in the tech tree. Heck, it took them a long time to figure out that space ships and electronics can be combined! Try building an autonomous drone. Make it take off, fly two circles around the local church tower, and land, all by itself. Added difficulty: you're not allowed to use integrated circuits, or even transistors. And don't think this is limited to Kerbin: when it came to regular flight we did the same thing. Heck, it took us like how long after the Wright brothers before we had autonomous aircraft? Kerballed flight first is totally realistic.

Nuke it from orbit!

No. Because your mass is increasing as you gain speed so it takes more and more energy to accelerate. You will never have enough fuel to get to lightspeed itself. This is why the LHC is so large. Getting particles up to 99% of lightspeed is one thing. Getting them to 99.9% is a whooole different ballgame, let alone beyond that; and it's impossible to get to 100%

You say potato... People are not that stupid. What people do know is: (a) something they understand not very well ( "specialists" who, for whatever reason, misinform the public and understate the risks © nuclear plants that are run, without exception, by either government or large coorporations who have a proven history of having a total disregard for the well-being of those who live nearby a nuclear plant. I would invite you to camp out a few weeks on the Fukushima site if there's no radiation problem "because nobody died". The lack of short-term radiation deaths has more to do with extreme measures taken than with "overstated risk" Well, there's the issue. The nearby Onagawa nuclear plant did excellent in the aftermath of the disaster, because it was "overengineered" in regards to Tsunamis. When the Onagawa plant was built the executive in charge insisted on building the plant on an elevation higher than any Tsunami in history. The Fukushima plant, on the other hand, was built based on "reasonable" assumptions and of course the drive to keep expenses down. In the USA public safety statistics tend to be "reasonable" because after all, we need to make a profit. You should know as a Dutchman. New Orleans levees were designed for less than storms that would statistically occur once every 50 years. The Dutch deltaworks are based on, what? 1200 years? 1500? People distrust the nuclear industry because it tends to favor profitability over safety by coming up with "good enough" statistical standards. They may not know nuclear science, they do know when their safety is taken for a ride in the name of the mighty dollar. We've seen in Fukushima how well that works. Well yes, storage tanks were overflowing because they were not built on level terrain so when filled to the rim water started flowing over the sides. AND THESE ARE THE F####NG PEOPLE IN CHARGE OF A G###MN NUCLEAR PLANT. "If it tilts the cup, water floweth outs" is apparently too complicated for these propeller heads. And you're wondering why people don't like having a nuclear plant in their backyard, given the complexity of nuclear power? Don't get me wrong, nuclear power has the potential to be safer, cleaner (in operation and for the environment) than most other power sources. And certain technology (like the "baththub" thorium reactors that Toshiba is developing) look like great alternatives. But the nuclear industry as a whole is shooting itself in the foot by sustaining a culture of covering up incidents (not just big ones, but also smaller incidents like leaving powertools inside cooling circuits) and downplaying incidents (Fukushima was a meltdown from day #1 but for two or three weeks we kept hearing how they were "preventing a meltdown"). If anybody should be blamed for the atmosphere of distrust it's not "stupid joe sixpack" but rather the industry itself.

I thought that the less-stupid ones end up in R&D and stuff (Werner and Gene), the mid-stupid ones end up as Kerbonauts and the off-the scale ones run for government positions.