Birrakk

Or, even better!!! Open the persistent.sfs file and manually give myself more science points!!!! VOILA!!! You're basically talking about cheating. This is a single player game. We don't need to police anyone. If they want to cheat, they can cheat. But we don't need to limit the game because of them. No point punishing everyone else because of it either. Plus, some of the challenge involves seeing how quickly you can reach certain milestones in the game. If all you do is launch a single satellite for the first 300 years of your space program, well... then that's kind of a sad space program. My original suggestion would make satellites, probes, and space stations (and even bases) actually serve a purpose, rather than just be "for pretties". If you're afraid that that would entice you into cheating, then perhaps a single player game isn't for you. I also thought StarManta's idea of having to manually transmit the data home every now and then would be a good fix as well. A launched satellite is only capable of holding so much data in its buffer. Then the player would occasionally have to "fly" the satellite and manually execute a "transmit home" function. I think that sounds like a good compromise.

A quick suggestion: A small trickle of science points are gained for every minute or hour that a craft is up in space. This would make satellites and other long-term (or permanent) probes serve a purpose in the game. Unfortunately, under the game's current programming, a satellite/probe can only serve a useful purpose (read: generate science points) for a very short amount of time, based solely on its orbit. I suppose a heavily eccentric orbit can have a satellite/probe pass through Low Orbit, High Orbit, and maybe even low enough to qualify as a biome (on bodies with no atmosphere). But after they've traversed those areas once, the craft no longer serves a purpose, as all of the science projects have been performed (once you hit the wall of diminishing returns). Short of installing a mod that lets a satellite map the surface of a body, or act as a communications relay, satellites/probes don't really server much of a purpose once they've completed half an orbit. I'd love to see a pay-off for leaving them in orbit long-term. Of course, there would need to be a limit as to how many satellites, orbiting the same body, would be allowed to rack up science points. Maybe one at a Low Equatorial Orbit, one at Polar Orbit, and possibly one at Synchronous Orbit. So any satellites past those three wouldn't generate any science points in a passive manor. I think this would encourage players to progress on a more normal (or realistic) space program evolution; by sending up satellites and probes (before sending Kerbals), that generate them a little trickle of science points. This small trickle of science points could prove useful to new players, while later on in the game, this small trickle wouldn't really mean much to them.

I'd love to see a future implementation that updates the Kerbonauts' suit colors. We already see Jebediah, Bill, & Bob in orange astronaut suits, with the rest of the Kerbonaut corp in white suits. My understanding of the suit colors (according to NASA usage), is that once someone has been accepted into the astronaut corp (even if they're still in training), they wear an orange suit. However, once they've actually visited space and returned to terra firma, they then switch to a blue suit. This allows everyone to identify the veteran astronauts. I think that would be a neat feature to implement in KSP. All applicants wear white suits. Once they've been accepted by the player (or perhaps after going through training, if that's also planned for the future), they automatically switch to an orange suit. And once they survive a mission that exceeds the accepted altitude that is considered "space", they automatically switch to a blue suit. I know it's a relatively insignificant change. But I think it's one of those little attention to details that makes KSP such a work of art. And I'd just like to say what an awesome creation KSP is. Well done, and keep up the great work, guys!