pellinor

To me this sound like: a modding interface for vessel classification.

I sometimes use sandbox as a 'simulation' or 'test' mode. From this view it would be quite important to see the science result of a mission. Or if a certain action will satisfy a contract. Or see this message that my crew pod will not hold a second surface sample from the same place.

Would procedural decks be possible, maybe with a tweakable number of sections? If a large part of the deck is one part with one collider, this would avoid lots of physics load and strutting.

That's a great idea to reward science when the tech tree is already finished. I'd suggest creating some little Object for each of the science experiment. Like photos, diagrams, maps, material and goo sample etc. So for each place there is a shelf filling up with things as you bring home more data from there. And finally, an interface to add images for modded experiments...

If symmetry causes asymmetric behavior this is hopefully a bug in the game and not meant as a nice game challenge. If symmetry really is the cause there is a 'break symmetry' mod that might help. I've also read that flameout starts at either the first or the last engine you put on the craft, so if that is centered you can put others any way you want.

I'd always vote for maximum creative freedom. If you see a balance issue, you could set the scaling exponent to zero (so it keeps its mass) or even a bit negative to make the miniature version even heavier. Supposing tweakScale is fine with negative exponents.

Parts for testing have a certain module with them, I once noticed this in a persistence file. Maybe it is possible to deactivate or remove this module for any scaled instance of the part?

Please bring back the gimbal! It is the most natural solution to apply thrust to an asymmetrical craft. Asteroids are the hardest 'craft' to balance, so this is the one engine in the game that benefits most of a good gimbal range. I don't see as much of a problem in turning between burns, so far I am fine using reaction wheels and patience(provided by mechjeb). It may take a couple of minutes to turn around a class E Asteroid, but in space there's usually no need for hurry. I'm also not quite happy with the rock dust tank. 300kg of tank seems quite heavy for 88kg of dirt. It surely is one way to forbid ultralight SSTO lifters with mass drivers, however I'd prefer to balance this via engine efficiency. 'dirt' probably should be easy to store (think of an inflatable trash bag for example) and available everywhere. On the other hand, engines running on dirt schould be less efficient than those running on rocket fuel. Edit: I overlooked that the electric requirements of the engines were raised considerably, that's probably enough to give liquid fuel engines some use again.

Using module manager, you can lower the science for all the experiments. The following lines work for me (put into a .cfg file in the gamedata folder): @EXPERIMENT_DEFINITION[*] { @baseValue *= 0.4 @scienceCap *= 0.4 // Preserve the original file size. @dataScale /= 0.4 } This will multiply the science gain from any experiment by 0.4. The science from contracts is not changed.

Part catalog selectively hides parts, and simple part organizer allows sorting. Using these two, I never had problems with cluttered part lists. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/35018-0-24-PartCatalog-3-0-RC5-%282014-07-18%29 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/34779-0-21-Simple-Part-Organizer-%28v0-250%29 Editor extensions writes numbers on the screen in the VAB scene (it changes the symmetry field from a symbol to a number). When the elements underneath were moved in 0.24, the number didn't follow, so I guess it just writes to a fixed position on the screen. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/38768-0-24-Editor-Extensions-v1-3-19-Jul-2014-%28EdTools-Editor-Tools-replacement%29 For selling parts, I would make it an option (set a percentage in a config file, 0% means you can't sell). For repairs, I would prefer to have this optional or separate. You could auto-repair parts at recovery (so recovery costs money, both for distance and damage). This avoids damage counters for stored parts. A good damage and repair management probably is a mod on its own, so consider supporting an existing mod instead of writing your own. 'Dang it' comes to my mind (haven't used it yet). http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/81794-0-24-2-Alpha-3-1-Dang-It!-A-random-failures-mod-%2827-july%29

Some thoughts on the interface questions: @Interface for Storing Parts: you could just display the number of parts in store (subtracting the current assembly). So the editor shows all parts which are in store or can be bought. For 'regular' parts, a negative (or red) number means the missing parts will be auto-bought when launching. For 'limited' parts, you can get negative while editing (so you can still edit vessels, just let some light turn red), but are not allowed to launch with missing parts. I don't think you need any new drag&drop interface for this to work. @Environment: what about always recovering parts into the store instead of auto-selling them at recovery? You might even disable selling at all. After all, these parts are highly specialized stuff that you probably can't sell anywhere near the price you paid for them. Otherwise, I'd imagine selling from the VAB where you would have the best overview of your parts stock.

Do you need large Karbonite tanks at all? To me it sounds like the most efficient solution is a very small tank that mainly acts as a fuel line between a drill and a converter. edit: ah, forgot about the Karbonite engines, now this makes much more sense.

"Large rockets" at "1m/s or less"? Isn't this a bit fast? I'm used to docking large things at 0.1 or 0.2 m/s, and never had problems other than from my own mistakes.

For an arrestor hook you could try dragging a KAS anchor over the surface. It has a mechanic with high friction when touching a surface. For a typical lander, you probably need to scale it down to be lighter and less strong.

If there is an engine to crush, why not keep a little fuel and use the engine you already have? Since SRBs have about the worst ISP in the game, you'll even save weight this way.

I'd vote for adding the mass to the parent part, including a temporary shift of its CoM. The reason is I'd like to use those parts to balance my ships.

Recover your fuel transport. What matters is costs after recovery. What works best for me is an expendable SRB-stage and a second stage that makes it to orbit in one piece. The second stage is then recovered near KSC. So you basically just pay for fuel. The empty SRBs are negligible, just don't use too many decouplers as they cost quite some money. Late in the tech tree, SSTO Spaceplanes come into play, cutting down the fuel costs considerably.

A quick idea: what about scaling the reward with the science returned? This would automatically scale the reward with the distance of the target body, and give diminishing returns when repeating on the same body. Downside: when transmitting multiple results, you would need a new contract for each one. So maybe that's not the best solution yet.

Actually someone already did the whole (stock) tree in one launch. Love that video.

I like the idea of diminishing returns on biomes. An experiment in the first biome gives x% of the available science for the experiment on the current body. The second biome will give x% of what is left, an so on. The number x would depend on the number of biomes, being lower if there are more of them. This way you are rewarded for visiting several biomes, but don't need to grind all of them for getting most of the science. So the first Mun landing gives great rewards, but you would not want to come back 15 times just to learn that the last corner that was left basically looks like all the others.

The difficulty would largely depend on the cost of the tech nodes. If early access is a main part of the game, the tech tree would become more expensive. So where you have unlimited access now you would only get a few prototypes instead.

What would you think to have a limited Number of parts, instead of a limited testing time? http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87399-prototype-parts

Opinions, anyone? For me, the access of new parts is a main motivation to do test contracts. I'd imagine making this mechanic an important part of the tech progression, focusing test contracts on parts that are not available yet. Of course this would also make test contracts less optional than they are now. I'm aware that now everyone likes them.

Good point. That's the reason why I have only used my joystick for planes so far.

So you keep track of vessels to forbid reuse. How does this work together with docking (i.e. merging the 'new' rover with an 'old' spaceship)? I know that mission controller had issues with vessel IDs and docking. Also MechJeb's 'delta-v expended' counter has bugs with docking.