Louella

Instead of 3 character classes, there is an opportunity for there to be 6. There's an opportunity for there to be different dialogues in crew reports and EVA reports. More tools for modmakers, more variety for players. And, also, ever consider that maybe the artists are capable of working on multiple things at once ? Maybe these female Kerbals were something that someone was working on, in their spare time ? Maybe they're something that an artist created while having mental block on some other project ? These things happen. Trying to do one piece of work, like write a story, get writers block, take a break, doodle something, inspiration strikes. That sort of thing.

There was a thread, where people expressed the opinion that having 1 kerbalnaut with both piloting and engineering skills would be a good thing. And I said possibility of having a seperate skill tree, not that that should be the default. Being able to modify the skillset of one group of Kerbalnauts independently of a different group of Kerbalnauts, would be a useful tool for mods.

There is a way for female kerbalnauts to change things about the game, and for it to be a positive addition. And that is, that it provides opportunities to divide the engineering/science/piloting skills differently. If the female kerbalnauts are implemented with the possibility to have a seperate skill set or skill tree available to them, then it gives players, and modders more options to do things. like in other games, where gender is one of the ways in which variation between character builds is achieved, and that is then a tool for modders to build upon.

I don't really get why people seem to be getting so wound up about this.

where was this mentioned ?

I got 2 Kerbals to make the 6.9km journey from their crashed Munbase to the rescue lander. Then when the third one exited the base on EVA, the base accelerated away at 2700km/sec and exploded, killing the last 2 on board. Whole screen went black. Tried to exit to space centre. space centre was all black. Quit and reloaded KSP. No good. Reverted to an earlier save, which was before I had transferred any Kerbals to the rescue lander. Sulked for a bit, then hacked gravity to move the crashed base to within 1km of the rescue lander. Transferred everyone, didn't feel like trying a Minmus flyby for additional XP, so straight back to Kerbin, didn't bother trying to land anywhere near KSC. Rescue craft fell over on landing and broke up, further reducing the amount of funds recovered. The rescued Kerbals now all have 7 XP.

Yay, found another landing site, this time only 6.9km from the stranded kerbals. Rescue mission has arrived and safely landed. Time for everyone to get out and walk, taking all the science data with them.

Some kind of rival space program would help explain those rescue contracts at least

Today, I planned and built a rescue mission craft. It will go to the Mun, and land, in order to rescue 5 Kerbals from a previous Mun mission, whose munbase/lander tipped over on landing. Rescue mission costs are reduced somewhat, because our rescue craft will complete 2 other contracts en route (put a station into Kerbin orbit, put a station on the Mun). The Mun mission side has located a landing site, with the use of a small automated rover, sent on a previous mission, that has located an absolutely flat landing site, which is however 9km from the stranded Kerbalnauts. They might be in for a bit of a walk.

I think large, simple rockets have a role to play in space, but the requirement for that role has not as yet arisen. they make sense for large, cheap payloads, with losses being acceptable. This makes them suitable for doing several things, such as for supply missions for colonisation of Mars. Not for Mars exploration, but for colonisation. Launch a few thousand big cheap rockets, with supplies, with the understanding that not all of the supplies will reach Mars. There is a comparison, or a couple of them, from the 2nd world war. The British Sten gun, designed when the threat of invasion was highest, could be made by almost any workshop, with as little as 5 man-hours of work, instead of by the specialised firearms manufacturers, who were under pressure. The early models were very basic, while later models, produced after the threat of invasion had diminished, were higher standard. The more relevant comparison, is I think, the Liberty ship. These ships, built from standardised parts, could be built by all sorts of engineering fabricators, not just shipyards. They were cheap and quick to build. They were not the most finely built ships in use, but they did the job, and were a large factor in the outcome of the war. Big Dumb Boosters would be the rocketry equivalent of the Liberty Ship. Simple, cheap, and can be built by manufacturers other than rocketry builders. For when you need a lot of stuff put into space, at as cheap a cost as possible, with the understanding that not all of them will succeed. However, we currently don't live in a situation where space exploration/exploitation/colonisation needs a Liberty Ship equivalent. For better or worse.

I think my picture of a landing at KSP might demonstrate the "Any landing you can walk away from is a good one" more dramatically

today, I found out that the pool at the Admin building, doesn't contain water !

it's why some rovers have a cheap probe core that's rotated 90 degrees, in addition to the Lander Can for the crew. Just so the compass is right.

it could be that it's a function of the source data. That specific graph is for marine life. And it's measured by looking at marine fossils. So it can only measure species that exist in forms that leave fossils, which would mostly be things that have skeletons and/or shells. Maybe at different periods, the conditions in the seas and oceans of the time, weren't favourable to the development of shells/skeletons, so there'd be fewer species that would leave fossils, with subsequent effects on observability of extinctions. If you look at all the limestone rock formations that exist, then it seems reasonable that the amount of calcium available to marine life has varied greatly over geological time, as the calcium that is bound up in shells and skeletons is deposited and forms limestone, over millions of years, and thus that calcium is unavailable to be dissolved back into the oceans and re-incorporated into other marine life, so shells and skeletons don't appear so much afterwards.

That would be good, to increase variation within contracts. though my thought about pre-built ones, was to allow mod-makers to design interestingly shaped satellites, as part of a regular community involvement, which could help get new players involved in mod-making. A chance to get your work incorporated into the game, and all that. And there could be all sorts of amusing things. Like, a Soft Drinks company wants you to launch a satellite that's shaped like a replica of one of their bottles. Or a TV sports company wants one that looks like a sportball. And so on. As well as stuff like telescopes, university science projects, weather satellites and so on. As well as the occasional 40ton colossal spy satellite from the Kerbal Secret Service. What's in that satellite? That's on a need to know basis !

Well, once the colony is self-sufficient, what stops them from declaring independence, and renegotiating the trade contracts to suit them, rather than the corporation that initially set it up ? That's a thing that occurs in other sci-fi. Independence for colonists who refuse to be subservient employees, and rebel. Just like if a national government set up the colony, once it's self-sufficient, then there'll be a push, to ensure that the colonists are the ones who benefit the most, not the government or corporation that set it up. And what happens then ?

Old sci-fi is full of stuff exploring this issue. One of the examples is a mining colony on the moon declaring independence from Earth. Earth responds with warships. The miners use their mining equipment (mass drivers) to bombard Earth in return. As soon as a population is capable of existing without continued support from Earth, there is going to be some move towards establishing independence. One of the other things that is explored in some old sci-fi, is "claim-jumping". Nation A sends a ship towards Planet X, with the intent to claim it as an annexe to Nation A. Nation B gets wind of this plan, and sends a faster ship, lands and establishes a colony on X, before the arrival of A's ship. This causes problems - Nation B has claimed the whole planet, by virtue of establishing the first colony, while Nation A's colonists, probably won't be able to just turn around - lack of supplies, or health issues with re-entering cryosleep, or whatever - so also have to land on Planet X. Sometimes this escalates into war, both on planet X and on Earth.

Yearly or quarterly reports. How success is measured in those reports. Investment depending on provable rates of returns. It's easier to sell a short term scheme to investors. The model of industry currently, is selling the same product to the same customer, again and again. Smartphones - corporations sell essentially the same smartphone to the same customer several times - only a minor variation in specifications each time. It's more profitable to get 100m customers to want a new smartphone every year, than to increase the global number of smartphone users by 100m. Similar for other products - domestic appliances are one example, the durability of the average washing machine reached a peak some time before the 1990's, and has declined since. Things are "beyond economic repair", when 99% of the machine is still functional, and could be returned to service. But repair of such is not possible, because of cost to employ someone to repair it, and lack of replacement parts. Durable machines are "premium" brands, marketed to "premium customers", and sold at huge markup, and can be repaired. Result is, there is no market for cheap, durable products. It's more profitable to sell disposable items to the same people, again and again and again.

for land mammals, the information on this chart is apparently accurate: http://xkcd.com/1338/ that is, that humans+livestock are the vast majority of land mammals on Earth.

I planted a flag, to serve as a nav beacon so I can see where KSC is, even when it's night there. Can't believe I never thought of doing that before, lol.

The contracts usually say something like "build a satellite according to these specifications" and what orbit they want it in. However. It's fairly easy to do something like, a stayputnik + antenna, and launch it for really cheap. Or to make 1 satellite to fulfil several contracts in one flight, by changing orbits. Would it be better, if sometimes the contract gave you a prebuilt satellite, of varying mass, that you had to launch ? I'm thinking things like, weather satellites, TV satellites, all sorts of other things. And making custom satellite models could be a fun thing for the community to do - design-a-satellite competitions and so on. Maybe the occasional grey-suited Kerbals with sunglasses saying "We need you to launch this, into this orbit. Don't look inside it."

Probably. I mean, my aeroplane, did 400 m/s or so with the basic jet engine. Turbojet has 50% more thrust, but goes 400% faster ? to speeds close to orbit velocity ? On an air breathing engine ? with one intake ?

If you're at college/university, and if you can spare the time, you could look into volunteering/part-time work in the Library. You'll meet a lot of people that way. Many of which will have similar interests to your own.

thanks I've only done small single capsule land and return missions before, but now there's all these sciencey things to do, with research labs and so on, which are way bigger. and yeah, I'll add some reserve fuel to give a manouver margin. I've made some spacecraft in the past, where the crew had to get out and push to get Kerbin periapsis down from 71km

I can't brain properly today, and am staring at a delta-v map, and trying to understand what it is that it is telling me. this one: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/w/images/7/73/KerbinDeltaVMap.png Say I want to make a mission that will go to Minmus and return. I get that I need ~4550 to get to orbit of Kerbin. And then ~950 to leave Kerbin orbit and get to Minmus. So to get to Minmus, the mission needs 5500 delta-v. And then to get a stable orbit of Minmus, is then 160, then 180 to de-orbit and land on Minmus. so I'm looking at ~6000 total, to get TO Minmus. Then what do I need to return ? 180 to get from the surface to orbit, then 160 to get from orbit to head towards Kerbin. Is that it ? The ascent craft from Minmus only needs ~350 delta-v to get onto a path that will return to Kerbin, and if it's angled into the atmosphere, then it'll land, completing the mission ?