Madrias

I have to admit, it's going to be interesting to see how the Kerbals handle the Kerm in outer space. And, yes, I've caught up again.

And I've caught back up. Glad to see a return to rocket fire after a long time away from here.

Age of Fire... I didn't think when I first coined that term that there'd be quite this many different forms of fire going on. Rocket fire, gun fire, war causing fires, and now the threat of nuclear fire... For something with so much fire in it, the sky is dark with smoke. Still a good read, and now I'm caught up again.

Still enjoyable to read as always, and I eagerly await the next chapter! When I'd originally said "Age of Fire" I certainly didn't anticipate this, though I suppose I should feel good in that I've gotten more fire than just rocket fire.

Toilet plungers and Ultra-Glue. That's obvious.

From experience, try one or two notches off of vertical. You might have better luck.

Well, I'm all caught back up. Sorry, I took a bit of a reading hiatus for a while, but I think it was worth doing. Glad to see the MACE hadn't been forgotten. And yeah, I bet Val would have loved to have a tank of liquid Oxygen about then. Right up at high altitude, engine threatening to starve from air-deprivation, control surfaces are barely working, that's the best time to engage Rocket Mode and set sail into the starry black. Just hope whoever designed her plane had the bright idea to make sure it's RCS equipped, or getting back down might be a little bit troublesome...

Decided to do a bit of a challenge I've wanted to do for a while now. That aircraft only has two controls: Throttle and Rudder. Surprisingly, it flies really, really well for not having Elevator or Aileron controls, but then again, I did kinda design it around my old trainers... So after a few lazy loops around the KSC, I headed out and landed it on the Island Runway. I'm planning on flying it back to the KSC soon, but I had fun with this little challenge. Always wanted to see what the minimum number of controls needed to fly would be. Oh, and the Reaction Wheels in the cockpit were turned off, so I didn't have roll or pitch adjustments from that.

I've found that flying really-close-to-the-ground sometimes helps gain new insights into things. Low and fast, and preferably trying to skim the surface of the mountains when possible. Get it right, it's a lot of fun. Get it wrong, you get some cool fireworks. Either way, it takes your mind off of something else and, at least for me, that sometimes helps with finding a solution to a problem. Other times, though, it creates problems that need solutions, but those are KSP problems, which have solutions just waiting to be discovered.

I'll admit, it doesn't feel very fighter-ish to me... But it has a few hints of SR-71. As for performance-based contra-props, perhaps looking at air-race planes would help? It's what inevitably got me interested in contra-prop aircraft.

I wouldn't mind some more propeller engines with twin-propellers, like the Bear Turboprop has, but smaller and in a few different blade counts. I know, those kind of engines are rare, but it just seems like such a Kerbal thing to do, adding an extra propeller to an engine. My 'big issue' with the Bear is that the housing is very long, limiting the aircraft I can put it on, and the propellers are equally large, meaning the only planes it fits on are huge aircraft. (Yes, I do know it's based on a real Russian aircraft engine that was used on a big aircraft.) Call me crazy, but I like building small, fast planes I can fly close to the ground, and I think it'd be fun to have an engine on the front built mostly for that purpose, to go fast (or at least, fast for a propeller engine) for ground-skimming high-speed flying.

I thought someone forced a mobile-friendly theme on my desktop. This is awful.

Don't have quite enough data to start making good predictions, but... Another chapter or two and I can zone in on things. After all, I didn't predict an Age of Fire overnight, I had to take several chapters to get that far. But I'm in the mood for a good mystery, so I'm already halfway plotting my list of predictions and trying to decide what makes sense and what doesn't. Right now is a maelstrom of chaos that could go literally any way... But I do have a couple of things in mind.

You know, years ago before the internet was fast enough to handle massive downloads, we had these things called "expansion packs" for our games. They added massive new features, new things to do, new ways to play the same old game we'd been playing for a while at that time. Yes, back then, a lot of your bug-fixes came in those expansions, too, because the majority of people ran Dial-Up, or at best, DSL, and couldn't handle a 600 MB download of goodies. These expansions were huge deals back then, because they allowed developers to give us something good in return for some money so they could continue working on their next big project. Once the internet became fast enough and stable enough to handle big downloads, developers started pushing bug-fixes down the lines, reducing the amount of stuff crammed into one expansion. Everyone benefits from bug fixes, and as a result, the expansions decreased in size. Early DLC, still called Expansions at that point, was still impressive. Sure, not long after that, scummy companies made DLC into a rather foul word and soured the idea for everyone, with things like horse armor, a gun and map pack, Day One DLC, on-disk DLC, and 'buy a better ending', but that doesn't necessarily mean all DLC is bad. For reference, I'm a big Elder Scrolls fan. Morrowind, with Expansions Bloodmoon and Tribunal. (Probably my least favorite game to play of the three I have, but still enjoyable in small amounts). Oblivion, with Expansions Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine. (Been playing this again lately, lot of fun, really.) Skyrim, with Expansions Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn. Now yes, this means that I've effectively doubled the price of all of those games by picking up the DLC. But, on the flip side, I've massively increased the stuff I can do in those games. On the flipside, I have played my share of first-person-shooters, and I've only ever bought one DLC, and that was Battlefield Bad Company 2's Vietnam expansion. Otherwise, I just ignore the DLC in those games, because it's not worth it. And developers wouldn't bother making DLC if people were to vote that it's not worth it. The bottom line is that not all DLC is bad. Some companies are scummy with DLC, others are decent about it. It's too early to condemn SQUAD as being the former, and still too early to praise them for being the latter. The end result: If you don't like it, don't buy it. But don't lump every developer into the same sack EA created by fart-bombing people with broken games and tons of $ worth of DLC. Some are good, others, not so good. But condemning DLC from the start is like saying that everyone should drive around in cars that are nothing more than an engine, four wheels, a couple seats, and a steering wheel. KSP's DLC isn't trying to sell you the doors or windows of the car, it's trying to sell you a better radio than the one you already have. Sure, you can go down to the local parts shop (the modders) and pick a radio that's pretty good, too, but SQUAD is trying to sell you a better one to start with.

I'll open with the fact that I understand the reason behind DLC (expansions, if you choose to call it that), and that I've even gotten my fair share in other games. That said, I personally can't see anything in this expansion that I really want. Maybe some-time in the future, but with what little we know at this point, I'm not overly interested. As for the people claiming that we have a moral obligation to support SQUAD in every way possible: No, we don't have an obligation. I have paid for the base game, same as everyone else has. The DLC is extra. If I'm not interested in its content, then I'm not going to buy it. For the record, August of 2013, so I don't get free DLC anyway. The way capitalism works is that people will vote with their wallet. If you feel you have to support SQUAD for several hundred or thousand hours played of KSP, or you like what you're hearing about the DLC, then feel free to buy it. If you feel you've paid enough for KSP, or you don't really care for the DLC's offerings, then don't buy it. It's as simple as that. The thing I'm more annoyed about is that the game has a hint of an unfinished feeling about it. There's a lot of variations between the MK1, MK2, and MK3 Spaceplane parts, the 1.25, 2.5, and 3.75 meter rocket parts, and a ton of variation in things like the control surfaces for rockets. Not to mention the engines. Spaceplanes got a rough polishing, which helped bring them more into line with each other, though I feel there's a lot of voids that could be filled, specifically regarding adapters between various sizes. Rockets, however, are a total disaster, an eyesore, when assembled. Shiny white tanks with no stripes, or with stripes, for your 1.25 stack. Steel-gray or bright orange for your 2.5 stack, and white with stripes for 3.75. I would personally have liked to see the parts revamped a bit, given a good model revamp and a bit of polish to bring everything in line with each other, so that everything goes well together, and so that there were adapters to fit all the various parts together, before we started dealing with DLC. But I understand that DLC pays the bills. And at the core of this game we're all playing, the people working in the company need money, too. I suppose my point is, I'd like to have seen KSP a bit more polished before the DLC thing had to happen. As for the DLC itself, this one just doesn't interest me. Sure, the parachutes would be nice to have, but, in my opinion, it's not worth an entire expansion for one thing I might find useful in very limited situations.