UberFuber

Hm... perhaps a new type of radial decouplers that's several meters long and much stiffer?

Sad to say, I think the current solution is, as you said, strut. Although I think you only need about 1 strut to main structure per fuel-tank. Two for the big, orange ones. So it might not be as many struts as you think.

Oh yeah, completely forgot about that. Actually, its worse. You don't even need to dock. If you have two command modules in different orientation, roll for one may have to turn to, say, pitch for another. I agree with you on that point.

Also in real-life there's various methods of desaturating the CMG/bleeding off the stored angular momentum such as magnetic torque using planet's magnetic field, gravitation gradient torque for very long/large spacecrafts, or some form of solar sail. So I believe a good compromise could be that each CMG/reaction wheel has a maximum absolute Angular Momentum (in Nms, Newton-meter-second) it can store in the yaw, pitch and roll direction (units in Nms). So, for example, a CMG may be able to store up to 200 Nms in each attitude, so it can at most supply 200 Nms for a clockwise roll or -200 Nms in a counter-clockwise roll. If the CMG is storing momentum, it will slowly bleed those momentum off over time (say 1 Nms/second) until it reaches 0 Nms stored for an axis. This bleeding effect abstract away the various real-world strategies to desaturate a CMG. Another variation is that CMG has a toggle switch, something like "Desaturate Angular Momentum". When toggled On, the CMG will try to zero out its stored angular momentum at a slow rate while consuming a lot of electricity (say 1 Nms/sec while consuming 1 e/s). So, what does this mean? 1. It provides an additional "differentiation" between different CMG/reaction wheel system. Some reaction wheel can offer fast response but have low Angular Momentum capacity. Some can offer really high capacity but is very heavy, etc. 2. Allow player who're using CMG as intended to not worry too much about the angular momentum limits (still have to worry a bit if, say, they don't add enough CMG for a very large/long spacecraft). 3. It prevents the bizzare usage of using CMG to keep a lander upright, since, hopefully, the recharge rate is slow enough the the CMG will saturate and cause the lander to fall over. Hm... I wonder if its possible to mod that (having CMG drain/fill resources as it is used).

Instead of changing parts performance, I would imagine that additional science could be invested into making the parts cheaper. So, once you unlock enough tech trees, you get additional research nodes that can reduce your parts/fuel (and whatever other cost you have with spaceships) by a certain percentage value each time you "research" it. For example: "Research New Construction Paradigm" - Reduce part costs by 10% "Improve Fuel Manufacturing Efficiency" - Reduce fuel costs by 10% This way, spacecraft flight behavior don't change, but you can keep using science to make your spaceship cheaper and cheaper to build.

To clarify, the idea is that you want something that consists of lots and lots of hydrogen (hence, water and other hydrocarbon material). The general idea is that for electron, you want something with as few protons in the nucleus as possible (basically, you want to have a really weak electric field). It will take longer to stop said electron, but you won't get as much secondary radiation. For proton/neutron, the use of hydrogen also slows those fast proton/neutron down faster through a bunch of elastic collisions (basically, you want something that has very similar mass to proton/neutron). In short, for general purpose stopping high energy particles, charged or not, you want hydrogen, lots and lots and LOTS of hydrogen.

Dev answered this already. http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/post/66138708921/devnote-tuesday-the-leftover-candy-edition http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/content/234-0-23-Update-News Ensure, endless repeating experiment is no longer possible (or at least pointless).

I like this idea. Perhaps have more command modules (to provide the navball, SAS, etc) that lends itself to the aesthetic of an EVA probe.

Friction would likely never be zero, so you'll likely be able to just wait until the lander stops sliding. It would be extremely fun for player to be able to just use RCS fuel to "slide" along the surface! Or have Kerbal EVA and push the craft.

I like the idea of randomized system. I'm leaning more toward just randomizing minor bodies like asteroids, comets, etc, keeping the current Kerbol system roughly the same.

While there is a difference, I really don't think that the delta-V difference needed to match the surface rotation is significant in most cases. On planets with atmosphere, the air-resistance is going to eliminate whatever difference in surface speed that resulted from prograde/retrograde orbits. P.S., I'm pretty sure atmosphere rotates with the planet, otherwise reentering Kerbin with parachute will give you a surface velocity of 174 m/s (the sidereal rotation velocity of Kerbin) if the atmosphere don't rotate with the planet. In short, prograde/retrograde rotation shouldn't matter if your goal is to land on atmospheric planet (it might matter if, say, thermal damage is modeled, the difference of about 340 m/s on Kerbin might be the difference between your spacecraft entering atmosphere successfully or blowing up). So, let's look at planets without atmosphere and has a fairly high sidereal velocity, Dres, and Eeloo. Dres has a sidereal velocity of about 25 m/s, which translate to a delta-V difference of 50 m/s between prograde/retrograde. Using this Delta-V mapfor reference, it takes about 2500 m/s in delta-V to go from Kerbin orbit to Dres surface (or an additional 4000 delta-V from kerbin surface), so you're talking about 2% difference in delta-V needed to land on Dres compared to the delta-V needed to get there from Kerbin orbit. Eeloo has sidereal velocity of 67.8 m/s, which translate to a delta-V difference of about 134 m/s between prograde/retrograde. It takes about 5000 m/s in delta-V to go from low Kerbin orbit to Eeloo surface. So about 2.5% difference in delta-V. Basically, in worst case scenario, you're adding 2.5% of delta-V needed if you insert into retrograde orbit versus prograde. So, unless you're challenging yourself on reaching planet with the absolute minimum amount of delta-V/fuel tonnage, 2.5% delta-V is not going to matter in most cases (you're probably going to design your spacecraft with more tolerance, in delta-V, than that).

Hm... a thought on how this can be achieved. Basically, in addition to the contracts/missions you get funding from another agency. The Esoteric Astronomical Research Society "... abberviated TEARS, because we're easily driven to tears of awe!" Instead of a set of missions, the Esoteric Astronomical Research Society provides a constant funding based on your reputation with them. Reputation are "earned" by visiting, achieving orbit around, and landing on Celestial bodies with your spacecraft. Each control module can only complete each combination of Celestial body and their associated activity once per launch (so if a control module "achieved orbit" around Kerbin, you use that command module to "achieve orbit" around Kerbin again). Every combination of Celestial body and their mission "profile" has a fixed, maximum amount of reputation that player can earn. The amount of reputation depends on the Celestial body (more difficult/delta V to get to, more reputation) and the activity in question (landing > orbiting > visiting). Reputation are earned in 2 chunks, one for fulfilling the activity, the other chunk for recovering the spacecraft after fulfilling the activity. The reputation earned will slowly decay over time and be refunded back into the pool. Might be better to describe it with an example. Achieving orbit around Duna has the max of 50 reputation available, 20 for the activity and 30 for recovering. When a spaceship completes 1 complete orbit around Duna, player is awarded 20 reputation. The reputation available for the activity of achieving orbit around Duna is now 0. So if you have a second spacecraft right after that achieve orbit, it will receive no reputation, however, the second spacecraft can still earn the 30 for recovering after achieving orbit if the first spacecraft does not return to Kerbin and the second spacecraft does. After some time, the reputation earned from achieving orbit activity has decayed to 5. The 15 reputations lost are returned back into the achieving orbit around Duna activity's reputation pool. So, once player achieve orbit around Duna again, the player will earn those 15 reputations back. UI wise, the player will get access to a new building for "The Esoteric Astronomical Research Society". In side you'll get access to the map of the Kerbol system. Selecting on a celestial body gets you a list of activities on the body and the "Interest" a society has on said activity for that body. Interest is essentially how much reputation a celestial body has left for player to earn. For example, selecting Eve might gets you the following list. Not Interested (<20% reputation available) in a visit to Eve. Somewhat interested (20~40% reputation available) in a returned vehicle that has visited Eve. Interested (40~60% reputation available) in achieving orbit around Eve. Very Interested (60~80% reputation available) in a returned vehicle that has achieved orbit around Eve. Really Interested (80%~100% reputation available) in landing on Eve. Really Interested in a returned vehicle that has landed on Eve. Really Interested in a returned Kerbalnaut that has landed on Eve. Possible Variation Instead of player extracting ALL the reputation from the available pool in one go, the amount could be reduced to something like 50%, so that multiple missions to the same system would still be beneficial, albeit with diminishing return. So how do player get funding out of reputation? My thought is that each month, player get a funding proportional to the amount of reputation they have. So something like Reputation * 10,000 credits. At the same times, 10% of the player's reputation (round up) is "deducted" and returned back to the pool (assigned at random to celestial body/activity pools that are not full yet). Basically, the idea hopes to accomplish the following. 1. Provide a baseline income for player just by launching and doing typical stuffs in space. 2. The reputation decay stops timewarp abuse. 3. The monthly income scaled with reputation also discourage timewarp, since its in player's interest to keep their reputation up to get the maximum amount of credit per month. 4. Discourages player from repeating the same mission over and over again in very short period of time. In short, you can't get infinite reputation by repeating the same mission.

Perhaps something like this. Each sample from a biome has a "potential" amount of science value associated with them. Transmission without further research gives you 10~20% of max value. Science Bay Jr. gives you 50% Science Bay Sr. gives you 80% Landing gives you 100% of its value.

Although how would you "define" activity? And won't the requirement for what counts as activity be essentially the most basic form of missions/contracts?

Although realistically, won't longer launch clamp arm have several issues? 1. Longer launch clamp arm = more lateral stress on arm = less mass? 2. When "retracted", won't the longer arms just smash into the lower radial engines?

The currently issue I have with the space-plane launch system is that the spaceplane is, essentially, disposable. Once it deliver its payload, the spaceplane plunges to its doom (since you're now controlling the payload, not the rocket). While this isn't much of an issue with the economy disabled, it is still a bit bizarre why you would go through the effort of building an airplane that will just smash itself into the ground every single time. Arguably, we'll need some sort of basic auto-pilot for planes, something as simple as altitude and speed hold should be sufficient. That, and the ability to setup a preset list of "trims" you can add to the plane during assembly. So you can setup a trim for when there's a payload and when there's not. Then, when in flight and you launch the payload, you just switch the trim setting to the "no payload" setting and your plane should still remain stable.

Tech tree balancing aside, I believe you can turn off gimbling on jet engines by right clicking on it and click "Lock Gimbal"

Get one station up and running with the bare minimum required. Turn timewarp to max. Go to sleep. Wake up and find more science than you know what to do with.

If the objectives are set by yourself, then won't it be essentially sandbox? One possibility is that in Sandbox mode, instead of financial constraint, the game simply tracks how much "credit" you spent. The player then play it just as sandbox, and the game tells them how much credit they spent.

That was my intention. The contracts/missions do not require you launch a rocket just for them. You could accept several, and either do them at a later time and/or do several of them during the same launch. For example, a tourist wants to go to Duna as part of his stop and a scientist want some data from Duna, player can accept both missions and kill two birds with one rocket. The original reason for payload delivery is that it's considered a relatively low tiered missions. You just have to get the stuff there, and unlike science, don't have to send anything back. Although you're right, most of the payload mission could fall under science missions (deliver instrument there, leave it alone). The reason I didn't include satellite is that I don't want a mission to have a permanent effect on space. Parking a satellite would mean that space "debris" would start to pile up as you do more and more of those missions. The anomalies system I previously proposed was intended to reward player who maintain the satellite network. As applied here, some scientist could request for scientific data using the stock instruments at a certain location/altitude/biome. This means that if you already have a satellite/station there with the right instrument, you can simply retask it to finish the mission. The reason for the original itinerary system for tourism is that I wanted different missions to present different challenge. Payload missions are the easiest, get stuff there and leave it there. Science missions are next, get stuff there and MAYBE have to take it back (or have enough power to transmit it back). Tourisms are the hardest, requiring a long-term plan for hitting mutliple planets. I agree. The missions/contracts generation should look at your "accomplishments". Although it would be nice if, say, the contract system could try to "push" you a little with some incentives (again, predicating on the original idea that player have multiple contracts available to choose from and all are optional, so player don't get stuck with too-difficult contract). For example, if player have only been to Mun (landed someone there), a contract might pop-up requesting something to be done on Minimus with some bonuses in the rewards. That was my original intent. The contracts are basically something you accomplish in one of your mission, doesn't have to be a mission themselves. Heck, it would be fun if there could be a sort of internal tracking of how much credits you earned per mission (sort of like it tracking you how much science you earned in your last mission). Heh, I could just imagine Scott Manley go for the "accept all contracts available, finish them with just 1 launch".

It would be nice if the parachute doesn't automatically cut itself the moment you touch ground. Would make stopping heavier aircraft a lot easier (even in real-life space shuttle have chutes that deploy after they landed to slow them down).

I would imagine that missions to be procedural generated, basically you get several categories for missions, with the details randomized (perhaps some of those can be hardcoded special missions). Payload Delivery - You're given a specialized part to be placed on your rocket that you need to deliver to a randomly determined Celestial body (and maybe a specific biome on said Celestial body). The parts may have special requirement, such as. This will be a common mission, and arguably the "easiest" (since you just need to get the parts there, crashing it into the Celestial body may be an option). Temperature Control:In essence, the part will drain a constant amount of electricity (and has an internal buffer that's intake only) to maintain whatever they're holding at a constant temperature. If you run out of electricity and the buffer depletes, the part dies and you fail the mission. Shock Sensitive: Throughout your mission, you cannot exceed a certain G-Force (such as 10G) else the part is destroyed. Example mission: Icarus Kerman, late brother of Jebediah Kermain, wishes for his remain to be buried on Mun. Deliver his coffin to Mun, need not be intact. Scientific Studies - Similar to payload delivery in that you're given a specialized scientific instruments. However, in addition to the mission of delivering said instruments to a Celestial body, you may instead be asked to get the instruments into a certain altitude (landed, lower atm, upper atm, near apace, outer Space,or specific range of altitude) above the celestial body or specific biome. Once arrived, you'll need to "start" the experiment and let it run for a certain amount of time (depending on the experiment). Similar to Payload Delivery, experimental parts and their experiments can have, in addition to those possible for payload delivery, special requirements. Short Term Experiments: Experiments that last just seconds, can occur for experiments in any environment. Long Term Experiments: Experiments that last a few days. Cannot occur when part of the requirement is to be in lower/upper atm. Cannot specify a biome unless the experiment is performed while landed. The added challenge of these experiment is that you need enter an orbit (for near/outer space, or specific altitude range) or land it (when a biome is specified) instead of just doing a fly-by. Power Requirement: When running, the experiment will need a constant supply of power through its run-time. For short term experiments, this could be a very high value (like 100e/s for a few seconds). For long term experiments, this will be fairly low (1~10e/s) and should challenge player to design their spacecraft to be able to supply the power needed for the experiment (or pay the weight in terms of lots of nuke generator). Scientific Studies missions will generally have two rewards. One for transmitting the data, one for bringing back the instrument after successful completion of an experiment. Some mission will only have rewards for one of them (so, for example, some mission only needs you to transmit the result back to complete it and receive full rewards, some will require you to bring the part with the completed experiment back for full reward). Example missions: A. Two brothers seek to answer the age old question, do buttered toasts always land buttered side up on Mun? Perform this experiment while landed on Mun. Temperature Control required (to keep the buttered toasts from going stale). Transmit the result for full reward. B. The Kerbohydrate Culinary Society wishes to know if its possible to bake bread on Eve. Perform this experiment while landed on Eve and bring it back for full reward. Tourist - Also similar to Payload Delivery. you'll also get a specialized parts (a luxury on-board hotel suite?). The parts will generally be fairly heavy, require a constant amount of electricity, and contains a Kerbal. Similar to Payload Delivery, you'll need to "deliver" the part to various Celestial body. But instead of just one Celestial body, you're given an itinerary of a list of Celestial bodies to visit and what to do when you get there (for example, orbit at a certain altitude for a few days, land on it, etc). And unlike payload delivery, you'll have to bring the "parts" back. Part of the challenge is to plan for a multiple encounter mission (and/or plan for refuel stations along the way) while having to haul around a fairly heavy part that has a constant electrical requirement. Some missions will allow you to only complete part of it and still get rewards (partial or full), with bonus reward for completing everything. Example missions: A. Justine Keebler wishes to visit the following locations: 1. Two days around Eve. 2. A flyby of Moho under 20,000 km. 3. Land on Gilly.

I don't think that would work due to several reasons. 1. What happens if, using your previous launch trajectory, your launch path would cause you to impact another spacecraft in lower orbit? 2. What happens if the spacecraft you designed is so near the edge of instability that if you would've launched it normally, it would disintegrate sometimes (I've some spacecraft prototype that's near that edge, they'll occasionally launch successfully, in other time they will spontaneously deconstruct mid-flight). 3. For interplanetary missions, how would you handle that your "current" missions may involve a complex set of maneuvers that could only happen at a specific time windows (for example, your mission involves multiple gravity assists to reach Eeloo, which naturally means that all the planets involved must be in the right alignment).

May I suggest that WasteWater to be renamed to Sewage? Seems a bit weird to see a camel-cased word amongst other, non-camel cased words. I would really love this! Especially if its setup so that conservation of mass is obeyed. I like the way you think. I've always envision that, with life-support needed, player would build various life-support recycling stations. If you want, I've some suggestion on recycling mechanism. Distillation/Electrolosys: Can convert WasteWater -> Water using just electricity. Greenhouse: Consumes Waste, CO2 and Electricity (for lighting and heating). Produce Food and Oxygen. The ratio of Food and Oxygen produce (and conversely, Waste and CO2 consumed) should match the ratio Kerbal consume/produce. Fairly heavy (perhaps several tons needed to sustain 1 kerbalnaut indefinitely) This may promote a network of "farming" stations (manned or unmanned), where it consist of several greenhouses and large containers for food, waste, water, sewage, oxygen and CO2. Spacecrafts on a long journey would dock here, transfer waste, sewage and CO2 out and transfer in food, water and oxygen before continuing their journey, leaving the farming stations to convert them back to useable products.

Well, from your OP. Mystery Goo - Assigning a kerbal to stare at it / poke it with a space-stick could improve the results. About 30 minutes of that and you hit max multiplier. Assign Kerbal to Mystery Goo, time-warp or go watch football. Come back after 30 minutes. SC-9001 Science Jr. - The longer the experiments are exposed in the environment, the better, even further improved with a kerbal assigned to sniff/taste the results. Same as above. GRAVMAX - Gain a bunch more science by letting the machine gather data for multiple orbits. Might want to clarifies what counts as multiple orbits (different height? We already have near/outer space as approximation). That's a fine idea. I suggest that those "challenge" shouldn't be something like "setup something, wait a while" but actually challenges. Based on two of your four examples (the remaining two are fairly ambiguous), your suggestion basically involve setting up a condition and waiting. So please clarify why it is not so.