Sabreur

Technically possible through modding, although it wouldn't be easy - especially if you're shooting for any degree of realism. The *smallest* black holes have three times the mass of the sun, so you'd have to mod things so that the entire Kerbin system orbits the black hole. The black hole itself wouldn't be directly visible (obviously), so you'd have to show its presence via an accretion disk or figure out how to make a decent gravitational lensing shader. The event horizon of 'small' black holes is tiny on a cosmic scale - on the order of a few kilometers in radius. KSP scales everything down dramatically, but to give some idea of the scale: The radius of Earth's Moon is 1737.4 kilometers. The radius of the event horizon of a 'small' Black Hole (3 solar masses) is 15 kilometers. If it wasn't for the fact that it would crush everything into oblivion, you could fit a black hole inside downtown Denver - with room to spare! Of course, the extreme radiation and gravitational tidal forces means that the minimum 'safe' distance from a black hole is much farther away, although I don't have any hard numbers for that.

I had gotten to the point where launching to orbit was fairly routine, so I had installed MechJeb to handle that stage for me so I could do something else during launch. Made the mistake of putting in an upside-down probe core and didn't catch my mistake - MechJeb dutifully attempted to turn the rocket right-side-up and ended up driving it into Kerbin's crust at maximum power.

My goal is to get a large-scale SSTO into orbit with all the science parts. I've technically succeeded, but the design is badly unstable and has a razor-thin fuel margin (partly due to pilot error, I took a fairly inefficient path up). My current goal is to refine the design and get a better handle on the flight path so that I make orbit with a good amount of fuel in reserve, then maybe see about docking with some nuclear engines for interplanetary adventures.

Ugh, no kidding. I've been reading research papers to that effect, and volumetric clouds are freakishly difficult. Especially if you don't want to murder framerates. The visual effect would be awesome, but good luck if you decide to go this route.

Minimus. Soooo much fun to drive a rover around on that moon. I'm just glad I put an SAS module on it! I've got a screenshot somewhere of Jeb doing a barrel roll while a few hundred meters off the ground.

First up, let me say that I enjoy career mode a great deal. Limiting the parts we start with is a great way to force some creative thinking, as a lot of the sandbox designs we take for granted are literally impossible early on. It also helps grant a tangible sense of reward for completing a mission - instead of just some pretty screenshots, we can earn new parts to play with! That being said, there are some downsides. Career Mode Downsides: Too much emphasis on grinding out science points instead of challenging yourself Experimenting gets repetitive - not enough experiment types, not enough variety in how the experiments work. Minimal guidance on what to do next Not much incentive to keep earning science once you have your favorite parts unlocked Proposed Improvements: Remove the whole 'redoing' of experiments. Experiments have value once and only once - no need to repeatedly grind the same experiment. Science values for experiments will probably need to be adjusted. Increase the variety of experiments available, using real-life science programs for inspiration. Slam a probe into the Mun, then fly another probe through the debris cloud for mineral analysis! Land a nuclear science-tank on Duna and search for rocks to laser apart so you can look at the pieces! Stick a kerbal in a space-station for six months just to see what happens! Implement science modules that have special requirements for how they are used. For example, some experiments require a kerbal on-site to be performed. Or perhaps certain experiments can only be performed while on an ice cap, or while floating in liquid. Parts unlock as-normal, but can be upgraded by completing challenges. For example, your first successful Mun landing might grant certain engines an improved ISP in vacuum. Landing a probe on Eve could upgrade your aerospike engines, etc. The research lab would have a list of "Unanswered Questions" - basically specific science goals that haven't been unlocked yet. Make some planets/moons hazardous due to high temperature, high radiation, a corrosive atmosphere, or some combination thereof. Landing unprepared kerbals on these celestial bodies will result in a tragic mission failure. Landing probes lets you perform experiments, which in addition to the usual science rewards also unlock the special spacesuits needed for kerbals to survive these worlds.

I didn't forget my parachutes. I lost them. It was my first mission to Eve. I wanted to do more than just land, so I made a big delta-winged probe with plenty of fuel and an aerospike engine so I could fly around a bit. I was expecting rough terrain, so I had some radial parachutes and landing legs for when fuel ran out. It worked like a charm - at first. Ran out of fuel, level off and slowed down as much as I could, then popped the chutes. The chutes complete stopped the descent, at which point the probe's massive wings caused it to actually pop upwards for a few meters - which automatically disengaged the chutes, leaving me with no good way to land. I ended up using the thick atmosphere of Eve to slooooooowly glide a meter off the ground and gracelessly bellyflop to the ground, breaking one of the landing legs but keeping the rest of the probe intact (albeit flopped awkwardly on its side). I was pretty proud of that one! For the next probe, I made sure to come in a bit faster so that the chutes remained engaged the whole way down. I did forget the ladders on a Minimus lander once, which wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't messed around and used up all my EVA fuel. Cue 30 minutes of frantic jumping in microgravity trying to land my poor Kerbal directly on top of the lander. I also managed to snap a heavy Lathe lander in half by including regular parachutes but not drogue chutes. Decelerating from 200m/s to 10m/s in half a second is NOT kind to a spaceplane's fuselage!