Great General Kaboomsky

I know it has probably been talked to death at this point, but I still see a really great purpose for unmanned missions at the very start of the career mode. I'm not thinking so-much in the direction of the probes that we already have (a.k.a. fully-controllable replacements for a Kerbal pilot) but rather an un-guided instrument package on a sounding rocket (basically, a normal probe core but with no ability to control the rocket,) which could earn you your first few science points, teach new players a little bit about rocketry, and not risk the damage to reputation and budget (once they are implemented) which could ruin a fledgling space agency if their first manned mission were to end in disaster. Anyway, consider my 2 cents chipped in.

Thank you... now my boss wants to know what I'm laughing at.

I would think any and all of these things would be cool to add, though I would have to say that the fact that Kerbals are unrecognizable to us, racially, probably alleviates some of the need to add multiple races, at least on the front that we should want players to be able to identify with their Kerbal avatars. (I DO, however, LOVE the idea of Ker-hippies protesting my use of mysterious goo and dumping of dozens of NTRs and NERVA engines down on their heads!) The "these aren't humans" arguments are completely unmoving to me. This is a game created for humans, by humans and is intended to be viewed through a human reference frame, and would be a total failure if it weren't relatable to humans (heck, the reason I’m playing KSP instead of Orbiter IS the little green guys.) To say that we shouldn't make at least some minimal effort to be inclusive of all humans, and give women an in-game avatar to identify with because we, the community of a game, have decided that our masculine-featured avatars with names that follow the common English structures for masculine names within said game are genderless, is... well.. just silly, to me, and the argument that there is currently no gender in the game when the Kerbals bare recognizable masculine features both in name and image seems a little lame. I don’t really care WHEN it happens, but sometime before the official release, I would really prefer to see female Kerbals added. The (as I understand it) relatively small effort of adding a Kerbal head with a recognizably female jaw and hair-line really must be outweighed by the possibility of expanding the number of people who identify with the little green people that we love. Even if its just ONE more human, really... and knowing how my two young neices operate, my odds of getting them to play KSP would about double if they could tell that their Kerbal was a "girl." Is this a huge deal? No. Ultimatley, the game IS about rocketry rather than social dynamics, but it does no harm and maybe a fair bit of good to add some female Kerbals. (I'm especially a fan of the plain-featured Kerb-etts that the OP suggested. Let's not just color Barbie green, please...) I may be biased though… my wife keeps telling me that the reason my rockets keep crashing when hers don’t is that I don’t have a woman-Kerbal to keep Jeb, Bob and Bill in line.

[i would think any and all of these things would be cool to add, though I would have to say that the fact that Kerbals are unrecognizable to us, racially, probably alleviates some of the need to add multiple races, at least on the front that we should want players to be able to identify with their Kerbal avatars. (I DO, however, especially like the idea of Ker-hippies protesting my use of mysterious goo and dumping of dozens of NTRs and NERVA engines down on their heads!) The "these aren't humans" arguments that went on above are completely unmoving to me. This is a game created for humans, by humans and is intended to be viewed through a human reference frame, and would be a total failure if it weren't relatable to humans (heck, the reason I’m playing KSP instead of Orbiter IS the little green guys.) To say that we shouldn't make at least some minimal effort to be inclusive of all humans, and give women an in-game avatar to identify with because we, the community of a game, have decided that our masculine-featured avatars with names that follow the common English structures for masculine names within said game are genderless, is... well.. just silly, to me. I don’t really care WHEN it happens, but sometime before the official release, I would really prefer to see female Kerbals added. The (as I understand it) relatively small effort of adding a Kerbal head with a recognizably female jaw and hair-line really must be outweighed by the possibility of expanding the number of people who identify with the little green people that we love. I might be biased though... my wife keeps telling me the reason that my rockets are crashing is that there isn't a girl-Kerbal to keep Jeb, Bob and Bill in line.