Sevant

As a way to possibly make science more interesting, what would you think of having science "quests" in addition to individual experiments? For example, the Kerbin Meteorological Society could offer money (when implemented) and advances in science if KSP gets a temperature and pressure reading from every planet/moon with an atmosphere. Other ideas would be seismograph readings from each moon around Jool, temperature readings from each ocean, etc. I can't say I think this is a perfect idea, but it might add some challenge and direction to the game.

I agree to a point, but there are some points to consider here. First, would this mean that you only get half of the current science bonus for doing each half of a day/night experiment? Second, this is essentially a form of monitoring short term changes in an environment. To get a truly accurate idea of short term changes you shouldn't simply run the experiment once during the day and once at night--you should run a continuous experiment for an entire period of revolution. Third, how far do you want them to take this line of thinking? Wouldn't reading also change during different seasons (i.e. as the planet/moon/whatever orbits the Sun)? Logically, yes, and new data could be gathered at different times, but it is either going to be tedious going back to the same spot on each planet four or five times to get all the research credit, or it is going to be tedious to run the same experiment four or five times in the same spot to get all the research credit, or it is going to be cheap to simply time-accelerate for 2 minutes to get 4 or 5 times the research credit you deserve for getting there once. My two cents: I think it makes more sense to add a new kind of experiment all together. Currently, all experiments are instantaneous (ignoring the time it takes to open the goo capsule or science bay). You could add experiments that take a certain amount of time to complete. If you wanted to prevent time-accelerating past them, you could even make the experiments run on real time instead of game time. Alternatively, once life support systems are added, you could require that a Kerbal is present, such that the difficulty of the experiment is designing a craft capable of supporting your scientific hermit until the experiment is complete (time acceleration would be allowed in this type of experiment).

May have already been suggested, but I couldn't find a thread for it. I would like the ability to link jet engine shut downs from the spaceplane/rocket construction bays. Essentially, if one engine in a manually selected group flames out/runs out of fuel/shuts down, I want a sensor to automatically deactivate all the other engines in that group. I already link my engine shutoffs into action groups, but I keep leaving them on too long and having my engines flame-out asymmetrically. As much fun as it is recovering from flat spins...

I sort of like the idea of multiple solar systems, but not as the default. I think they should keep the Kerbal system as it is (after all, it's basically the Earth system, and that's part of the fun), however, I also think they could add a "random solar system generator" option when starting a new game to keep things interesting for those of us who have already explored the default system. If you wanted to make the new solar system's really interesting, you could shake things up by randomly selecting which planet becomes the Kerbal home world. Obviously a gas giant wouldn't work, but it could be an interesting challenge if Kerbal ended up on a planet like Eve...I see problems though...nevermind.

I like this idea. The one problem I see is that biomes currently translate all the way into orbital science (i.e. if you take a gravity scan from orbit over the Mun's farside crater it is a separate experiment to taking a gravity scan over the Mun's lowlands). While this might not be a big deal if the Easter Egg biomes are really small (such that you can't really find them in orbit), it doesn't make much sense that taking a gravity reading over a temple should be a separate experiment from taking the reading 20 meters away in any direction. What I'm really trying to say is: I suspect it would require a different system than the current biome function to make this work properly. That, or the biome model would have to be capable of being localized into a sphere rather than a wedge extending into space. Maybe it already is? I don't really know.

I disagree. While probes may not be able to perform most of the science available for each planet, you can still get lots of research points using them in .23. For example, I recently sent a probe with 7 smaller, detachable probes to Jool. Net result, 3372 research. While that isn't huge (as in, it won't let you finish the tech tree with one mission), I think it is a reasonable return on a weeks worth of game play (who wants to beat a game in a single week?). Best of all, since it didn't let me one shot the tech tree (which is certainly what would have happened in .22), I now have reason to start trying manned missions to other planets.

I really hope not. It would be spectacularly irritating to have to wipe a thermometer between every use, and it would essentially make probes useless. After all, what is the point of sending a probe to Jool if it can only take 1 gravity and 1 temperature reading before it becomes a floating paper weight?

My last suggestion turned out to be something that already existed (sorry). I tried to do my research this time, and I don't think this exist, and I don't think it's on the "already suggested" list. Please feel free to throw rotten food at this post if I'm wrong (I assume no responsibility for damage incurred to your computer). I would like to be able to dictate which fuel tanks drain first in my space-planes from the construction bay. First, I know I can already turn off fuel tanks, but that is a very clunky way of managing fuel in flight, especially since you can't toggle fuel tank's on and off using action groups. Second, I know I can use fuel lines as long as I separate my tanks with non-fuel-transferring parts, but that is relatively inconvenient. Third, I know I could fix this with a mod, but I'd prefer to see this functionality added to the official game build. As far as implementation goes, I suggest a separate "Fuel Staging" tab in the build bay (just like the "parts", "action groups", and "crew" tabs). In this tab you could select an engine, and it would bring up a list of all the fuel tanks from which that engine is capable of drawing fuel. You would then be able to click and drag those tanks into stages (just like the staging for normal parts), such that the engine could draw fuel from more than one fuel tank at a time, but would completely drain the tanks in stage one before taking fuel from any of the tanks in stage two etc. The difference between fuel stages and part stages would be that fuel stages do not require manual switching between stages. The engine moves to the next stage as soon as it can no longer draw fuel from any of the tanks in the stage it is currently in (i.e. when the fuel tanks in that stage are all empty, have been manually turned off, or are no longer connected to the engine). On a slightly different but related note, it would be really cool to be able to change fuel staging (and action groups) in flight as well. This would be particularly useful when docking multiple ships to create one large vessel. Again...I'm sure there's a mod for this (or an add-on rather), but it would be sweet in vanilla.

Hello all, I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist in game already, but if it does, please feel free to ignore this thread. It would be helpful (though by no means critical) to have a trim option added for flight control. AKA: I want to be able to manually tell my control surfaces to exert a constant pitch/yaw/roll without user interface. I know SAS is the current solution to this, but the fact is that it tends to react slowly and often has trouble finding a steady configuration for moderately imbalanced craft (i.e. it just overcompensates from side to side so the ship is constantly rocking back and forth). The only way I can correct for this is to "help" the SAS by manually imputing corrections...it works, but it's tedious. My suggestion for incorporating this into the user interface would be to have 3 slider bars show up when you press the trim activation key--one each for pitch, yaw, and roll. OPTION 1: The sliders could then be adjusted all the way down or up using the mouse or OPTION 2: while holding the trim key, pressing the pitch, yaw and roll controls would slowly move the corresponding trim sliders. Also, the trim setting would definitely need a "reset to default" key, and because I'm a wishful thinker, it would be nice to be able to change the trim in the construction bay and see the center of lift change as you did it (for space planes).

I think the best way around this problem would be to make continuous-use instruments wear out over time. If you're willing to compromise, you could also make continuous-use instruments subject to more extended law of diminishing returns. For example: Let's say I put a gravoli detector into orbit around the Sun. Current game mechanics allow for the sun to be divided into regions so I could take multiple gravity readings as I orbit and get an overall idea of the Sun's gravitation field, yielding large research benefits. A new game mechanic could allow for two additional opportunities to gain research from gravity readings around the sun. 1) A continuous gravity scan which lasts a minimum of several months and is disrupted by any change in the probe's orbit. This shows short-term fluctuations in the Sun's gravitational field. 2) A second set of gravity scans around the Sun taken at least 5 or 10 years after the original scans, and then perhaps again every 5 or 10 years. This shows long-term fluctuations in the Suns' gravitational field. When you combine this mechanic with a mechanic allowing instruments to wear out after so many scans or after a period of time, it allows for ongoing research of dynamic forces in the universe without allowing someone to simply spam science instruments into the sky. There is no point in sending 20 identical probes to the sun at once, you'll only get research credit from 1 set of scans. On the other hand, you can't do all your research with 1 probe because it's going to wear out before it's time to start taking long-term scans. One last thought, some things aren't very dynamic. After you've taken two dozen seismic readings of the Mun, you've learned pretty much everything you're going to learn even in terms of long-term trends. I think there should still be a limit to how many long-term readings you get to benefit from...of course, it would still be cool if you crash things into the Mun and have a pre-placed seismic sensor feel the effects...but probably impractical from a coding standpoint, and how many research points do we really need anyway?