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Any challenge beyond the base “fly to Planet X, return to kerbin” is self inflicted, and with almost 400 hours of play time, this is becoming more and more apparent as I play. This game has so much potential and I would hate to see it missed. Ksp 2 is missing a lot of more minor features that were present in ksp 1, that really add a lot of enjoyment to the game through interesting design challenges. Most notable ones from the top of my head: -kerbal levels -kerbal roles -probe core levels -kerbal G force limits -part pressure limits -reentry plasma blackout -comment occlusion While fairly minor additions, and potentially only difficulty options, these add a lot of interesting challenges when it comes to designing a craft, and flying mission profiles. These features are minor additions compared to science or reentry, but they a huge amount of gameplay through making the player design their way around these challenges, and they elevate the game beyond just flying from A to B. Kerbal levels: incentives the player to bring more kerbals with them, and to rescue those that are stranded. Brings a sense of physical loss on top of the present emotional loss when a kerbal lithobrakes too hard. Currently bringing more than one kerbal is at your disadvantage, and rescuing one brings you no gain, using probe cores makes no logical sense. If I lose a kerbal, the ksc has an infinite stock of free ones at my disposal. If jeb is my only 5 star kerbal and he gets stranded, it is my highest priority to go rescue him; I want to bring more kerbals with me to level them up, so if one is lost, it doesn’t cripple my agency. Both cases encourage me to design unique landers, that I otherwise would not build. Higher level kerbals increase the stakes of a mission, lower level kerbals increase the difficulty; completing both missions have a higher sense of accomplishment than the current game. This is something independent of science mode, and could even work well in sandbox mode. Kerbal roles: Gives more personality to a given kerbal, creates more incentive to bring more kerbals with you. Pilots have manoeuvre node access, scientists can run experiments multiple times, engineers increase part efficiency. I am reminded of the time I few a mission with no sas because I wanted to bring a scientist, so I could do experiments multiple times; was one of the hardest missions I flew, and some of the most fun I’ve had in the game, something that is lost. This would require a bit of a rework of the current science system though unfortunately, but I think it would be well worth it. Probe core levels: greater sense of advancement through the tech tree. Currently a probe unlocked at tier 4 is no better than one unlocked in tier 1, defeats the purpose of even having any other probes. Flying low tech probes makes you appreciate the high tech ones. Kerbal G force limits: Adds a fun layer to flying crafts and even aggressive reentries. The G force indicator and even Kerbal animations are already in place, they just need to have some actual gameplay function now. Part pressure limits: Makes jool and deep ocean expeditions dangerous, could have higher science payouts as a trade off, potential for specialised parts, similar to the u-dunk-it science part. Reentry plasma blackout: Added layer of realism to probes, extra satisfaction when control is regained. Teaches the player to build stable reentry crafts, and also teaches them about a real life phenomenon. Commnet occlusion: intuitive way that probes function, visual indication of how far a relay can reach. Intricate commnet constellations are lost since a single high power relay is basically all the comms set up you’ll ever need for the whole save. Ksp has always been about designing solutions to challenges presented by the laws of physics. I worry that these are being simplified in an attempt to make on-boarding easier. It would be disappointing to not see these features added before 1.0

Hello all! I'm currently working on a mod similar to RabidNinjaWombat's Civilian Population. In his mod, he used civilians as a resource, similar to liquid rocket fuel, mono prop. I believe that was because originally there were no tourists and that was his workaround. However, now we have different classes of Kerbals (crew/tourist). Ideally, my class would be uncontrollable directly by the player (similar to a tourist), but would have attributes that I could modify (such as being a geologist, or accountant) which would be able to interact with parts of the game (mining speed and income over time, respectively). In addition, it would not spawn naturally, but only if the player chooses to spawn it within the station. Though if it is impossible to do otherwise, I would be OK with allowing them to spawn in the roster. Looking through @rabidninjawombat's code, I noticed that ProtoCrewMember.KerbalType assigns the type of Kerbal as crew when the Kerbal is generated . However, since it is an enum, I don't believe it can be modified at runtime. Is that correct? Alternatively, I noticed in [KSP Path]/GameData/Squad/Experience, there is Traits.cfg which I believe belongs to ProtoCrewMember.KerbalType.Crew (again, from @rabidninjawombat's code). This looks like it stores the different types of Kerbal crews (Scientist/Engineer/Pilot) as well as the different effects. However, I cannot find details about this in the API documentation. Is the Scientist/Pilot/Engineer also an enum and therefore unable to be modified? Or is there a class that is called at some point that looks at all of the classes available? Or would I be better served in keeping the civilian/contractor Kerbals as a resource and converting them through that?