Why a Geminialike 2-man Capsule is needed in Stock.

[Tarmenius]

I mean it's meant to only be used with one other part.

Ok, fair enough. Just bear in mind that even if it's meant for use with one other part, doesn't mean it's only possible use is with that other part. For the airlock, I think a bell shape (instead of the current cone) may still be suitable for re-entry and provide enough length to stow helmets. Thoughts?

[passinglurker]

Ok, fair enough. Just bear in mind that even if it's meant for use with one other part, doesn't mean it's only possible use is with that other part. For the airlock, I think a bell shape (instead of the current cone) may still be suitable for re-entry and provide enough length to stow helmets. Thoughts?

sure you can snap any two different sized parts together but a size adapter is purely structural and arts and crafts part clipping isn't reason enough to justify the ram and catalog clutter like a complete set would.

I don't think the bell shape would work you also need room for the kerbals to move in, and out of their seats, stow the helmets, and all without making it so cramped that the kerbals face is up against a wall. The most space efficient solution is to have the kerbals wear the helmets.

[richfiles]

64bit is not a panacea it's like congress voting itself a higher spending limit you'll start spending even worse and hit the new ceiling eventually. We will only be free when we get dynamic loading

Clearly did not read my post, and ignored the bit about limiting part loading for limited systems...

My option could be easily implemented as an interim solution till real dynamic loading is supported.

[Stoney3K]

Kicking this thread a bit to emphasize that 1,875m parts *are* useful in a lot of situations.

For example, the 1,25m plane fuselage is too small for a lot of use cases and the engines are (comparatively) too big, while a pair of 1,25m jet engines look silly on a Mk3 airliner which is supposed to look like a DC-9 or a 737. Those jets should be 1,875m in outer diameter.

The new Mk1 "Learjet" cockpit is good for 0,625m engines but will be too small for 1,25m engines. You'd ideally want a 1,875m fuselage system there that can carry 1,25m payloads (just like the Mk3 can carry 2,5m payloads). This is a great platform for smaller aircraft and SSTOs that are comparable in size to craft like the Avro ARJ, Embraer 145 or the CRJ-800. Essentially, the 1,875m fuselage would be a lot like the Mk3 fuselage, but scaled down to 50% size, with a more cramped two-man cockpit.

Mk2 would then become more of a wide-body version of the 1,875m round fuselage which can carry more fuel and auxilliary payloads.

Also, 1,875m LFBs and SRBs complement a 2,5m orange tank very nicely for your stock shuttles, and it would work well on Gemini replicas or early Soyuzes. It would also fill the power gap which now exists between the Reliant and the (huge) Poodle, with an 1,875m engine more on par with an SSME or Soyuz RD-117. Bigger, powerful but a fuel guzzler.

I can really see the lack of a use case for a simple 2-Kerbal pod in current game play missions. Reason? Kerbals can do too much already and SAS-enabled probe cores are available quite early on in the mission, and gravity on other celestial bodies beside Kerbin early on in the game (Mün, Minmus) is relatively low. A 2-man pod and an Apollo-like mission profile would be more interesting if the masses of those bodies were buffed a bit so you can't drop your one-crew pod on the Mün, take ALL the science and return with half a tank of fuel left. If you want to do that, you can go to Minmus, which IMO, is *too* easy to land on right now.

(Before anyone here screams "Tweakscale!", there's a lot to be said for new parts in a series that are nut just "Honey I shrunk the parts!" versions of their original)

Edited September 23, 2015 by Stoney3K

[Rath]

Rejigger the HGR textures and implement it.

[nothingSpecial]

What's wrong with HGR textures? The last update's tanks and engine are beautiful and work with stock perfectly, just wait till Orionkermin would bring other pieces in line with them (that was planned AFAIK, just people tend to be bysy in their lifes).

[RocketBlam]

The problem I think is it would be too big for a 1.25m part. The KASA Gemini module is larger than 1.25m, about 2m.

Download KASA maybe?

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

On August 3, 2015 at 2:29 PM, GregroxMun said:

Simple: it was a big part of American Spaceflight History.

Gemini Program did have lots of cool things planned for it. MOL, Gemini Moonships, and Big-G crew pod. The two manned capsules we have in KSP right now closely resemble Mercury and Apollo command pods. The Gemini pod is a big piece missing in KSP. We can do such cool retro-looking ships and missions in career mode with the Mk1 pod, a Mk2 would look really cool and retro.

Thoughts? Think I'm totally wrong? What about how my reasons are entirely wrong for the reason we need a Gemini pod. All of the other reasons have already been said and I'm sure Squad has heard them, I don't think this has been said.

Stock K2-Command Pod, renamed Mk-1 (Type 2) Command Pod.

[Panel]

I really think that we need a set of 1.875 meter parts, as well as a two man capsule. 1.875 meter parts are a better intermediary between 1.25 and 2.5 meter parts. With that size division, the size doubles; but 3.75 is only 1 and a half times bigger. They are also useful for replicas. Remember, it is very difficult to hit the limit on 64 bit.

[tater]

Given we now have more possible parts to play with (64 bit), I think that having 1.875 would be awesome. It would be fun to have perhaps 2 kerbal programs fleshed out at some point. In career maybe you'd choose one or the other as a starting point, but you could pay a premium and unlock the other programs parts if you like---they have this cool shuttle thing, so you make a near exact copy, but add jets or something really unlikely like that  .

Then do a full suite of RL-inspired, but kerbal parts. HGR (which I like) is still a little more "replica" in terms of Soviet parts. Have those parts have a nod to Soviet design, without being copies. The mk1 and mk1-2 are clearly not Mercury/Apollo copies, they look different other than the rough shape (particularly the mk1). So have a 1.25m pod that is round and holds 1 kerbal. Have a 1.875m 2-man in the conical shape, and a 1.875m pod that is a bell shape like Soyuz. Maybe add a 2.5m either in the style of PTK NP, or make up something more visually similar to Soyuz, only larger as the goal is a distinct look that nods to Soviet without actually being a replica.

[ZooNamedGames]

This is needed!

[Panel]

11 hours ago, tater said:

Given we now have more possible parts to play with (64 bit), I think that having 1.875 would be awesome. It would be fun to have perhaps 2 kerbal programs fleshed out at some point. In career maybe you'd choose one or the other as a starting point, but you could pay a premium and unlock the other programs parts if you like---they have this cool shuttle thing, so you make a near exact copy, but add jets or something really unlikely like that  .

I don't quite understand what you saying here. Could you clarify?

[simonh]

Interesting thread. I have to come down against though.

1.25m is way too small to build a 2-man pod, and 2.5m is big enough that it doesn't make sens to put in less than 3.

Yes it would be fun to play with 1.875, but it's just not necessary for stock. The 1.25m and 2.5m parts are different enough to present very distinct opportunities and challenges, but 1.875m would be neither one thing nor the other. The base game should stay stripped down and focused on simple, fun game play rather than try to scratch absolutely everybody's slightest itch. IMHO this is exactly the sort of edge case mods are there to fill.

Simon Hibbs

[tater]

1 hour ago, simonh said:

Interesting thread. I have to come down against though.

1.25m is way too small to build a 2-man pod, and 2.5m is big enough that it doesn't make sens to put in less than 3.

Yes it would be fun to play with 1.875, but it's just not necessary for stock. The 1.25m and 2.5m parts are different enough to present very distinct opportunities and challenges, but 1.875m would be neither one thing nor the other. The base game should stay stripped down and focused on simple, fun game play rather than try to scratch absolutely everybody's slightest itch. IMHO this is exactly the sort of edge case mods are there to fill.

Like these?

?

Surely people could get along with just the first "1.25m spaceplane part," right?

Guess it's OK to scratch some people's itches, huh?

(yeah, the 3d one is 2.5m at the widest point, but the actual pressurized volume is basically dead-on 1.875m. Top to bottom the part is 1.5m.)

Edited November 18, 2016 by tater

[simonh]

1 hour ago, tater said:

Like these?

You can physically fit Kerbals in, but frankly even the Mk1 challenges my suspension of disbelief a bit. Mercury was fine for upsy-downsie joyrides of a few orbits, but that's about it, while in KSP the Mk1 gets sent all over the system. No multi-crew spacecraft in real life has been anywhere near that small, for good reasons. There is a mod which provides a 1.25m 2 crew capsule and that's fine. It's a great project for a mod, but I don't see the need in stock.

Simon Hibbs

[tater]

I'm not for 1.25m 2-crew capsules. Those should be 1.875 (TRAILS uses 1.5m for the Gemini capsule itself, and the SM is 1.875, and that works nicely).

I never use small parts for long distances, anyway, I build stuff that looks like they'd not mind living in it for a few years without going nuts (and I use LS).

Here is where "realism" would improve gameplay. Not "realistic" gameplay, plain ole gameplay (I'm thinking career mode here).

Currently the game has almost no trade-offs in rockets. This is partially because there are so few rocket parts anyway (1 of each type makes for no trade offs being possible), and partially because there is no chance of failure (so no reason to use a part which is less optimal in some ways, but more reliable. Heck, it's also because of the mini scale of the Kerbol system (so easy to get around that mass is pretty much meaningless.

If things were a little more complex, there might be a reason for 2 kerbal ships. What if kerbals needed sleep, for example, then 2 allows shifts, and you can always use the craft (maybe the kerbal loses skill level when sleepy, for example).

If getting to LKO wasn't a joke, then a 2 kerbal ship would be an intermediate step that you'd use a lot (I find this very true at 6.4X, for example).

Partially it's just to have more stuff to play with, however.

[KSK]

6 hours ago, simonh said:

Interesting thread. I have to come down against though.

1.25m is way too small to build a 2-man pod, and 2.5m is big enough that it doesn't make sens to put in less than 3.

Yes it would be fun to play with 1.875, but it's just not necessary for stock. The 1.25m and 2.5m parts are different enough to present very distinct opportunities and challenges, but 1.875m would be neither one thing nor the other. The base game should stay stripped down and focused on simple, fun game play rather than try to scratch absolutely everybody's slightest itch. IMHO this is exactly the sort of edge case mods are there to fill.

Simon Hibbs

Disagree entirely.  We've got simple, stripped down gameplay and it's dull.

Personal opinion aside - how stripped down do you want? I can't think of many (if any) contracts that you couldn't complete using 1.25m parts and a one kerbal pod, especially once you unlock even a basic probe core. You don't need 2.5m parts for anything and 3.75m parts are clearly a dangerous waste of memory that could be used for more spaceplane parts.

Since we don't actually need anything apart from 1.25m parts for gameplay purposes what's the point of having anything else. Simple answer - KSP is a sandbox game. More parts, even if they only differ aesthetically is good. More ways of letting players accomplish the same goal is good too. I can't see a single reason not to include a 2 kerbal pod and some 1.875 parts to go with it. 

And this isn't aimed at you personally but I utterly reject the tired old 'there's a mod for that' argument.  If I buy a book, I don't expect to be presented with a plot summary (even quite a detailed one), a couple of chapters to start me off and then be told to go and cobble the rest of the story together from random chapters that other people have posted on the publisher's internet forum. If I buy an album, I don't expect to get twelve bass lines, a drum solo or two and then get told to go learn guitar so I can play the rest of it.

Likewise, when I buy a sandbox game, I would quite like to get a decent amount of sand to play with thank you so very much. Or at least the possibility of more sand to come. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find the correct side of bed to get out of.

Edited November 18, 2016 by KSK

[Wjolcz]

Wooooow, holy crap the younger me was pretty mean at the beginning of this thread.

Yeah, I guess a Gemini-like probe wouldn't be bad (I've actually changed my mind), the problem is it would either need an adapter or a whole new set of 1.8whatever-meter parts. If the pod would become stock, people would demand more parts of its' size. And as far as I know there's no one on the dev team now that has the time or the ability to create these parts.

But then there's the question: how useful would the pod actually be? Gemini was built mainly to test the ability to dock in space +some other stuff. There were also some other uses planned for it (like the Moon landing), but these plans never became a reality.

I'd still prefer a Dragon V2-like capsule, with a separate 2.5m inline engines part (like a ring with nozzles in the outter part) that can be attached either to the capsule, or the bottom of something else that is also 2.5m wide (like a tank). As I've previously said: I'm sick of Mk1-2 pod, the hitchhiker is not good enough and the MK3 cockpit is well... A MK3 cockpit.

[SpacePilotMax]

If you want Gemini, it's easy to build a replica with a crew pod and a lander pod on top of a C7-Rockomax connector. That's sandbox. As for mid-career, I found the inline jet cockpit to be useful. All in all, i'd rather have a pod that holds more kerbals.

[tater]

Yeah, it really does lack a use in the stock game. Of course everything lacks a use in the stock game  

[tater]

On 11/18/2016 at 5:30 PM, PilotMax said:

If you want Gemini, it's easy to build a replica with a crew pod and a lander pod on top of a C7-Rockomax connector. That's sandbox. As for mid-career, I found the inline jet cockpit to be useful. All in all, i'd rather have a pod that holds more kerbals.

Not much of a replica.

[simonh]

On 11/18/2016 at 8:50 PM, KSK said:

Disagree entirely.  We've got simple, stripped down gameplay and it's dull.

Adding a 2-crew pod isn't going to change that. I agree I'd be interested in seeing actual game play reasons to send e.g. crewed landers to the moons of Jool, but we don't. Career is fun for a while, but long before getting to long distance missions I found myself flying my10th rescue mission, or doing a handful of science scans at nearby locations on the Mun or Minmus for the Nth time and quit to start a much more fun new Science game.

I'm not bitter about it though. I've got more value for money out of KSP than pretty much anything else I've ever bought in my entire life. There are always the Reddit Challenges, or just doing things because you want to. But base KSP can't do everything and shouldn't try. The parts in the game need to be different enough to present real meaningful tradeoffs, yet enable a wide variety of options and that's it.

I do worry a bit about other platforms without mod access, such as consoles. That was actually in my mind when posting my original comments. I just think there are more other things that are higher priority there than more command capsules.

Simon Hibbs

[tater]

More parts is better, period. On top of that, I would prefer to see more functional choices inherent in part selection. Trade offs. Unfortunately, reliability is not a thing in KSP, because often design decisions were predicated upon reliability (kerlox vs hydrolox vs hypergolics, for example). Meaningful choices in design are exactly what KSP should be about.

Right now, aircraft actually have more such variability, because even small changes in wing placement, etc, matter. In the case of rockets/spacecraft, there is little variability (aside from kooky contraptions that don't look like real rockets) because all the parts are exactly the same, and only vary in diameter. We don't even have stock clustering of engines.

[KSK]

1 hour ago, simonh said:

Adding a 2-crew pod isn't going to change that. I agree I'd be interested in seeing actual game play reasons to send e.g. crewed landers to the moons of Jool, but we don't. Career is fun for a while, but long before getting to long distance missions I found myself flying my10th rescue mission, or doing a handful of science scans at nearby locations on the Mun or Minmus for the Nth time and quit to start a much more fun new Science game.

I'm not bitter about it though. I've got more value for money out of KSP than pretty much anything else I've ever bought in my entire life. There are always the Reddit Challenges, or just doing things because you want to. But base KSP can't do everything and shouldn't try. The parts in the game need to be different enough to present real meaningful tradeoffs, yet enable a wide variety of options and that's it.

I do worry a bit about other platforms without mod access, such as consoles. That was actually in my mind when posting my original comments. I just think there are more other things that are higher priority there than more command capsules.

Simon Hibbs

That first paragraph sums up my experience with Career mode pretty neatly. And I would love to see a version of stock KSP where I could agree with your second paragraph. The problem is (as I've posted elsewhere - can find a link if you wish) is that KSP Career mode at the moment doesn't do much of anything. It's gameplay mechanics are simply too limited to allow for real meaningful tradeoffs. Building a bigger rocket is the answer to most questions and paying for that bigger rocket (which should be one of those tradeoffs) is a matter of grinding out a couple more contracts. Time isn't a factor so the only thing preventing the player from doing so is personal boredom threshold.

Pessimistically, I don't think this is going to change much. We might get a couple of extra bells and whistles to play with but the core of the game is, I think, going to remain much the same. Therefore, rocket design in KSP* will remain a mostly aesthetic choice, whichever game mode you're playing in. And that being the case, I think more parts are a priority.

Back to the two-kerbal pod - you're right that its not going to change much. However, I'd like one, so that I can fly mixed crews earlier in my game. (As it is, poor old Bill and Bob don't get to go to space until I've unlocked a basic probe core or the Mk2 pod).  I'd like one for flying rescue missions with an actual pilot, again before I unlock the Mk2 pod. I'd like one for flying mini-Apollo missions - one crewmember stays in orbit whilst the other goes down to the Mun in a Mk1 lander can.

I will cheerfully concede that none of those scenarios are remotely required in the current Career game and indeed they're all arguably sub-optimal over anything we can do with a simple Mk1 pod with a probe core glued to the roof. I also think that's a great pity in either a sandbox game or a strategy/management game - which KSP purports to be in Sandbox (duh) and Career mode respectively.

Edit - for what its worth, I've also had excellent value for money from KSP. The concept behind it is essentially my dream game. It's just a shame that the execution is so limited.

*Edit, I agree with @tater's comment about spaceplanes. Design matters more for those.

Edited November 21, 2016 by KSK

[tater]

Yeah, in Sandbox it's mostly about aesthetics, as there are no limits anyway. People who play with only stock parts will clip, for example... something I am mostly loathe to do, myself. For real trade-offs, you really need a robust career system that actually models a space program. It need not be terribly realistic in detail, but it needs to properly mimic the real-world trade-offs that make such a thing interesting.

It's about being good gameplay, and interesting. It;s accidental that this corresponds with "realism" in many respects.

Why was the real Space Race an exciting time? Boundaries were being pushed by both sides, and the "race" aspect meant that both sides were willing to take risks they might not otherwise. Technology B might be more reliable than tech A, but B is a year off, and we have A right now---go with A! Boom!

There is nothing at all like this in KSP, sadly.

The scale issue matters, too. In scaled up mods using stock parts, just getting to orbit can be challenging. 1.25m parts can go suborbital, 1.875 works better for early orbital flights, and 2.5+ starts being required to get tot he Mun with a craft capable of leaving the Mun. I think the design goal of the Mun in KSP should have been to make it big enough that staged landers are worth serious consideration. Again, it's a "design choices" issue. Having multiple options for a way to complete a mission makes the game more interesting. Instead, you send the normal munar lander in career unless you artificially make it harder on yourself (a mk1 pod with a tank, 909, and some legs).