More bang for your buck - What would you like next for KSP?

[Kerbonautical]

Ok so just to clarify this is not a .23 wishlist! I had thought about the way that .22 expanded upon the KSP Universe and how without any major tweaks to the game world other than an updated KSC the devs managed to add a considerable amount of content simply by locking items away and adding point system to acquire the unlocks. Looking at the weekly dev updates it seems this also left them a bit of an opportunity to clean up some old game code and get a bit of a performance boost too.

So my question is what do you guys think Squad could add in the future that would flesh out the Career mode as heavily as possible whilst minimizing workload? I'm sure we would all enjoy some new planets to visit someday but in the meantime would a financial system provide the extra layer you need to be planning missions more efficiently? Or perhaps a few preset tasks from Squad that could be the building blocks of mission further down the line?

Personally I'm more an advocate of seeing Space Stations, Rovers and Probes become more important one day as they are still fairly irrelevant to the games main features currently. But whatever ideas you have I'm just interested to see what you would like from KSP, even if it's a feature that's never coming. I know the devs probably already have their own plans for the next few updates, but I'd like to know what the community would do differently.

[Sirrobert]

I'd love to see the vanilla recourse system

[RocketPilot573]

Better aerodynamics and new aircraft parts to replace the current place-holders.

[Godot]

The easiest way would be, to complete the Biomes for other planets and rebalance the Tech-Tree (with regards to costs of Nodes, as well as parts associated to Nodes).

Also I assume adding Resources and Heat-Management (including Reentry Heat) might add aditional parts to populate the tree

[AmpsterMan]

Resources or a better Aero system and a revamping of those parts

[CaptainArchmage]

I'd like to see a resources extraction system, in preference to any other additions.

[Kerbonautical]

Wow I'm surprised how much the Aerodynamics have already shown up! Resources do seem like a really good way to expand too, I guess that's a good way to make use of Space Stations etc and start to get an actual working Space Program running as an integral part of the career mode.

[LameLefty]

I want to see that performance boost that Mu's video talked about a few weeks ago (and mentioned once again in the current KSP Weekly). After that, it's gravy. Tweaks for problematic things like the floppy new shock absorbing legs, etc.

As for new stuff - more biomes on different planets, more Science flavor text, allowing Science point accumulation in Sandbox just for role-playing and fun. At some point, probably after 0.23, allowing Science points to unlock enhancements to parts (more thrust or ISP boosts for engines, lower mass for parts, better efficiency for solar panels and RTGs, whatever). I think adding economics to the game, along with resources, is going to be a major undertaking and will probably require a lot of balancing. Those are probably at least several versions away.

[Superfluous J]

The day I can mine a vanilla resource will be a very happy day indeed.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Aerodynamics is what I want most, followed by tweakables.

However I reckon that the next thing to be added will be currency.

[sanoj688]

I want it to be so that experiments not only earn you science, but also earn you money. Because it seems logical to me that certain organizations and agencies on Ea- I mean Kerbin would want some up to date data on various stuff like temperature, pressure and whatnot. Even though the scientific value will go down as it goes down now, the monetary value might not go down so quick, also, the penalty for transmitting the same data should be reset after some time as the data will have changed and/or it's simply good to know what the data does over time.

[Ralathon]

For maximum efficiency I'd agree with you. Give us a financial system with a few preset missions so we have extra limitations and a goal.

"Go to X, do Y (and return)" where X is either slightly harder or similar difficulty as your best achievement so far. Give us a selection of 4 or so of those missions to keep player freedom and we should be okay for a while.

I'd like to see some more focus on the science system however. As it is I find it rather tedious with the EVA reports and just 1 surface sample per cabin. That could definitely use some streamlining. As it is rovers are also rather pointless since the biomes are huge.

Imo, the way to make science more interesting is to take the biome idea and apply it to your landing area on a small scale. As you get down to the surface the system would procedurally generate a map of the area based on some random noise, just like how craters are done. Then you can gather samples and do experiments in different mini biomes for more science (obviously balanced so this isn't too OP). This gives you more incentive to move around a bit, explore the area and gives rovers an advantage over stationary platforms. Later on these mini biomes could have different textures or groundscatter to give the terrain much more interesting features on a small scale level (Bare rocks, sand, boulder field, small crater etc) so the planets look less uniform.

[Kasuha]

For next release? Just three things:

Fixed bugs and annoyances in orbital physics.

Reworked career mode, something that would guide you through the whole system before you reach the end.

Some new feature, perhaps resource system.

[Wjolcz]

Definitely more biomes on other planets, new plane parts, some tweaks to other parts so they all match the same style, and better aerodynamics.

And I would be 100% satisfied if the next update had only this.

[pxi]

I'd love to see the vanilla recourse system

Is that an option for the Kerbals when they run out of chocolate?

Seriously though, I'd love to see resource gathering sometime soon.

[geb]

Now that we have a tech tree, I think the question of life support can be brought up again.

I would like to see limited life support in some of the early game pods, and then you start to unlock consumable life support packs for missions lasting months, or years, until eventually you get a full recycling eternal life support system that just needs electricity.

[Guest]

Bug fixes,of course. And the revised atmospheric model.

[DisarmingBaton5]

Tweakables > Currency > Kerbolar System expansion > Resources > Aerodynamics.

In that order of priority, for me at least.

[Ariadne]

I heard that now the gravitational model consider only one celestial body (which is the most strong at current time moment) for calculating gravitational force and trajectory. It's sad. For example Lagrangian points isn't exists and flight paths is less interesting.

[Ralathon]

I heard that now the gravitational model consider only one celestial body (which is the most strong at current time moment) for calculating gravitational force and trajectory. It's sad. For example Lagrangian points isn't exists and flight paths is less interesting.

And your space stations don't drop out of the sky due to Munar perturbations while you're timewarping to Duna. Gameplay would suffer badly from n body gravity physics.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I would like to see what is already implemented to be polished up.

Moar Soundeffects to all the various parts would be very nice and I bet the current R&D System is by far not in its final state, allthough I am pretty happy with it.

[Lord_Demon]

I'd prefer to see economics and resources.

Specially for economics I'd like to see some randomized missions, and commercial applications (creating TV satellites for example).

They could have the specs (orbit kerbin at 80-85k, must be able to transmit constantly for 24 hours with transmitter type X, etc.) that must be filled to earn the money, or possibly a fixed income for certain amount of time ("KTV 1 will pay you xx credits/mit your satellite can transmit between now and now+30 days, up to xxxxx mits total (<- this would need a "transmit constantly" button in the antenna though.).

For resources, I see that as one way to gather credits, one way to get more science and one way to have something new to do in the game.

But I think resources do need the money aspect in game to truly reach their potential.

[Andrew Hansen]

I want to see the Mission Control building set up in the next update, where you can plan your missions to other planets or whatever. Perhaps a discovery system would be nice, too. But just the Mission Control building would be amazing.

[Kerbonautical]

Now that we have a tech tree, I think the question of life support can be brought up again.

I would like to see limited life support in some of the early game pods, and then you start to unlock consumable life support packs for missions lasting months, or years, until eventually you get a full recycling eternal life support system that just needs electricity.

I haven't come across that idea before but that sounds pretty good. I bet it could be considered tedious to some players but it would also create an extra management aspect if we could send up supply vessels. We already have the ability to transfer other resources when docking so it doesn't seem like it should be too hard to create. The complications that could arise with interplanetary travel may be an issue though depending on the longevity of the systems, yet if they last too long then they become instantly redundant. It's an interesting idea and sounds fun but it seems like one those ideas where the devs may choose playability over features, not that I'm criticizing that approach either.

[Andrew Hansen]

or possibly a fixed income for certain amount of time ("KTV 1 will pay you xx credits/mit your satellite can transmit between now and now+30 days, up to xxxxx mits total (<- this would need a "transmit constantly" button in the antenna though.).

I don't think that's a great idea. Sorry for not having a reference, but I believe the developers said they didn't want to allow science to be gained by simply time-warping a crazy amount.

They could have the specs (orbit kerbin at 80-85k, must be able to transmit constantly for 24 hours with transmitter type X, etc.) that must be filled to earn the money

That sounds like a better idea. If you can complete one orbit around Kerbin you gain a certain amount of money. You wouldn't gain more for more orbits though, because usually if you can make it once around Kerbin you can also make it around 10 billion times (because there is no orbital decay).

Sounds great!