I'm sorry, I... I just don't like ARM... :(

[kola2DONO]

What happened to the station? A collision in space is a near impossibility, though I have heard people say they've had asteroids spawn in captured equatorial orbits.

Well i wanted a station in a kind of a weird orbit, but i knew that that orbit i really wanted the station to be in was going to get really close to 2 asteroids fly path in the near future, but because of some other ongoing missions i had to shoot up the space station now, so i did that and checked the asteroids orbit, and it looked like they're were going to just pass the station and slingshot out to sun orbit again. But because of the mun, the 2 asteroids just got braked a little bit and maintained a stable orbit around kerbin. I did not notice that and continued working.

But as i sent the last module up i saw something approaching, and boom in a couple of seconds my space station was gone.

I really raged after that, dumb me did not have any quicksaves.

[cantab]

What happened to the station? A collision in space is a near impossibility, though I have heard people say they've had asteroids spawn in captured equatorial orbits.

It's unlikely, but KSP has enough players that SOMEBODY is going to get their ship or station clobbered by a space rock. Especially the somebody who deliberately puts them in the general vicinity of an asteroid's path!

The only thing I would do different is default them to off instead of on so I can decide which parts I want them on, rather than which parts I don't.

With the flags, the only thing that bothers me is it doesn't affect the whole symmetry. If I don't want them on my six boosters I have to turn them off six times.

And both these behaviours would royally hack me off. If the flags were off by default I'd be right-clicking every part trying to find which supported the flag. If the flags were locked into symmetry I'd be forced to choose between having them on all my symmetric parts or none, when I probably want the flag on just one of them.

[Creature]

But as i sent the last module up i saw something approaching, and boom in a couple of seconds my space station was gone.

I really raged after that, dumb me did not have any quicksaves.

The chances are so small I'd be ecstatic if that happened to me

[MKI]

This thread, its mine and it more or less explains the thinking behind the ARM parts and their efficiency.

Its best read in full, so I wont even give a summary.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75738-ARM-SLS-Parts-and-the-Start-of-The-Career-mode-age

But yes The parts have flipped things upside down, but its all for good reason.

[Dispatcher]

I've only used the ARM parts in sandbox mode so far. I like them. When I do play career mode again, I hope the new parts are unlocked late in the tech tree, as a reward for using the other parts earlier and succeeding to gather "science".

[Motokid600]

I do feel that the time and labor spent making ARM could have been put to better use. The parts are fine I have no problem with them. But its the Asteroids themselves.. I just have zero interest in them. There just.. rocks.

The players want asteroids.. I want asteroids. But not yet! This game needs just so much done to it. Asteroids should've been something way down the line. Why did NASA want to develop this for a game thats an alpha?

New ways to conduct science, personalized, refined kerbals, tech tree improvements/addition for new biomes, proper economy, proper aerodynamics, fairings, graphical improvements, optimizations..

The list can go on. But instead.. we got rocks. Granted all this is coming at some point in time, but I fail to see how asteroids are more important then what I listed. Squad I love ya, but you may want to rethink your priorities.

Granted we did get the new joints we've all been asking for, but I can't help but think what else we could've gotten if the time and labor spent on ARM went to something else.

Edited April 8, 2014 by Motokid600

[Red Iron Crown]

I do feel that the time and labor spent making ARM could have been put to better use. The parts are fine I have no problem with them. But its the Asteroids themselves.. I just have zero interest in them. There just.. rocks.

The players want asteroids.. I want asteroids. But not yet! This game needs just so much done to it. Asteroids should've been something way down the line. Why did NASA want to develop this for a game thats an alpha?

New ways to conduct science, personalized, refined kerbals, tech tree improvements/addition for new biomes, proper economy, proper aerodynamics, fairings, graphical improvements, optimizations..

The list can go on. But instead.. we got rocks. Granted all this is coming at some point in time, but I fail to see how asteroids are more important then what I listed. Squad I love ya, but you may want to rethink your priorities.

ARM does have an "expansion pack" feel to it, and usually expansion packs aren't done until the game is complete. But if NASA wants to collaborate with you on your space game I think you'd be nuts to say "Wait until 1.0".

I don't think the dev effort spent on ARM set back their other goals that much, and some of the additions in ARM are core game improvements.

[r4pt0r]

I do feel that the time and labor spent making ARM could have been put to better use. The parts are fine I have no problem with them. But its the Asteroids themselves.. I just have zero interest in them. There just.. rocks.

The players want asteroids.. I want asteroids. But not yet! This game needs just so much done to it. Asteroids should've been something way down the line. Why did NASA want to develop this for a game thats an alpha?

New ways to conduct science, personalized, refined kerbals, tech tree improvements/addition for new biomes, proper economy, proper aerodynamics, fairings, graphical improvements, optimizations..

The list can go on. But instead.. we got rocks. Granted all this is coming at some point in time, but I fail to see how asteroids are more important then what I listed. Squad I love ya, but you may want to rethink your priorities.

Granted we did get the new joints we've all been asking for, but I can't help but think what else we could've gotten if the time and labor spent on ARM went to something else.

you probly also call .20 the chair update. look at all the under the hood upgrades. ksp runs faster than ever, joints are improved, nodes work even better, orbits are much more stable... ect....look at the change log man

[Seret]

I do feel that the time and labor spent making ARM could have been put to better use.

I would imagine they were on NASA's clock. If you're developing a game that's still in alpha and somebody comes along and says it wants to contract you to produce an expansion it would be a dumb business decision to say no. You'd say thanks very much and take the money.

[Pecan]

This. And Red Iron Crown.

Who would say 'no' to NASA if they got a chance to work with them on their not-even-released-yet game?

[Red Iron Crown]

This. And Red Iron Crown.

Who would say 'no' to NASA if they got a chance to work with them on their not-even-released-yet game?

Isn't that what I said? *confused*

[Pecan]

I was agreeing with you and Seret

[Red Iron Crown]

Gotcha, less confused now.

[HeadHunter67]

Good points, there. Yes, I think the asteroids weren't the top development priority, but it'd be crazy to turn away help from NASA. And everything else that was added under the hood makes it worthwhile. I love not having "floppy rockets" any more!

[Motokid600]

I dout this will be the last chance Squad will get to work with NASA. As this game grows in itself and in popularity I could easily see some of the mission controllers sporting Jeb bobble heads on their desks in the future.

I understand that you don't say no to NASA. But why would NASA offer anything to begin with? I'm sure atleast someone in there plays KSP so they should know.. why not wait before the game is more refined to better support asteroids? Economy, research, field science and whatever else I can't think of.

And yes.. the under-the-hood changes are great, grand wonderful, but again if Squad didn't have to work on ARM ... All that time. All that labor. Could have gone to even more optimizations and additions. I in no way believe asteroids are essential to the core game. Not yet.

[kerbonaut101]

I've seen quite a few posts claiming that the new engines for the ARM pack are over powered (which I think is a matter of perspective)... personally I think that having more powerful rockets in the game is a good thing showing the natural progression of rocket technology. If KSP ever goes interstellar or adds more planets beyond Eeloo you will need more and more powerful rockets for your launch stages. Also, when the mainsale was introduced in 0.16 that pretty much made the LV-T30 obsolete for launch stages (I dont know if people were complaining that was OP?) and now the new SLS parts make the mainsale obsolete. Perhaps to combat the OPedness of the engines the devs could increase slightly decrease there thrust and increase there inefficiency?

If you dont like the new parts... *drum roll*... dont use them

Edited April 8, 2014 by kerbonaut101

[malkuth]

Um.... Like 80 topics on this. Should of posted in one of them.

[kerbonaut101]

Um.... Like 80 topics on this. Should of posted in one of them.

I guess I just needed to vent my confusion/frustration about the whole thing. I just dont get all the complaining (In my books, more powerfull rockets is NEVER a bad thing )

[UmbralRaptor]

-.-

The problem isn't that "part x is OP" but that part x does part y's job better than part y. Especially if they're both available on the same tech node (eg: Mainsail / LFB). Having lots of parts with no real value makes the game less interesting. Meanwhile these new parts, for all their performance are weirdly limited. The size 3 tanks have lower mass ratios than the size 1 and 2 ones. (This is a shame, since it would be interesting to put an S3-7200 above a Skipper or an S3-14400 above a Mainsail.) The thrust increase from the Mainsail to the 4xKR-25 is less than from LV-T30 to the Skipper. Or the Skipper to Mainsail. Buffing thrust (with appropriate changes to other stats) would in fact add roles for other engines.

As for your example, the 0.16 Mainsail (1200 kN, 7 Mg) was notably worse than the LV-T30. (Same TWR, lower Isp) It was remarkable how many people used it and the first iteration of the BACC, even though those parts did more to make craft big than lift anything. The real balance problem was that the Aeropsike of 0.16 and 0.17 (250 kN, 1 Mg) had top end TWR and Isp. (Though 0.16 was a bit silly balance-wise, given that there were fuel flow and throttle bugs...) The present Mainsail is marginally less efficient than LV-T30/45 clusters in terms of payload fraction, but not by enough to matter.

[liweih]

I like the new engines.

[HeadHunter67]

I understand that you don't say no to NASA. But why would NASA offer anything to begin with? I'm sure atleast someone in there plays KSP so they should know.. why not wait before the game is more refined to better support asteroids?

Well, the thing with development is, funding and technical involvement goes a lot further when the game is being developed, than it does after the game is released. In other words, this is helping Squad to get all that other stuff done sooner and more easily.

[vexx32]

I've seen quite a few posts claiming that the new engines for the ARM pack are over powered (which I think is a matter of perspective)... personally I think that having more powerful rockets in the game is a good thing showing the natural progression of rocket technology. If KSP ever goes interstellar or adds more planets beyond Eeloo you will need more and more powerful rockets for your launch stages. Also, when the mainsale was introduced in 0.16 that pretty much made the LV-T30 obsolete for launch stages (I dont know if people were complaining that was OP?) and now the new SLS parts make the mainsale obsolete. Perhaps to combat the OPedness of the engines the devs could increase slightly decrease there thrust and increase there inefficiency?

If you dont like the new parts... *drum roll*... dont use them

Merged into existing thread.

[Red Iron Crown]

If you dont like the new parts... *drum roll*... dont use them

This is dismissive and adds nothing to the conversation. We're providing feedback about the balance of the parts, which Squad can choose to listen to or not. Or factor into their economic model, or not. "Don't like them, don't use them" is just noise.

[Dodgey]

I've seen quite a few posts claiming that the new engines for the ARM pack are over powered (which I think is a matter of perspective)... personally I think that having more powerful rockets in the game is a good thing showing the natural progression of rocket technology. If KSP ever goes interstellar or adds more planets beyond Eeloo you will need more and more powerful rockets for your launch stages. Also, when the mainsale was introduced in 0.16 that pretty much made the LV-T30 obsolete for launch stages (I dont know if people were complaining that was OP?) and now the new SLS parts make the mainsale obsolete. Perhaps to combat the OPedness of the engines the devs could increase slightly decrease there thrust and increase there inefficiency?

If you dont like the new parts... *drum roll*... dont use them

When you can prove mathematically that the new parts are much more powerful than the old ones in both TWR and ISP, as well as being off of the TWR/ISP balance curve set by the vast majority of the engines in the game it is no longer just a matter of opinion. See here for evidence.

[John FX]

Stupid chris has a stock rebalancer that looks at a lot of the issues discussed here.