Realism in KSP

[Levelord]

It's not. None of the things that have been discussed increase the level of complexity of play within KSP (save adding an Engineer-style information panel maybe, which a lot of people want). They do, however, fix behind-the-scenes inaccuracies. Even FAR can be used without the data analysis tools (I do it all the time); look at NEAR, for instance, which is basically just a rewritten, more forgiving FAR without the "confusing" tools. NEAR is a good example of what a stock aero overhaul could look like. It's accessible and not intimidating in the slightest.

E: ferram4 puts it even better than I did. Confusing the player's possible pre-existing knowledge is just ... backwards.

Except that you have a vested interest in adding complexity to the game which is coloring the way you want the game to be for other players. I personally don't mind having increased complexity in the game, and being a person who played old flight sims like F22 Lightning, combat sims like Operation Flashpoint and ARMA I certainly have the patience to master it. However I also have to put myself in the shoes of the new players and I can see that this only serves to make a massive learning gap for them. Here are the things you personally wanted in the game that increased complexity:

Fix the solar system so it has a realistic size

For what purpose? Back when I played the alpha game it didn't have timewarp, and the devs wanted reasonable orbit times into LKO, which was the main reason why the planets are scaled the way they are. They all also have disproportionate densities given their size to have higher gravities. Taking 15 minutes to reach low orbit gets tedious fast. I don't know if you are implying people are too stupid to know that Kerbin is smaller and that going into orbit is different in real life. Regardless, there is a mod available for people who are curious to know what it's like to deal with Earth-like launches and even that requires custom rescaled rocket parts to play with. Time-gating the game, realistic or not, is not accessible to new players.

Add proper reentry heating and effects

I cautiously would like to play with re-entry heat, but real life spacecraft rely on advanced computer autopilots to handle the task for them. In KSP Crew pods may be a little easier to learn, but there is very little support for SSTO/aircraft builders. Will they get an automated autopilot to re-enter their planes for them like the space shuttle has? Humans lack the ability to make fine adjustments to re-entry trajectories without the help of computers and ground control so I'd like to know what the player has to help assist them.

Add life support

To what end? It's implying that this needs to be added to the game otherwise people are too stupid to know that real astronauts need food, water and oxygen to survive. People already know this, but don't want to have to spend time doing tedious 'housekeeping', which literally gets worse the more crafts you have in orbit. Due to the nature of the game where you can only control one ship at a time, this becomes a problem for people who have multiple projects, unless there's a way to allow the player to set the game to make resupply runs automatically while they focus on the exploration and experimentation aspect of the game.

Realistic fuels

From what I understood from this quote, is that you want more than the usual liquid fuel/oxidizer mix:

Liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen

RP-1 (rocket-grade kerosene), reacted with LOX

Aluminum, reacted with ammonium perchlorate

Hydrazine, reacted with nitrogen tetroxide

Aluminum, ammonium perchlorate, a polymer of polybutadiene and acrylonitrile, epoxy and iron oxide (Constellation propellants)

High-energy composite (HEC) propellants

and the list goes on...

It's not practical in a game like this and multiplies the reading needed to get versed in the game by a factor of tens or hundreds. It's really delving into the realm of chemistry rather than rocketry and is pushing the game beyond the scope it was designed for and beyond the scope people are willing to learn in a game like KSP.

Overall in this thread I'm seeing the same 4-5 people going in circles agreeing with each other to make the game realistic for the sake of realism, which is ironically, not a realistic sample size of what the community wants as a whole. I cannot in good faith, agree on pushing this game to be more and more realistic without addressing the underlying point of it all and exactly how this benefits the playerbase as a whole and not merely a niche of hardcore realism fans.

[Franklin]

You're hardly going to notice the 0.2% of dV you lose due to nose cones, their role is just aesthetics. What isn't intuitive is a plane breaking into pieces before you clear the runway because you just pitched up a bit.

It's about the logic than the degree of effect, I'd imagine. One could argue the mods are in their own betas as much as KSP is. Plus (as has been talked to death) nobody's really suggesting a hardline realism overhaul. NEAR would be a decent compromise between those looking for FAR and stock.

[m4v]

It's about the logic than the degree of effect, I'd imagine.

There's no logic in pointing that nose cones are detrimental when their effect is negligible in all practical cases.

I play stock aero, yet all my rockets have nose cones and fairings because I care more about the look of my rocket than about the 20 m/s I'm losing.

[Red Iron Crown]

Except that you have a vested interest in adding complexity to the game which is coloring the way you want the game to be for other players.

I'm curious, what is regex's vested interest? He stands to gain nothing if his proposed changes were implemented aside from greater enjoyment of the game.

[Ippo]

If you want to train an engineer or a physicist, that person will have to read. And will have to get the actual figures and physics laws from books.

I should know: I am an engineer.

Also, your rebuttal revolves around a real size solar system, but if you had payed attention to the thread, NOBODY WANTS THAT IN STOCK. Please let it be the last time we have to spell it out.

Nobody is asking for the full RSS/RO suite to become stock: what we do want, is to treat physics with some respect. The stock system doesn't have to be realistic, but it should at least be plausible, and in any case it should be believable. As fun as it is, the current solar system is just IMPOSSIBLE. And this is not right.

On a sidenote: I am playing with RSS and reentries most definitely do not last 70 minutes. 70 minutes was just the real-life shuttle, but a simple capsule can easily re-enter in less than 5 minutes (and yes, it does survive). So this is not a valid argument against the request nobody is making anyway.

[Franklin]

There's no logic in pointing that nose cones are detrimental when their effect is negligible in all practical cases.

I play stock aero, yet all my rockets have nose cones and fairings because I care more about the look of my rocket than about the 20 m/s I'm losing.

If you can't understand, as a teaching tool for aerodynamics, that nosecones not being essential and arguably unnecessary, is a game design problem, then I don't know what to tell you.

[NathanKell]

m4v: It'd be nice if it were 0.2%. It usually isn't, and it's hard to ignore when there are giant advice threads on the forum that say "Don't use nose cones! They make drag worse!"

It's also pretty counterintuitive that wide, flat noseconessless rockets perform better than long, spindly streamlined ones. And I for one thing it's bad if KSP teaches us wrong, counterintuitive things. Especially when it's sold as a learning tool.

EDIT: ninja'd by Franklin.

[NathanKell]

On a sidenote: I am playing with RSS and reentries most definitely do not last 70 minutes. 70 minutes was just the real-life shuttle, but a simple capsule can easily re-enter in less than 5 minutes (and yes, it does survive). So this is not a valid argument against the request nobody is making anyway.

And if KSP were a better teaching tool, it would teach you the difference between a ballistic and a lifting reentry, so this is in fact an argument for more realism in KSP, not keeping it as it is...

[juanml82]

I disagree entirely. There are certain things that you can learn better from experience, which is why entry level physics and astronomy classes have demonstrations, and/or labs. The non-intuitive nature of orbital rendezvous, for example is great to see for yourself (even if in a game). You might not learn history from the games you mention, but if they were done properly, you might actually learn something about why they used the tactics they used (Empire: Total War, for example could have done this, or virtually any age of sail game (all of which fail to model sailing outcomes accurately). Another example is ww2 flight sims. I was always a ww2 aircraft buff, but I honestly "didn't get it" intuitively until I had played good ww2 flight sims, particularly vs other people. Now when I read first hand accounts, I see them as I read, and actually understand (in an internalized way) exactly what they are talking about.

So I think a game like this is a fun tool. I'd have used this with kids at the campus observatory back in the day in a heartbeat (as long as I didn't have to unteach them things that the game got wrong).

I don't think there is a lot to "unlearn" from "Hey, see that? Well, planets are a lot less dense" or "See the amount of delta-v required? Well, in Earth, you need twice that amount".

Now, if you want the ultimate, accurate, teaching textbook replacer, that's Orbiter. Which doesn't have the option to build rockets but

A) We aren't talking about teaching to build rockets

Rocket building in KSP is unrealistic

And the issue is, I don't KSP is, nor should, be a teaching tool designed to teach College students. It is a tool to encourage them to look for related careers when considering what career to follow. As an analogy, you aren't going to learn architecture or engineering by playing with legos. But playing with legos might make you consider a creative career of some sort.

Trust me, learning is simple without books.

It won't take anywhere near 70mins to re-enter. Use some mods and find out.

Well, I wouldn't like to fly in a plane designed by someone who studied aeronautical engineering by playing videogames. As for the 70 mins, that's what it took the Shuttle to land. If "some mods" make it easier and faster, then those mods aren't realistic and students learning from them will need to unlearn that.

[Guest]

Taking 15 minutes to reach low orbit gets tedious fast.

It takes nine minutes for the Soyuz to reach circularized LEO, for instance. 15 minutes is an exaggeration that many people make.

Time-gating the game, realistic or not, is not accessible to new players.

I have actually agreed against realistic size in this thread, for the main reason that I know the devs aren't going to do it. I understand why the planets are the size that they are and I realize that a mod exists to do what I want; I contribute code to it on a fairly regular basis. So I'll also concede that "time-gating" launches (timewarp gradations can handle orbital stuff, so I don't see that argument) is probably a good reason to not have realistic planets. OTOH, increasing the planets by a small factor can help correct the perceived ease of launch that comes about from realistic aerodynamics, which is apparently a part of the conversation that you missed.

I cautiously would like to play with re-entry heat, but real life spacecraft rely on advanced computer autopilots to handle the task for them. In KSP Crew pods may be a little easier to learn, but there is very little support for SSTO/aircraft builders. Will they get an automated autopilot to re-enter their planes for them like the space shuttle has? Humans lack the ability to make fine adjustments to re-entry trajectories without the help of computers and ground control so I'd like to know what the player has to help assist them.

Scott Manley doesn't seem to have a problem manually re-entering with a spaceplane and DRE/FAR, why can't other people learn? Crew pod re entry under DRE/FAR is pretty simple, you just need to slow down enough rather than employ 5thHorseman's face-on direct atmosphere entry from outside Kerbin SOI (I cringe every time you do that, dude).

To what end? It's implying that this needs to be added to the game otherwise people are too stupid to know that real astronauts need food, water and oxygen to survive. People already know this, but don't want to have to spend time doing tedious 'housekeeping', which literally gets worse the more crafts you have in orbit. Due to the nature of the game where you can only control one ship at a time, this becomes a problem for people who have multiple projects, unless there's a way to allow the player to set the game to make resupply runs automatically while they focus on the exploration and experimentation aspect of the game.

I've gone over this before; most life support mods support a certain level of recycling, even to the point where bases can be self-sustaining. I think that's the best way to handle it, even though I don't personally like playing to recyclers. It's also a very poignant reminder of how hard space travel actually is, plus provides a good limiting factor for the early game to satisfy those people who seem to have a problem against doing a grand tour at tier 0, not to mention gripes against people unlocking the tech tree in two flights. It's a good balancing element that can be ignored after a certain point.

From what I understood from this quote, is that you want more than the usual liquid fuel/oxidizer mix:

If you quote those words out of context, yes, that is what I want.

It's not practical in a game like this and multiplies the reading needed to get versed in the game by a factor of tens or hundreds. It's really delving into the realm of chemistry rather than rocketry and is pushing the game beyond the scope it was designed for and beyond the scope people are willing to learn in a game like KSP.

It doesn't, and it's not, you're over-inflating the issue. Different fuel mixtures and different engines would really just add a planning step, the Realism Overhaul/Real Fuels mods proved that to me. It looks daunting, but once you get it it's pretty simple. Besides, that's not what I think should be in the stock game.

Overall in this thread I'm seeing the same 4-5 people going in circles agreeing with each other to make the game realistic for the sake of realism

Actually to fix some glaring issues with the game, but I'm fine with you believing that.

Anyway, the things you mentioned aren't the important parts of the conversation, that last five or six pages have gone over some fixes that really need to be corrected. Those are the most important, then we can move on to re-entry heat and life support. No one has asked or advocated for a realistic solar system here (other than as part of a "wish list" while realizing that the devs don't have the desire to implement it) or realistic fuels (other than asking that nuclear engines use LiquidFuel only because it makes more sense).

- - - Updated - - -

I'm curious, what is regex's vested interest? He stands to gain nothing if his proposed changes were implemented aside from greater enjoyment of the game.

Man, if I could rep you again, I would.

[Ippo]

As for the 70 mins, that's what it took the Shuttle to land. If "some mods" make it easier and faster, then those mods aren't realistic and students learning from them will need to unlearn that.

It's funny because your post really shows the problem Nathan just talked about.

[Ippo]

Humans lack the ability to make fine adjustments to re-entry trajectories without the help of computers and ground control so I'd like to know what the player has to help assist them.

I beg to differ, sir:

Update: you will notice that all the help that is needed is just mechjeb. Not a particularly exotic or complex tool.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Ippo

[SorryDave]

In my limited experience, some of the most realistic tools for modeling space flight (for example STK/Astrogator or LTOOL) are horrible video games. They have terrible tutorials, poor graphics, and no Kerbals. They are not well integrated with any engineering tool that could be used for spaceship design. As far as I can tell, none have any mods for life support or even any kind of re-entry modeling.

However, both tools mentioned have been used to calculate low energy transfers (as per Lo and Ross). It would be cool to use lagrangain points for single impulse transfers from Kerbin to Jool with a non-Hoffman 600 m/s burn.

[tater]

I don't think there is a lot to "unlearn" from "Hey, see that? Well, planets are a lot less dense" or "See the amount of delta-v required? Well, in Earth, you need twice that amount".

Now, if you want the ultimate, accurate, teaching textbook replacer, that's Orbiter. Which doesn't have the option to build rockets but

A) We aren't talking about teaching to build rockets

Rocket building in KSP is unrealistic

And the issue is, I don't KSP is, nor should, be a teaching tool designed to teach College students. It is a tool to encourage them to look for related careers when considering what career to follow. As an analogy, you aren't going to learn architecture or engineering by playing with legos. But playing with legos might make you consider a creative career of some sort.

So you want Isp to stay wrong? You want reentry to remain a placeholder? The atmosphere to be a placeholder?

The main issues:

1. fix Isp definition.

2. When the admitted placeholder atmosphere is fixed, should it be fixed with something the same as it is now, less realistic than the one now, or more realistic. Devs apparently mean to change it. Realism people want it to be better (more realistic) than the current atmosphere... the anti crowd wants it worse? The same? (tongue firmly in cheek)

3. Reentry to matter (the game descriptions clearly suggests it should matter, the landers say they cannot reenter, explicitly). Devs apparently want this done, too. So the realism people want it to be more realistic than zero damage now, and the anti-realism want what, exactly? Less realistic than the current "no effect?" Maybe reentering can still have no effect, but you get a "buff" for your next launch? (same tongue position )

So of the big three issues, one is a plain mistake that should be fixed, and 2 are things that are implicitly or explicitly things the devs mean to change. In that latter case, should the changes be more, or less relistic than the placeholders? If your answer is "more" then you are in fact for more realism.

Edited September 5, 2014 by tater

[ferram4]

Peace tater; we have been complaining about how some of the not-fond-of-realism crowd have been fond of using strawman arguments to dismiss all realistic arguments; we shouldn't do the same to them.

[Franklin]

If Squad (explicitly or implicitly) already plans to provide better aero and re-entry risk, then the only things we're quibbling about are the up-scaling and life support elements (I mean the rest are minor or simply things to iron out in comparison).

While the up-scaling may be a hard sell (although probably a lot easier when Squad overhauls the aero and realizes the current sizes don't make sense anymore), I doubt life support elements would be hard to sell, honestly. Especially now that they plan to have a difficulty panel where it could be toggled off.

I mean it's not a theoretical and ignorable part of space exploration, it's a very hard and observed challenge with space exploration, and if Squad doesn't plan to bring KSP to that level of attention, they'll at least need to explain why at some point, so I imagine it just boils down to waiting.

Edited September 5, 2014 by Franklin

[Ippo]

IIRC, Maxmaps has said a simplified life support is coming down the line. Does anybody remember where?

[Red Iron Crown]

IIRC, Maxmaps has said a simplified life support is coming down the line. Does anybody remember where?

In the reddit Ask Me Anything he said if it were implemented it would be a toggleable difficulty option.

[tater]

I cautiously would like to play with re-entry heat, but real life spacecraft rely on advanced computer autopilots to handle the task for them.

The ground computers used for Mercury did about 0.01 Mflops. Looks like my phone does 25Gflops.

Gemini was the first US spacecraft with an onboard computer.

BTW, the navball, map mode, ARE advanced computer autopilots. The stock game experience gives the player a lot of information, actually. (but, yeah, it might be nice to splashdown within 5km of a target like Mercury could do).

Edited September 5, 2014 by tater

[tater]

Peace tater; we have been complaining about how some of the not-fond-of-realism crowd have been fond of using strawman arguments to dismiss all realistic arguments; we shouldn't do the same to them.

True, but my real point is that I can't see we actually have an argument. It was meant to be funny since I doubt any actually disagree (I edited to make this clear)

So I don't actually think that they want the "soup" worse, and almost anything would be more, rather than less realistic. I also don't think they want reentry added by the devs to be intentionally less realistic than the current "nothing."

It's one of those funny arguments where there is nothing to really argue about except for things we ("realism" people) are not actually advocating for.

The scaling issue I'm not dogmatic about, I'll leave that to people who understand the game engine better than I do. All I have gathered is that in adding the stuff they seem to have already planned to add (atmosphere and reentry), they might need to tweak something, and I'd just assume whatever the tweaking is doesn't violate basic physics:)

Edited September 5, 2014 by tater

[Levelord]

It takes nine minutes for the Soyuz to reach circularized LEO, for instance. 15 minutes is an exaggeration that many people make.

It takes 9 minutes with a planned flight path from experienced scientists, ground control with finely tunes instruments and an experienced astronaut. It will take longer for a layman at a desk in front of a computer with no outside help, 15 minutes is not an exaggeration.

I have actually agreed against realistic size in this thread, for the main reason that I know the devs aren't going to do it. I understand why the planets are the size that they are and I realize that a mod exists to do what I want; I contribute code to it on a fairly regular basis. So I'll also concede that "time-gating" launches (timewarp gradations can handle orbital stuff, so I don't see that argument) is probably a good reason to not have realistic planets. OTOH, increasing the planets by a small factor can help correct the perceived ease of launch that comes about from realistic aerodynamics, which is apparently a part of the conversation that you missed.

I'm glad you saw the reasons why the planets are the size they are. But I couldn't go reading back all 39 pages of the thread. I took the most prominent posts you made regarding realism in the 0.25 discussion thread in the end of August which appears to be an up to date reflection of your viewpoint.

Scott Manley doesn't seem to have a problem manually re-entering with a spaceplane and DRE/FAR, why can't other people learn? Crew pod re entry under DRE/FAR is pretty simple, you just need to slow down enough rather than employ 5thHorseman's face-on direct atmosphere entry from outside Kerbin SOI (I cringe every time you do that, dude).

I don't have a problem with DRE either, but it's very unforgiving for others, which is why it's remained a mod so far. The fact that you have to quote Scott Manley, a person who has a PhD in physics and who is also on the extreme end of people who are skilled at KSP serves to reinforce the point that DRE incorporated into the game is too difficult as it stands. I'm not against having re-entry effects in game, but it needs to be scaled down in harshness the same way the planets are scaled down.

I've gone over this before; most life support mods support a certain level of recycling, even to the point where bases can be self-sustaining. I think that's the best way to handle it, even though I don't personally like playing to recyclers. It's also a very poignant reminder of how hard space travel actually is, plus provides a good limiting factor for the early game to satisfy those people who seem to have a problem against doing a grand tour at tier 0, not to mention gripes against people unlocking the tech tree in two flights. It's a good balancing element that can be ignored after a certain point.

It's not really a good idea to add life support for the purposes of balancing the skill tree. If the skill tree needs balancing, the fixes should be to the tree itself and not band-aiding it with another mechanic which in itself will eventually need re-balancing. If people want to unlock the tech tree in 2 flights I have no problem with it. Unlocking the tech tree in 2 flights is not something people do by accident and it takes planning and intention. They knew exactly what they were doing, and I don't see why you or others should gripe about how other people decide to play their singleplayer game.

If you quote those words out of context, yes, that is what I want.

It doesn't, and it's not, you're over-inflating the issue. Different fuel mixtures and different engines would really just add a planning step, the Realism Overhaul/Real Fuels mods proved that to me. It looks daunting, but once you get it it's pretty simple. Besides, that's not what I think should be in the stock game.

The post I got it from was vague, saying "Realistic fuels and such would be awesome" without going into detail on exactly what you meant by that. As long as it's kept as a simple class of fuel like Xenon, liquid fuel/oxidizer or RCS then I'm more receptive to the idea. I just had a look at Real Fuels v7.3, and I'm more receptive to the thrust changing as ISP changes and the tech levels for the engines. These have more to do with the current fuels affecting the behavior of the engines rather than adding more fuel types though.

I'm jumping into the thread relatively late so I went thinking thread has stayed on topic according to the OP's post, which is inclusive of the aerodynamics debate you are having the past few pages. But I don't have an opinion yet on the aerodynamics. I've given FAR a try before, but found it unintuitive that my aircraft breaks up in moments upon leaving the runway by gently pitching up. Aerodynamics in KSP feels like you are flying your craft vaguely in a water-like substance, but at the same time FAR doesn't feel intuitive or realistic. I'll be checking out NEAR, perhaps it's a better alternative.

[tater]

Regarding flight vs rockets, I have yet to do more than noodle around with any aircraft. I've spent years in ww1/ww2 flight sims (along with a little real flight time), and it's hard to fly with a keyboard, and even harder with an aircraft made out of what are in effect legos. Honestly, I'd not be surprised if a plane I built in 2 minutes disintegrated on takeoff, it's amazing that any don't, frankly.

[Guest]

It takes 9 minutes with a planned flight path from experienced scientists, ground control with finely tunes instruments and an experienced astronaut. It will take longer for a layman at a desk in front of a computer with no outside help, 15 minutes is not an exaggeration.

It is. I flew Soyuz in RSS. It took 9-10 minutes. Well, that, or you fell down. Soyuz 3rd stage is notoriously weak, the thing's not easy to fly. Oh, and astronaut doesn't matter here IRL. Soyuz ascent is automatic, you could be sent up there and it won't take any more than with pros on board.

Also, DREC isn't actually hard in stock KSP, at least in the latest version (original DRE is a different story). With realistic aerodynamic heating, most things don't actually heat up much on Kerbin. If you leave stock heat tolerances alone (DRE scales them down), then you'll have to do something really stupid to have your stuff burn off. Reentry is only unforgiving once you start messing with shockwave exponent to make it more Earth-like. As-is, most people wouldn't even notice it's there until trying to do a munar reentry or a Jool aerobrake. That is when you start needing shielding.

[ferram4]

I'm jumping into the thread relatively late so I went thinking thread has stayed on topic according to the OP's post, which is inclusive of the aerodynamics debate you are having the past few pages. But I don't have an opinion yet on the aerodynamics. I've given FAR a try before, but found it unintuitive that my aircraft breaks up in moments upon leaving the runway by gently pitching up. Aerodynamics in KSP feels like you are flying your craft vaguely in a water-like substance, but at the same time FAR doesn't feel intuitive or realistic. I'll be checking out NEAR, perhaps it's a better alternative.

This is not a problem of unintuitive aerodynamics, but a problem of scale. Did you take off at anything above 100 m/s? Yes? Then you were going faster than every single real life plane ever on a takeoff roll. Go and watch planes take off at an airport and the fastest you will find is ~80 m/s, with many taking off at slower speeds.

This is actually a problem of scenery; there's never any proper-sized trees or anything near the runway to provide a sense of scale. No one has any appreciation for the fact that 340 m/s is the speed of sound at sea level, and that getting up to even half of that and pulling back on an overloaded craft is enough to destroy it.

People already understand that putting something on the outside of a fast-moving sportscar can lead to that something being destroyed by aerodynamic forces if it isn't designed for them. Now if there was a way to show people in-game that they were moving about twice as fast as those cars are on the ground for a lower-than-normal-KSP-crazy-speed takeoff, they would understand the forces involved. Saying that it doesn't feel intuitive just means that you don't have a feeling of how fast you're really going in-game, and that's a failure of the game that should really be fixed.

[Guest]

It takes 9 minutes with a planned flight path from experienced scientists, ground control with finely tunes instruments and an experienced astronaut. It will take longer for a layman at a desk in front of a computer with no outside help, 15 minutes is not an exaggeration.

That's funny, it never took me fifteen minutes to get to orbit using RSS... Am I doing it wrong?

The fact that you have to quote Scott Manley, a person who has a PhD in physics and who is also on the extreme end of people who are skilled at KSP serves to reinforce the point that DRE incorporated into the game is too difficult as it stands. I'm not against having re-entry effects in game, but it needs to be scaled down in harshness the same way the planets are scaled down.

Did you know Scott Manley scaled down the harshness of DRE because he believed that DRE was not set up correctly for use with FAR? DRE under FAR actually makes reentries easier, apparently. He even made several spaceplane reentries before scaling it back, all without the Ablative Shielding resource that DRE provides. Scott Manley is pretty much just any other video game player, albeit with a lot of knowledge that he likes to share (which is awesome, I really enjoy his channel). I'll bet you are a better pilot than Scott, as are a lot of other people on these forums, like the person that Ippo linked to. All it takes is a little learning and experimenting, something that KSP gameplay is apparently geared towards.

It's not really a good idea to add life support for the purposes of balancing the skill tree.

That's not the only reason it should be in the game, that was just a side benefit. How about illustrating the difficulties of space flight? How about adding additional challenge? How about adding it as a difficulty option?

The post I got it from was vague, saying "Realistic fuels and such would be awesome" without going into detail on exactly what you meant by that.

Can you link it? Never mind, I'll do it myself, and quote what I wrote:

Realistic fuels and such would be awesome, but they're not really needed (besides, gives us something to mod). OTOH, the nuclear engine really only needs to use Liquid Fuel.