Ideas to increase replayability and reduce cookie-cutter designs

[WuphonsReach]

- Fuel purity. Early in the technology tree, your production methods are not the best, so maybe you only get 80-85% purity (so less then the expected ISP out of the fuel). Maybe you spend Tech points to try and research improvements in a particular fuel type so you slowly approach 100% purity.

- Engine designs when initially unlocked are only 85% efficient. You have to spend funds / resources on testing and improving a particular engine.

- Surface weather related pressure systems? How much does it matter to launch velocity if the atmospheric pressure varies between 950mb and 1050mb on earth?

- Maybe variable wind speeds at different altitudes. And localized weather on Kerbin. You have to have a weather satellite up and a weather station or weather balloons to get a read on weather conditions at launch time in order to decide "go / no-go".

- Randomized moonlets / planetoids / comets / asteroids - along with missions to go visit comet X.

[vexx32]

Weather and other celestial bodies (including comets, planetoids, etc.) are both on out What Not to Suggest List -- they're pretty common suggestions, and with a bit of digging, you can find some fairly extensive discussions on them.

I'm not sure if I personally like the idea of hampering parts themselves, so to speak... it would mean that an effectively identical craft could have different capabilities depending on how far along a player is -- for one player, a craft might make it to the Mun, land, and return; but for another player, it may be unable to return. The community surrounding KSP, despite there being no official multiplayer component, is a big part of the game for a lot of people. I feel like this idea would perhaps detract from the shareability of many craft, which I think could end up being a rather bad thing.

Edited December 6, 2014 by vexx32