In other news 1.2 was released a day or two ago. I have been playing the pre-release for a week or two and I have to say the update is pretty solid, a nice epitaph to the game. Of course, the Squad propaganda machine claims more free content, expansion packs and whatever are coming. But we'll see in six months if they manage to revive the shambling corpse of a development team. If you ask me, at best they can try to milk it with official mods masquerading as expansions, because they have 0 people on payroll who could actually touch the source code and make meaningful additions or modifications to it.
So here's some pictures and impressions.
Some much sought difficulty options have been added. Kerbal G-force tolerance has been added after a very long time. Some of the contracts available in career mode actually focus on making sure some dumb tourists pass out in orbit or flight. Likewise regular tourists won't pay shit if you make them go unconscious (unlikely).
Also there are part g-force limits and pressure limits, the latter applying possibly to supersonic flight I guess.
Kerbals level-uping immediately is a nice optional toggle, as it was a pain to have them return from Jool to level up from xp. Although now this toggle isn't as useful for those deep space multi-year missions, as the Science Lab part has become even more useful by also enabling level-uping kerbals.
Part upgrades is something Porkjet was working on, or at least the models. Basically nodes in the tech tree would also increase the performance of some parts, more thrust/isp, less mass, that sort of thing. They would also change the model of the part slightly. But Porkjet quit so it is unlikely the new models will be available any time soon. The backend is in the game but no stock parts use it, modders however could.
Plasma blackout for communications is for re-entry. This option makes probe-science returns quite difficult. I will illustrate this with an example, so far I keep losing the science jr. materials bay all the time, because I can't control probes during re-entry. So it gets ever so slightly exposed to plasma heating it up until it explodes with only the parts of the probe stored just behind the heat-shield surviving. So basically I will need to use bigger diameter heatshield to ensure the parts are in the shadow. Also no control without signal makes things also difficult for probe-returns. You will need to adjust your return trajectory sometimes to be in range of one of the DSN stations (if those are enabled) when in atmo, as those do not have 100% coverage everywhere on Kerbin. A pity probe cores can't pick-up relay signals without dedicated antennas (they can pick up DSN signal directly, so that you can control them before it is safe to deploy antennas after launch).
Forcing resource transfer to obey crossfeed rules is another nice option, if you want to force slightly more realistic designs.
This is the Vulcan-II Rocket. Here used to deliver a probe to Minmus. I also used it to deliver a science farming Mun lander to my Munar Space Station which I will show in a second.
I noticed they added some nice cosmetic tweakable options for fairings, such as enabling truss support-structures inside the payload.
My Mun Station in all its glory. It begun as a cash in on a "Station around Mun contract". The contract was standard fare, 5 kerbal capacity, power source, docking port and an antenna. Oh and 3k units of power storage capacity.
Thanks to the new-ish mk1 spaceplane passenger modules it is easier to reach the (silly) crew requirements cheaply and lower in the tech tree. I decided that the station initially will serve primarily as a Comms Relay for Munar probes. Later to be expanded to serve as a Science Lab and Refueling depot for the sample gathering expeditions.
The core is the piece with the plane passenger modules, here it was before I jettisoned the cruise stage that got it to Munar orbit. It had two functioning docking ports for now, after jettisoning the cruise stage I realised that a third one was hidden under the decoupler. In my brilliance I have realised during design that I will need at least 3 docking ports if I wish to expand the station.
The core serves mostly as a relay, with a secondary function of storing kerbals. Although ironically enough, they cannot exit or enter the core directly, as the passenger plane parts lack doors
. I may need to add an airlock module I guess. Would be cool if we got some ground/space station parts, but that is unlikely to happen now in stock due to the dev desertion wave. Oh well, mods will fix it.
Also it is currently the main power supply and power storage module. However power storage had to be expanded, more on that below.
The first and so far last module to be added is a science lab. Because it is the best way to get science in the game, at the same time forcing you to do expeditions. It also features an obscene number of batteries, because I got a station expand contract (added in 1.1 I think, they also added adjust position of spaceship and survey near craft contracts which make satellites with extra Delta-V and Rovers/Planes a bit more profitable). The contract itself said I need to double the power storage capacity and kerbal capacity. I got the power capacity part done. The Kerbal storage part will be covered with the second module to be added.
Also the lab got attacked with its cruise stage, some backup antennas and most importantly, the cruise stage fuel tanks. So it acts as a small fuel depot. Or will once I send a tanker up there.
There's also the new lander, it has just barely enough delta-v to do some plane-changes (but not too much) plus land, return, rendezvous back at station. The station is in a fairly high orbit of 833 km above the Mun so its not that easy to get back to it. The altitude was by design as I wanted to have longer comm windows for probe landings when the station is overhead, so a slower longer higher orbit on the relay, so that I do not get comm blackout suddenly when landing (this happens and I have the "no signal no control" difficulty option on).
The lander's role is to get as much science data from the surface back to the orbiting science lab for research. Lab research is the best source of science in the game after all and does not overlap with returning data to kerbin (or suffer from diminishing returns at all IIRC). Better than sending 6 probes to different Mun biomes for sure (what I did before I unlocked and launched the lab). Also they added new biomes to places outside of Kerbin. The biome maps for Laythe, Duna, Eve and the rest outside of Kerbin's SOI were a bit underwhelming after all in past updates.
With the cruise stage ditched, I plan on doing the following with the Mun station:
1) Adding a docking Hub/Hab module after I unlock better solar panels at the docking port that was attacked to the cruise stage. Basically I need to have more power for research production and transmission. Also this is for future modules. The other bottle-neck the current station has is the number and size of docking ports. I do not plan on having any other Munar stations so adding compatibility with larger docking ports and the ability to dock more stuff is crucial. Also some more hab room for kerbals to get contract cash (they need to tone down the ridiculous crew requirements in these contracts).
2) New more advanced relay antenna and/or resource scanner and/or probe core. The resource scanner is a must as I will mine the mun for ore, the one question is if it adds more KerbNet functionality or if I need a new antenna or probe core as well. FYI KerbNet is stock scansat-like functionality, only instead of needing to scan the planet to get a full map, you get data for the area for which your sat network has currently coverage. But it does everything scansat does, including heightmaps, "anomaly"/Easter egg revealing. Oh, and it allows you to place waypoints (sadly no distance to waypoint functionality has yet been implemented AFAIK)
3) Refinery/fuel depot module. Pretty high up in the tech tree. This depends on the ore processing scheme I will choose though. The most efficient one is refining on the surface and sending the fuel back up I think. At any rate I want to refuel the lander and interplanetary explorations vessels here. Minmus is easier for a depot though.
Other stuff I might do if I install some mods:
A) Orbital Gardens for resupply using the USI Life Support mod. Of course, I will probably have to edit the mod files again to make the supply consumption rate reasonable. And to allow fully-sustainable ground bases via ore conversion into mulch+fertilizer (I will need to mod this into the parts).
B) More power in the form of a nuclear reactor, plus radiators to prevent a core meltdown of course with Near Future Nuclear (or Electric? I forgot.). Also may include some new cool-looking futuristic space structural truss from the Near Future Construction or Spacecraft mod.
