Upgrade Overhaul

[magico13]

Upgrades definitely need to be improved. Hyomoto's posts seem to be the idea I should follow for this implementation.

I'm currently toying around with the idea of a tech-tree for KCT with different paths for "VAB Construction", "SPH Construction", "Part Recovery", and "R&D".

VAB/SPH Construction would be analogous to the different build rates (you can unlock new nodes for faster build times and additional assembly lines, decreased times for never before used parts, and other enhancements). R&D would be similar to the R&D tab of the current upgrade window. Part Recovery would let you unlock the inventory system, parachute based recovery, and give you enhancements to using recovered parts.

I'm more than willing to hear additional paths that could be explored.

The GUI for this is going to suck.

[hatterson]

If you move down the road of a tech tree, and to avoid duplicating a UI/hassle with a UI, does it make sense to integrate it into the stock tech tree system? Potentially making use of TechManager and/or TED - KSP Tech Tree Editor

Specifically thinking of something like anonish describes in this post where you could have the KCT tree be and addon to the rest of the overall tech tree. That would require you to progress a certain to certain milestones before various VAB/SPH upgrades can be unlocked.

[magico13]

That would be very awesome indeed! Then I can easily tie things to other tech if I wanted to (i.e. must unlock plane parts before upgrading SPH too much) and it looks like I can have my own tech tree entirely in addition to the stock one. I know I could easily have upgrades cost science then, but having it cost funds is an additional hurdle. There is the part purchases feature, but that is disabled in everything but hard mode I believe (unless you enable it separately).

Either way, that is definitely a possibility and helps the Stock-like feel come about.