There’s a fox that lives in my garden. Every night he screeches and wails while trying to get into my rabbit’s hutch. If this were Kerbal 0.22 I’d be able to shove him into a rocket and expose him to the rigours of deep space. Not only that, I’d get a little closer to unlocking the next module on my tech tree, too.
Science is a great like that, and so is Kerbal according to our Kerbal Space Program review.
The two major additions coming in Kerbal’s 0.22 update are science modules and an R&D department. The modules allow you to perform experiments in different parts of the Kerbal solar system and collect data to bring back home. Different modules will get different data. So, for instance, if you’re wanting to test a nearby planet’s atmosphere then you’ll want to install a specimen container. You can load that up with woodland critters, launch yourself over to the planet’s surface, and open the window to see what happens.
The antennae modules now have some use, too. You can use them to beam data results back to Kerbin. Without antennae you’ll need to successfully land back on your home planet for the data to be recovered.
All this data would be useless without some boffins to break it down into useful science. That’s what your new R&D centre is for: it takes data from your space excursions and uses it to advance your tech tree.
0.22 is clearly a big push towards a cohesive meta game. Currently in Kerbal you have to come up with your own missions and objectives, this R&D centre will be the cornerstone for defining what you should do next. Want to create a terraforming module for another planet, well you’re going to need to have valid data of the effects that planet’s atmosphere has on living organisms.
There are other changes coming in 0.22, too. You can create subassemblies to speed up ship building. Subassemblies are parts of your ship that you think you’ll duplicate in future. You can save wing and fuselage layouts for your space planes, for example.
You can now also attach rocket boosters to your space rovers. Why? Because the results should be spectacular.