Installation instructions:
You will of course need to install TechManager to use this configuration file. That done, it's basically as simple putting the .cfg file in your game directory at GameData/TechManager/ and starting up the game. With TM installed, a window will appear for new careers asking you what tech tree you would like to use -- or for existing games, alt-f7 inside the R&D facility will let you switch between them. Because BlueSky R&D is meant as a total replacement of the stock tree, please make sure that you ONLY select it -- make sure the stock KSP tree is unselected.
When creating a new game, please manually start yourself with 30 science points. This tree requires purchasing even your first parts and so 30 science will give you an amount to make your first choices. I am not able to specify this in the tree itself so you must do it manually.
Project background:
Inspired by the excellent discussion in an ongoing development suggestion thread, this is an all-new tech tree implementing many of the very good ideas there, using the TechManager mod.
To summarize the discussion thread that led to this, these are the goals of this tree:
- Provide players with much greater flexibility in play styles by taking parts out of the current somewhat arbitrary node bundles and putting them into a tree where most nodes contain a single part, as well as offering a broad swath of parts right from the start. Specifically, it gives players immediate access to parts that would allow them to build a (very simple) rocket, plane, or even rover right from the start.
- Dependencies will both feel intuitive -- with simpler versions of parts generally leading to more complex versions -- as well as provide multiple paths through the tree so that a player can "discover" new parts and technologies organically, much as they would in real-world R&D.
- Parts should still fall into three major technology "eras", defined by the state of the KSC R&D facility. (More on this below however...)
- The overall "difficulty" of the tree should not be substantially different, with the power of choosing a specific path through the tree counterbalanced by the per-part science costs being, on balance, somewhat higher.
- The new tree should use all current (0.90) stock parts so that it can be immediately played through by any player -- but of course I would encourage others to supplement the tree with versions that incorporate popular mod parts.