I think a big help in playing the game would be if End of Turn had some warnings that can pop up.

(Items struck through have been implemented or mooted.)

1. Starting after your first turn (i.e. in Fall 1957), if you have no launches scheduled for next turn, you should be informed and given a chance to go back and schedule one. I can't count how many times I've ended a turn, forgetting to have scheduled a launch or two for next turn.

2. If you have a mission ready to launch and one of its components isn't yet at Max R&D, you should be warned so you can go back to research it if you choose. The warning should appear only if you have enough funds to do some research. So for instance, if you have 2MB left and the component that needs research is an Atlas, you should be warned--but not if you had 2MB and it was the Saturn V that needed research. (This might be better placed in the VAB/VIB.)

3. If you have an LM or a Kicker-C and it's above its starting Safety, but haven't prototyped your docking modules yet, the game should probably warn you. (Come to think of it, Hardware Purchase or R&D might be a better place for this warning.)

4. Similarly, if you have an LM or a Kicker-C and it's above its starting Safety, but haven't prototyped EVA suits, you should probably receive a warning (again, possibly in Purchasing or Research).

5. If you have a lunar mission ready to go (or even assembled) and the capsule/shuttle isn't at Max Safety, you should be warned. This would be especially helpful if you've had a catastrophic failure but got distracted and didn't go research that part this turn. (This might be more appropriate for Mission Control.)

6. If you have a Manned Orbital or any EVA mission planned for next turn but haven't started the EVA suit program, you should be warned. (Never mind, this is prevented in Future Missions: it doesn't let you schedule an EVA mission if you haven't started an EVA program.)

This sort of thing would be a nice continuation of my goal when I added a whole bunch of visual cues to the game in version .4.8 - to make this something you can play more casually. BARIS was the sort of game you really had to focus on; you had to keep a whole bunch of things straight in your head all the time, and it was really easy to miss something if you weren't paying very close attention. The game has been made much more playable off the cuff, yet because there's no visual cue for launches, I still frequently end my turn forgetting to schedule missions for the next turn.