Using World Firsts to enable time-based mechanics

[Stoney3K]

4 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

Well duh. We could add time points.

j/k.

And split them up into segments of 60 each, which in turn make up 60 sub-segments, and each of these 60 major segments are grouped into "bigger" segments of 6...

I hope you get what I'm trying to say here. 'Time points' are meaningless if time itself holds no value in the game. Rocket construction and research is instant, while most missions take years to expire, and the only thing that makes time (remotely) relevant is transfer windows and transit times.

You could make time more important by adding a KCT-style mechanic and let rocket construction and research take up time. For example, when a player hits the 'launch' button in the VAB they get the option of warping through the time that it takes to construct the rocket, or to leave the VAB to do other things and construct the rocket on the pad, leaving the pad occupied and unusable for launches.

If the player has no other missions to attend to, warping may be a good choice, but if that takes too long and a mission expires or a transfer window is missed in the meantime, you have two options: Build the rocket and tend to your other missions, or build a smaller vehicle that can be completed in time.

That could also encourage players to build small, compact rockets, and one can even put a bonus on re-using components that are stored in a stockpile, which would take less time to prepare for launch than building a rocket from scratch.

Edited September 28, 2016 by Stoney3K

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah I mean thats kind of the thing, even if you get just the right set of mechanics adding time as a real resource adds a lot of complexity to the game. I think its really good that players should carefully think about research and building time and strategizing around all that but to make things manageable each one of those things needs to be dead simple. Buildings should take 30 days to upgrade, research nodes could happen in 1 week increments, vessels could take 1 day to construct for each 6,000f and the World first deadlines are just hard dates that don't move. That plus long-term experiments and IRSU and potentially life support down the road is already plenty to deal with. 

Another thing is, and this is probably true if Squad starts considering time based mechanics or not, for any of this to work we really need a solid mission planning tool. Players need to have access to dV and flight durations for each place they plan to go so they can make sensible decisions. I'd be surprised if KCT like things happen for 1.3 but I would love to see a big push to give players the tools they need to go interplanetary without having to mod the game or look it up online. 

Edited September 29, 2016 by Pthigrivi