KSP Making History

[RoverDude]

1 minute ago, regex said:

You asked, I explained. It's one of the few mechanics left in the game that make me really mad. Even career mode makes more sense than the classes to me (I just don't find it compelling gameplay).

Fortunately the Soviet scientist and physician knew where to find and what buttons to press in order to steady the craft in case their pilot passed out or something (or it would have simply stayed in its orientation because the system didn't suddenly deactivate when their pilot passed out), and they could execute maneuvers planned out by and press other buttons dictated by mission control if they needed to get their pilot back to Earth or to a space station or something.

Umm.... we are playing the same game right?

Because engineers and scientists can create new maneuver nodes... if they have comms.  And they can press the buttons... they are called the WASD keys.

[0111narwhalz]

I think the issue is that @regex is referring to a spaceflight system where SAS is fly-by-wire, and as simple as pressing T. I would posit that @RoverDude has a vision of pilots actually holding the stick when SAS is on--computer-controlled behavior doesn't come until you have better computers.

Is this accurate?

[regex]

Just now, RoverDude said:

And they can press the buttons... they are called the WASD keys.

Not the "t" button, which I've been stressing for the last few posts if you haven't noticed.

[RoverDude]

2 minutes ago, 0111narwhalz said:

I think the issue is that @regex is referring to a spaceflight system where SAS is fly-by-wire, and as simple as pressing T. I would posit that @RoverDude has a vision of pilots actually holding the stick when SAS is on--computer-controlled behavior doesn't come until you have better computers.

Is this accurate?

Here's some light reading.

http://web.mit.edu/digitalapollo/Documents/Chapter4/manualcontrol.pdf

 

[regex]

1 minute ago, RoverDude said:

Here's some light reading.

http://web.mit.edu/digitalapollo/Documents/Chapter4/manualcontrol.pdf

"It should be remembered that the pilot may elect to take full control over the attitude of the vehicle any time"\

Thanks for making my point.

[RoverDude]

Just now, regex said:

"It should be remembered that the pilot may elect to take full control over the attitude of the vehicle any time"\

Thanks for making my point.

Thanks for not reading the rest of the document and making mine

[chimpbone]

Wow! This sounds awesome! Any chance we will see this content on consoles? 

[cantab]

2 hours ago, Lord Aurelius said:

The only connection I can think of is that it's potentially related to some of the historical missions

Yes, it's needed to do a more accurate recreation of Yuri Gagarin's historic flight, at the end of which he actually bailed out and landed separately from his capsule. (Something that was covered up for years). That said I do think it's something that wouldn't hurt the DLC to just put in the base game.

[Jarin]

10 minutes ago, regex said:

Not the "t" button, which I've been stressing for the last few posts if you haven't noticed.

The T button needs an onboard control computer. Like a probe core. Without that, you're relying on the pilot's hands on the stick. Either yours or Jeb's.

[Frozen_Heart]

3 hours ago, RoverDude said:

I agree, they would be amazing

Wait... is that a hint?!?!

 

Hype!!!

[regex]

7 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Thanks for not reading the rest of the document and making mine

I didn't need to, Mercury had an autopilot that could be axis-locked. In other words, pressing the "t" key.

2 minutes ago, Jarin said:

The T button needs an onboard control computer.

Since we're referencing historical crewed missions as support for/against classes then you must be aware that every crewed mission has or had an autopilot regardless of manual control options.

[Jarin]

Just now, regex said:

I didn't need to, Mercury had an autopilot that could be axis-locked. In other words, pressing the "t" key.

Since we're referencing historical crewed missions as support for/against classes then you must be aware that every crewed mission has or had an autopilot regardless of manual control options.

Yeah, I actually went and did some research on the Mercury guidance systems after posting. If you're really arguing for realism, every pod should at least have a "hold stable" SAS option built in. The rest would need better computers, or pilots.

[RoverDude]

@regex - I think we must be reading different documents as well as playing different games... rock on

[regex]

2 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

@regex - I think we must be reading different documents as well as playing different games... rock on

Yeah, that's obvious. Enjoy those rosey glasses.

[Majorjim!]

Anyone know if the new parts will have any new structural parts? 

 We builders need some new ones. 

[Firemetal]

So basically, along with downloading craft files, you get to replay other people's missions? I don't know 100% what this is, but I'm hyped anyway. I never doubted you Squad! (But could someone seriously explain this in simple terms to me?)

Fire

[passinglurker]

Well color me Cautiously Optimistic.

I'll probably buy in because I'm cool with the paradox studio's model of "buying DLC is like paying a subscription for us to develop the game more" but whether or not I buy what comes after is gonna come down to how balanced, polished, and play tested the new parts and missions are. I don't want to support the same unbalanced sloppiness that persists in the stock career mode.

Also personal parachutes are like WAAAAAAY to useful to not be a general stock feature please reconsider, and integrate them as stock.

[Rainbowd4sh]

5 hours ago, Snark said:

I've been following this thread with interest, both as an avid KSP player and as a professional software developer.

Just to be up front about this, I'm delighted to hear this news, for a couple of reasons.

• I'm delighted to get new shiny toys to play with.  Yay!
• I'm delighted that they'll be charging or it.  Why?  Because it means they'll have cash flow to make more shiny toys.

Obviously this is a topic that's very important to the KSP community (as witnessed by the large volume of posts in this thread in such a short time).  Reading through the responses up to this point, I see a bunch of favorable posts (the "Yay!  Please take my money!" crowd), and also quite a few unfavorable posts (the "this is wrong" or "they should have done X instead" crowd).

I'll skip over the "favorable reaction" folks, since I happen to agree with them and don't think discussion's particularly needed here. 

However, I'd like to address at least some of the negative posts, because they seem to me to be missing the point.  In particular, there are a few specific rationales that many of the negative posts are citing, which seem shaky at best when I view them through the lens of my decades of experience doing this stuff for a living.

 

"Any paid expansion content is just bad on the face of it.  Nobody should do that ever."

Nobody has come right out and said the above quote in so many words, but there have been some posts whose wording pretty much implied this.  And given all the past vitriol I've seen expended in the forums about the very concept of "DLC" in general, I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few more folks may be thinking this.

Folks, I've been doing this for a living, shipping commercial software for over twenty years, and I can tell you that the above sentiment is patently ridiculous.  Here's a secret:

Every software company is, first and foremost, a business.  And businesses need to make money for doing what they do, on an ongoing basis.  Forever.  As long as the business is still in business.

Period, full stop.

You can like that, or not like it, as you will; but that's How Things Work.  It's how it has always worked, and always will.  Money is the oxygen supply of a business.  Choke that off, and the body dies.

Tell me... which of the following would you rather have?

1. Squad continues to make shiny kerbal toys, and charges for them.
2. Squad decides the well has run dry and closes up shop.  No more kerbal stuff, ever.

I dunno about you, but I would far rather have #1 than #2.  Make no mistake, #2 is almost certainly inevitable, eventually; that's part of the software life cycle.  But speaking as an avid KSP fan, I'd sure like for #2 to be delayed as far into the future as possible.  It's hard for me to imagine why any KSP player would prefer #2 to #1.

You'll note that I didn't provide any option #3, "Squad continues to make shiny kerbal toys for everyone forever, for free."  Because that's not economically possible.  It costs a lot of money to run a development outfit.  Businesses are expensive to run.  They'd have to be idiots to keep doing something if it doesn't make any (or enough) money.

Continuing to pack additional features into the stock game, for free, makes business sense only if they could significantly boost additional sales of the game by doing so.  There's no way of knowing KSP's finances for sure, of course, without seeing their sales numbers over time, which Squad has never publicly released.  However, KSP has been out for a few years, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that well has run mostly dry by now.

Which would leave them with a choice between either closing up KSP shop and moving on to something else, or finding a way to provide additional content, for money, to their existing KSP players who feel like paying for it.

 

"I'm worried about <thing that isn't happening>"

Glad folks have raised questions and concerns where the initial announcement wasn't clear enough. 

The two main examples of such concerns that I see are,

• "I bought the game before April 2013 and was promised I wouldn't be charged for content!"
• "But I'll still get bug fixes for free in the stock game, yes?"

...fortunately, it sounds like both of those have been answered satisfactorily (yes, they'll keep their before-April-2013 promise; yes, the stock game will continue to update for free), so 'nuff said on that.

 

"This expansion is wrong / stupid because the stuff that's in there is already available via mods."

Some examples of this sentiment:

There are two answers to this sentiment.

The simple, "market-based" answer is:  Well, if you're right and there's literally no reason for anyone to buy such a thing, then the problem fixes itself, right?  Nobody will buy the expansion and it'll be a big money-loser.  In which case I would assume that Squad would make the smart business decision and just turn the lights out on KSP-- no point in throwing more money down a hole, if people aren't willing to spend money on it.  On the other hand, if the KSP community is enthusiastically in favor, and lots of people rush out to hand over their hard-earned cash for the expansion, then by definition it's worth it, yes?

So, that's a simple, self-answering question.   We just wait and see what happens.    You think the expansion's useless, so you keep your money in your wallet.  Other people run out and buy.  And then we see how successful it turns out to be.  (Though based on the large number of enthusiastic please-take-my-money posts in this thread, it kinda sounds to me like there's at least a reasonable shot at success.)

The slightly longer answer is:  No.  It's not the same.  Mods can't provide the "same stuff", other than very superficially.

Lengthy professional-software-engineer rant about that in spoiler section below.

  Reveal hidden contents

First, may I point out how silly it is to make an argument that "Squad is bad to do <thing> because that can be done with a mod"?  Because, why can it be done with a mod?  Answer:  Because Squad bent over backwards to make KSP incredibly moddable.  That's why you have so many cool mods that can do practically everything.  Speaking as a professional software engineer, I can tell you that making something extensible like that is very non-trivial.  It takes a lot of work.  Kudos to Squad for doing that, especially since it's not a direct revenue-driver.

So, it seems kind of silly to me to take the fact that Squad has done us all a big favor by making the game so moddable, and then try to use that to criticize them for putting their own efforts into the game.

Second, when you get something from a mod, it's not the same thing as getting it from the stock game.  A mod is produced by (usually) a single individual, usually an amateur (however gifted and passionate), who is doing it basically for free, as a hobby.  Actual game content is produced by a dedicated team of professionals, who get paid to do this full-time, and who have to stand behind their product because there are paying customers.

There's a world of difference between those two situations.

• You don't get professional-level QA from a mod.  Mods can be buggy, either crashing the game outright or tanking the performance or not scaling or a variety of other problems.
  • For example, I loved it when they added CommNet to the stock game... even though RemoteTech already exists.  Why?  Because RemoteTech is buggy and crashes all the time.  I loved RemoteTech, but eventually had to stop playing it because of the technical issues.  Whereas CommNet runs smooth as silk for me.  Yes, I got CommNet for free, but that's an example of a feature I'd have paid money for, if need be.  Given a choice between "RemoteTech for free" versus "professional feature for a few dollars", I'd choose the latter without hesitation.
• You don't get any guarantee of ongoing support.  Mods go obsolete and die all the time.  I've lost track of how many "dead mod" threads keep cropping up in the Add-on Releases forum, often with some plaintive user wanting to know "is this still alive?  I need this!"

I've been playing KSP since 0.23.5, and have loved all the added stuff they've put in the stock game since then.  And practically everything was something that was doable as a mod before it was stock.  Contracts.  New aero.  Reentry heating.  Procedural fairings.  Revamped biomes.  New aerodynamics.  Communications networks.  And on, and on.

In short:  "You can do it in a mod" really isn't a reason for Squad not to do it, because practically everything is doable in a mod.  The only reason not to do it would be if the new content really isn't compelling, and the market will answer that question soon enough. 

 

 

"This expansion is wrong / stupid because the stock game should <something>"

Some examples of this sentiment:

...See, the problem with basically all such complaints is the use (explicit, or implied) of the word "should".

Folks, I've been doing this for a living for a couple of decades, and I can tell you that there's no such thing as "should".

Or, rather, there's only one "should".  And that's this:  "A product should provide enough value to the user to justify the amount of money they spent on it."

Lengthy rationale in another spoiler.

  Reveal hidden contents

Tell me, how much money did you spend on KSP?  And how many hours of entertainment have you gotten out of it?  Divide the former by the latter-- can anyone honestly tell me that KSP is actually a bad use of your money?  I dunno about you, but I spent US$27 on the stock game, and have gotten literally thousands of hours of entertainment out of it.  It's the best value-for-money of about any product (software or otherwise) that I've spent money on, ever.

I'm not saying that anyone shouldn't criticize.  If there's a thing you don't like about the stock game, great!  Shout it to the world.    However, it's important to remember that there's a crucial distinction between these two statements:

• "I would like it better if the game did X."
• "The game should X."

The former is absolutely valid, and an excellent way to express a sentiment.  The latter is simply nonsense.  There's no "should," here, other than the one I mention above.  For example, there are plenty of people who don't like KSP's career mode, and are (quite appropriately) vocal about that.  But there are plenty of other people who are fine with career and like what's been done with it.  What the game "should" do depends on the market reaction, overall, to what it does.

So, unless someone can show me where KSP hasn't delivered something they explicitly promised, or that they haven't delivered reasonable hours-per-dollar of entertainment, there's really no "should" or "incomplete" here.

 

"But it's just a money grab!"

Yes.  Of course.  Because Squad is a business.  And everything that every business does is a money grab.  Otherwise, it's not a business, it's a charity.

Businesses need to make money.  It's what they need to survive.  It is, in fact, the sole point of a business.  Nobody just hands money to them, so they have to go after it.  It's what businesses do.  They have to.  A business has to go after money the way that you have to go after oxygen.

Unless by "money grab" you only mean "bad for customers" or something, in which case that's an accusation I'd like to see some evidence for.  I spent US$27 on KSP, in exchange for literally thousands of hours of entertainment.  I'm hard-pressed to see anything unscrupulous about that.

You changed my perspective, I just hope Squad thinks hard about how they pull it off, and hope it won't be like 1 part, 3 missions, and wrap it on a 10 dollar bill, 

seeing how in the past such mistakes NEVER happen, it'll probably go well. 

[HebaruSan]

1 minute ago, Firemetal said:

(But could someone seriously explain this in simple terms to me?)

SQUAD wants to let people design missions and then carry them out, and exchange missions with one another. We don't know what a mission is or how it works (but it's not a contract or a tutorial scenario), we don't know what the design process will look like, we don't know how it interacts with the various game modes. In short, they're still working on it, so definitive answers to detailed questions are not possible yet. Everyone without "SQUAD staff" under their avatar is just guessing, sometimes wildly. There may even be things that the devs themselves have not decided yet or which could change.

To sum up, this is more of a "roadmap" announcement than a feature preview.

[Snark]

4 hours ago, minepagan said:

Snark to sum it up, I have to say this: DLCs are great. I would buy the @#?! out of them. But this should not be a DLC.

Why not?

• Has new stuff in it that Squad is spending money to develop?  Check.
• Will charge money, to cover that cost and make a profit?  Check.
• Seems likely that lots of people will buy it?  Check.

Sounds like a good candidate for paid expansion to me.

4 hours ago, minepagan said:

From what we know so far, every single feature lines up more with a normal update, or an official mod, than a DLC.

How's that, exactly?  Where are the rules that state what shall go in the stock game and what shall go in an expansion pack?

4 hours ago, minepagan said:

Especially seeing as that it seems many things can already be done with mods.

Well, yes, but if you go by that metric, practically everything that Squad has done for the past couple of years could be done with mods.  So?  That's a nice testament to how extraordinarily moddable the Squad devs have managed to make KSP, but since when does "can you do it with a mod" have anything whatsoever to do with "what software can people sell"?

Look, if it's so simple-- and all the stuff in the expansion is "doable with mods", for free-- then I suppose everyone would just get the mods and the expansion wouldn't sell any copies, yes?  Somehow I doubt that's going to be what happens, which indicates there's a business case for doing this stuff for money.

4 hours ago, minepagan said:

Look at Fallout 4, for example:

Okay, sure.  A different game, produced by a different (and much larger) company in different circumstances, with a different audience that has different expectations, chose to do something different.

This is relevant... how, exactly?

 

4 hours ago, minepagan said:

On to the "game not finished" debate....yes, many things are placeholders.

Really?  How so?  You have inside information that Squad is planning to replace them?

4 hours ago, minepagan said:

Have you seen all the glitches around the not-max-level KSC?

Right, so, there are some bugs.  So?  If by "finished" you mean "has no bugs in it", then no software is finished, ever.  Doesn't seem like a very useful definition to me.

Putting on my software-industry-professional hat for a moment, I'll tell you what "finished" is.  Finished means,

• have shipped all the features we're planning to ship
• the quality bar is high enough

Definition of "high enough" does not mean "bug-free".  It doesn't even mean "fewer than N bugs," for any value of N.  It's simply this:  Does the financial benefit of addressing further bugs (or, if you prefer, the financial cost of failing to fix them) exceed the financial cost of fixing them?  If it doesn't, then the product is "finished."

4 hours ago, minepagan said:

Or what about the 1.25m and 2.5m parts?

What about them?  I play with them all the time.  They work great.  There's a problem?

[0111narwhalz]

3 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

roadmap

Aagh! 

[CAKE99]

10 hours ago, Woodstar said:

KSP finally succumbed to the DLC virus.

From what I've just read content isn't worth more than $9.99, comparing to other DLC's

 

Agreed.

10 hours ago, Woodstar said:

Why april, why not just 2013, Kinda makes me mad, made my purchase Dec. 2013.

1

Same, I bought KSP in July 2013.

 

All in all, this DLC idea is an absolutely horrible idea, as a free update or a free DLC, it would be great, as a paid DLC, it's a terrible idea.

 

10 hours ago, Noobton said:

Any chance we can get a model similar to Paradox's where if you want to skip a mod you can still get bug fixes and some improvements?

They are a mean lean DLC making machine, but I still love their model, and it will help keep the modding community somewhat united.

 

Even if SQUAD does release the DLC as a paid DLC, which I'm hoping will not happen, using the Paradox free updates when a DLC is released model would be great (but still not as good as releasing the DLC as a free update.)

[Snark]

20 minutes ago, Rainbowd4sh said:

You changed my perspective, I just hope Squad thinks hard about how they pull it off, and hope it won't be like 1 part, 3 missions, and wrap it on a 10 dollar bill, 

seeing how in the past such mistakes NEVER happen, it'll probably go well. 

Well, sure, there's no guarantee how well they'll pull it off. 

Like any business, setting prices is a challenge.  It's important not to set it too low, because then you're leaking money, which is bad for business.  On the other hand, it's important not to set the price too high, either, because then 1. not enough people buy it, and 2. it alienates customers and makes them less likely to buy your stuff in the future.

So, the onus will be on Squad to set a price tag on the expansion that the players collectively feel is "worth it."

Based on the track record thus far, though, I'm cautiously optimistic.  KSP has given me far more fun per dollar than any other product I've bought.  I've gotten literally thousands of hours of enjoyment out of KSP, for a total investment of US$27.  Can't beat that with a stick, as they say.  If the expansion manages to do even a few percent as well as the original in that regard, I'll consider my money well spent.

Other folks can make their own decisions about that, of course.  How well the expansion sells will answer the question.

[Wjolcz]

I'm not paying anything for that DLC. All that can be in the game for free. You've just hit rock bottom with that announcement.

Now, excuse me. I'm off to give modders as much rep as I can because they actually deserve it more than the thing that happened to this company.

EDIT: And I'm out of rep

Edited March 17, 2017 by Veeltch

[Greenfire32]

See, now THIS is something worth hyping.