MOVED! (Mods Please Lock Thread) Community Career Framework - A Balance Mod Standards Cooperative for Career Games (A Community Recommended Mod List that Commits to Working Well Together in Career Games)

[inigma]

This project has moved to: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/129805-community-career-framework-a-standard-career%C2%A0progression-and-mod-compatibility-cooperative%C2%A0for-career-games-tech-trees-contract-packs-stock-alike-recommend-standards-for-part-mods/#comment-2359045

 

Please update your links accordingly.

- inigma

====================================

 

 

CCF - Community Career Framework - Community Standards for Balance Among Career Mods

I was wondering if there was a need to get modders to collaborate on developing their mods as part of basic career mod family which would be focused on balance between all families of mods in a standard career Modular Progression Framework model using a Standard Costs, Outputs, Rewards, and Experience worksheet.

Modular Progression Framework:

ground vehicles & boats > submersibles > aircraft > sounding rockets > unmanned rockets > probes > manned spacecraft > rover landings > manned landings > space stations > spaceplanes > bases > colonies > interstellar

• Research for each module family would offer components that are most rudimentary/basic first, dependent on having researched only historically related technologies offered in Progression Framework nodes before it.
• Contracts for each module family would offer targets that are not explored, closest first.
• Mods in all families would have balanced outputs, costs, and rewards vs all other mods in all families in order to self-certify as CCF compliant by adhering to the CCF Standard Costs, Outputs, Rewards and Experience worksheet (CCF SCORE - hey I like friendly acronyms)

The idea behind the Modular Progression Framework is to certify that balances will still exist if a career player removes any of the module families, such a player who cares not to start with ground vehicles or subs, and wants to skip straight to manned spacecraft but remove colonies and interstellar module families would still find a reasonably balanced and thus playable game.

 

Standards, Costs, Outputs, Rewards, and Experience (SCORE)

Worksheet Link (TBD - To be Determined)

• Fuel Ratios for Fuel Tank Parts Should be: (Procedural Part's standard)
  volume of tank * 0.86

 

CCF Certified Mods: (TBD)

Tech Trees:

• recommend ETT by @Probus

Strategies:

• recommend Strategia by @nightingale

Contract Packs:

• recommend GAP by  @inigma
• recommend Space Stations by @severedsolo
• etc

Parts:

• recommend USI Sounding Rockets @RoverDude
• recommend DMagic Orbital Science by @DMagic
• recommend KAX by @keptin

Utilities:

• recommend Take Command by @seanmcdougall
• recommend Holodeck by @enneract
• recommend  Waypoint Manager by @nightingale

 

The idea would be for the members of this family/coop to build interactivity or optional dependencies for other members so balance and cross-compatibility can be guaranteed by players opting to install any or all of these mods together.

Previous attempts to create a balance mod depended on the effort usually of one individual (SETI, BTSM) and licencing restrictions preventing others from easily picking up and carrying on. A mod coop or family would help mitigate this as the mod family as a whole would not be absolutely dependent on other members unless the licensing of such dependent mods were open to anyone carrying the torch.

Ideas? Thoughts? Feasible?

Essentially this would be a recommended base install of mods that would act as a framework for other modders to carve out a place in the framework and code their mod if necessary to certify compatibility with it.

Edited January 12, 2016 by inigma
updating project move

[legoclone09]

I'd use the SETI tech tree since it is up for grabs I think, and you would just need to reposition some nodes. Same goes for his contracts.

[inigma]

ETT is finally on github with an active developer. SETI CTT does not have an active developer yet.

[legoclone09]

The reason I want us to use SETI is because it isn't being developed, so we can change it however we want! Otherwise I can start working on a balance mod.

[inigma]

27 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

The reason I want us to use SETI is because it isn't being developed, so we can change it however we want! Otherwise I can start working on a balance mod.

I was hoping to invite @Probus to this discussion since he is developing ETT actively. We can submit push requests via his github now and make his ETT really take off. I like ETT's philosophical approach and tech tree slightly better than SETI's. Have you looked at ETT in comparison? If so, what do you see at the pros and cons?

Bear in mind the tech tree doesn't need to be just one. There could be multiple tech trees as long as it serves the Community Career Balance Framework of allowing a player to unlock techs in the order of:

sounding rockets > ground vehicles > boats and submersibles > aircraft > unmanned rockets > probes to planets > manned spacecraft > landings > space stations > spaceplanes

In fact, any mod can certify now that it meets CCBF if it manages to fit into this framework. This also means any other tech tree following that general order will be CCBF compatible and capable of being listed and recommended. If you want to run with SETI as a CCBF alternative to ETT, let me know, but first let me know why you'd prefer that over ETT.

Inviting @Probus @nightingale @severedsolo @RoverDude @DMagic @keptin and @seanmcdougall to this discussion. Feel free to invite others.

Edited December 17, 2015 by inigma

[inigma]

also inviting 

• recommend Holodeck by @enneract

and @linuxgurugamer and @Yelo

[legoclone09]

I have used ETT before, but I like SETI more because of the tree design. I didn't like ETT because of the lack of a balance mod and contracts, although SETI-contracts should work. I might throw together a small career balance mod based off of Yemo's, with a radial Science Jr. and inline Goo as well as normal Sci Jr being 0.625m. I would also have all experiments but Goo and Sci Jr be 100% transmit and Science Jr. be 0 or 10%, as well as lowering biome multipliers on the Mun and Minmus.

[Nertea]

Seems like that if you're trying to create a common framework for career balance, you'd be be better served focusing on things like cost and interpart balance numbers and setting standards for those rather than tech trees.

[inigma]

3 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Seems like that if you're trying to create a common framework for career balance, you'd be be better served focusing on things like cost and interpart balance numbers and setting standards for those rather than tech trees.

You want to help with that?  

[DMagic]

1 hour ago, legoclone09 said:

The reason I want us to use SETI is because it isn't being developed, so we can change it however we want! Otherwise I can start working on a balance mod.

I'm pretty sure that you can't change anything about SETI, at least not if you plan on releasing it publicly. The license for SETI is All Rights Reserved, so unless Yemo explicitly allows you to do so, you can't change and release anything.

[Nertea]

Don't really have time unfortunately, and I know I'd be ill suited (I don't have the patience). But you do hit the nail on the head with the fact that most "balance mods" are seriously driven only by one person with their own specific and rather opaque view of how things should be balanced. This makes things very difficult for others to work with (one person's ego can get quite in the way, in either direction!) and harms adoption (having to wait for a single author to integrate a mod takes longer and is frustrating).

If you concentrate on creating balance standards, like basic costing rules (engine cost = engine Isp * thrust * technology level * blabla), instead of balance specifics, it will be much easier to get people to participate. Anyone would be able to create integration patches without too much work.

[inigma]

I don't have time myself but I wanted to at least open the conversation.  I can manage a thread. I'm good at that at least ;).

[DMagic]

10 minutes ago, inigma said:

I don't have time myself but I wanted to at least open the conversation.  I can manage a thread. I'm good at that at least ;).

Well that's really the problem. This kind of thing requires a lot of time and "manager" is not something that is looked upon highly here when proposing a collaboration of this type (I do like the idea of it though).

Other modders aren't really the best option for participating either, since (if they are anything like me) pretty much all of their KSP-related time is swallowed up by their own work.

[inigma]

22 minutes ago, DMagic said:

Well that's really the problem. This kind of thing requires a lot of time and "manager" is not something that is looked upon highly here when proposing a collaboration of this type (I do like the idea of it though).

Other modders aren't really the best option for participating either, since (if they are anything like me) pretty much all of their KSP-related time is swallowed up by their own work.

This is indeed true. At the very least it will require someone willing to collect the ideas into a central area and publish it. I can certainly do that part.  Keeping the framework simple to the vision of a balanced approach to a career game that includes

sounding rockets > ground vehicles > boats and submersibles > aircraft > unmanned rockets > probes & rovers to planets > manned spacecraft > landings > space stations > spaceplanes > and beyond

is really all that this is for. 

 

I guess to really start brainstorming, what are the basics to a balanced career game following the CCBF progression above?

• Publication (Thread OP, CKAN, Member Mod Update Management)
• Cost Rules? (how are they implemented? module manager? i have no idea how to even do this, but some of you guys might)
• Tech Trees
• Contract Packs
• Parts
• Utilities

any other categories we should consider?

Finally, as far as decisions go, I was thinking of making this a project by consensus. This means taking all valid input possible, and then making a decision that supports the overall vision, and not our own personal preferences (while still allowing for flexibility for CCBF to allow personal preferences). As long as we agree on the progression framework above, I think the answers to other questions will be more readily found.  I am sure Costing Rules will present the greatest challenge. Perhaps existing or prospective balance mod authors would care to input on costing ideas?

Edited December 18, 2015 by inigma

[RoverDude]

We have a lot of this with CTT and a lot of the modders you already mentioned.  What is not present in that context is a re-shuffling of stock.  So help me understand what you're looking for that is not already out there?

[inigma]

1 hour ago, RoverDude said:

We have a lot of this with CTT and a lot of the modders you already mentioned.  What is not present in that context is a re-shuffling of stock.  So help me understand what you're looking for that is not already out there?

I am not looking for anything but an answer to the question:

is there a need for modders to come together to align themselves with a career game progression framework of:

sounding rockets > ground vehicles > boats and submersibles > aircraft > unmanned rockets > probes & rovers to planets > manned spacecraft > landings > space stations > spaceplanes  > and more

with each modder contributing their coding skills to the niche they desire to focus on, and certify their contribution as being in cost and game play balance with all mods thus far in cooperation with the framework?

CTT is a great start in this general direction, but it seems like only one piece of what a career player needs. It seems to me that there needs to be something more offered to the career player who wants to experience KSP following the progression outlined above - an experience that encompasses every aspect of the game and what it can offer, not just a tech tree. And more than just grabbing random individually developed mods and hope they all work together. What do you think?

Edited December 18, 2015 by inigma

[severedsolo]

I think I sorta see what you mean. You want something like RO, or BTSM but balanced a little differently? So you want to be able to say to a player "These mods play nicely together, and will give you a complete experience"

OK well, I'd be willing to entertain the idea at least. One thing I would say, is that I don't have a massive amount of free time - so my "involvement" may just be "you have my permission to fork KSS" - but we'll see how it goes.

[nightingale]

We're talking about both balance and progression here, which aren't necessarily the same thing.  I'm thinking that what you're really interested in is the progression side of things, with an end goal of being able to put something together that makes the player step through the vehicle types as a form of progression, correct?  And because you want to do stuff like limit even the most basic rocket parts until the "unmanned rockets" part of your progression steps, that automatically means changes to the tech tree (in a different way than is done in CTT).  Which is why the balance question comes up because moving stuff around in the tree like you would need to is likely going to break the stock balance.

Am I on the right track?

From the contract angle, it also sounds like you want to put various existing and/or new contract packs together with a sort of progression between the contracts or contract packs via Module Manager (rather than trying to fork stuff and invoke the maintenance nightmare that nobody wants).  There's definitely some pretty big gaps out there, so I think there'd be a lot more "creating new stuff" than "hooking stuff together" on the contract side.  My other concern is that it is a very long progression to get to rockets there - I'm not sure if I personally would want to play a variant of KSP where I have to go through a bunch of ground vehicle and boat stages to get to rockets (but that may just be that it's not my personal cup of tea).

I think the difficulty in doing this as a community thing is that there's a very broad focus at the moment.  I think you may want to narrow the focus a bit more (or maybe make the overall vision more clear).

Myself, I'm also spread way too thin at the moment, so I don't think there's much I can offer in terms of support here, but there's definitely some potential here.

[inigma]

1 hour ago, severedsolo said:

I think I sorta see what you mean. You want something like RO, or BTSM but balanced a little differently? So you want to be able to say to a player "These mods play nicely together, and will give you a complete experience"

OK well, I'd be willing to entertain the idea at least. One thing I would say, is that I don't have a massive amount of free time - so my "involvement" may just be "you have my permission to fork KSS" - but we'll see how it goes.

As mentioned in my OP and elsewhere, I'm just opening up the discussion. Where it goes, we'll see.

1 hour ago, nightingale said:

We're talking about both balance and progression here, which aren't necessarily the same thing.  I'm thinking that what you're really interested in is the progression side of things, with an end goal of being able to put something together that makes the player step through the vehicle types as a form of progression, correct?  And because you want to do stuff like limit even the most basic rocket parts until the "unmanned rockets" part of your progression steps, that automatically means changes to the tech tree (in a different way than is done in CTT).  Which is why the balance question comes up because moving stuff around in the tree like you would need to is likely going to break the stock balance.

Am I on the right track?

From the contract angle, it also sounds like you want to put various existing and/or new contract packs together with a sort of progression between the contracts or contract packs via Module Manager (rather than trying to fork stuff and invoke the maintenance nightmare that nobody wants).  There's definitely some pretty big gaps out there, so I think there'd be a lot more "creating new stuff" than "hooking stuff together" on the contract side.  My other concern is that it is a very long progression to get to rockets there - I'm not sure if I personally would want to play a variant of KSP where I have to go through a bunch of ground vehicle and boat stages to get to rockets (but that may just be that it's not my personal cup of tea).

I think the difficulty in doing this as a community thing is that there's a very broad focus at the moment.  I think you may want to narrow the focus a bit more (or maybe make the overall vision more clear).

Myself, I'm also spread way too thin at the moment, so I don't think there's much I can offer in terms of support here, but there's definitely some potential here.

 

My focus is on the progression side of things which I am sure leads into balance and costs at some point.

Bear in mind a framework is just that. A frame. Not all parts need to be in place to work.

sounding rockets > ground vehicles > boats and submersibles > aircraft > unmanned rockets > probes & rovers to planets > manned spacecraft > landings > space stations > spaceplanes > and beyond

If you think of the above as a lego set, each tier in the progression can connect to any higher tier if middle tiers are missing, it affords players the ability to skip entire progressions, but still play a balanced game.

 

Someone just might want

 ground vehicles >  aircraft >  probes & rovers to planets >  space stations > and beyond

the idea of this collaborative effort would be to code anything necessary for our products to allow for such - hence the framework idea and the need for open collaboration with willing modders. Time is precious for all of us, but certainly if we keep this simple, it might actually take off.

Example, I code contracts for aircraft, with my contracts playable in stock career. When I find time, I can allow it to recognize completed contracts for boats and subs to give my players an expanded experience, but not require it if CCBF boat and sub contract packs are missing from a player's install. This is easy to do since by default my contract pack are designed for stock play, and all I would need to do is get creative and perhaps add optional requirements to my contracts checking if certain CCBF contract packs were installed.  On the output end, I would probably code an end contract for recognition by higher tiers on the framework.

A part modder would want to code in costs and whatever else would be needed to ensure that any or all missing nodes in the framework would still support balanced play with the mod part. Checking for other CCBF mods would be optional again if the modder desired, but again, not all CCBF nodes would need to be installed for the mod part to function, since after all, it is coded for stock first anyways (usually).

 

Keeping it simple. Setup a framework, agree on costs, and let's see what we can fit together.  For starters, I think we need to agree on a framework. If the above is agreeable, then I suppose the focus is on costs and a possible tech tree recommended (hence I recommended ETT, but any will do if it can support the CCBF framework).

[inigma]

just bumping this in case anyone else wants to comment.

[DMagic]

It sounds like you're going for something like Realism Overhaul without the realism parts. That's a good idea, though I would skip any requirements for ground vehicles and boats for the progression. While I'm sure there is some small niche of players that just love tooling around in rovers and boats on Kerbin, I think I'm safe in assuming that most people play KSP to go into space, where there are plenty of more exciting possibilities for ground vehicles.

If this is going to be a community effort then I would mandate that everything be released under open (and compatible) licenses. While there are legitimate reasons for choosing more restrictive licenses it seems like just asking for trouble to do so for a project like this. Since people tend to drop in and out of development all of the time this seems like the only way to make this feasible.

[inigma]

2 hours ago, DMagic said:

It sounds like you're going for something like Realism Overhaul without the realism parts. That's a good idea, though I would skip any requirements for ground vehicles and boats for the progression. While I'm sure there is some small niche of players that just love tooling around in rovers and boats on Kerbin, I think I'm safe in assuming that most people play KSP to go into space, where there are plenty of more exciting possibilities for ground vehicles.

If this is going to be a community effort then I would mandate that everything be released under open (and compatible) licenses. While there are legitimate reasons for choosing more restrictive licenses it seems like just asking for trouble to do so for a project like this. Since people tend to drop in and out of development all of the time this seems like the only way to make this feasible.

I'm not a fan of cars or boats... but I do want airplanes!

And yes, if there are any mod dependencies required for a CCBF setup to function, then the requirement to have your mod be such a dependency would be for your mod to have MIT licensing or something similarly less restrictive, or even public domain. I also like this not just for continuity sake, but also for adaptability sake for Squad to take off with the idea if they so chose.

[inigma]

Can we get a consensus from all interested parties on the progression framework above? Is that framework out of order, or is that framework the typical approach to career most players would agree on taking (skipping any progression levels of course that don't interest them)?

[mcirish3]

I did not read everything thoroughly but is not what you are asking roughly the Idea behind the THe MOD docket, with a little more emphasis on Mod creator input and collaboration.  I would almost say you could used the The Mod docket as your forum thread.  it is already pinned and everything.  I guess very popular lists would have to be spun off into their own thread, but I have thought about asking to include a link RO in the thread.

[inigma]

27 minutes ago, mcirish3 said:

I did not read everything thoroughly but is not what you are asking roughly the Idea behind the THe MOD docket, with a little more emphasis on Mod creator input and collaboration.  I would almost say you could used the The Mod docket as your forum thread.  it is already pinned and everything.  I guess very popular lists would have to be spun off into their own thread, but I have thought about asking to include a link RO in the thread.

This isn't a mod docket. This is a mod author symposium to set standards for game balance among career mods, and to list such participating mods and allow mods to certify as CCF compliant.