Does ANYONE remember the old way to play KSP?

[Yobobhi]

So does ANYONE remember the VERY old days of KSP, when every explosion was basically napalm and the space center had palm trees? It seems like most of the current players are either people who are obsessed with Delta-V numbers, or total noobs that just make a plane and manage to make it into an orbit with .5 eccentricity. There are very players left that I can find that aren't hardcore or just bad. I mean, Grand Tour missions are cool and all, but the KSP dev team has added something to destabilize the way people used to play the game: They have added all of these heavier and heavier boosters, with more and more efficient engines, but no new planets or moons. We have enough Delta-V with these new things to go interstellar, but the dev team hasn't yet added anything past Eeloo. Sorry if I am being a bit ranty and insulting. Like, if spent enough time, I could easily build a Grand Tour craft. But, I find it more fun to land a rover on a planet than a manned mission, in my opinion. Even though I have had tons of Duna missions, sunrise on another planet still amazes me in KSP. So why has the spirit of exploration and wonder gone over to the spirit of sounding accomplished and having large amounts of Delta-V? I mean, I still only use basic rockets, just because the acceleration feels more exciting than any ion engine. It still makes me anxious when I see re-entry heating lighting up my heat shield, even though I have gone through hundreds of re-entries.  No matter how many parachutes I deploy, it will always relive me to see the g-meter rise and the chutes grow wider as they fully deploy. So what I'm saying is, why act like going to another planet is a routine thing that you get a little picture badge for when you can be thrilled by dust kicked up by your engine as you land on an alien world? Why settle for a tiny blue glow when you can see the trail of flame and smoke from a rocket? Why go for Delta-V when you can go for a craft that makes you happy? So put the wonder and adventure back in KSP! 

[Camaron]

Efficient crafts make me happy. That said, I visited every world in the solar system without ever knowing the Delta-V numbers, so I do know where you come from with this dislike for the widespread obsession with technical details.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

KSP has been out for quite a while, it's no surprise that the player base has become divided between very new players and very experienced players.

The wealth of information one can now find on the forums and the wiki also accelerates the learning curve so newbies become pros much faster.

It's the same sort of thing that happens in MMO's after a few years; most of the players are either max level high end raiders or complete beginners in the starting area, leaving the middle chunk of the game largely vacant and abandoned.

[JoeNapalm]

 

Yes, we're having fun wrong.

Thanks for steering us back to the true path.

Many of us here have played many hundreds of hours of KSP. I'm thrilled...thrilled...that the basics still hold all the joy and amazement for you, but most eventually move on to bigger and/or better designs.

The wonder and adventure never left KSP, we are building craft that make us happy, so...well..go play your own way and leave the rest of us to play ours.

Good day, sir.

-Jn-

[Mathfreak]

I build for fun. I don really mind about Delta-V. I always go undersea when i open KSP, then i start driving and then Building. I then get bored and fling random kerbals to space so... well that is how I've always played. Nothing really changed from back then and now. To me delta v is nothing but a limitation for a rocket. I'm the kind of person that will launch a rocket the inverse way.

[Souper]

Some new planets would really interest me, yeah. I'm dying for them actually.

Or you could make them more interesting to explore.

[Kerbart]

There is no right way.

I have plenty of hours under my belt. Yet I still have great fun noodling around Mun and Minmus. Others get bored by anything inside Dres' orbit. The great thing about KSP is that it suits pretty much anyone's wishes, and there's always mods.

[HebaruSan]

13 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

KSP has been out for quite a while, it's no surprise that the player base has become divided between very new players and very experienced players.

I think that's partly due to sampling bias. We know new players exist because they ask how to stop their rockets from flipping at 7-9km. We know the experts exist because they post videos of their grand tours. The ones in between know enough to get by, but we also know our missions are not going to be that interesting to other people. If I feel like building a slightly different lander for a quick Minmus shot, I'm not going to record it or post a forum thread about it, because as fun as it might be for me, it's not anything that everyone hasn't seen before.

As for paying attention to Δv, that's simply the language of the mechanics of the game. You can choose to ignore it, but it's still there, either limiting or enabling your missions depending on how your craft are built. Challenges can be fun for their own sake, and that certainly includes optimizing a design.

[Butterbar]

One way I've gotten myself to maintain this sense of wonder is to install more and more graphical mods.  I can't imagine playing KSP without EVE, and I also can't imagine playing without Scatterer or KSPRC.  It's made me dependent on them for immersion and I sometimes regret it, but parachuting through lighting on Eve or driving through a dust storm on Duna or even just watching the clouds on Kerbin brings back a sense of wonder and exploration.

But what I never really got into was the whole idea of making things efficient.  I made a SSTO once for the hell of it, and I hated the whole experience for its teidousness and the fact that I would launch it once or twice for the novelty and immediately switch back to bigger rockets. When launching a rocket, I almost never look at the dV; to me, it's "I don't know how long this'll last but I'm sure to figure out".  This leads to a inefficient space program but if others want to make theirs efficient, who am I to judge?

[steuben]

It's before my time. But I don't think I would kept playing, or experimented anywhere near as much without the dv info. Both in game and out. Yeah it's hardcore to play without it, but so is wilderness living.

[Scotius]

I play since 0.17 days. I've sent my Kerbals everywhere. I've built big, fat space station in Moho's orbit. I landed Bob on Eeloo on his mothership's engine nozzles. I've sent 70+ tons ships with payload consisting of a probe core and an RTG - because i wanted to see how fast i can make them go. Yet...i still like to fly bunch of tourists to the Mun on a lander carrying enough dV to get to Duna. The joy of exploration is still there

And for new planets - couple of versions ago devs explained that plans to add second gas giant and other bodies had to be postponed due to memory constraints. But with the release of 64-bit client that limit will be gone

[regex]

2 hours ago, Yobobhi said:

So put the wonder and adventure back in KSP! 

That's why I installed Realism Overhaul.

[Navy2k]

I still know the times around 1000h playtime ago where my rockets shook around more than a 300pound tabledancer and every launch with less than 3 solid boosters from the 40-50 strapped on my rocket detaching prematurely where considered excelent. I don't mind that i evolved

14 minutes ago, regex said:

That's why I installed Realism Overhaul.

I'm considering taking online aeronautics courses since I tried to build a stable supersonic plane in RSS/RO/RP0. I guess thats exactly the opposite OP wanted

Edited March 24, 2016 by Navy2k

[regex]

4 minutes ago, Navy2k said:

I'm considering taking online aeronautics courses since I tried to build a stable supersonic plane in RSS/RO/RP0. I guess thats exactly the opposite OP wanted

OP can play however they want, I'll play however I want.  No one should care one way or the other.

[Navy2k]

1 minute ago, regex said:

OP can play however they want, I'll play however I want.  No one should care one way or the other.

It was more angled at pointing out what RSS means to gameplay, i don't see me commanding anyone to do something. soooo

[razark]

Meh.  I've been playing on and off since 0.15 was the current version.  I've orbited Duna and Eve, and even sent a monolithic station to Duna orbit.  I even crash landed a probe onto Duna once.

 

I think I'm having fun doing what I'm doing in KSP.  If someone else wants to tell me that I'm not actually having fun, that's their problem, really.

 

[regex]

Just now, Navy2k said:

It was more angled at pointing out what RSS means to gameplay, i don't see me commanding anyone to do something. soooo

So you were just tossing around gross exaggerations about the skill level and gameplay changes involved in RO?  Great work!  

[Archgeek]

If I didn't know there were others worse about/better at it than me, I'd feel I was being personally called out on the delta-v ion engine thing.  

I'm glad you still have fun playing olde schoole style.  I know I can't stand SSTO's too much myself.  But before you knock it too far out of range, you should see that tiny blue glow under the influence of Stock RealPlume.  They look even cooler than they did under HotRockets.

[Navy2k]

1 minute ago, regex said:

So you were just tossing around gross exaggerations about the skill level and gameplay changes involved in RO?  Great work!  

I have around 1500h on the clock and my fair share in RSS/RO.

1. you can't deny that if OP wants the old style KSP back where you just eyeballed everything and threw together a blob of boosters and flew it around without planing RSS/RO is not what he wants.

2. I am pretty tech and science interested like many of us i guess but the amount of special terms and formulas and variables used by far and the plane designer hit me hard and my first 3 designs to describe as unstable would be very nice to me.

[regex]

Just now, Navy2k said:

1. you can't deny that if OP wants the old style KSP back where you just eyeballed everything and threw together a blob of boosters and flew it around without planing RSS/RO is not what he wants.

I wasn't suggesting that OP install RO I was telling them how I, personally, put the "wonder and adventure" back into KSP.  OP can play however they want, fast and loose, or whatever.

Just now, Navy2k said:

2. I am pretty tech and science interested like many of us i guess but the amount of special terms and formulas and variables used by far and the plane designer hit me hard and my first 3 designs to describe as unstable would be very nice to me.

Did you ever think to ask around or maybe just ape a real world design?  If it's not for you, it's not for you, but it is entirely possible to slap together a flyable plane under FAR by looking at real world aircraft.  Therein might also lie the reason why we aren't going to orbit in sleek, hypersonic spaceplanes.  KSP certainly reinforces some unrealistic expectations in that arena...

[Trann]

2 hours ago, Yobobhi said:

So does ANYONE remember the VERY old days of KSP, when every explosion was basically napalm and the space center had palm trees?

Hmm.  I wonder where this is going?  Some fun story about the old days?  I'm getting excited!

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It seems like most of the current players are either people who are obsessed with Delta-V numbers, or total noobs that just make a plane and manage to make it into an orbit with .5 eccentricity. There are very players left that I can find that aren't hardcore or just bad.

Ah.  We're going to insult others for how they enjoy a thing.  Nice.

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I mean, Grand Tour missions are cool and all, but the KSP dev team has added something to destabilize the way people used to play the game: They have added all of these heavier and heavier boosters, with more and more efficient engines, but no new planets or moons. We have enough Delta-V with these new things to go interstellar, but the dev team hasn't yet added anything past Eeloo.

Or are we going to insult the dev team for building up the game?

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Sorry if I am being a bit ranty and insulting.

Ranty is fine.  It's the insulting part that drew me into this.

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Like, if spent enough time, I could easily build a Grand Tour craft. But, I find it more fun to land a rover on a planet than a manned mission, in my opinion. Even though I have had tons of Duna missions, sunrise on another planet still amazes me in KSP. 

(Emphasis mine) It's clear you have a set of skills and an approach that entertains and amazes you.  What's unclear is that you may not realize others can do things differently from you.

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So why has the spirit of exploration and wonder gone over to the spirit of sounding accomplished and having large amounts of Delta-V?

I believe your view is misguided.

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I mean, I still only use basic rockets, just because the acceleration feels more exciting than any ion engine. It still makes me anxious when I see re-entry heating lighting up my heat shield, even though I have gone through hundreds of re-entries.  No matter how many parachutes I deploy, it will always relive me to see the g-meter rise and the chutes grow wider as they fully deploy.

Your way of playing the game seems to work well for you.

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So what I'm saying is, why act like going to another planet is a routine thing that you get a little picture badge for when you can be thrilled by dust kicked up by your engine as you land on an alien world? Why settle for a tiny blue glow when you can see the trail of flame and smoke from a rocket? Why go for Delta-V when you can go for a craft that makes you happy?

I think your questions are about what makes you happy.  Why do you feel the need to suggest this is what will make others happy, too?  Can others not play the game the way they want to?

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So put the wonder and adventure back in KSP! 

Many of us have been adventuring in KSP just fine, thank you.

Edited March 24, 2016 by Trann

[justspace103]

i still play this way. i dont like to spend hours trying to balance my rocket just right. i just do trial and error. when something does go wrong, i try again or do something else. plus, by "winging" every mission i do, it is always a surprise when everything works!

[OhioBob]

Some of us finding engineering stuff fun.  That's why some of us are engineers.  Let us have our fun the way we want to.  Others can have their fun they way they want to.

[GadII]

I really don't think any of the wonder has been lost, some people have fun going over the technical aspects, other's don't. I believe that your average KSP player won't go full on RO and that all the technicality you see on the forums, is a disproportionate misrepresentation of everyone that plays the game, and I don't mean that as an insult in any way, people have different ways of playing the game. I happen to enjoy the game to be technical on it's underbelly, underneath the hood rather than me manage a plethora of technical aspects on the surface. I'm personally very satisfied with the state of KSP, though I do wish that there was perhaps a larger emphasis on exploration, going to different planets just feels bland and honestly have become an afterthought. Sure, it's a grand accomplishment the first time, but I'd rather have focused, interesting planets than more.

[theend3r]

3 hours ago, Yobobhi said:

heavier boosters, with more and more efficient engines, ... Why go for Delta-V when you can go for a craft that makes you happy? So put the wonder and adventure back in KSP!

The large engines and tanks really make things easy. I remember controlling this thing was a total nightmare:

Spoiler

Took an un-flippable rover to Eeloo

The burn took half an hour and the ship behaved like a noodle. Good memories.