Does ANYONE remember the old way to play KSP?

[Yobobhi]

8 hours ago, Aperture Science said:

#MakeKSPGreatAgain

 

[RocketBlam]

I only wish I could get back that thrill of landing on the Mun for the first time. This was before I even knew there was a save feature, so all of my missions were nailbiters.

Ah, if only I could do it all again.

[Rdivine]

I can honestly only say this about Kerbal Space Program.

The way KSP is set up is such that most experienced players can choose their own style of play without it being too ridiculous. Given the aerodynamic models and costs, experienced players now must build streamlined crafts and limit their amount of rocket boosters at the side, rather than making things like "asparagus" or big bunch of rockets tied to each other. Granted, each and every player has their own unique style of playing, but the styles aren't too bad.

Yes, there are merit to both playing styles ; big rockets and ion thrusters. Big rockets are for players who like impulsive things, who do not wish to calculate delta-v or whatever. But, ion thrusters aren't "not cool" just because they don't have fiery exhaust. Remember, this game is also teaching people about orbital mechanics at the same time, so calculating delta-v and maneuvers before launch isn't out of place.

This is analogous to criticizing NASA for not putting SRBs on the Dawn spacecraft to make it look cooler just because they needed the large amount of delta-v.

 

Keep note, your playing style isn't bad, but so isn't others. KSP is for everyone to enjoy regardless of how they play it, and remember that the old playing style hasn't disappeared, it's pretty much still around.

[KaiserSoze]

3 hours ago, RocketBlam said:

I only wish I could get back that thrill of landing on the Mun for the first time. This was before I even knew there was a save feature, so all of my missions were nailbiters.

Ah, if only I could do it all again.

I rememeber crashing all over again while trying to land in the mun. Getting too short on fuel (I always started decelerating waaaaay too soon), then changing something on the ship and trying again. I still remeber the sense of achievement of that first time that I landed. That was waaaaay better than any steam achievement could ever be. 

[Spitray5]

Aye it was good but some of the new parts can make the game fun. plus the new destroyable buildings are quite fun to mess around with. But I see what he means, to many people either buy the game and mess around for 5 hours, get nearly nowhere, and then delete the game. But then you have those serious people who sit playing KSP with Pencil and paper and a calculator with a whiteboard behind them covered in crazy mathematical problems.

[regex]

1 hour ago, Spitray5 said:

Aye it was good but some of the new parts can make the game fun. plus the new destroyable buildings are quite fun to mess around with. But I see what he means, to many people either buy the game and mess around for 5 hours, get nearly nowhere, and then delete the game. But then you have those serious people who sit playing KSP with Pencil and paper and a calculator with a whiteboard behind them covered in crazy mathematical problems.

What does OP mean with their claim?

[Wallygator]

Not sure where this this should have started or where it is going... The OP is quite confusing.

But my distant OSX play style memories (.21ish) consist of load, play 15 min., crash, reload, rinse repeat. 

It's a crappy memory. 

Makes me wonder why I'm still around. I guess I believed in the dream of what KSP could be. I hope 1.1 is the on ramp to that dream. 

[hildegain]

I'd played several thousands of hours of KSP and while I used to be very inexperienced... I can do most of the stuff just in my head at this point. Not much point to messing around with Mechjeb and the like that plays the game for you. If you want to find the newbies who think like you do.... just type into youtube: "Lets play KSP / Kerbal Space Program Part 1" and look for stuff only about a month old. There you have it.

To be fair, I like to play the game as jolly as I can. Not much into it being serious business. I recently got into making bases on other planets and am having a blast with it.

[flyboy67109]

I wish the dev team would add a launch control that would do a go/no-go decision with a percent for a successful launch randomly generated. They could create humorous anecdotes for the decisions and increase the chance of failure of you decide to launch anyway. 

[regex]

13 minutes ago, Wallygator said:

Not sure where this this should have started or where it is going... The OP is quite confusing.

OP drops a (pretty mild) grenade in General and comes back to quote the Trump campaign statement meme, meanwhile everyone else either defends individual methods of play or makes fun of people who enjoy math.

Not very confusing at all.

[Spitray5]

1.1 Is going to be great. all the little things about the pop ups that you use for the settings of parts, are fixed. Plus there is a good wiki in game and less lag.

[Gojira1000]

I play the game the way that's fun to me.

If that decreases your enjoyment of the game, you may need to evaluate why you play games at all.

[Corona688]

On 3/24/2016 at 8:34 AM, Yobobhi said:

So does ANYONE remember the VERY old days of KSP

I remember olden-days KSP.  You couldn't put fuel tanks anywhere you wanted and expect them to work.  No vectored engines.  No RCS, no struts, but lots and lots and LOTS of SAS, which did double duty as gyro packs.  Landing on the dark side of the planet was instant death.  The main thing limiting the size of your rockets was the evil launch tower.  Kerbals couldn't leave their pod.  KSP would be running unattended at 4am because there was no map system, no orbit planner, no timewarp, and people were still figuring out where stable orbits began.  That unattended KSP would rattle rattle your house at 4am because a bug in the game's mute setting prevented it from muting explosions.

Good times.

People were screaming bloody murder for a moon, but it wasn't ready yet.  Mods were primitive to nonexistent, but someone modded in a chunk of concrete the size of the VAB and said "there's your moon!"  ...offering a prize daring anyone to try and put it in orbit.  Someone did, and the prize was only this gif because he didn't seriously believe anyone could put it in orbit.

Then someone made the infamous "Ball Tank", allowing people to get far enough to have their first Kraken encounters.

Good times.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Corona688

[Willbl3pic]

Yes. I do. (See text below username) It's a different game now. In both good & bad ways. (mostly good though)

[Spaceception]

26 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

People were screaming bloody murder for a moon, but it wasn't ready yet.  Mods were primitive to nonexistent, but someone modded in a chunk of concrete the size of the VAB and said "there's your moon!"  ...offering a prize daring anyone to try and put it in orbit.  Someone did, and the prize was only this gif because he didn't seriously believe anyone could put it in orbit.

Link pls?

[Corona688]

I'll look, but I'm not sure the topic still exists, this forum has been through several upheavals since then.

[Corona688]

I found it!  The Glory of the Brick  A challenge made by Nova himself.

Huh.  The Brick is a little smaller than I remember. 

Edited June 14, 2016 by Corona688

[JoeNapalm]

26 minutes ago, Corona688 said:

I'll look, but I'm not sure the topic still exists, this forum has been through several upheavals since then.

Kind of like this thread.

 

-Jn-

[Mjarf]

I do remember the "old way" of playing KSP, I did it myself, but back then I'd get bored of the game after a day or two, I'm not saying the "old way" was any better or worse, but it din't suit me. Back then I'd place 30+ SRB's under the Mk1 pod and launch just to see what happened. I'd build ships with a bunch of NERV engines and fly to the Mun by aiming towards it and keep the engines running until I crashed into it. It was fun but it wasn't lasting fun for me.

Now I can spend days just engineering and designing a ship before launching it, only to revert back to the VAB again because it didn't perform exactly the way I want. This way of playing suits me much better, I often plan new ship designs in my head when it's quiet at work. I've always been a tinkerer, so I often have more fun building the ships than flying them. Now that I actually know what I'm doing the game is more fun and has more meaning to me, it's almost become dangerously addicitive.

[Corona688]

The "Old Way" was the "Old Way" in part because of how jellylike the atmosphere used to be.  You couldn't really "go small", just have to keep slapping on more and more engines to get enough burn-time to plow through that jelly.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Corona688

[Foxster]

On 24/03/2016 at 2:34 PM, Yobobhi said:

So does ANYONE remember the VERY old days of KSP,...

It's a pity that nostalgia isn't as good it used to be. 

[Kerbart]

On 3/24/2016 at 10:34 AM, Yobobhi said:

(...) 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. (...)

Ironically, while building a rocket for a grand tour might have become easier over the years, what you describe above has become more of a challenge; not everything “in the olden days” was harder. I remember that you could basically set up a return intercept with Kerbin at 5000 m/s and an entry-angle of 60°. Usually you'd slow down to a leisurely 200 m/s by the time you reached the surface, but if not, who cares? Open the chutes at 200m, watch them unfurl in 1/10' and a blistering 35g or more before landing neatly at 5m/s.

Don't get me wrong; I like it better the way it is now (although the heat resistance of Lander Cans has to go waaay down).

 

[wumpus]

On 3/28/2016 at 5:39 AM, Rdivine said:

I can honestly only say this about Kerbal Space Program.

The way KSP is set up is such that most experienced players can choose their own style of play without it being too ridiculous. Given the aerodynamic models and costs, experienced players now must build streamlined crafts and limit their amount of rocket boosters at the side, rather than making things like "asparagus" or big bunch of rockets tied to each other. Granted, each and every player has their own unique style of playing, but the styles aren't too bad.

Oddly enough, as the aero model gets more complex and accurate, I tend to build out to the side more (wobbly rockets flip over so much easier post 1.0.0).  While there is a lot to be said for streamlining, I've found that you can often make a cheaper rocket by throwing a bunch of SRBs to the side (the bugs in the fairing haven't helped.  Were they fixed in 1.1?).

Don't forget you can download the demo from Squad and re-experience a far more limited [stock] KSP.  It is a nice place to limit that focuses you attention on making a more pure kerbal rocket (you are pretty much forced to asparagus due to part limitations).  It is a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.  I'll keep my main game in 1.1 (and later) and keep my mods.

[MK3424]

Tell me about it: SAS was only there to lock the heading...

Part collisions meant instant destruction.

Controlling the rocket was a nightmare.

When Jeb, Bill and Bob somehow fit inside a 1.25m capsule...

And the ugly old parts...

Those where the days.. 

(Oh and don't forget the palm trees)

[nosirrbro]

There are two types of people who play KSP:

People who are like this person, that don't really take the game seriously and just mess around and explode stuff. I dislike this mindset, because it promotes the idea that KSP is just about explosions and sillyness when that is far from true.

There are then people who play the game as a (not really if you don't use mods) realistic space program simulator. You seem to dislike this midset, because you really are more here for the sillyness and explosions and killing Kerbals, and think that is what the game is and only is about. Well, no.