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Weaning us off reverts and quickloads


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So this has been a topic of discussion threading a few common suggestions. I'll start by saying I don't actually have a strong one-way opinion on any of these, but I think the topic could be really interesting and important to how KSP works and feels. The central question is this: does the time-and-frustration-saving effect of reverts and quicksaves outweigh the drama and tension of suffering real consequences? Certainly some will feel one way and some will feel another, and right now those players can chose no-reverts hard mode or no-consequences easy mode. Im wondering though for people who might want a bit of both what some good solutions might be to allow reverts and quickloads but give them some kind of penalty that would encourage them to live the real thing and feel some genuine drama. Another thing that could be done is to reduce the actual cost of failure so it wouldn't seem quite so devastating.

Here are some ideas for each:

'Simulations' - This has been suggested before and under most circumstances Id think it silly to have a simulation inside a simulation, but if they came with an effective game mechanic I might feel differently. This could be done in two ways: First, in the VAB you could either select "launch" or "simulate". In career mode simulate could come with some nominal price, say 2% of construction costs, that would be cheap enough to consider it for a test launch but expensive enough to make players think twice about it. The second way, which is cagey I think, is to give a cost to reverts and quickloads themselves. So you could launch, and if things went wrong you could sort of ret-con the the time since launch or quicksave as a "simulation" and pay a similarly small but noticeable penalty. Im sure this has been suggested before but I can most recently attribute the idea to Tater, and I like it!

Ejection seats Parachutes - This too has been requested many times, but not for some time it seems. What would be great is to encourage players to think carefully about safety and the abort function. I'll be honest I've never used the escape tower,... because I just revert! Im embarrassed but its true. I don't pick no-reverts because Im a perfectionist and Im chicken, but if something like the above 'simulations' were made stock I might be encouraged to be a bit harder on myself. If so what I'd absolutely love would be to add ejection seats to the cockpits and the give parachutes to kerbals, both tied to the Abort button. Sometimes things might fail so catastrophically that all would be lost, but if all of sudden I lost control or my rocket started to get the wobbles it would be great to have some way to more easily save the crew.  

 

None of this is strictly necessary of course, as there are options to have crews respawn etc. What this might provide is a bit of subtly and a middle-way so people who are on the fence could choose in the moment whether they were just testing things out or wanted to go full apollo 13. 

Thoughts? Other ideas? 

 

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It doesn't matter one bit as long as KSP is as buggy as it is.  You will still want to revert.

I don't understand why would people play true hardcore because you have to know that your game could simply end through no fault of your own.

 

That said, both of these features would be fine with me.  Ejection seats, definitely, I'd like to see that just for fun (but in order to promote use of the LES, not on command pods, science bay, or  or the hitchhiker) .  Simulation is a little more... I don't see the point.. because reverts are basically the same thing, but I wouldn't object to them either cause I don't have to use them.  If they were to spend concentration on allowing more escape methods, I would think it would be a good opportunity to flesh out the LES, maybe redesign it with a good decoupler cover like Ven's SRV has, though with the new stageable docking ports, that too is fairly easy to accomplish now (unless you want a parachute there, not a docking port).  And maybe add one for the small pod as well.

Edited by Alshain
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Yeah, I think that something to encourage possibly adverse launches (in career mode, mind you) would make sense. I end up keeping revery and quick save on all the time for two reasons:

1. I can't tell you how many times I've hit "launch" only to realize I forgot to change the crew, or put a relevant part on once it's on the pad. 99% of my reverts are for this reason---with KER I don't end up reverting because I lack the dv for orbit, for example.

2. I keep quick save on because of crashes. That said, I so infrequently hit F5 that it usually doesn't help me much. Once I have a crash, then for the next XX times I play, I tend to save often... then I forget, and that's when I have a crash, lol.

So my "house rules" are not to use reverts/saves much at all. I will "simulate" some aspects of a mission using hyperedit (or the simulator in KCT when I play with that mod)---usually this is for landers on worlds with atmospheres. If the craft doesn't cut it, back to the drawing board, but I'll fly the whole mission for real if it works for the task it is designed for.

In the other thread I suggested have a certain number of "free" reverts, and a lesser number of free autosaves... this would be per year. Once the free ones are used, then you'd pay in funds, and/or science. Reverts over and above the free ones might be pegged to the cost of the craft. Loads from a save would be similar (cost of base craft, not the remaining stage).

3 minutes ago, Alshain said:

It doesn't matter one bit as long as KSP is as buggy as it is.  You will still want to revert.

I don't understand why would people play true hardcore because you have to know that your game could simply end through no fault of your own.

That said, both of these features would be fine with me.  Ejection seats, definitely, I'd like to see that just for fun.  Simulation is a little more... I don't see the point.. because reverts are basically the same thing, but I wouldn't object to them either cause I don't have to use them.  If they were to spend concentration on allowing more escape methods, I would think it would be a good opportunity to flesh out the LES, maybe redesign it with a good decoupler cover like Ven's SRV has.

My goal would not be "hardcore," so much as gaining the failures that we are stuck with due to error, since we don't have failure modes. Right now, it's trivial to just revert if you like... even if you don't do it, it's not the same psychologically IMO as knowing that "this is the real Eve landing attempt." If that makes any sense. For career I think it is important because costs, etc, need to be balanced. If the assumptions for career (on the part of the devs) was that you'd launch 5 times to get something to work, losing money each time, and the reality is that people revert 4 times, and launch once, then the rewards balance is totally fubar. By controlling this to a degree, it allows tuning the career game better such that it might actually be possible to lose without becoming grindy (as "Hard" mode is to me... it's all grind, it adds nothing that is actually challenging to me).

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1 minute ago, tater said:

My goal would not be "hardcore," so much as gaining the failures that we are stuck with due to error, since we don't have failure modes. Right now, it's trivial to just revert if you like... even if you don't do it, it's not the same psychologically IMO as knowing that "this is the real Eve landing attempt." If that makes any sense. For career I think it is important because costs, etc, need to be balanced. If the assumptions for career (on the part of the devs) was that you'd launch 5 times to get something to work, losing money each time, and the reality is that people revert 4 times, and launch once, then the rewards balance is totally fubar. By controlling this to a degree, it allows tuning the career game better such that it might actually be possible to lose without becoming grindy (as "Hard" mode is to me... it's all grind, it adds nothing that is actually challenging to me).

Admittedly this is why I avoid reverting except in cases where the game breaks.  I've learned a lot since starting to play and now, it's way to easy to make money.  However, I don't want to switch to a harder mode because that isn't harder, just grindy-er.  So I just make sure when disaster happens I'm ready to save the crew.

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I like the proposals in the OP, with one change.

Simulations decided on beforehand shouldn't cost anything. By definition you can't keep any results of your simulation, so you're already spending playing-time with something you know doesn't materially advance your progress in the game; it shouldn't cost you money on top of this. You can spend your entire session in simulations if you want, and that doesn't bother me, because you won't be getting more science or more money out of the deal. We shouldn't discourage people from being careful if we're trying to encourage them to be careful.

I like the idea of a costly revert, though. We can thrash out what the exact costs should be, but I lean toward expensive. If I'm reverting, it's for two reasons: to save the crew from disaster, or to make sure an interplanetary setup is perfect (e.g. aerobraking at Duna). I'm willing to pay a surcharge for that to discourage me from using quicksave/quickload in other cases.

As for bugs and the avoidance thereof, I agree with Alshain. However, I've thought of something that might work: when you enable either costly reverts or no reverts, the game autosaves periodically (like it already does), but unlike at present you can revert to the last saved point. Further, the game should keep two: one current, one previous, so that you can go further back in case of a bug-strike. This shouldn't cost you, and it wouldn't be simply the same as our current system of reverts or quicksaves/quickloads because you don't get to make a decision as to when the game decides to autosave.

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I have an R&D save with revert and respawn enabled for just mucking about and testing stuff, which I use as my simulator substitute.  When I play properly I have revert off and permadeath on, but allow f5/f9 just in case, but usually forget to use it.

A 'simulate' option in the editors would be a good feature IMO.  It should charge funds 'by the hour' but not advance normal game time or leave any trace or progress in the game proper.  Also the graphics could be turned down a bit (grainier / toned down colours / monochrome etc ) so you don't get the full experience. 

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I think the game would need some more tools first before a true "no revert" mode is possible. In particular a delta-V calculator, and possibly mission planning function.

The delta-V calculator is self explanatory, a stock Kerbal Engineer.... even one that only provides a fraction of what KER provides, is necessary. Before I started using KER, if I had a "no revert" policy I would have left countless, only slightly different vessels floating aimlessly in space. Trial and error is one thing, an important part of KSP, but stock in its current state I believe goes to far towards grindy trial and error. This is particularly important if we want new players to attempt a titular "no revert" mode. I've been playing for about 2 years now, and I still have trouble just "eyeballing" my fuel needs, I get it right first time maybe 30% of the time (ignoring reverts for other things). 

By mission planning function, I believe their should be a way back at the KSC to plan out the key parts of a mission. I envision a very basic tool. You plug in what you are doing into the tool and in spits out basic information. Duna/Kerballed/landing/ascent/return/splashdown... and it gives you some basic info. When your launch window is, a delta V estimate for each leg of the trip, an estimate of the total time the mission will take, and some other bibs and bobs. Everything would be estimates and subject to how efficient you fly the mission... which means you need to plan for redundancies into the mission.  

Edited by Tourist
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2 hours ago, Tourist said:

I think the game would need some more tools first before a true "no revert" mode is possible. In particular a delta-V calculator, and possibly mission planning function.

Oh man absolutely. We need this badly anyway but it would go a long way in this arena. 

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5 hours ago, Jovus said:

We shouldn't discourage people from being careful if we're trying to encourage them to be careful.

This is so beautifully put, I had to +like your post.

Also, by "charging" for testing you're merely encouraging people to do all their testing in a different save. I actually used to do this, in a sandbox save with the "ships" folder symlinked to my "actual" save's folder. Then I started using Holodeck instead.

Charging for reverts and quickloads is a good idea as well; I know it'd curb my use of them. However, I don't know how the game would discern between a quickload and quitting the game for RL reasons and then loading that quicksave.

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48 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

 I don't know how the game would discern between a quickload and quitting the game for RL reasons and then loading that quicksave.

The same way games with an Ironman mode function presently: when you want to quit, KSP does its own quicksave (in a separate slot from any quicksaves you've made) and then when you reload KSP it loads that quicksave.

(I'm not saying we should make KSP Ironman, just borrowing their solution.)

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Totaly yes. a Delta-v calculator is a must before a no-revert button mode, at least for me.

I'm not sure if this is because my habits on constructing ships, but at the 0.90 versión of the game I was able to predict the performance of one ship barely on sight. From the 1.0 version to the present, I don´t have this ability any more, and my ships on the earlier career gameplay tend to be short on Delta-v. 

To have an Simulation mode will be a nice tool to have too. I envision it this way:

May be as easy as saving the game on a different file, called "SimulationXXX", instead the "Persistent" one, wich becomes the active savegame file from the push of the "Enter Simulation" button to the push of the "End Simulation" one, wich clears the simulation file and make the "persistent" active again.

While the simulation is running, the "real world" clock still ticking for the real time duration of the simulation, which involves the slowdown of the "real world" clock while the simulation runs on time acceleration by the same factor.

Will let the Simulate button accesible from the "real world" at any time, this  will allow the player to enter simulation mode to plan most adecuate aerobraking maneuver while on route to jool, for example. 

Too late for modify the ship, but  in time to make corrections on the mission planning if you detect a possible source of failure while in the simulation.

This adds another interesting gameplay: try to correct a defect only with the actual tools you have... and maybe, if you spend so much time simulating on a time critical situation, left the simulation with only enought time to scream "SSHHIIIIIT!!

Salutations.

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One consideration on top of those: many people's greatest moments in KSP are first landings on a particular celestial body. But if the player has already accomplished such a feat in a simulation, is the actual landing anything new?

For this reason I wish a (meta-)simulator would feel very distinct from other gameplay. A monochrome or wireframe shader would do just fine. Maybe planets could just be perfect spheres with appropriate radius and gravity. This would be a fine gameplay mechanic as well: players could develop different behaviors for "testing" and "the real deal".

Edit: how about presenting cheat commands as an official part of the simulator? If anyone wishes for an in-universe justification, here it is.

Edited by SchweinAero
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"Mission Control," of course is not actually mission control (the Tracking Station is really Mission Control). The Mission Control building is in fact a contract office---what it should be (and change the name) is Mission Planning. It should include something like the tracking station, but with a built-in "hyperedit" of a sort that allows you to place an imaginary craft in an orbit (and time stamp) of your choice, then it should allow placing maneuver nodes. This would allow some idea of the dv requirements for given burns (obviously a KER-like thing would also be needed so you could actually use that information).

I agree that the reward should be for careful play, but I'd also like to see some "light this candle" stuff where you might screw things up, requiring a rescue, or other novel choice.

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So following discussion of runways in another thread.

I wonder if a soft no-revert option could be that once you've sent a craft out of the VAB/SPH then your only options are fly or recover at whatever recover cost you have in settings. but..... unlike the hard no revert option :-

- Revert to launch would bring you back to say 1 minute before you launched the first time. Launch should be activation of first stage not when you left the building.

- Revert to VAB would bring you back to the VAB (or SPH) but anything you do to leave that buildings (including quitting) brings the newly saved version of the craft out to the same time and location as revert to launch.

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Yeah, I think if a "simulation" feature is stock it should have some graphical differences. Retro-future-y wireframe graphics would fit the bill I reckon.

100% agree that ejection seats with parachutes should be a thing. It's one of the more problematic things to mod as well.

And another "element" of this I would say is versioned autosaves, no more letting a game bug save and clobber your good file.

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On 18/05/2016 at 3:06 AM, Alshain said:

It doesn't matter one bit as long as KSP is as buggy as it is.  You will still want to revert.

agreed, while KSP is....as it is, then QS is essential to prevent frustration. 

But that aspect aside, I would really like to have simulations and as @cantab says, some sort of wireframe style visualization of the craft in a simulation where you can adjust the parameters.  I'd want two types of simulator; 
- a wind tunnel type simulation where you can load your craft and set parameters for airspeed, atmo density and have a master fuel gauge slider (and COL, COM markers shown) so you can see how aircraft will perform in low atmo situations and reentry type situations. 
- A landing simulator where you can load your craft and set what sort of trajectory you are on (or already landed), the level of gravity, atmo etc. The terrain of the "planet" would also be a wireframe or very basic texture, and it would just enable you to see how your design would perform while landing or taking off or driving around.

I'd also like it if to start with the simulators didn't have any predefined values and by default would be setup to simulate Kerbin. You could then take guesses at what the conditions on other the planets will be and adjust the settings, but the game doesn't just tell you what the conditions are for each planet.  But if you send a probe or mission to a planet and "discover" what it's atmo and gravitational effects are then those more accurate setting will become available in the simulator as presets. So for example your first simulation for Mun would be a guess, but once you've been to Mun (even with something like an impactor probe) you can then run accurate Mun simulations. 


But I'm against the idea of having ejector seats as pre-built components.  If the game just gives you ejector seats then that takes away the point in designing and building your own. Ok you can't build a seat which ejects from a cockpit, but you can make ejectable cockpits (at the cost of adding some more weight) or you can choose not to and save the weight.  That's a choice that should be left to the player. It could be a toggleable option on cockpits, but isn't having to design functionality like that yourself part of what makes KSP great?

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On 18.5.2016 at 8:12 AM, pandaman said:

I have an R&D save with revert and respawn enabled for just mucking about and testing stuff, which I use as my simulator substitute.  When I play properly I have revert off and permadeath on, but allow f5/f9 just in case, but usually forget to use it.

A 'simulate' option in the editors would be a good feature IMO.  It should charge funds 'by the hour' but not advance normal game time or leave any trace or progress in the game proper.  Also the graphics could be turned down a bit (grainier / toned down colours / monochrome etc ) so you don't get the full experience. 

and it should have a "tracking" funktion...

That, the vessel "play" the tracked simulation....
and, if you staging something during the simulation, it should "keep" them in place until you switch too it.

so it is posible to save boosters....

or do air-to-orbit launches....

 

Edited by Sereneti
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5 hours ago, katateochi said:

But I'm against the idea of having ejector seats as pre-built components.  If the game just gives you ejector seats then that takes away the point in designing and building your own. Ok you can't build a seat which ejects from a cockpit, but you can make ejectable cockpits (at the cost of adding some more weight) or you can choose not to and save the weight.  That's a choice that should be left to the player. It could be a toggleable option on cockpits, but isn't having to design functionality like that yourself part of what makes KSP great?

The problem there is you will run up against the realism folks.  Planes in the early space programs had ejection seats, they didn't eject their whole cockpit off the plane.  Not only would that look ridiculous and IMO make the plane incredibly ugly, but it simply isn't real.  Perhaps, only the Mk1 and maybe Mk2 should have them, neither the STS or Buran had ejection seats, as far as I know the DreamChaser will not either.

Edited by Alshain
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They had to man-rate a spacecraft the first time they flew it with crew aboard. So STS 1-4 were all 2-man crews, with the ejection seats just in case.

The increase in abort options were very slightly increased due to the seat I think, not much value, but good for CYA.

Edited by tater
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On 5/19/2016 at 7:36 AM, cantab said:

And another "element" of this I would say is versioned autosaves, no more letting a game bug save and clobber your good file.

Yeah that would be cool. This particular issue of crashes makes me think the you really should have to decide if you were on a sim ahead of time rather than retroactively. 

And yeah I think the ejection seats mainly make sense for plane cockpits. Pod weights need rebalancing anyway so if the cockpits ended up a bit heavier all the better. For rocket designs it's about staging. Can you add things to an abort stage? If not you should be able to. 

 

 

Edited by Pthigrivi
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Here's where a real "management" game, and not "player doing every single thing, including walking for each astronaut" would be nice.

Say I build a new HLV to get my Duna ship parts to LKO for assembly (I tend to play 6.4X, so maybe Jool would be a better example for stock :) ). OK, so Jool ship assembly in orbit. I launch the first one as a simulation, decide to alter the design a little, then I simulate the new design---say even designated ahead of time as such as @Pthigrivi suggests. It works fine. What would be really awesome... would be to not have to launch the thing again, when I just launched it, and I now know it works. That's where some automation would be nice. I assign a crew to it, hit launch, and then perhaps I get a few options like telling them to place it in a circular orbit at 100 km, and then I watch it (or not), and get to work on the next part of the Jool ship to launch.

In that case, the automation would be predicated on having at least "simulated" it once.

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