The tech tree progression is ridiculous

[Kerbart]

In my mind, career mode is fine if you don't think too much about it, which is they way Kerbals seem to operate anyway, so that covers the “realism” angle as well then.

As to if career mode “meets its goals” is highly dependend on what those goals should be. Historically, KSP was sandbox only and that suited the initial wave of players just fine. As the game progressed, new players wanted “things to do” and Science was added, with the tech tree; career mode with its contracts is a mere refinement of that.

In the sense of “give the player some direction,” it fulfills its role. Is it historically accurate? I’m not an expert on Kerbal history, so I really can’t tell. But who is? Is there logic in ladders and wheels placed in higher tiers? Not from an Earthly historical perspective. But if you put all of the “simple stuff” in the two lower tiers and keep the game challenging and enjoyable, you’ll have to make unpleasant choices regarding the tech tree as well.

Squad made the choice to have a tech tree that offers challenges and rewards (better parts), not to make a historical accurate representation of space flight. And perhaps it should be an option to pick the tree at career start; “Kerbal Space,” “From planes to rovers,” and “The Human Space Race.” That would perhaps be the best way to make everyone happy.

[NSEP]

40 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

Something can be cartoony and still have logic behind it.  We see this with KSP physics.  How about we see it with the tech tree as well.

No, I don't think the tech tree is a good tutorial.  Yes, I think the game should start manned, not because of little green men, but because of simplicity.

Thats exactly why i love starting manned.

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

Squad made the choice to have a tech tree that offers challenges and rewards (better parts), not to make a historical accurate representation of space flight. And perhaps it should be an option to pick the tree at career start; “Kerbal Space,” “From planes to rovers,” and “The Human Space Race.” That would perhaps be the best way to make everyone happy.

I'm not saying it should be historical, but instead it should let us choose what we want to do in what order. Right now we have to go through nodes that don't interest us to get to something that is worth researching (from the player's point of view). That's not how it should work. The tree should allow for a certain amount of flexibility, which right now doesn't.

The game was at the beginning meant to be sandbox, which implies that there's freedom to what one wants to do and when. The tech tree is the opposite of that.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Veeltch

[adsii1970]

8 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

I'm not saying it should be historical, but instead it should let us choose what we want to do in what order. Right now we have to go through nodes that don't interest us to get to something that is worth researching (from the player's point of view). That's not how it should work. The tree should allow for a certain amount of flexibility, which right now doesn't.

The game was at the beginning meant to be sandbox, which implies that there's freedom to what one wants to do and when. The tech tree is the opposite of that.

It seems we are tag-teaming on a few threads with the same thoughts...

The science tree is totally messed up and makes no sense. An example of this is when you choose the icon for rockets and within it you get wheels, antennae, wings, a new parachute, oh, and more engines and boosters! I also do not like the "history of Kerbal" or "history of mankind" tree options as suggested above for a few reasons, and I will explain why in a bit...

What needs to happen is the tree needs to be overhauled from the root sciences up. Begin with broad categories - communications, structural, control, and propulsion. From there, conduct your flights and when enough science is generated, then choose something to research. If you choose "Communications II" (as an example), then you get only better antennae; if you choose "Structure II" at that point, maybe the tree branches into "Aviation", "Spaceflight", or "Ground Vehicles." This would require researching each branch of the tree to achieve certain milestones or mission capabilities. In fact, each of the "root sciences" could eventually branch out. I would even include "planetary sciences" as a root branch, requiring it to be studied in order to gain the technology to drill, refine, etc.

I understand that for many this would slow the progression of KSP in career mode, but it would also serve to put some asymmetrical growth into the program. Right now, it is far too easy to create balanced craft in career mode - and as we all know from the various space programs histories, this was never the case. It would also negate the need to have a user-selected option for "history of Kerbal" or "history of mankind" tree options. It would follow a natural progression compared to what we see on Earth with the space programs of various nations. It could even be a factor in a multi-player version of KSP that could allow players to not only compete, but to trade technologies, much as is done now. (Please note, I am NOT fond of a multiplayer version of KSP).

 

[tater]

The point of the tech tree is not to be historical, though that would likely happen with a better tree simply because hard things are hard, and easy things are easy, and the real world actually works that way. The point of the tech tree is supposed to be so that the player has meaningful limitations that impact design choices. Career was never really thought about, and to the extent they did, "tycoon" was a bad model to pick---not least because that mode requires elements they never planned on adding (totally autonomous kerbals to manage). Any tech tree that is designed outside a specific gameplay concept is broken from the start.

The two concepts that make the most sense are exploration, and a space race. Exploration requires stuff they have also stated they don't like, like randomness. This leaves only a space race as a plausible career mode to work with, though ideally some part failures would be in there as well---note that my goal is limitations and drivers to push the players into making interesting design choices. Think about replay here. There is no chance of me failing on basic tasks in KSP, ever, in career, and it's been pretty unlikely for a long time. I'd like a chance to not always "win" on a replay. I can set the current mode to hard, but honestly it's just grind to me.

 

Edited July 25, 2016 by tater

[Wjolcz]

On 25.07.2016 at 3:35 PM, adsii1970 said:

I understand that for many this would slow the progression of KSP in career mode

I think this one is actually caused by the way the tree is unlocked. Science points make the whole thing work backwards. If, for example, the tree was unlocked with money and time the progression would highly depend on the playstyle of the player. IMO that would allow the player to progress at their own pace, since there's no need to research crap they are not going to use anyway.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Veeltch

[tater]

Slow progression in the KSP carer mode? True, that's a real problem, because going from inventing rockets to SSTO space planes is way too slow... it might take the average space program in KSP, what, weeks to reach that milestone? Days or hours would clearly be better.

[r_rolo1]

7 hours ago, Kerbart said:

In the sense of “give the player some direction,” it fulfills its role. Is it historically accurate? I’m not an expert on Kerbal history, so I really can’t tell. But who is? Is there logic in ladders and wheels placed in higher tiers? Not from an Earthly historical perspective. But if you put all of the “simple stuff” in the two lower tiers and keep the game challenging and enjoyable, you’ll have to make unpleasant choices regarding the tech tree as well.

That is a fair point, mostly because, due to the nature of physics, there are only three ( or four ) real dificulty bumps in space exploration for non-ageing beings that don't need to eat, drink or breathe : getting to orbit, docking and make a return mission ( the fourth is getting functional IRSU ). Tailoring a dificulty curve out of a curve with a couple of cliffs is hard, especially if you add the assumption that parts in general have to get better with time ingame ( gamers absolutely loathe "Dark ages" in game progression, where stuff doesn't progress or even regress ). That said, note that the current interaction of the game tech also does not work very well in keeping the game enjoyable and challenging after you have managed to dock and have 2,5m parts ... and it is discussible if it does that before as well, so it is not really a defense point for the current interaction of the tech tree

 

Edited July 25, 2016 by r_rolo1

[tater]

Good points, @r_rolo1, that also reminds me of another problem, that KSP gets only easier to play, not more challenging as career progresses. Life support certainly adds more challenge, as you need to create larger craft for any given mission, and/or do far more planning.

There is also the issue related to what you said that the tech tree is the sole reward system in the game, and like it or not, players unconsciously play to reward systems in games.

[James M]

Not really going to bother reading everyone else's posts cause I'm going to bed after this but I was thinking earlier, what if they made some tech only accessable through science experiments (Therefore giving them real purpose)? Would that help solve some of the bigger issues? Furthermore is it really okay for us to be able to get science from observing the "Biomes" that make up KSC? I feel it almost makes the entire point of exploring Kerbin obsolete and rushing to other planetary bodies too easily accessable. 

[tater]

8 minutes ago, James M said:

Not really going to bother reading everyone else's posts cause I'm going to bed after this but I was thinking earlier, what if they made some tech only accessable through science experiments (Therefore giving them real purpose)? Would that help solve some of the bigger issues? Furthermore is it really okay for us to be able to get science from observing the "Biomes" that make up KSC? I feel it almost makes the entire point of exploring Kerbin obsolete and rushing to other planetary bodies too easily accessable. 

I said something pretty similar a long time ago (0.24 era).

Yeah, a better tech tree would ideally require specific science be done to buy certain things. The trouble is that most science in KSP is planetary science, which has exactly zero bearing on technological development. 

If life support was a thing, then certain "contracts" (I hate contracts vs missions, sigh) would result in learning about kerbal space-medical issues, and such science could be required for developing new crew parts, for example.

[Dr. Jet]

You right. Stock tree is ridiculous. Use SETI or ETT instead.

[Ultimate Steve]

On ‎7‎/‎24‎/‎2016 at 6:19 AM, Veeltch said:

Make it look like this and give us actual freedom of what we want to research next.

I don't want to be THAT GUY, but...

It is impossible to please everyone. That is why the developers made it easy to mod the game.

(Also, from a practicality standpoint, changing the tech tree system from the ground up would break pretty much everyone's career and science savefiles)

[Wjolcz]

5 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

(Also, from a practicality standpoint, changing the tech tree system from the ground up would break pretty much everyone's career and science savefiles)

Tell me more about this. It's not like I had an already working SSTO in my career game and then the parts it used were moved in a way I couldn't launch it anymore. And it wasn't like 0.24, or something. It was a very recent change.

"Tweaking", amirite?

Edited August 4, 2016 by Veeltch

[Tyko]

2 hours ago, Dr. Jet said:

You right. Stock tree is ridiculous. Use SETI or ETT instead.

Agreed...we can argue all day about the merits of the tech tree. The beauty of KSP is that you can just drop in a Mod and change it.

Unmanned Before Manned Mod by @Yemo  doesn't replace the tech tree, but does a great job of moving parts around to give you: Unmanned first, early access to wheels and ladders. Since it doesn't actually replace the tech tree you also have less conflict with any other mods.

Edited August 4, 2016 by tjt

[tater]

While you can mod the tree, I think the point is that the current tree is not just awful for realism or other reasons, it's bad from a gameplay standpoint as well. The tech tree is the sole reward system in career mode, and it is also what determines the cadence of the game, and the design constraints. It could be much better.

[DaMachinator]

As far as I can tell, the people in this thread mainly want a simplified version of the Engineering Tech Tree implemented. 

Here are my 2 cents:

In light of the recent announcement of a communications and telemetry system for stock, starting manned is still the best option. Starting unmanned is still possible (I just put a mapping satellite in a very precise orbit of Kerbin, in a RemoteTech career save, while having no communications coverage), but it requires a good understanding of how the game works. 

Above-mentioned mission required: 

1) Choosing between very similar available parts to find one of the possible ways to get into a polar orbit within very tight margins and staying under the weight limit of the unupgraded launch pad. 

2) Finding an ascent profile that would allow me to get into orbit with enough fuel to get the orbit within contract specifications while at the same time not exceeding a certain angle of attack to maintain stability. 

3) Balancing the components of the probe to minimize the torque caused by the CoT not being in line with the CoM. 

4) Using the RT flight computer to queue actions to be taken after signal loss. 

The same thing applies to starting with aviation. While the stock aero is incredibly simple, it is still very difficult to make a working aircraft with only simple parts. 

My proposed solutions: 

Multiple available tech trees for selection. A beginner's tech tree similar to the current one, a "realistic progression" tech tree starting with aviation and continuing through unmanned and then manned spacecraft, and a "moar options" tech web that lets you choose your starting node from a few possible options depending on how you want to play, while still allowing you to eventually unlock the whole tree. 

Replacing the tech tree system entirely with a system based on the contract framework where new parts are unlocked by pushing the limits of old parts, possibly including a method of improving existing parts. Want bigger fuel tanks? Fly several missions with smaller ones and bigger ones will show up in the editor. Heat shields? Lose some parts to atmospheric heating. Vacuum-optimized engines? Use lifter engines in the upper atmosphere and take pressure readings at various altitudes. 

Making the difficulty options far more obvious and defaulting first to settings appropriate for a new player, and then to the settings used for the previous save game. 

[James M]

15 hours ago, tater said:

I said something pretty similar a long time ago (0.24 era).

Yeah, a better tech tree would ideally require specific science be done to buy certain things. The trouble is that most science in KSP is planetary science, which has exactly zero bearing on technological development. 

If life support was a thing, then certain "contracts" (I hate contracts vs missions, sigh) would result in learning about kerbal space-medical issues, and such science could be required for developing new crew parts, for example.

That'd be pretty cool as it would also give the whole Kerbal Space Program thing a background as we know little to nothing about the Kerbals themselves other than they're Green and don't eat, drink, or sleep.. 

[Wjolcz]

9 hours ago, DaMachinator said:

Multiple available tech trees for selection. A beginner's tech tree similar to the current one, a "realistic progression" tech tree starting with aviation and continuing through unmanned and then manned spacecraft, and a "moar options" tech web that lets you choose your starting node from a few possible options depending on how you want to play, while still allowing you to eventually unlock the whole tree.

What would be ideal is a "tree" that has multiple starting points just like in War Thunder. That way everyone could start their career however they wanted (jets, manned or unmanned first?)

9 hours ago, DaMachinator said:

Replacing the tech tree system entirely with a system based on the contract framework where new parts are unlocked by pushing the limits of old parts, possibly including a method of improving existing parts. Want bigger fuel tanks? Fly several missions with smaller ones and bigger ones will show up in the editor. Heat shields? Lose some parts to atmospheric heating. Vacuum-optimized engines? Use lifter engines in the upper atmosphere and take pressure readings at various altitudes. 

I kind of agree. I think the parts test missions could be good for that. You would research a part with money and time and once it's unlocked you go for a one quick stationary/in-flight test (depends if it's a jet engine or an ion/vacuum engine).

Though I also think there should be a way to skip it (maybe by paying more for the additional testing during the R&D research?). Some people simply don't like doing those missions.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Veeltch

[juanml82]

On 25/7/2016 at 2:03 PM, tater said:

Slow progression in the KSP carer mode? True, that's a real problem, because going from inventing rockets to SSTO space planes is way too slow... it might take the average space program in KSP, what, weeks to reach that milestone? Days or hours would clearly be better.

I think the problem is that it's leads to grind. You want rtgs for your Dres mission? Biome hope in the Mun, which is repeating the same mission over and over. Are you going to harvest Minmus? Make sure you have the gravioli researched already or you'll either waste all the science you can get from it or have to replay the same missions later, once you have the gravioli unlocked.

 

My main concern, though, is very early career. No aerodynamic control surfaces, batteries, solar panels, radial decouplers mean the early missions are harder than they should

[Wjolcz]

36 minutes ago, juanml82 said:

I think the problem is that it's leads to grind. You want rtgs for your Dres mission? Biome hope in the Mun, which is repeating the same mission over and over. Are you going to harvest Minmus? Make sure you have the gravioli researched already or you'll either waste all the science you can get from it or have to replay the same missions later, once you have the gravioli unlocked.

That's the exact problem with the career right now. It's backwards and limiting. Space agencies don't send probes to the Moon to build something as unrelated as an atmospheric analyzer for the next Mars mission, or whatever.

The tree should be unlocked with money and time (more on this in my signature). Almost all of the parts that are represented in the nodes were built here, on Earth. In KSP we have engines and experiments that have their real life counterparts and yet people come and cry about how "non-historical" this game should be. Make up your mind. We either get a chaotic grindfest, or something that works properly.

I'm not a fan of historical tech trees, but what I'm saying is that it should at least make some sense and give freedom of what to research next/what path to take.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Veeltch

[Alshain]

9 hours ago, Veeltch said:

What would be ideal is a "tree" that has multiple starting points just like in War Thunder. That way everyone could start their career however they wanted (jets, manned or unmanned first?)

There was a tree like that, it started in this forum and then someone made a mod from it.  Each node was practically a single part.  I thought that was the best tech tree I'd ever seen, but I can't remember the name and I can't find it now.  If someone can point it out, that would be awesome.  It was a year, maybe two years ago.

[Alshain]

Found it!  Sadly the accompanying mod is long dead, unless someone revives it.  I remember when I first read it I thought it was a terrible idea, but once the mod came out I realized how brilliant it was.

 

Edited August 5, 2016 by Alshain

[mattinoz]

On 25 July 2016 at 10:29 AM, NSEP said:

I first had the same opinion as you my friend, but i changed my mind later. Starting manned makes more sense than starting unmanned in KSP. Why? Because computers and communicator devices are complicated and expensive, but Kerbals are much more efficient than that. But Humans on the other hands, need food, water, shelter and much more. Kerbals are invincible little creatures, they dont need that. 

In other words starting kerbalable is better as kerbals are meaningless disposable and their skills are valueless. Unlike tech or humans no need to worry about training or life just sit them at the top and watch them explode. 

 

[Wjolcz]

17 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Found it!  Sadly the accompanying mod is long dead, unless someone revives it.  I remember when I first read it I thought it was a terrible idea, but once the mod came out I realized how brilliant it was.

 

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