The tech tree progression is ridiculous

[John FX]

5 minutes ago, mattinoz said:

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. 

 

Ah, more like KSP=Killing Small People?

[Wjolcz]

21 minutes ago, mattinoz said:

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. 

 

As much as I agree it's not the morality that is being discussed here, but having a choice of how to start the career mode.

Some people (like me) like to roleplay a bit with jet and rocket airplanes and then send things in space. Others don't care about atmospheric flight and want to reach other bodies straight away, either with kerbalnauts or probes. All of us should have a choice and the ability to choose a tech research path.

[James M]

On 8/4/2016 at 11:07 AM, Dr. Jet said:

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

Sorry but some of us (Meaning me :/ ) Play the game on console. Not an option.

[John FX]

11 hours ago, Veeltch said:

As much as I agree it's not the morality that is being discussed here, but having a choice of how to start the career mode.

Some people (like me) like to roleplay a bit with jet and rocket airplanes and then send things in space. Others don't care about atmospheric flight and want to reach other bodies straight away, either with kerbalnauts or probes. All of us should have a choice and the ability to choose a tech research path.

Exactly, in such a game heavily developed from sandbox, there should be more stock ways of adapting the game to fit the way individual people want to play. Some like it how it is, some like planes first, some like unmanned and so on.

11 hours ago, James M said:

Sorry but some of us (Meaning me :/ ) Play the game on console. Not an option.

Yup. "There`s a mod for that" no longer applies. At last. I never really saw the validity of that as a response when people requested new stock features.

[James M]

2 hours ago, John FX said:

Exactly, in such a game heavily developed from sandbox, there should be more stock ways of adapting the game to fit the way individual people want to play. Some like it how it is, some like planes first, some like unmanned and so on.

Yup. "There`s a mod for that" no longer applies. At last. I never really saw the validity of that as a response when people requested new stock features.

Yeah, I think people really forget that what we're looking for isn't just a quick fix but something more long term across the board for all players under all conditions.

[tater]

It's tough because science is the "point" of career, with tech as the reward system. It really needs to be balanced in a far more complex way (complex to balance, play should be straightforward). Also, since everything is connected in career, it sort of requires a total redo. Time also being a thing, frankly, not as complex as KCT, but have things take some amount of time.

There are whole threads on what should happen. Suffice it to say that the goal of the tech tree should be to require the career player to make "strategic" choices in terms of what line of technology they pursue, instead of what it is, road bumps to getting stuff done. That's how I see it, anyway.

To use RL analogs, when you've invested in the R-7 and related hardware (Soyuz), you craft a lunar mission using those tools, even to the point if using them unmanned as probes (Zond). The issue with this concept is that there are not enough parts for it, really, we'd need more variability. In a modded world, I'd break the different fuel types into branches, for example---"Hmm, maybe I should not have put all my effort into hydrolox rockets, boil-off is killing my Duna mission."

Complexity can add a lot to gameplay, but t needs to be the right complexity. 

Think about Apollo as another RL example. KSP lacks the complexity of gameplay required to make the Mun an interesting target. This is because of the mini nature of the KSP solar system. It adds a lot to have the Mun large enough that a trivially tiny craft cannot do a direct ascent mission. All of a sudden at ~6.4X rescale, staged landers become a thing. You need to think about design, which is kind of the point, right? So Apollo... hypergolics, vs hydrolox, vs kerlox. They used all 3. The hypergolics for reliability. Squad has said that reliability will not be a thing, which is a mistake, IMHO. A tech tree can fix this, because under a new tech paradigm, perhaps the parts come earlier as "eXperimental" hardware that can fail, which become 100% reliable after they are unlocked. If the R&D is done right, that balance of X parts vs reliable parts becomes a thing. Then, certain tech can be more reliable anyway.

I'm rambling, lol.

[Dr. Jet]

16 hours ago, James M said:

Sorry but some of us (Meaning me :/ ) Play the game on console. Not an option.

CONSOLE is not an option first of all. 98% of good games are designed to be played on PC/Mac, 70% of those are moddable and meant to be modded.

You don't even need a powerful gaming PC to play heavily modded KSP. As for myself, I'm stuck with 7 years old Core 2 Quad 8 Gb RAM machine (only graphic card is a bit newer - 2 year old Geforce GTX 750).

I believe you can buy such a pile of junk much cheaper than modern gaming console... and it will still perform MUCH BETTER than console.

Edited August 6, 2016 by Dr. Jet

[tater]

While I might agree that computer versions are better than consoles, this is a suggestion thread for the stock game, not for mods, and the 98% and 70% figures obviously are made up, lol.

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, Dr. Jet said:

CONSOLE is not an option first of all. 98% of good games are designed to be played on PC/Mac, 70% of those are moddable and meant to be modded.

You don't even need a powerful gaming PC to play heavily modded KSP. As for myself, I'm stuck with 7 years old Core 2 Quad 8 Gb RAM machine (only graphic card is a bit newer - 2 year old Geforce GTX 750).

I believe you can buy such a pile of junk much cheaper than modern gaming console... and it will still perform MUCH BETTER than console.

Oh wow hey thanks for the info and a pro tip! I'm not being ironic or anything right now! Not at all!

The "buy it for PC and mod it" argument only proves that this game is not as good as it should be.

[GoSlash27]

I think that reorganizing the tech tree along these lines would not only satisfy the "simulator" crowd, but actually *improve* gameplay. Starting with simple sounders and progressing from there means that there are many more milestones to achieve in career, which ultimately means more fun.

Just my opinion...

-Slashy

[Talos]

Actually, I don't have an issue with the stock tree at all. I felt it was made to slowly introduce the player to the game's concepts and mechanics. I still find it odd that aviation comes after rocketry in the tree (from an avionics perspective of course).

[Alshain]

7 hours ago, GoSlash27 said:

I think that reorganizing the tech tree along these lines would not only satisfy the "simulator" crowd, but actually *improve* gameplay. Starting with simple sounders and progressing from there means that there are many more milestones to achieve in career, which ultimately means more fun.

Just my opinion...

-Slashy

I don't find sounding rockets very fun, just tedious and boring.  All that would do is extend the existing career-start tedium.  It's long enough as it is.

Edited August 7, 2016 by Alshain

[Hodari]

18 hours ago, John FX said:

Yup. "There`s a mod for that" no longer applies. At last. I never really saw the validity of that as a response when people requested new stock features.

It might not be valid as a response when the mod in question is something that nearly EVERYONE agrees is something which should be part of the stock game.  Things like having some way to see dV and TWR stats while you're building a rocket(and without having to manually recalculate it every time you change something).  It becomes a far more valid response when you're talking about something like the tech tree.  Even if everyone DID agree that the current tech tree is bad(which they probably don't), there's a huge range of opinions on how it SHOULD be. 

And let's face it, the tech tree is not designed the way it is for most of the people commenting here.  It's designed that way for brand new players so that they can be introduced to the parts more gradually while still being able to at least get SOMETHING into space relatively quickly.  As for more experienced players who want a more realistic experience, well, "There's a mod for that." works perfectly fine for PC players.  Now that there are console versions as well, maybe having options for at least a few different career paths built in would be good though.

[tater]

Career is too short as it is, IMO. From "what's a rocket?" to NTRs to Duna in 200 six hour days.

For a noob, any rockets would be fun, it's only a grind for repeat play, IMO. I'd add a couple things. One, the grind is not the result of the choice of parts, it's the result of bad game design. Two, the early game is the only part of repeat play that is even slightly challenging (and it's not challenging in repeat stock play).

 I disagree with the notion that the current tree is somehow ideally designed to introduce new players to concepts. Any halfway realistic tech progression would by definition do this, since the second or third rocket any human ever launched wasn't Vostok 1. 

The goal of an improved tech paradigm is NOT "realism," per se, it's better gameplay.

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, Hodari said:

And let's face it, the tech tree is not designed the way it is for most of the people commenting here.  It's designed that way for brand new players so that they can be introduced to the parts more gradually while still being able to at least get SOMETHING into space relatively quickly.  As for more experienced players who want a more realistic experience, well, "There's a mod for that." works perfectly fine for PC players.  Now that there are console versions as well, maybe having options for at least a few different career paths built in would be good though.

So the "Career Tutorial Mode" argument?

Career shouldn't do that. It's a sandbox game. We need more freedom in the career. I don't want to go through the so called "tutorial" everytime I start a career save.

This is a sandbox game. The replaybility should be a key thing. The career doesn't allow for that.

[Dr. Jet]

14 hours ago, Veeltch said:

Oh wow hey thanks for the info and a pro tip! I'm not being ironic or anything right now! Not at all!

The "buy it for PC and mod it" argument only proves that this game is not as good as it should be.

No game is perfect for everyone. That's why ability to modify it is important. Thus you can tune a game to suit your own needs. 

If your software (game) does not allow modding - blame greedy copyright-mad producer. 

If your hardware does not allow modding - throw it away - it's a baby toy - not a functional computer. 

KSP is all about modding. Want some realism? Mod it. Want futuristic tech? Mod it. Want propeller planes, boats, submarines, weapons, etc... ? Mod it.  

It's a brilliant solution, if you ask me. Squad team can focus their efforts on game engine and community provides 95% of content for it for free! 

P.S. Why not 100%? Well, there should be at least SOMETHING to be shown to mod-haters and console-users. 

Edited August 7, 2016 by Dr. Jet

[Wjolcz]

22 minutes ago, Dr. Jet said:

It's a brilliant solution, if you ask me. Squad team can focus their efforts on game engine and community provides 95% of content for it for free! 

That's the exact problem though. It seems the fact that this game can be easily modded is the main excuse for it being crappy (not all of it, of course, but it shouldn't count as released yet).

[James M]

15 hours ago, Dr. Jet said:

CONSOLE is not an option first of all. 98% of good games are designed to be played on PC/Mac, 70% of those are moddable and meant to be modded.

You don't even need a powerful gaming PC to play heavily modded KSP. As for myself, I'm stuck with 7 years old Core 2 Quad 8 Gb RAM machine (only graphic card is a bit newer - 2 year old Geforce GTX 750).

I believe you can buy such a pile of junk much cheaper than modern gaming console... and it will still perform MUCH BETTER than console.

No offense but no. I don't have the option to go buy myself a better performing PC and then repurchase the game again only so I can mod it from it's original version. Next time you suggest something, at least try to have more consideration for those who don't live under the same financial situations as you.

[James M]

9 hours ago, Talos said:

Actually, I don't have an issue with the stock tree at all. I felt it was made to slowly introduce the player to the game's concepts and mechanics. I still find it odd that aviation comes after rocketry in the tree (from an avionics perspective of course).

Definitely the same way I feel. People should first learn how flying works before you know, blasting out of the atmosphere and onto other planets/moons. While it is certainly fun to fly into orbit with tier two rocket parts, its just not realistic (Please don't misunderstand and think my whole point is realism. I'm just expressing myself here). Especially when most of KSP's population struggles to make efficient airplanes capable of traveling even halfway across Kerbin.  

[KSK]

1 hour ago, Dr. Jet said:

No game is perfect for everyone. That's why ability to modify it is important. Thus you can tune a game to suit your own needs. 

If your software (game) does not allow modding - blame greedy copyright-mad producer. 

If your hardware does not allow modding - throw it away - it's a baby toy - not a functional computer. 

KSP is all about modding. Want some realism? Mod it. Want futuristic tech? Mod it. Want propeller planes, boats, submarines, weapons, etc... ? Mod it.  

It's a brilliant solution, if you ask me. Squad team can focus their efforts on game engine and community provides 95% of content for it for free! 

P.S. Why not 100%? Well, there should be at least SOMETHING to be shown to mod-haters and console-users. 

I don't know where to start with this because I think our points of view are pretty much poles apart. For openers, we'll ignore the 'PC master race' garbage and the snark at the end.

No game is perfect for everyone. True, but if I'm plunking down my money for a game, I expect a game. I don't expect to get an engine and then to be told to build the actual game myself. By analogy, I wouldn't buy a book, expect to get halfway through it and then be told to write the rest myself or cobble something together from this collection of chapters written by random people on the internet. Likewise, if I bought an album, I wouldn't expect to be handed a drum track to play, a 'how to play guitar' book to go with it and be told to go away and finish the rest of the music myself. 

Unless of course I'm told upfront that there is no game apart from what I make of it. If KSP had been released as Sandbox only, i.e. the game engine and a selection of parts to get you started, that would be absolutely fine. I'd expect to have to mod the heck out of it. But it's not. It's released as a fully fledged game, with Sandbox, Science and Career modes, depending on how much gameplay you want.

And if my software does not allow modding, that is, or should be, entirely up to the developers. Perhaps they have a vision for how they want their game to work and be played, and they don't want half a ton of random junk bolted onto it by the 'community'. You might disagree with that attitude but it's their choice. If you don't like it - go make your own game. After all, if you're happy building a game out of mods, surely it's only a small step to writing the whole thing yourself?

Oh - and those copyright mad producers? They're the ones paying the upfront costs to get your precious game engine released. You don't like it? Pony up the development costs yourself then.

 

 

Edited August 7, 2016 by KSK

[John FX]

3 hours ago, Hodari said:

It might not be valid as a response when the mod in question is something that nearly EVERYONE agrees is something which should be part of the stock game.  Things like having some way to see dV and TWR stats while you're building a rocket(and without having to manually recalculate it every time you change something).  It becomes a far more valid response when you're talking about something like the tech tree.  Even if everyone DID agree that the current tech tree is bad(which they probably don't), there's a huge range of opinions on how it SHOULD be. 

And let's face it, the tech tree is not designed the way it is for most of the people commenting here.  It's designed that way for brand new players so that they can be introduced to the parts more gradually while still being able to at least get SOMETHING into space relatively quickly.  As for more experienced players who want a more realistic experience, well, "There's a mod for that." works perfectly fine for PC players.  Now that there are console versions as well, maybe having options for at least a few different career paths built in would be good though.

Career should be a game not just a parts tutorial.

[GoSlash27]

 

14 hours ago, Talos said:

Actually, I don't have an issue with the stock tree at all. I felt it was made to slowly introduce the player to the game's concepts and mechanics. I still find it odd that aviation comes after rocketry in the tree (from an avionics perspective of course).

 It was not made to "slowly introduce players to the game's concepts and mechanics". It's there to act as a foil. The intention is to limit what a player can achieve without stalling them, give them a reason to collect science, and gradually expand their abilities so that they always have new missions and destinations. This is what makes it a "game", and the fact that it is a game is what makes career enjoyable.

 The current tech tree is very bad at this job, and the fact that you can put a kerbal into orbit within minutes of starting career is an indication of this.

 The proposed tree layout in this thread may not be ideal for game play (or it may be... who knows), but it is *most definitely* better than the current tree.

Best,
-Slashy

Edited August 7, 2016 by GoSlash27

[tater]

Well said, @GoSlash27. As I think I said above (I deleted a couple drafts here and there), one problem is a lack of choices regarding similar technologies. Right now, there is an obvious size/capability progression of parts, and for good gameplay, we really need more tech to do the same job, but with pros and cons. Sadly, that is likely going to stay in mod territory.

Take part failures as an example. Squad doesn't like them, but in RL, reliability was a reason for many choices. Other RL considerations that we have in mods factored in as well, like boil off of cryofuels. So Apollo had 3 different propellants. Kerlox for the booster for thrust, then hydrolox for I_sp, then hypergolics for reliability. So realism shows us a few things that add not just complexity, but interesting gameplay. If you used hydrolox for your rocket, you'd need to get your mission done without any messing around, since you'd lose 1% of the hydrogen or more per day.

I'm not sure what could be done short of that in stock... what about engine restarts, and throttling? Different engines might be available in a tree that follow a path towards deeper throttling. Add some monoprop engines (since we have that, it could be an analog for hypergolics) and allow deeper throttling of those, having the others only to 75% or something like that. Perhaps early engines can only start once, then you can unlock the ability to restart multiple times. The idea is to make sure that if you looked at 10 people's career games after 10 launches, you might actually see different looking unlock strategies.

The goal is gameplay complexity, which I'd argue is always a good thing (that's different that complexity of play/controls, it's intellectual complexity).

 

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, GoSlash27 said:

The proposed tree layout in this thread may not be ideal for game play (or it may be... who knows), but it is *most definitely* better than the current tree.

Well, I would preferably like to have a War Thunder-like research tree, but since the KSP tree doesn't allow for multiple starting points I figured that the mod I linked in the OP was the closest analogue I could find.

[James M]

I think there needs to be a competing engine to the nuclear engine for a start to this whole collaboration. What I definitely noticed when first starting out (And watching Scott of course) was that in order to go to other major planets you pretty much have to have the nuclear engine. Without it you're stuck in Kerbin's system and once you work your way there, boom; all of a sudden you're a Solar System Explorer Extraordinaire. If not this, at least something a notch lower but capable of taking you to places like Duna without having to haul a ridiculous amount of fuel due to a massive lack of Delta V. Furthermore, this would give newer players with less engineering knowledge a chance to go further, and experienced players multiple options to choose between when preparing for their next mission. Maybe also as an alternative, they could implement the nuclear engine a little later down the road than it already is?