Rich planetary content mods?

[wossname]

Been playing KSP for a couple of years now and I am struggling to find a reason to actually go to any of the other planets.

I'm not one who has used a lot of mods apart from KER in the past so I'm hoping that there are some good ones out there that add some actual incentives to go places.

Are there any storyline mods or mods that give you a reason to explore?

[Ketaz]

Be nice to have a mod where you can find more materials, different ones to do different things with. 

[Sharpy]

7 minutes ago, Ketaz said:

Be nice to have a mod where you can find more materials, different ones to do different things with. 

Karbonite + Karborundum, plus some mod that adds other stars.

Karborundum is a nearly miraculous fuel which is found only on Eve and Eeloo.

[Streetwind]

26 minutes ago, wossname said:

I'm not one who has used a lot of mods apart from KER in the past so I'm hoping that there are some good ones out there that add some actual incentives to go places.

Don't believe that exists. I mean, I've seen a mod that adds a planet with an atmosphere so low that it only really exists in said planet's vast canyon network, to make a playground for spaceplanes. So ostensibly, "having fun with spaceplanes" would be a reason to go there. But there's no planet mod that, like, implements storytelling or quests.

This may be in part because these are two completely different things, and making good, unique planets in the first place is very work-intensive. There are people who have worked on their planet packs for two years and aren't done yet.

Also, I'm not sure if there's even a framework for storytelling that could be used. There's the contract system, but is that really enough for what you want? Successive "visit this planet" contracts? Stock already generates those, so probably not.

The whole "give us reasons to go places" discussion is about as old as planets in KSP, and while I've seen it asked for repeatedly, I've seen very few practical suggestions on how to pull it off. It may just be something that's easier said than done.

[monstah]

13 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

Also, I'm not sure if there's even a framework for storytelling that could be used. There's the contract system, but is that really enough for what you want? Successive "visit this planet" contracts? Stock already generates those, so probably not.

Well, the contract system can spawn message boxes. It can set milestones, which can be used for storytelling or for generating further contracts that give a progression. Apparently, even visiting Easter eggs can unlock nodes (or so I've read somewhere but I'm not sure on that).

I don't think these are being used to their full potential yet, but I think we have a framework for storytelling, or at least a bare bones one. What we need now is a story to tell.

[wossname]

@Streetwind Point taken.  Actually I should make it clear that I have no objection to the actual (stock) planets themselves, they are beautiful and varied in their design.  But they are totally devoid of actual features!

 

 

[Sharpy]

A story mode is definitely possible. Dammit, the Tutorials actually implement this! It's just that nobody's done it "full scale".

I'd make it myself if I had enough skill and motivation. Alas, currently part-only pluginless mods.

Edited November 18, 2016 by Sharpy

[wossname]

So the question is...

What would be a strong, imaginative and stimulating set of incentives for KSP players to derive the most enjoyment from?

The incentives we currently have:

• Freedom to get to any location we want to go to (varying difficulty applies) by any means at our disposal (moar boosters).
• Realism (ish, within game universe rules, that's fine).
• Freedom from that same Realism (no real consequences!  Waaaaay moar boosters).
• Being able to understand very complex physics and USE it with confidence to solve a HARD problem - this is awesome!
• I can interact with previous missions (e.g. multiple launch missions or rescue stranded kerbals and other stuff).

The incentives we don't yet have:

• I just spent $9999999999 getting to a planet with NOTHING on it worth a damn.
• The science incentives are constant regardless of the efforts you undertook to retrieve them.  I just built a 400 Kerbal mega-colonial superstation and flew it to Eeloo and landed it perfectly without losing any lives and conquered all biomes and made a permanent ground base there with mining, nuclear power, a hotel, a 12 screen cinema complex and a Starbucks.  But I only earned enough science to buy another plane wheel that I don't need that has no steering anyway.  Then when I got back home the contracts menu had a brand new contract to "plant a flag on Eeloo" for $10000 but no science.  Really, didn't you get my postcard?

Content that DOES exist already:

• The Fan Fiction forum on this very site.  There is a lot of spectacular work on there by some very talented people with a good grasp of KSP lore and while some of it may not be canonical content, it is always in the spirit of the game.

So what am I getting at? -- Integrated Fan Fiction!

I'd pay money for a decent mod that allows fan fiction to be incorporated in an event-driven manner into KSP.  Text based content would be good enough.  It's not rocket science that hard surely.

Take a bit of fan fiction that is well liked and popular, massage it into some format (XML?) that can be easily interpreted by a simple event-driven KSP mod.  Then do that for ALL the fan fiction and then make a mod that can deal with that.  And don't write any bugs into it.

"Simply just" do that

 

 

p.s. I just wrote all those millions of words because I love KSP utterly.  There are no other games I'd ever think about so much :).

Edited November 19, 2016 by wossname

[PSK]

Have you heard of the K-Files contract pack? I haven't progressed through the whole thing, but it does add story told through contracts.

[Ultimate Steve]

5 hours ago, Streetwind said:

implements storytelling or quests.

A long, long time ago, back in the days of Kerbin City and the mod that powered it (I can't think of the name right now, but it allowed you to place static objects into KSP), waaaaaaay back in 2013, there was a Mod called KerbolQuest. It never got very far off the ground, but had it been finished, it would have implemented a huge storyline. Somebody should make a storyline mod. (I might, but I'm not really a modder)

[Ketaz]

Is there any create a mission mod? That would be similar to 'telling' stories or whatever if you could edit every aspect of a mission or create your own which is even better.

[Sharpy]

4 minutes ago, Ketaz said:

Is there any create a mission mod? That would be similar to 'telling' stories or whatever if you could edit every aspect of a mission or create your own which is even better.

a) contract, or a set of contracts

b) tutorial.