Exploration Accolades

[The_Rocketeer]

I've been thinking about ways that exploring planets could be made more interesting. KSP, after being a 'massive fireworks' game, is after all mostly about exploring the Kerbal system. This idea I thought I would float:
 

• the biomes/experiment system stays, but a modified version of the same system targets specific 'features of interest' (read very small, localised biomes like KSC's buildings) on each world
  • some examples of such locations:
    • highest peaks/deepest trenches,
    • river mouths/sources,  
    • lakes or pools,
    • impact craters,
    • the north/south poles,
    • lat. 0 long. 0
    • anywhere where you can reliably see something remarkable or unique (I'm thinking of Joolrise, but there must be better examples).
    • etc. Whatever you can think of - features of the environment
  • easter eggs could also be included, but that's probably controversial
• now you have a few dozen locations scattered on every planet and moon to visit
  • these are the basis of our accolades. They can be unlocked by
    • visiting any feature of interest
    • running each experiment at features of interest
    • running all possible experiments at a feature of interest
    • running all possible experiments on all features of interest of a particular group on a particular planet/moon
      • (e.g. Kerbin's 5 tallest peaks, Mun's 10 largest craters etc)
    • running all possible experiments in all features of interest on a particular world
    • running all possible experiments on all worlds in a planetary SOI
    • and (the big cheese) running all possible experiments at all features of interest EVERYWHERE
  • another possibility (for the really keen) could be a cataloging accolate, wherein you catalog every single peak/trench/crater/island on a given world. For some features on some worlds this would be an epic undertaking, but would be truly sciencey.
• we also modify or add to the R&D centre's experiment-tracking screen (and possibly move it somewhere more interesting) a 'trophy room'
  • The trophy room has a list of all the accolades you have collected
  • Collecting sets of accolades rewards you with a Special Trophy (like a lump of Munrock, or a canister of Eve's ocean or something) that you can view.
    • The game should also date accolades and trophies by the KSP date when you achieved them. Competetive players can then use this as a stick to beat us lazier types with by getting to them all faster than anyone else.

 

Obviously there's some balancing and science rewards questions to answer - my feeling is that this shouldn't have any real effect on the available science from the current biomes system, since the accolades/trophies (and game time) should be their own reward. It's just an idea to encourage more elaborate or repeat missions to various worlds. By the time you've visited every such feature you should feel that you've actually got to really know each world and really seen something of it without just mindlessly wandering around.

Edited December 17, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[Rocket In My Pocket]

I like the idea.

Currently the planets might as well be giant single color polygon balls, there just isn't much incentive to explore them.

This would also give permanent bases more of a use, as you could send rover expeditions to nearby sites of interest.

[pandaman]

Yes, a good, nicely thought out concept.  

I know we can sort of do it now if we want, but just having these 'key locations' officially identified and named would be a start.  But having 'achievements' as you suggest is a neat idea.

[The_Rocketeer]

@pandaman part of the point is it doesn't actually add anything to or change the game at all, except it gives signposts to places that are worth visiting for some reason. The whole concept is completely take-it-or-leave-it, just like Science and Career - if you don't care about accolades, forget about them and do your own thing.

Even the accolades themselves are already sort of in the game, because the R&D centre tracks and logs every experiment in every biome you do. At its heart, what I'm suggesting is more biomes (but not extra science points) and an extra layer to the experiment log to help keep track of where you've already been and where you still have to go. It just sidesteps the rinse-and-repeat-for-its-own-sake problem of repeat visits to planets currently.

[Wjolcz]

I don't agree. Any modification to the current system will result in an avalanche of "tweaks" the next few micro updates after the main feature gets added. It's happened many times before.

What has to happen is an update giving the players a free hand of what they want to do and in what order, not more eye candy. The current career is a "do [contracts] or die" scenario. Not only that but you also have the tech tree which is all over the place. These two things limit the gameplay in a major way, simply because you have to first accumulate enough resources (funds and tech) to have a choice of what kind of exploration you want to perform next. But by that time you are already done with the tree and since many people consider the game "beaten" by then so why shouldn't you?

In a game where you gather reputation only the freedom of deciding of what to do next is much more apparent. And it is like that from the start. Contracts and science points as the only things that propell the progression really need to go.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Veeltch

[The_Rocketeer]

@Veeltch  That's an interesting reply, thought I'm not sure with what exactly you're disagreeing. To reply to what you've said so far...

• I'd rather have patches, tweaks and microupdates than be left without improvements and new features or with bugs. Then again, I'm not sure how many bugs can arise from a few updated biome maps and a new off-sim UI screen. All I'm suggesting is an expansion and re-presentation of things that KSP already does with little to nothing genuinely new.
• I agree that Career is limiting, but I think that's a) why we have Sandbox and b) the point of Career. One does not simply begin a space program by flying to the most distant reaches of the solar system - Career is supposed to border on realism. How well it does that is another question entirely, and I think not really relevant here.
• There isn't any way to 'beat' KSP - it's not that sort of game - but there sure are a number of ways to become uninspired about what to do or where to go once you've gone interplanetary and (even partly) filled out the Tech Tree. A broad list of somewhat-interesting potential mission sites to hit (rather than blanket biome regions) would sure help me come up with missions that were more interesting - reaching the top of a jagged mountain or the bottom of a deep ocean are totally different missions to simply landing on a plain, running a few experiments, and going home. Such a list could easily bridge the division between Sandbox, Science and Career because it would be equally applicable to all three. In the end, sure, you could still exhaust the list, but how would that be worse than what we have now, and how much more would you have got from the game along the way?
• This really isn't a suggestion about 'progress' but about encouragement, inspiration and a little bit of signposting about how to make your missions more interesting, more diverse, and if you want to, more difficult, longer-term or complicated. Perhaps you read something else to it?
• Lastly, I'm not suggesting that this would solve all the problems of KSP, and I'm certainly not suggesting it would fix the killjoy elements of Career, but it would go some way to helping me (and I hope others) get a little more out of the KSP experience.

[Wjolcz]

12 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@Veeltch  That's an interesting reply, thought I'm not sure with what exactly you're disagreeing. To reply to what you've said so far...

• I'd rather have patches, tweaks and microupdates than be left without improvements and new features or with bugs. Then again, I'm not sure how many bugs can arise from a few updated biome maps and a new off-sim UI screen. All I'm suggesting is an expansion and re-presentation of things that KSP already does with little to nothing genuinely new.

I'm not talking about patches vs. the lack of patches. I'm talking about science tweaks (not bug fixes) that get delivered even though the system itself hasn't changed at all. The conclusion is simple: science as it is is not balanced and it will never be, yet the parts get shuffled around the tech tree every time a new update arrives.

12 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

 

• I agree that Career is limiting, but I think that's a) why we have Sandbox and b) the point of Career. One does not simply begin a space program by flying to the most distant reaches of the solar system - Career is supposed to border on realism. How well it does that is another question entirely, and I think not really relevant here.

It is relevant. We're talking about exploration part of the game. And career is meant to have that element. The problem is it doesn't. I'm not talking about going interplanetary the first day of the career mode, because that's simply impossible. The game should allow for going interplanetary whenever there's a window for it. The problem is you can easily unlock the whole tech tree way before that happens. And that has a major influence on the exploration part of the game. Since you have all the tech by visiting the Mun and Minmus then there's no reason to explore, because the only motivation for exploring are science points, thus tech. 

12 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

 

• There isn't any way to 'beat' KSP - it's not that sort of game - but there sure are a number of ways to become uninspired about what to do or where to go once you've gone interplanetary and (even partly) filled out the Tech Tree. A broad list of somewhat-interesting potential mission sites to hit (rather than blanket biome regions) would sure help me come up with missions that were more interesting - reaching the top of a jagged mountain or the bottom of a deep ocean are totally different missions to simply landing on a plain, running a few experiments, and going home. Such a list could easily bridge the division between Sandbox, Science and Career because it would be equally applicable to all three. In the end, sure, you could still exhaust the list, but how would that be worse than what we have now, and how much more would you have got from the game along the way?

I don't disagree with having more eye candy. I disagree with them being the main motivation behind exploring. The main reason should be sane mission objectives. Once you've seen "the views" and taken some pics you don't really have the motivation of going back there again. It's just like the science points. Get in, grab the points/see the view, never go back there again.

12 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

 

• This really isn't a suggestion about 'progress' but about encouragement, inspiration and a little bit of signposting about how to make your missions more interesting, more diverse, and if you want to, more difficult, longer-term or complicated. Perhaps you read something else to it.

It seems I've actually understood it quite well. What you've said here should be done by the missions. But it isn't, because most of the objectives ask the player to launch monoprop and gathered ore into ridiculous orbits and other completely useless places.

12 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

 

• Lastly, I'm not suggesting that this would solve all the problems of KSP, and I'm certainly not suggesting it would fix the killjoy elements of Career, but it would go some way to helping me (and I hope others) get a little more out of the KSP experience.

Well, probably the first time you visit these places. Would you visit them again once you've seen them before? I really doubt it.

Not saying a planet facelift wouldn't be welcome. But making these places fun to visit should be prioritized. Going all "Yep, cool. I've made it up this really pretty hill. Pics taken. Time to go back." isn't much different from garbbing science points and waiting for the window to go back to Kerbin.

Edited December 18, 2016 by Veeltch

[The_Rocketeer]

1 hour ago, Veeltch said:

I'm not talking about patches vs. the lack of patches. I'm talking about science tweaks (not bug fixes) that get delivered even though the system itself hasn't changed at all. The conclusion is simple: science as it is is not balanced and it will never be, yet the parts get shuffled around the tech tree every time a new update arrives.

I don't see how my suggestion affects this either way. Perhaps you can elaborate.
 

1 hour ago, Veeltch said:

It is relevant. We're talking about exploration part of the game. And career is meant to have that element. The problem is it doesn't. I'm not talking about going interplanetary the first day of the career mode, because that's simply impossible. The game should allow for going interplanetary whenever there's a window for it. The problem is you can easily unlock the whole tech tree way before that happens. And that has a major influence on the exploration part of the game. Since you have all the tech by visiting the Mun and Minmus then there's no reason to explore, because the only motivation for exploring are science points, thus tech. 

I would argue that any persistant KSP game is supposed to have exploration at its core - places are there to go to, so you go. The issue I see is that there isn't enough encouragement to go, and certainly to go more than once. After you've been a few places, you realise that no matter how monumental your achievements, you're performing to an empty theatre. My suggestion would mean that the game acknowledged and recorded (at least some of) your mission successes for you. This I would personally find very gratifying.

And again, I'm not trying to fix Career with this suggestion.

1 hour ago, Veeltch said:

It seems I've actually understood it quite well. What you've said here should be done by the missions. But it isn't, because most of the objectives ask the player to launch monoprop and gathered ore into ridiculous orbits and other completely useless places.

I agree completely, and it would be lovely if Contracts did this. But since they don't, and since there's a great deal of uncertainty and disagreement about what changes would actually constitute improvement, I suggest this as a low-intensity (by which I mean taking relatively little dev time to implement) parallel development that would improve the game regardless of whether or how Contracts change, and regardless of whether you ever bother with Career at all.
 

1 hour ago, Veeltch said:

Well, probably the first time you visit these places. Would you visit them again once you've seen them before? I really doubt it.

Not saying a planet facelift wouldn't be welcome. But making these places fun to visit should be prioritized. Going all "Yep, cool. I've made it up this really pretty hill. Pics taken. Time to go back." isn't much different from garbbing science points and waiting for the window to go back to Kerbin.

I think it's unlikely and unrealistic to expect that there'll ever be a reason to revisit most locations in KSP. On the other hand, there could be plenty of reasons to send a number of missions to each world without them all being exactly the same as each other. I'm also in no way suggesting a planet facelift, I'm not sure where you got that from. I mean, again, I support that idea, but it has nothing to do with this suggestion.

Anyhow. I guess if I still haven't convinced you then you probably just don't see it. Horses for courses etc. Thanks for sharing your view.

[Wjolcz]

Yeah, alright. My bipolarity/stupidity kicked in again and I got triggered for no reason over how bad the career is. I just wish there were other ways of encouraging exploration, not only seeing new and unusual things.