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What features in a DLC would you happily pay for?


Rocket Farmer

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I think DLC that simply extends the existing game as it's played by most players is weak sauce. Mods and refinements of the core game fulfil that role already. I do think many of the things currently provided by mods should be added to the core game, such as more parts, joints, visual enhancements etc because that way they will be fully supported and updated along with the rest of the game. That's not enough to justify paying for it though. Most of the ideas suggested so far are just tweaks to existing gameplay. That's not enough to justify a further price tag.

IMHO paid DLC should be reserved for things that fundamentally change the game experience and enable new ways to play. DLC should provide entirely new, extensive game play modes along with parts and game mechanics to go with it. E.g.

  • A whole scad of new/alternate planetary systems, maybe customisable or randomised, which provide new kinds of challenges and parts or gameplay modes to accompany them.
  • Maybe Interstellar travel along with the above, with resource harvesting to manufacture parts and ability to construct VAB like assembly sites in a new system or take one there.
  • Whole-game riskins such as a thorough going steampunk redesign of everything, far beyond just re-skinnng of the standard parts. These should include entirely new parts sets from scratch, plus new themed planetary systems. Steampunk is obvious, with Victorian space-romance takes on the planetary system. Another might be an all robot alternate reality game where you are an AI and design and build your own robo kerbals with their own parts and tech tree as well as a new themed rocket parts set.

Its got to be dramatc. The downisde risk of this sort of thing though is that major gameplay changing DLCs will each only appeal to subsets of the player base. It's quite likely they will stick closely to the core game to stay appealing to a broad audience, but that sort of conservatism will constrain the possibilities quite a lot.

tye upcoming expansion is at the conservative end. It does offer new gameplay and mechanics. So it does pass that test for me, but only just. Even so I wish them well, it's a worthy project. For further expansions I'd like to see more ambition and therefore value.

Simon Hibbs

 

Edited by simonh
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No DLC's, full stop. I believe they repulse potential players, just implement these additions in the game as a normal part of the game. Or just give the modding community steroids, mods in KSP are already easy to install, but there's still a few eccentricities for new players to grasp.

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What would I want in a DLC? 

1. A better scale for the solar system. Kerrin could be appropriate for Kerbals, and be smaller, but large enough to hold a real atmosphere, and commensurately lower in gravity. Everything else scaled to realistic values, the sun a real sun size, gas giants suitably large, etc.

2. AI kerbals. Meaning kerbals that are actually useful agents, and can be taken by the player to do things on their own (out of focus).

3, A career mode that isn't awful.

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3 hours ago, Raptor kerman said:

No DLC's, full stop. I believe they repulse potential players, just implement these additions in the game as a normal part of the game. Or just give the modding community steroids, mods in KSP are already easy to install, but there's still a few eccentricities for new players to grasp.

Then how do you suggest paying the devs to add those features? Devs need money and when you're not selling a ton of new copies of the game, DLC is a logical step.

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- I'd pay a few bucks for a DLC that would change the look and body type of Kerbals just for fun. Added bonus is it's moddable so others can rescale or replace Kerbals

- Support for multiple solar systems. There's so much in the news about exoplanets it would be interesting to simulate near future explorations of them. 

- Expanded Kerbol system with more planets and points of interests added to all the planets with their own science: volcanos, methane lakes, canyons, dried up river deltas, etc

Edited by Tyko
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Many things suggested are already provided by mods, which makes a paid DLC dubious.

However, there is value in establishing a standard when there are multiple competing mods (as with life support mods, or mods that provide some sort of electric fan/prop propulsion)

I'd like a career overhaul - perhaps with yearly budgets rather than contracts, with budgets that decrease over time and doing things to increase rep increases the budget.. or something like that... just... something other than the contracts system

I know its provided by mods - but more customization of the starting system. One could have like 3 solar systems to choose from when starting a new game, in each solar system one gets to choose the starting planet (or at least from a selection of bodies... like Kerbin, Duna, Laythe for the current solar system) scale selection (like 1/9th scale, 1/3rd scale, full scale)

I do think a mission builder and mission selector could be nice... as long as a mission can have a bit more to it than the current scenarios, where its just basically a normal save file. Maybe some challenge missions like complete scenario X using as little fuel as possible or the shortest time possible.

maybe an in game way of creating the sort of challenges that we see on the forums, and evaluating&sharing those challenge results. It may not be multiplayer, but competing for score could be fun for the more competition oriented.

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A Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and a Pluto analog. 

Another solar system

2.5m nuke to get to said solar system

More in depth science then just clicking "run experiment"

Parts dedicated to surface bases

Moving parts

Telescopes

Clouds 

Life support 

Edited by munlander1
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On 6/19/2017 at 7:03 AM, tater said:

2. AI kerbals. Meaning kerbals that are actually useful agents, and can be taken by the player to do things on their own (out of focus).

3, A career mode that isn't awful.

These...

12 hours ago, munlander1 said:

A Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and a Pluto analog. 

Another solar system

2.5m nuke to get to said solar system

More in depth science then just clicking "run experiment"

Parts dedicated to surface bases

Moving parts

Telescopes

Clouds 

Life support 

...and these. But at that point we're probably not talking about DLC anymore. I can't see Take Two pouring that much time and money into something they're going to sell for $10-20 a seat. Those are the kind of features we're going to see in KSP 2.0. (I hope.)

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Briefly: I don't mind paying for DLC (I purchased early 2014, so I'm paying) if they're what I want to add to my game.  But a DLC needs to be an add-on, not required for continued 'full experience'.  Since it's not Multi-player, this can certainly be the case here.  I'm looking at you, Warcraft.

So, onto what I WOULD pay for:

Typically I do stock, and only stock.  Between my tiny YouTube channel I like to show off on occasionally and generally not wanting to bother beating my way through a new parts list, I just don't (except for some of the Life Support ones).  New parts would be nice to have, but that's not something I would pay for in a DLC unless:

It added new game functionality to the core software.  This is key to me.  The game, with a lot of mods, has a huge footprint.  Optimized into the core code would reduce this footprint for a lot of things.  There are modded things I'd love to have included in game.  Let's start with the four I consider mandatory to my enjoyment of the game:

KER, KAC, DPAI, Ambient Light.  There is little fun playing in the absolute dark, I don't care if it's realistic.  It wastes time and records poorly, unless you're showing off the light show you attached to the outside of a craft.  Would I pay for these?  No.  If they were bundled INTO one that I would like?  Yes, it would prompt me to be more likely to buy it, or throw a few extra dollars onto the top of the price tag.

But there are things I *would* like to see added to the stock game:

- A complete contract overhaul for career.  It's alright as it stands but it could really use some tuning.  Yes, there's mods for that.  I want SQUAD to do it.  Why?  I lost an entire career mode when I tried out a mod that apparently has been abandoned.  It was a really cool idea... and simply won't work anymore.  Squad is a company that will fix bugs.  Modders are... well, people with a love of what they do, and they need to make money and take care of the kids with that free time, too.

- Full graphical overhauls like the Astronomer's pack so it runs in the core game code and not as an add on.  At least, I hope that would lessen the footprint of using it as it stands as a mod.

- The YouTuber's DLC pack: Camera Tools that come with instructions.  Ambient Light Tools that are a bit more ease of use/more options (like not washing out daytime shots because it's integrated and knows the time).  Chatterer with some integration to launch/EVA/etc, since it would then know the game state.  Other useful toys.  This would certainly be one of those DLC's that you'd buy "If you wanted it", not because you'd need to so you could play with the big boys.

- Removing the 'on rails to death' option for certain objects during a launch, so I can actually recover my first stage at 12k with the parachutes so I don't have to drive... without a mod.

- Better tools for understanding Aerodynamics, and improving modder's abilities to interface with the existing tools for CoL and CoM integration.  Also, some airflow diagrams and other neat stuff like that... so you can understand when you need to stick a hubcap on the back of your Terriers and when you don't.

- Life Support/QOL components.  I can see the name of the DLC now: "Green Reavers"

... There's a number of things I would pay for DLC for.  There's a bunch I wouldn't.  I don't care about interstellar, I spend the majority of my time dinking around in Kerbin's SOI, unless I head out to sandbox just for giggles.  I pretty much enjoy the Kerbin SS as it stands, and have almost no interest in the challenge of RSS.  I'm glad people love it, and that it's there, but these are the kind of things I'd rather see in mods then the developers spend their time on.

I guess, in the end, what I would pay for are things that improve my experience with the game and my enjoyment of it further.  It just needs to be opt-in, so I can cherry pick.

Edited by WanderingKid
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Multiplayer. I'm not paying for anything else

On 6/17/2017 at 0:57 AM, Rocket Farmer said:

Personally I have a laundry list of things I would really love in the game and would happily pay for in a DLC (I bought May 14, 2013 so I'm on the hook which is fine.

Also I don't use mods.  I just haven't found them balanced enough for my tastes.

1. Specialty parts including

A. An electric propeller.  Something that would allow plane exploration of Duna and Eve.  Both of these planets have atmospheres but you can hardly scratch the surface of them with rockets and wheels.  Also make it work in water.  Different sizes would be fine too.

B. A hose reel with 50 feet of hose.  For delivery of fuel or electricity.  Make it so only an engineer can operate it.  So badly needed.

C. Folding wings.  A crane with a swivel.  More options for space station parts or landed buildings.  Space base infrastructure.  

2. Another gas giant.  Something with rings, or a storm etc.  With planets including:

a. A oxygen atmosphere but with mountains that extend out of the atmosphere.  Maybe a lopsided planet to cause this to occur.

b. A Gilly or slightly larger planet just outside the gas giants atmosphere.  Imagine sitting on a moon with a planet filling the entire sky.

c. A rock garden cluster of small moonlets (at least 6-8 ) all clustered together with little space in between.  They could even be gravityless as long as you designed a harpoon or anchor for holding a ship down.

D. An elevator planet.  A planet with an atmosphere that has a really elliptical orbit meaning you could enter its orbit close to the gas giant and then ride it up to the outer edge of the gas giant to hop off and get into orbit of another planet or vice versa with little delta V use either way.

E. a planet orbiting backwards or with a orbit out of the plane of Kerbol (like 75 degrees out).

F. A water world that would require floating bases and ships to land on it (that or channeling our inner Elon Musk and pre-dropping floating platforms).

3.  Upgradeable kerbals

a. Upgradeable EVA suits.  More thrust, carry more fuel etc.  Or specialized suits for science, exploration, or survival each with their own pros and cons.  

B. Have More actions than just flags.  Maybe go golfing, sit down, eat some snacks, wave, etc)

Also, about 75% of those things mods do... with stock quality. Live long kopernicus. Live long kerbal konstrukts

Edited by 322997am
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On 6/18/2017 at 7:58 AM, Tex_NL said:

People who are enthusiastic about paid DLC's are forgetting one VERY important thing: Paid DLC's will kill the ability to mod!

Almost anything that can possibly be added by a DLC can be modded. The only way for Squad/T2 to monetize a DLC is to disable the ability to mod a similar feature. The ease of modding is one of KSP's core strengths. Quite possible THE core strength. After a few play-throughs the game quickly looses a large part of its appeal without mods. Removing or restricting mods will effectively kill the game.

So if you love the game you will oppose paid DLC's wherever and whenever you can.
Almost everything Squad/T2 might ask you to pay for a modder can do for free.

Putting the taketwo boogy man rant aside this point is worthy of debate, I mean there are some mods, that if picked up by Squad and re-released cleaned up I'd pay for. KIS being a great example. I would pay for Squad blessed, less buggy and better integrated good ideas. Yes they could kill mods to sell DLC, But KSP != GTA, KSP is Built on mods, its a lego system. Kill mods and you'll kill the game, no more revenue period. I think Squad with Take Two will continue, Making innovative DLC, like making history and overall more polished bits than what you can get in mods. I think that is the way to make money with DLC and co-exist with mods.

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