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KSP, please steal some good ideas from Simple Rockets 2


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There are loads of great ideas in simple rockets 2 but the one I want to focus on today is : Parameterised Parts

It has already been done in simple rockets and works really really well.  It can not be done in exactly same way in KSP but some aspects of it certainly can and will make a big difference so :

Really useful and easy paramterisations that could maybe(pretty please) make their way into 1.8 :

1. Fuel Tanks having Configurable Oxidiser/Fuel ratio

It stops the hassle of having to search around to find the right part with the oxidiser/fuel or just fuel and the frustration of finding the correctly shaped part but realising there is no 100% fuel option.  No reason at all that has to be the situation.

We have a whole bunch of fuel tanks of different shapes and sizes and a lot of duplication there with tanks of exactly same shape and weight but holding only fuel.

Take leaf from book and parameterise these tanks to allow designer to configure any oxidiser/fuel ratio they wish.

That will eliminate the duplication of many tanks, and give designers many more options.  And open up the following gameplay :

1.1 Oxidiser being able to be used as a fuel on Eve and Jool and any future planet with hydrocarbons in their atmosphere

1.1 What about 100% oxidiser tanks ? Well on planets with methane or hydrogen atmospheres an oxidiser works exactly the same way as a hydrocarbon works here, oxidiser aught to be able to be used as "fuel" in these atmospheres and jet engines should work(given atmosphere density, pressure etc etc). 

These very simple changes are going to expand gameplay options a lot and its like a few lines of code to do this.

Go to your boss Mr Squad Dev, get his permission, get it coded up and tested, sent to the beta tester guys in an afternoon jobs a good one. 

2. Connector Parts which can be Configured

Why have to wade through part lists, often only to find to one's frustration that the required connector has not been implemented, or it has but is an odd size for the design but there is a perfect one just a different size. 

There are many weird and wonderful connector parts.  Connecting this size to that, some allowing connections to 2 or 3 or 4 sub sizes.  Some are tall, some are short, some contain fuel, others do not.

Have a standard set of connector part of varying heights(as they are now).  And have what is connected on the top end, what at the bottom end and how many connectors as parameters.  This means a lot of artwork and is not a task for an afternoon.  But it is going to simplify things so much.

What a great improvement.

Conclusion

There are many other great ideas to take on board, but configurability instead of having 20 different parts just having 1 and being able to choose the parameters is so great and competitors are doing it already.  And it is a proven to work really nice feature that people love I think there is little risk of putting it into KSP because of that reason.  It is proven already and would make KSP much better.

Gavin786

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I'd vote yes on 1 and 2, nay on 1.1. It would make Eve too easy, you'd just make any old jet for it. Things wouldn't be the same if Eve didn't provide its own special challenge.

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I've wanted procedural parts (which appear to be a superset of what you're asking for) for years. Particularly fuel tanks and structural components. Which should also be fuel tanks if the player wants them to be.

So you got my vote on those.

I'd say 1.1 is not only weirdly numbered but significantly different from the other 2 points that it should go in its own thread. But I'm intrigued by it.

Edited by 5thHorseman
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On 6/21/2019 at 2:15 AM, Gavin786 said:

oxidiser aught to be able to be used as "fuel"

This sentence makes me cringe. The word you're looking for is 'propellant'.

I agree with 1, but rather than an arbitrarily configurable LF/OX ratio, just a toggle between LF, OX, or LF/OX at ratio. Finer ratios would only be useful for spaceplanes, and it doesn't really jive with SQUAD's lego-esque approach to the editor. 

1.1 is impractical - you can't just use a 'jet engine' with any old hydrocarbon mix as working fluid. You would need specialized parts, probably one per atmosphere. Especially because conventional jets use the atmosphere as an source of oxidizer, whereas these would use it as a source of fuel.  

As for procedural parts, it ain't gonna happen. SQUAD already said they don't want to do that, and fairings were as far as they wanted to go. Not that I don't agree that they could make the game 'better' for those of us who would like more precision, but thats why there are mods.

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1 hour ago, natsirt721 said:

As for procedural parts, it ain't gonna happen. SQUAD already said they don't want to do that, and fairings were as far as they wanted to go. Not that I don't agree that they could make the game 'better' for those of us who would like more precision, but thats why there are mods.

Maybe at one point in time they said that.  Times change.  Now they have a competitor who is doing exactly that and succeeding very well.  Only a matter of time before they start taking coin from SQUAD's pocket.  That tends to change people's thinking quite a lot.

It is easier to use than KSP in many regards and the reason KSP's whole motive for the "Lego" approach is to make KSP more accessible to people.

They have already went much farther than lego with breaking ground.  Editors control points etc.  Folks who have never used animation software will scratch their heads at that to be sure.  It is in no way intuitive how controllers, action groups etc fit together.

Times must change.  And we dont need general purpose procedural parts.  That is not the way to go for KSP.  How KSP is done is fundamentally very nice and the general "Lego" like approach works well.  But there are some situations it needs to change.  And it is ridiculous having a huge amount of duplication and redundancy.  That actually makes things harder not easier.

Gavin786

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On 6/21/2019 at 11:01 PM, 5thHorseman said:

I've wanted procedural parts (which appear to be a superset of what you're asking for) for years. Particularly fuel tanks and structural components. Which should also be fuel tanks if the player wants them to be.

So you got my vote on those.

I'd say 1.1 is not only weirdly numbered but significantly different from the other 2 points that it should go in its own thread. But I'm intrigued by it.

Count me as one of those folks who does not want procedural parts.  I like the Lego-esque (as @natsirt721 phrased it) aspect of KSP.  Those limitations force me to be creative.  This is not to say it is not a really good thing in Simple Rockets, but that is what makes Simple Rockets what it is, and one of the things that differentiates it from KSP.  

 

I do agree about being able to change mixtures in fuel tanks, however.

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12 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

Count me as one of those folks who does not want procedural parts.  I like the Lego-esque (as @natsirt721 phrased it) aspect of KSP.  Those limitations force me to be creative.  This is not to say it is not a really good thing in Simple Rockets, but that is what makes Simple Rockets what it is, and one of the things that differentiates it from KSP.  

 

I do agree about being able to change mixtures in fuel tanks, however.

I have never advocated general purpose procedural parts.  Just in certain very specific areas.

I think we ALL agree that is a bad idea and not the way to go.There are just 2 areas I think it would be great which is in FUEL/OX ration which has been universally agreed by everyone to be a good idea, the other is conncetors which we have a whole bunch and many types are missing.

Edited by Gavin786
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I think this is not a bad idea at all (while we already have some Add'Ons that do that).

But I think this should be restricted to the SandBox only - or perhaps available on the Career and Science as a Cheat.

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Yeah, no thanks.

I like the Lego style parts myself. It encourages creativity through limitations. Anyone who's ever actually played with Legos, and built like, a walker mech out of a submarine kit knows what I'm talking about. You end up with something more interesting and unique than if you had custom made Legos. The journey to get there is also more fun.

Also, I seriously doubt they'll double back on such a key design feature this late in the game. Besides, there are mods for that, and you can just go play Simple Rockets 2 as well if that's what you want.

Edited by Rocket In My Pocket
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I don't really see the need for configurable ratios in the stock game.   Yeah, I use a mod that lets me switch between LfOx and just Lf, but in the thousands of hours I've put into this game, I've never needed to adjust the set ratios.   Fuel switching in stock?  Sure, but not adjusting the ratios. 

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11 hours ago, Gargamel said:

I don't really see the need for configurable ratios in the stock game.   Yeah, I use a mod that lets me switch between LfOx and just Lf, but in the thousands of hours I've put into this game, I've never needed to adjust the set ratios.   Fuel switching in stock?  Sure, but not adjusting the ratios. 

I once hacked some parts to be Ox only. It was intended to be used on Reusable Liquid Fuel Boosters for a cargo space place - the fuel was internal to the craft. Yeah, I know.  But it made sense at that time. :P 

I also use MFT regularly, but I also use the Community Resource Pack . With tons of new kinds of resources, the default ratios now and then are not enough. But… I'm using CRP, it's absolutely not a stock feature.

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Perhaps a good compromise would be to roll some parts into variants?

Thing that's bugging me a bit about KSP right now is that there are so many parts, especially fuel tanks -- and they really are all needed. I wouldn't mind at all if for example there was only one of each cylindrical tank diameter, with the different lengths as variants unlocked as you expand the tech tree. The same could be done for adapters -- there's just such a mess of them that I don't think it would be a problem if you could pick the diameter at each end. Decouplers and heat shields could also be bundled into variants. 

This would be more of a QoL thing than actually changing anything about the game of course. An alternative would be to add better filtering to the parts list -- we have the option to group parts by diameter now, but it'd be easier if we could set diameter as a filter on the existing part sets.

And yes I would like to have the option of setting Lf, Ox, or Lf/Ox on each of the tanks. This is particularly a concern with jet planes and NERV-based long-haulers.

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8 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

And yes I would like to have the option of setting Lf, Ox, or Lf/Ox on each of the tanks. This is particularly a concern with jet planes and NERV-based long-haulers.

Particularly the Mk-2 bicoupler and adaptors.  Those half-empty parts mean you sometimes need to add additional tanks, even when there is room for fuel.  It would also be nice to be able to put oxidizer in wing tanks for SSTOS for the same reason.

Edited by Klapaucius
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I agree with 1, but for Kevin it's a solid no for 1.1 and 2. 1.1 makes Eve way to easy - Eve has its own challenge that has everything to do with the atmosphere. I don't like 2 mainly because it eliminates KSP's lego-like feel. KSP forces you to be creative, and being able to instantly make something whatever size you want would hurt KSP's overall vibe. SimpleRockets2 is a very different game from KSP, one that makes perfect sense with this kind of a feature, since SimpleRockets2 is a variant of SimplePlanes (which uses procedural parts to great extent). These two games are very different from one another, which is why you can buy both and have unique experiences with each. 

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Parameterized jet engines. SR2 has in one fell swoop made a single part that can basically replace every single reasonably balanced stock AND MODDED! jet engine in KSP. While maintaining a degree of both realism and balance KSP has never had.

 

It wouldn't mean we couldn't fudge the numbers with unrealistic unreasonable performance like we do now. It wouldn't mean we couldn't have some defaults that are exactly Junos, Goliaths, Panthers, Wheesleys, Rapiers and Whiplashes. It wouldn't even have to be conspicuously placed in a way that would bury kids in engineering jargon. But it would create a nearly continuous spectrum of jet engines all in one part, encompassing virtually all the jet-like engines you see IRL. Including ones KSP does not yet have like pure ramjets or unducted turbofans that blur the line between turboprop and high bypass jet.

Edited by Pds314
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Except that IRL, there aren't as many jets around as you may think. If you cut out incremental improvements on a single design, and engines that had nearly equivalent performance but were made by different companies, you're left with a fairly manageable selection. Only in a few extreme cases an engine was actually tailored to a specific aircraft.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 6/23/2019 at 6:02 AM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Yeah, no thanks.

I like the Lego style parts myself. It encourages creativity through limitations. Anyone who's ever actually played with Legos, and built like, a walker mech out of a submarine kit knows what I'm talking about. You end up with something more interesting and unique than if you had custom made Legos. The journey to get there is also more fun.

Also, I seriously doubt they'll double back on such a key design feature this late in the game. Besides, there are mods for that, and you can just go play Simple Rockets 2 as well if that's what you want.

I did an entire playthrough using procedural tanks and it was fun. That said I've gone back to using normal stackable tanks for large tanks / rockets.  The main reason though is graphic quality. ReStock tanks (and even many Stock tanks) just have far better textures. I still use a lot of PP tanks for tiny probes - those are all bespoke designs and the gold foil PP texture looks good on small tanks.

Regarding the OP's list:

  • I don't see the value in having configurable LF/O ratios. All rocket engines use the same ratio and the tanks match. This is super easy. If I need to carry some extra of one type or the other, I can add a tank
    • +++ I DEFINITELY want to see switchable fuel types though. 
  • I don't know enough about jet engines to know if that would even work, but I don't really care anyway because I fly rockets.
  • Definitely NO procedural engines - having to work with a limited set of engine options is not only a good play challenge, but it's realistic. 
  • +++ To the idea of procedural structural parts. This totally makes sense to me and would give a lot more flexibility in designing ships / probes.
    • Love to see PP girders, cone shapes, panels, trusses, etc.
Edited by Tyko
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  • 2 years later...
On 6/21/2019 at 1:22 PM, Xurkitree said:

We shouldn't have procedural engine though - it would be a bit OP and cause a lot of hassle in the VAB as players try to optimise the engine for the given mission profile...

It's just like having an infinite amount of parts without the detriments of an infinite parts list. Less scrounging around for the right adapter, just let me make my own adapter!

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  • 5 weeks later...
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