Ideal career mode

[DStaal]

 

6 minutes ago, paul23 said:

Then what *goal* is there?

 

There is sandbox mode if you don't care about goals. I wish to play a kerbal space program. When you start a space program you also have to think about "hmm I made a heavy lifting rocket, now I have to lift satellite A which give me minimal profit. But I can also squeeze in a few cubesats to improve the margins....".

Honestly, I think that's part of the problem with trying to define a career mode for KSP: You have to define the goals.  Basically every time I start a save I define a different set of goals for myself.  The career contracts are just stepping stones along the way to that.  (Admittedly, I typically play Science mode, because I find the contracts annoying mostly - but I have played full career a few times.)

So any career/progression mode in KSP2 needs to balance pushing the player with letting the player define their own goals.  If you define the goals to rigidly in the game, then there becomes an optimal route through the game to reach them which hurts the replayability/exploration aspects of the game.  I'm not entirely sure you want to define them at all - you may want to just have the player define them and have contracts to push you further out and offer a few more constraints.

There's this talk about making sure there's reasons to colonize every planet - do you actually *want* to force every player to colonize every planet every playthrough?  Or if someone wants to play a game where they step from Kerbin to Minmus to Jool to Rask, should that be fine?  And sure you can timewarp to fill your tanks even at low concentrations - but then you'll miss that transfer window, which means you may need to figure out how to hit your next stop...  (And they may be playing with a LS mod - or LS could be in the game - or they may then run out of something else...)

To me, KSP is about offering choices, not forcing them.  You shouldn't intend to penalize players who don't do something - you should intend to reward players to do do something.

[paul23]

Any "goal" I define I have "solved" the moment I think about it. I wish the game to throw things at me where I'm not sure if I can even solve it. And if I don't solve it I need to lose and step back, building up again or maybe even having to start over.

[mcwaffles2003]

3 minutes ago, paul23 said:

Then what *goal* is there?

 

There is sandbox mode if you don't care about goals. I wish to play a kerbal space program. When you start a space program you also have to think about "hmm I made a heavy lifting rocket, now I have to lift satellite A which give me minimal profit. But I can also squeeze in a few cubesats to improve the margins....".

 

5 hours ago, paul23 said:

Contracts should be much more fine tuned in rewards so that you have to be clever about contracts to make a profit. Also the rewards need to be much more balanced so that you don't always do the same type that is "profitable anyways.". - Or there needs to be "some contracts you are forced to do, lest you get a negative reputation if you don't do them immediately".

 I never said eliminate contracts and I agree they should have a real place in the game. KSP is a space program and a business and looking at real businesses in today its obvious that this is how space programs are currently funded. But I would hope that in making mining colonies you could begin to accrue passive income (possibly to offset a passive cost from maintaining established colonies), allowing you to make your space program what you want. Perhaps there could be some constant contracts requiring you to transport resources from other bodies back to kerbin which would temporarily unlock the building of certain resource dependant parts at KSC while also providing monetary benefit for completing said contract. Perhaps after that you could open a "shipping lane" which automatically simulates the costs/rewards of the mission youve just completed over the time it took without the need to run every single freighter back and fourth. As technologies evolve these lanes could be made more efficient by manually re-running the route with a new ship and that routes cost/reward/time would replace your prior shipping lanes. So I do agree the contract system needs to be more well thought out so you arent just launching satellites around minmus and retrieving asteroids over and over and over because those are the big money contracts. But I hope by mid-late game you could somewhat ween off of the necessity of these contracts as being the sole motivator and resource provider

[mcwaffles2003]

26 minutes ago, DStaal said:

There's this talk about making sure there's reasons to colonize every planet - do you actually *want* to force every player to colonize every planet every playthrough?  Or if someone wants to play a game where they step from Kerbin to Minmus to Jool to Rask, should that be fine?  And sure you can timewarp to fill your tanks even at low concentrations - but then you'll miss that transfer window, which means you may need to figure out how to hit your next stop...  (And they may be playing with a LS mod - or LS could be in the game - or they may then run out of something else...)

Couldnt this argument also be the same for science missions? The game forces you to complete science missions to advance the tech tree so you can complete those steps from Kerbin to Minmus to Jool to Rask. Im just suggesting science shouldnt be the only tech wall and there should be a more intuitive barrier that also pushes you past Duna seeing as doing a science tour from the Mun to Minmus to Duna and back essentially fills out the current tech tree leaving very little incentive left to advance. making mining prospects at a gas giant would push players out to Jool and other projects at terrestrial outskirt bodies would push you out to Eeloo

Edit: Also, nowhere in this thread was "colonizing every planet" implied. That sounds just as tedious and rediculous as many of the current contracts. Several strategic colonies should be heavily incentiveized though

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by mcwaffles2003

[tseitsei89]

51 minutes ago, DStaal said:

There's this talk about making sure there's reasons to colonize every planet - do you actually *want* to force every player to colonize every planet every playthrough?

Of course not every planet, but there needs to be some resource that is not availible on Kerbin to encourage people to colonize at least ONE planet.

 

51 minutes ago, DStaal said:

Or if someone wants to play a game where they step from Kerbin to Minmus to Jool to Rask, should that be fine?

Sure! I didn't suggest having only one resource on a planet or only one planet having some resource. But cruising through the game (unlocking all the tech and all the parts etc.) by just grinding satellite contracts while never leaving the Kerbin SOI shouldn't be possible. You can do that if you want but then you won't "finish" the game. That is how progress mode works in games. You have to do harder/more advanced stuff as you progress. If you don't want to do that you can just stay at low tech and do missions you already know how to do, but then you shouldn't be rewarded with progress (new tech etc.). If you don't even want to try and progress you can always play sandbox.

 

51 minutes ago, DStaal said:

And sure you can timewarp to fill your tanks even at low concentrations - but then you'll miss that transfer window, which means you may need to figure out how to hit your next stop...

That is not a real problem since there will always be a new launch window if you just timewarp more.

 

51 minutes ago, DStaal said:

(And they may be playing with a LS mod - or LS could be in the game - or they may then run out of something else...)

Yes I really hope LS is in the game. It is such an important part about real life spaceflight. And it would also make production rates matter since without it time is essentially free and you can just timewarp how far you want ifyou have even a tiny smidgeon of production going on...

 

51 minutes ago, DStaal said:

To me, KSP is about offering choices, not forcing them.  You shouldn't intend to penalize players who don't do something - you should intend to reward players to do do something.

No progression mode in any game can work if it gives player a complete freedom. That is just sandbox. Also penalizing and rewarding are essentially the same thing... I mean you could think that

a) I don't want to colonize a planet with metallic hydrogen manufacturing capabilities, so I am penalized by not having access to metallic hydrogen. OR

b) I used this time and effort to build this colony so now I am rewarded with some metallic hydrogen.

You see it's just a matter of perspective.

 

EDIT: probably a good resource unavailable on kerbin would be something that is needed for interstellar travel. That way you could still fly around current kerbol system all you want but you need to actually do something new to access the more advanced stuff and new solar systems. Or if you just want to explore them right away you can play sandbox...

Edited October 17, 2019 by tseitsei89

[Waxing_Kibbous]

Give me contracts that build useful infrastructure, milestones, and contribute to progression- well thought out, balanced contracts as opposed to random ones, with some side work along the way. Being able to relate to the community is good, seeing how different people do the same contract is fun.

[mattinoz]

Career / Progression will be a poor game mode until Kerbals and Time matter.

Maybe it needs to be non-linear, it certainly need tools to better manage time other than lets just give you buckets of it.

The type of contracts is hardly relevant if each one is just the same but a higher dV budget. Unless they get actually harder no one is pushed, no one is challenged, there is no sense of success other than what you set for yourself.

[Xd the great]

5 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Heres some examples for what I see as practical mining locations to find specific resources:

Uranium ore for pulsed fission propulsion engines - Mined at many places, including kerbin, but not found at the KSC (implies building 1st colony on kerbin near a uranium resource)

Metallic Hydrogen for metallic hydrogen engines- Mined at gas giants 

Lithium crystals and He-3 for inertial confinement fusion engines- Mined at terrestrial planets in the outskirts of solar systems where lighter elements are more abundant

This moves with a general progression where the further out into the solar system you make it the more advanced of engine technologies you are able harness. This kind of pattern would incentivize pushing yourself further and further to the systems outer reaches where you can stage from here to finally utilize interstellar travel from a location already far out on Kerbols gravity well

If it is possible to buy said resource with a LOT of money, then it is fine for me.

 

[mcwaffles2003]

42 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

If it is possible to buy said resource with a LOT of money, then it is fine for me.

 

what if you had to extract the resources and haul them back?

2 hours ago, mattinoz said:

Career / Progression will be a poor game mode until Kerbals and Time matter.

Maybe it needs to be non-linear, it certainly need tools to better manage time other than lets just give you buckets of it.

The type of contracts is hardly relevant if each one is just the same but a higher dV budget. Unless they get actually harder no one is pushed, no one is challenged, there is no sense of success other than what you set for yourself.

life support seems to be the best way to tackle this so long as kerbals have a reason to be positioned in space. Time could also be made to matter with some form of monthly bill cycle, that way if you timeskip 10 years while doing nothing you go broke

[Francois424]

7 hours ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

Give me contracts that build useful infrastructure, milestones, and contribute to progression- well thought out, balanced contracts as opposed to random ones, with some side work along the way. Being able to relate to the community is good, seeing how different people do the same contract is fun.

As someone on the KSP forums once suggested...  Give me a way to pick a goal, and adjust missions/contracts towards that goal.
That does not force one to accept them from the get go, but if in KSP1 I would pick : Perform a Jool-5 (Landing on every moon with same lander/mothership/crew combo) then missions would help me setup my communication dish system, try to give me missions to unlock docking ports and build a mother ship in orbit for example.
If I pick "building a base on Duna" I would get different missions.  Something like that.  Hard to program but they are nothingmore than little scenarios build into the main career game.

Personally, my best career games are as follow:
 - Start a career game
 - Start with 10'000'000 funds.
 - Unlock all KSC facilities to maximum.
 - Play the game as usual, unlocking science and doing contracts that push me towards my goals. 
In this current save I am playing it's to build a rudimentary space station in Orbit of Uranus (playing Kerbal sized RSS).

I hated having to unlock all KSC buildings and I loved contracts/unlocking the tech tree.
Best of everything =)

(PS: only missing rescue missions.  I still only have 6 kerbals after like 10 years Oo;)

[tater]

The entire "contract" paradigm is awful as it exists in KSP1.

Nothing about "career" mode is a career.

Whose career is it?

Jeb's?

Bill's?

Werner's?

Things that are required for career mode not to be awful (this list is incomplete):

1. Time has to be a thing. There are day night cycles on Kerbin. Kerbin moves around the sun. This shows that there is an arrow of time in the game. None the less, everything except flying missions takes zero time. Development takes zero time, building takes zero time. "Contracts" have meaningless expiration dates.

2. Life support. Doesn't have to be incredibly complex, but it is needed. Related to 1, in the simplest form it's a time limit for mission success, paid for with mass. Need a longer mission? Launch more mass. It;s not really more complex than that at the basic level. A mk1 capsule cannot hold life support for a 10 year mission, indeed, probably not 10 days.

3. Variant career types. "Contracts" implies business. That means in many cases launching other people's stuff, or possibly other people. Exploration---owning a probe that lands on Duna, etc, seems like a NASA-like thing. That should also be an option. The funding mechanisms would be different. The former starts with some seed money, then needs to launch satellites, etc. If a KosmosX company sends a probe to Duna because they want to colonize Duna, that's great, but they won't get paid to do it, they will need to do other things to afford to do it. If KASA wants to do it, then they should have a budget (X funds per year or month?), then they live within in, and success might result in more funds next year (too many failures, and budget cuts might be a thing).

4. A chance to lose. Without resorting to a "grind" mode with few rewards, the choices people make need to have a reasonable chance of failure, otherwise what's the point?

5. Whatever they might be called (and I prefer separating "missions" or "programs" from "contracts" do do things for others), the "Contracts" need to not be awful. Most all right now are awful, random side quests. I don;t want contracts to move ore from a place where no one is to a place where also, no one is. Move ore from the Mun to Kerbin? Why? I want meaningful contracts, and in the case of satellites, and possibly stations, etc, if I am the SpaceX and they are the Iridium, then the contract should put the satellite into "subassemblies" and I have to build a craft to launch it. Once on orbit... it's theirs, not mine. Ditto stations I make for others. Maybe I get resupply contracts, but I can't do science with it, etc.

6. A better science and tech paradigm. Different kinds of science. Space science, rocket science/engineering, medical science (how Kerbals deal with space travel). A rock sample shouldn't buy you a new antenna type. Want to upgrade parachutes in the tech tree? Do certain kids of missions/science in different parts of the atmosphere, and perhaps at different speeds.

 

 

[Leopard]

personally I find the "test" contracts tedious, but would be more than happy with them if parts had say reliability - that improves as things are 'tested', perhaps with a player directed choice over what to optimise for from:

• reliability
• cost
• efficiency
• power (where appropriate)

and the ability to use this to customise parts, plus providing an actual reason for test flights, yes perhaps have some financial reward for such but the primary purpose being to gain better parts through testing - the contracts to test prototypes, beyond that its up to you, every flight becomes a "test" flight for all components which can be gradually improved.

 

Tourist missions are Ok, if a bit repetitive, would prefer them to appear later though, say when a number of flights have been successful at doing "x"

satellite launch missions are fine, but could do with a bit more to them, e.g. a requirement to put several satellites in the same orbit with specific phasing between them, or specific requirements to launch a pre-designed satellite onto a specific mission - e.g. sending a probe built by someone else to Duna orbit or Eeloo flyby etc - up to the players space agency to fly the mission

what would be nice is more of a feeling that missions are linked, scaling of a reputation for success works well for this but also series of linked missions, like a requirement for say a Mun exploration series of missions as we have via "worlds first", except with a bit more guidance - e.g. landing _here_, photo recon etc.

what would be nice is for some of the system parameters to be a bit variable, e.g. say Duna gravity varies a bit, atmospheric density likewise so there is a reason for exploration missions (not just look it up on line, or do what you did in a previous game), perhaps some moons are only firmly identified once you get a probe there, ditto resources etc, you discover them by 'doing', perhaps funded missions, perhaps self funded

[mcwaffles2003]

7 hours ago, Leopard said:

personally I find the "test" contracts tedious, but would be more than happy with them if parts had say reliability - that improves as things are 'tested', perhaps with a player directed choice over what to optimise for from:

• reliability
• cost
• efficiency
• power (where appropriate)

and the ability to use this to customise parts, plus providing an actual reason for test flights, yes perhaps have some financial reward for such but the primary purpose being to gain better parts through testing - the contracts to test prototypes, beyond that its up to you, every flight becomes a "test" flight for all components which can be gradually improved.

I really like this concept as I feel the way science has been carried out in KSP 1 is dumb, why would testing atmospheric conditions on Kerbin lead to new solar panels? Instead of locking parts in packs where they are unlocked in groups by spending points do a mission relating to that part you would like to unlock.

7 hours ago, Leopard said:

satellite launch missions are fine, but could do with a bit more to them, e.g. a requirement to put several satellites in the same orbit with specific phasing between them, or specific requirements to launch a pre-designed satellite onto a specific mission - e.g. sending a probe built by someone else to Duna orbit or Eeloo flyby etc - up to the players space agency to fly the mission

Really like this idea as well, $ rewards could be modified based on mass/number of satellite(s) and how far they need to go

7 hours ago, Leopard said:

what would be nice is more of a feeling that missions are linked, scaling of a reputation for success works well for this but also series of linked missions, like a requirement for say a Mun exploration series of missions as we have via "worlds first", except with a bit more guidance - e.g. landing _here_, photo recon etc.

I agree more steps should be added to "progression" type missions, especially at the start, as a training mechanism and as progress is made less steps acting as hand holders

7 hours ago, Leopard said:

what would be nice is for some of the system parameters to be a bit variable, e.g. say Duna gravity varies a bit, atmospheric density likewise so there is a reason for exploration missions (not just look it up on line, or do what you did in a previous game), perhaps some moons are only firmly identified once you get a probe there, ditto resources etc, you discover them by 'doing', perhaps funded missions, perhaps self funded

I dont think adding variance into the characteristics of the planet is good as I can see some seed just blowing themselves up 40+ hours into a career but the concept where planets and their attributes are hidden until discovered is something I'm 100% on board with. I've said in other threads there should be telescope missions, for instance, where a satellite with a telescope is launched  and must then be pointed at a target where over time it causes the observed object to have its orbit discovered/understood which would update in the tracking station. Perhaps this it unnecessary for Moho, Eve, Duna, and Jool (not its moons) as these would have been visible with the eye, but certainly for Eeloo and extra solar planets and systems.