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Procedural parts?


Dre4dW0rm

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Do we have any info on whether KSP2 design will be based on all parts being procedurally generated ? This is very serious limitation of the first KSP, and so far, every mod trying to make it work could only do that partially and at a cost.

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1 hour ago, Dre4dW0rm said:

Do we have any info on whether KSP2 design will be based on all parts being procedurally generated ? This is very serious limitation of the first KSP, and so far, every mod trying to make it work could only do that partially and at a cost.

No, we don't have any news about it, the last time I checked. I believe that procedural parts are nice, but I also like the "Lego" style building of KSP1.

58 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

It would be nice to see a few procedural parts like wings, heatsheilds, and farings

YES, procedural wings! Especially for the MK3 parts. Heatshields, in my opinion, will be done in the same way as KSP 1. Procedural Fairings will probably be the same as KSP1.

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On 8/29/2019 at 6:18 PM, Snark said:
  On 8/29/2019 at 2:49 PM, Spaceception said:
  • What will be the minimum/maximum "sizes" of parts? In stock right now, parts can go up to 3.75m, will rockets be able to get wider than this without added boosters? And by how much?
  • Will there be multiple types of the same engine? Say, multiple sizes of NERVs, multiple ion drives, etc, so you have more variety, or will you have incremental sizing for most/all parts instead that achieves the same thing? Like procedural parts, but with fixed sizes if that makes sense?

They're not really doing procedural parts.  My impression is that they're keeping pretty much all the existing stock parts at current sizes, and there will be a bunch of new parts added.  No word on the sizes of those new parts-- we didn't ask, but basically any really specific design question we asked was mostly "it's being worked on, no answer write now".

Edited by mcwaffles2003
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9 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

No, we don't have any news about it, the last time I checked. I believe that procedural parts are nice, but I also like the "Lego" style building of KSP1.

YES, procedural wings! Especially for the MK3 parts. Heatshields, in my opinion, will be done in the same way as KSP 1. Procedural Fairings will probably be the same as KSP1.

In LEGO tanks are as long as you have the pieces to build in 1block high modules...

this is why I’ve never understood LEGO style being used to say procedural shouldn’t be a thing. 

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9 hours ago, mattinoz said:

In LEGO tanks are as long as you have the pieces to build in 1block high modules...

this is why I’ve never understood LEGO style being used to say procedural shouldn’t be a thing. 

I think part of the challenge of KSP1 is that you have a limited number of fixed-shape parts and you must put them together to build your craft. With procedural parts, it’s significantly easier because you can change the shape of parts to fit the particular rocket you’re building.

Anyway, it’s already been confirmed that KSP1’s LEGO approach will be continued into the sequel. It’s even visible in the trailer - you see the parts being stacked up before the rocket launches.

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55 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

I think part of the challenge of KSP1 is that you have a limited number of fixed-shape parts and you must put them together to build your craft. With procedural parts, it’s significantly easier because you can change the shape of parts to fit the particular rocket you’re building.

Anyway, it’s already been confirmed that KSP1’s LEGO approach will be continued into the sequel. It’s even visible in the trailer - you see the parts being stacked up before the rocket launches.

 

10 hours ago, mattinoz said:

In LEGO tanks are as long as you have the pieces to build in 1block high modules...

this is why I’ve never understood LEGO style being used to say procedural shouldn’t be a thing. 

why not make procedural parts sandbox only?

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1 hour ago, RealKerbal3x said:

I think part of the challenge of KSP1 is that you have a limited number of fixed-shape parts and you must put them together to build your craft. With procedural parts, it’s significantly easier because you can change the shape of parts to fit the particular rocket you’re building.

Anyway, it’s already been confirmed that KSP1’s LEGO approach will be continued into the sequel. It’s even visible in the trailer - you see the parts being stacked up before the rocket launches.

Then the approach is Duplo like, big fixed parts floppy joints, not really LEGO like at all. Not a great sales pitch once you think about so best to say...

It’s the KSP approach for KSP game reasons alone.

There will be mods even if stock game stays Duplo like. 
 

 

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I can't see procedural tanks etc being a 'thing'.

Hopefully they will integrate the different lengths for each size/format into a single inventory entry, to make it much less cluttered, and make the different lengths selectable in the same way the colour variants are now.

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As a RSS/RO player, I love the procedural tanks. Aside from the obvious advantage of being able to size and shape them to your heart's desire - it reduces the parts count immensely. Why stack 6 tanks when you can shape a single one the same size?

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1 hour ago, Pronoes said:

As a RSS/RO player, I love the procedural tanks. Aside from the obvious advantage of being able to size and shape them to your heart's desire - it reduces the parts count immensely. Why stack 6 tanks when you can shape a single one the same size?

Procedural parts would hamper the career progress meta. This is why I think they should be in sandbox only. Also joining stacked tanks automatically to be a single body would also help greatly with part count as 30 tanks could count as 1. This could be abused though since these are rigid bodies and not flexing bodies so I think there should be a max length per joined part set

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14 hours ago, pandaman said:

I can't see procedural tanks etc being a 'thing'.

Hopefully they will integrate the different lengths for each size/format into a single inventory entry, to make it much less cluttered, and make the different lengths selectable in the same way the colour variants are now.

What you describe in your 2nd paragraph are procedural parts. :D And I want that too.

You don't need to drag an Oscar to a Jumbo 64 on your first mission in career mode to have procedural parts. Just being able to unclutter the parts list and more easily build ships (with exactly the same size restrictions we have today) would be a HUGE boon, both to KSP1 and 2.

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How about a hybrid system for career mode? Design a part (semi-)procedurally and commit it to production for some cost (analogous to tech tree initial purchases). Redesigning a part would also cost some money, etc. So it would mostly be the same lego build process, but one could pre-customize some of the pieces for money and science points.

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I'm a bit conflicted on this.

Career is how I play KSP the most. During such a career, the science tree is an excellent way to steadily progress towards bigger rockets and further destinations. Part of why it works so well for me is every so often you unlock a bigger tank/engine to take your rocket to the next level. There's almost always a tank/engine for any occasion and I seldom have to stack multiple tanks because there's often a perfect sized one for the job.

Except for RCS tanks... whereas fuel tanks have longer versions for any given diameter of which there are also several, the ideal one is bound to be there. But there's no such thing for RCS tanks. Those only get bigger and bigger and not longer.
The same goes for wings. I often have to use several bits to get the perfect profile for a given craft.
Oh and, for context, I play on a potato so there's that also.

So you see I have two stances on this and both have merit to me. I would welcome procedural versions of things in career that won't break the progressional gameplay.


Oh, I just had a last minute thought. Perhaps you could have procedural everything, but have it be restricted to certain sizes according to your tech level.

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Arguably the most obvious thing that both KSPs would benefit greatly from would be to just include some actual significant variations in sizes. Sometimes we really need a single large wing, not 46 wobbly pieces that barely differ in size. Sometimes we really need a long 1.25m tank that only holds liquid fuel, not 10 stumpy little ones stacked like a noodly house of cards. Sometimes we need a motorized wheel that is really large but isn't just a self destructing joke with suspension range shorter than a Kerbals neck hair. Sometimes it would be nice to visit Eeloo with an RTG powered mining ship that has a part count lower than 3 digits.

More directly to the point on the topic though: I'm expecting zero improvement in general parts variation over KSP1 when KSP2 hits the virtual shelves, however I am blatantly expecting that the post launch refinement of the game over time will at some point also include at least some missing pieces of the interplanetary puzzle. There seems to be some disagreement in this thread about including huge rigid parts because it would make the game easier... to that I say: The challenge in a simulation game should be in dealing with the relevant physics, NOT in dealing with how the game fails to accurately represent the relevant physics. I'm not demanding a completely lifelike simulation here, the word "Kerbal" is in the name of the game for a reason, I'm just saying the game itself shouldn't be what's getting in the players way; if you do the math on the fuel and thrust you should be going places instead of your rocket randomly going several other places all at once because the part count just got too high and the noodlestruts went full krakenightmare.

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19 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:
On 11/3/2019 at 10:17 AM, pandaman said:

I can't see procedural tanks etc being a 'thing'.

Hopefully they will integrate the different lengths for each size/format into a single inventory entry, to make it much less cluttered, and make the different lengths selectable in the same way the colour variants are now.

What you describe in your 2nd paragraph are procedural parts. :D And I want that too.

Ahhh.  My interpretation of 'procedural' was no steps between min and max (Drag the tank to the exact length you want), which feels a bit too much IMO.

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1 hour ago, pandaman said:

Ahhh.  My interpretation of 'procedural' was no steps between min and max (Drag the tank to the exact length you want), which feels a bit too much IMO.

That's a way to do it, and frankly I don't see the big deal allowing it myself (don't bother explaining it, I KNOW OF the big deal about it, I just don't understand it and never will) but it's not by any means the only way to do it. I'd be perfectly happy if I just didn't have to re-place all my radially attached parts every time I unlocked a new tank size, or decided I wanted the larger (or smaller) tank size on my current rocket when I had both tanks unlocked.

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Wings, heatshields (possibly integrated with wings in that they are built the same way), and fairings being proceedural are pretty much a must. Perhaps solar panels and radiators too. Also, adjustible landing gear. And that's it as far as what I want.

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12 hours ago, Rejected Spawn said:

Arguably the most obvious thing that both KSPs would benefit greatly from would be to just include some actual significant variations in sizes. Sometimes we really need a single large wing, not 46 wobbly pieces that barely differ in size. Sometimes we really need a long 1.25m tank that only holds liquid fuel, not 10 stumpy little ones stacked like a noodly house of cards. Sometimes we need a motorized wheel that is really large but isn't just a self destructing joke with suspension range shorter than a Kerbals neck hair. Sometimes it would be nice to visit Eeloo with an RTG powered mining ship that has a part count lower than 3 digits.

More directly to the point on the topic though: I'm expecting zero improvement in general parts variation over KSP1 when KSP2 hits the virtual shelves, however I am blatantly expecting that the post launch refinement of the game over time will at some point also include at least some missing pieces of the interplanetary puzzle. There seems to be some disagreement in this thread about including huge rigid parts because it would make the game easier... to that I say: The challenge in a simulation game should be in dealing with the relevant physics, NOT in dealing with how the game fails to accurately represent the relevant physics. I'm not demanding a completely lifelike simulation here, the word "Kerbal" is in the name of the game for a reason, I'm just saying the game itself shouldn't be what's getting in the players way; if you do the math on the fuel and thrust you should be going places instead of your rocket randomly going several other places all at once because the part count just got too high and the noodlestruts went full krakenightmare.

I feel like there's a worry with overpopulating the parts and there's a lack of want by the devs to make procedural parts. So how's a modular system sound? 

Instead of having 4 mk 1 fuel/ox tanks, 4 mk 2 fuel/ox tanks, etc etc why not have 1 mk1 tank and once clicked on you select a 100,200,400,or 800 variant... Then you select what you want in it fuel/ox, just liquid fuel, etc... Then you select a skin and it's primary/secondary colors

This would make the parts screen more navigatable in the fuel section, wouldn't add parts that devs don't want you to have yet in career mode (as procedural tanks would do) and finally, we would have better pure liquid fuel tanks

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3 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I feel like there's a worry with overpopulating the parts and there's a lack of want by the devs to make procedural parts. So how's a modular system sound? 

Instead of having 4 mk 1 fuel/ox tanks, 4 mk 2 fuel/ox tanks, etc etc why not have 1 mk1 tank and once clicked on you select a 100,200,400,or 800 variant... Then you select what you want in it fuel/ox, just liquid fuel, etc... Then you select a skin and it's primary/secondary colors

This would make the parts screen more navigatable in the fuel section, wouldn't add parts that devs don't want you to have yet in career mode (as procedural tanks would do) and finally, we would have better pure liquid fuel tanks

This, and it's close to what I suggested.
It would reduce the part count on craft as well as what is loaded in RAM on the computer. Both will make for a smoother KSP.

Your suggestion and the procedural way could both be temporarily limited in size allowance in career mode if desired.

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I played once with Procedural parts (mostly tanks) combined with tweakable everything and fuel switcher.

It allowed for beautiful craft with very few part.  A 50k ore miner was 2 parts for the ore, hard to beat.
Also changing colors so I kept up with my own designs (back=ore, White=LF, Orange=LFO, Gold=Xenon).

I think I could get by with like 20 parts total most of the time.  Less even. 
Tweaking engine, ASAS and tank sizes was pure awesomeness.

Whatever they go with I'm game either way, but hard to beat procedural to customize crafts.

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They should preserve all the parts internally or in their own category, and have more categories for KSP 2 parts and other mods. They should also allow you to convert KSP 1 saves and ships, so low performance ships can be run in KSP 2 for proper testing.

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On 11/4/2019 at 1:23 AM, mcwaffles2003 said:

Procedural parts would hamper the career progress meta. This is why I think they should be in sandbox only. Also joining stacked tanks automatically to be a single body would also help greatly with part count as 30 tanks could count as 1. This could be abused though since these are rigid bodies and not flexing bodies so I think there should be a max length per joined part set

they could make constraints - just like real life - on the tanks.. Based on research/whatever.

 

That's not any different than currently with parts, instead of a larger tank you unlock double the size limit. Similar things could be done to engines: nozzle shape would increase mass but also change (vacuum) thrust, since the effective exhaust velocity is based on actual exhaust velocity + density difference a larger nozzle transforms more density into speed: this increases exhaust velocity (= I_sp/9.81). Up till the point where the exhaust pressure is equal to the atmospheric pressure, after that it drops. So a nozzle would be optimized for a certain density region.

 

Or wings could be done by creating your own airfoil shape, after which something like javafoil is used to calculate the cl-alpha curves.

 

 

But I agree this is a different game, and not for ksp.

Edited by paul23
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On 11/5/2019 at 7:29 PM, paul23 said:

they could make constraints - just like real life - on the tanks.. Based on research/whatever.

 

That's not any different than currently with parts, instead of a larger tank you unlock double the size limit.

This part I think would fit well with KSP.  Specifically, procedural tank height.  Adding stuff like procedural engines changes the game away from "space Legos", but if the only thing procedural is tank height, then it gets rid of the annoying problem of having to leave small tank half empty (and lose significant delta-V, or have too much fuel and lose TWR) to keep the look you want on your rocket.  Procedural wings would be great for KSP1, since you could limit it to wings you could build anyhow, just with a lower part count, but maybe we won't care about part count in KSP2!

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