Space colonies

[Pthigrivi]

3 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

When I tested my craft on 1x kerbin, I could do a single stage to jool intercept with a >100 ton payload, 986 ton starting mass.

Damn, brotha. My largest 2-stage lifters with NFLV had payloads in the 70t range and I thought THEY were big. 
 

9 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

I've done your Jool example on a smaller scale within the Kerbin system using MKS. Moving resources around and from the surfaces of the Mun and Minmus was easy. Moving resources from orbital stations between Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus was kind of a pain, but doable. Where everything started to fall apart was when I setup a mining outpost on Duna. Trying to ferry resources from Duna to Kerbin to process them to usable stuff was nasty, but trying to setup a routes to ferry supplies to Duna so the life support doesn't run out was ridiculous. (The primary reason I made some freighters with huge transport capacities. Huge capacities, less transfers, reduced number of crafts, less overall costs.) I still had to do a few transfers a year, even when the transfer window wasn't optimal.

Agreed. I’ve only dabbled in MKS but routinely play with USI-LS. The key I think is  having most of what you need available by ISRU in that planet’s local system so you aren’t that reliant on resupply from kerbin. The wait times between launch windows and flight durations are just crazy long for that kind of thing. The Kerbin system is easier because presumably you could launch anything right there, but Duna and Dres and Moho seem like appropriate training grounds for living off the land. On Duna for instance you might be able to mine LFO and H2 and metals for rocket parts and colony expansion (Im just guessing at resource composition), but nuclear fuel for reactors and NERVAs would need to be harvested on Ike and airdropped. Dres might have most of what you need but scattered across the surface making it easier process and fold together in orbit, and maybe it also has more exotic fuel sources that Duna lacks so you could either make do without fancy engines on Duna or bring in rare resources from Dres or Kerbin on a more infrequent basis. Probably you could find everything you need around Jool, but its getting there and setting up multi-moon infrastructure that really enables you to go interstellar. I feel like these kinds of resource puzzles could be really fun if structured in such a way that you were always building along the way but never completely reliant on long-wait interplanetary transfers. 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Pthigrivi

[KerikBalm]

2 hours ago, Mikenike said:

I meant to say one megaton...

ah.... well, 3 orders of magnitude changes things quite a bit then... That's 10 times the size of a nimitz class aircraft carrier.

I don't think I need the ability to launch something that big... but the ability to build a ship/colong in orbit that is that big does seem like something that would be nice to have. 

I can easily see interstellar vessels exceeding this mass (their wet mass anyway)

[Mikenike]

7 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

ah.... well, 3 orders of magnitude changes things quite a bit then... That's 10 times the size of a nimitz class aircraft carrier.

 

Really?? I bet it changes quite a lot.

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

38 minutes ago, Mikenike said:

Really?? I bet it changes quite a lot.

it does. just ask Elon Musk. He'll tell you all about how orders of magnitude affects testing costs, flight costs, and maneuver windows, etc.

 

[Pthigrivi]

Continued wall-o-text thoughts on this:

This leads me to believe that maybe we DO want funds, because it might offer some player flexibility to either pay huge prices for exotic resources on Kerbin or mine them off-world with a bit of work. Maybe advanced engines and exotic fuel processors need rare-kerbin elements to be forged, which are very expensive on Kerbin but could be mined on Tylo, Moho, and Dres for 'free'. Maybe you can also find He3 on Gilly and the Mun and Bop but nowhere else. So if you're trying to build a big interstellar fusion engine you'd have a choice and some strategic trade-offs between hauling rare kerbin elements to Eve or Kerbin orbit and fueling up there, or sending He3 from the the Mun and RKE from Dres to orbit above Duna, or making it all happen in the Jool system. Maybe solar-powered Xenon vessels are really useful in the inner kerbol system so you're scooping it from Eve's atmosphere to move local resources around cheaply, or you've already invested in a big colony on Duna and so you'd like to base your broader ambitions there. Or if all that was too much for a player's speed they could just bite the bullet and pay crazy prices to launch the RKE into LKO and build their interstellar vessel there. The point being that there would be an array of potential strategies, and any interplanetary resource hauling operation would be pretty momentous, the kind of thing you're only doing a few times a save. 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Pthigrivi

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

 wall-o-text 

Where do you get the money from?

I can totally se the endgame of the money gameplay, selling mined resources to Kerbin and use the money to buy resources you need, this would keeps Kerbin relevant and give the player a way to convert resources.

What I have difficulty to immagine is the early game, between exploring, prospecting, farming science (or engaging whatever gameplay loop that replaces science points) and establishing all the infrastructure I see little space for grinding funds.

Also with all the real and working systems / gameplay loops that the game will have I would find superfluous and potentially confusing to add "abstract" contracts.

The only way I can see is that the game pays you whatever you do with a "budget" system or something similar. 

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

1 hour ago, Master39 said:

Where do you get the money from?

I can totally se the endgame of the money gameplay, selling mined resources to Kerbin and use the money to buy resources you need, this would keeps Kerbin relevant and give the player a way to convert resources.

What I have difficulty to immagine is the early game, between exploring, prospecting, farming science (or engaging whatever gameplay loop that replaces science points) and establishing all the infrastructure I see little space for grinding funds.

Also with all the real and working systems / gameplay loops that the game will have I would find superfluous and potentially confusing to add "abstract" contracts.

The only way I can see is that the game pays you whatever you do with a "budget" system or something similar. 

i really hope the KSP2 devs. reconsider and put microtransactions or career mode cause that can bite them in the butt real badly. a lot of people like the technical challenges and constraints of career mode.  

[shdwlrd]

5 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Damn, brotha. My largest 2-stage lifters with NFLV had payloads in the 70t range and I thought THEY were big. 
 

Agreed. I’ve only dabbled in MKS but routinely play with USI-LS. The key I think is  having most of what you need available by ISRU in that planet’s local system so you aren’t that reliant on resupply from kerbin. The wait times between launch windows and flight durations are just crazy long for that kind of thing. The Kerbin system is easier because presumably you could launch anything right there, but Duna and Dres and Moho seem like appropriate training grounds for living off the land. On Duna for instance you might be able to mine LFO and H2 and metals for rocket parts and colony expansion (Im just guessing at resource composition), but nuclear fuel for reactors and NERVAs would need to be harvested on Ike and airdropped. Dres might have most of what you need but scattered across the surface making it easier process and fold together in orbit, and maybe it also has more exotic fuel sources that Duna lacks so you could either make do without fancy engines on Duna or bring in rare resources from Dres or Kerbin on a more infrequent basis. Probably you could find everything you need around Jool, but its getting there and setting up multi-moon infrastructure that really enables you to go interstellar. I feel like these kinds of resource puzzles could be really fun if structured in such a way that you were always building along the way but never completely reliant on long-wait interplanetary transfers. 

MKS with life support wasn't easy, but it did a good job showing how hard it can be to colonize another planet. (I won't get into the difficulties with the changes that were made version to version.)

I agree with your assessment and possible expansion plans. But I think most players first major colony will be in the Kerbin SOI either or both the Mun and Minmus. It really doesn't make sense to start expanding into the solar system until you have the ability to produce crafts and colony parts off world. From there, I can see expanding to Duna or Dres and so on. If the devs do make the colony and resource game play like Factrio or Satisfactory, that could make an interesting combination and fuel continued game play. Even if you don't want to follow the devs game plan, you still need to adapt and expand to reach the interstellar portion of the game. Once you reach a new solar system, you will have to do it again if you want to go further.

I'm on the fence with funds though. In the beginning they maybe necessary, but after a certain point, they will become useless. But I can see players grinding out funds so they don't have to do the work to expand though. That is something the devs have said they don't want. So I don't know where to go on that. Maybe they will set a required interstellar tech to a point where you just can't buy it, you have to build it. Only the devs how they are going solve that one.

[Guest]

41 minutes ago, DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE said:

really hope the KSP2 devs. reconsider and put microtransactions or career mode cause that can bite them in the butt real badly. a lot of people like the technical challenges and constraints of career mode.

1) microtransactions are with real money, big no-no.

2) nobody officially said there will be no money or missions, but think about it:

Colonies will work with resources, resources will require mining bases/outposts/colonies, there will be multiple resources and location based features (at least for power production).

To maintain a colony and be able to launch missions from that colony you'll need a network of satellite bases and outposts and to setup transfers between them that means:

• Exploring the place
• Prospecting for resources
• Launching the first modules 
• "Feeding" the colony resources from Kerbin/another colony while it isn't fully autonomous
• Set up whatever operation that colony is supposed to to by fulfilling whatever requirement the colony itself has to work an grow.

This process needs to be repeated multiple times to set up the whole infrastructure.

That's are already a lot of missions and "technical challenges" without adding any procedural contract system and we don't know yet what you'll have to do to do science or unlock new technologies.

And on top of that you have to consider that money or not you'll have to mine, transport and refine resources to build rockets and ships, they already have a cost.

 

I think the problem is the opposite: how to introduce money without having to grind for it while also having to do a crapton of other missions to advance in the game and while keeping it useful even when you'll have built your first spaceport on Mun and Kerbin will become useless as a launch site.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Master39

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

1 minute ago, Master39 said:

1) microtransactions are with real money, big no-no.

2) nobody officially said there will be no money or missions, but think about it:

Colonies will work with resources, resources will require mining bases/outposts/colonies, there will be multiple resources and location based features (at least for power production).

To maintain a colony and be able to launch missions from that colony you'll need a network of satellite bases and outpost and to setup transfers between them that means:

• Exploring the place
• Prospecting for resources
• Launching the first modules 
• "Feeding" the colony resources from Kerbin/another colony while it isn't fully autonomous
• Set up whatever operation that colony is supposed to to by fulfilling whatever requirement the colony itself has to work an led grow.

This process needs to be repeated multiple times to set up the whole infrastructure.

These are already a ton of missions and "technical challenges" without adding any procedural contract system and we don't know yet what you'll have to do to do science or unlock new technologies.

And on top of that you have to consider that money or not you'll have to mine, transport and refine resources to build rockets and ships, they already have a cost.

 

I think the problem is the opposite: how to introduce money without having to grind for it while also having to do a crapton of other missions to advance in the game and while keeping it useful even when you'll have built your first spaceport on Mun and Kerbin will become useless as a launch site.

Why can't they just pretend to have dollar bills in game for the career mode?

[Pthigrivi]

@Master39 All good questions, and I'm sure Intercept has been thinking a lot about all that. Obviously I loved KSP1, and honestly most of the time I was playing career and loved that too. I think folks are forgiven for misunderstanding the contracts because of the way some of the UI is structured. They worked best when you treated them as optional side-missions to tack-on or dove-tail into to big headline missions you were doing anyway--player-driven probe-survey missions and flags and footprints crewed missions to different worlds. Because KSP2's scope is so big I feel like a lot of KSP1's nitty gritty could be dropped, but those 'main-quest' exploration missions could still have cash-rewards. There might be additional rewards for establishing stations and colonies, finding unique surface features, hitting population benchmarks, etc, but I really do think with everything new there is to handle it should be kept pretty lean. 

Or maybe like @shdwlrd says money is just destined to be obsolete and we could ditch it? Hard to say without knowing more if having an exchange currency really matters late in the game.

KSP1's science system was promising but never fully came into it I think. New surface features and field science in Breaking Ground were really fun actually, but without basics like straight-forward biome mapping and anomaly surveying you still felt a bit like you were searching around in the dark. It also didn't fix the pretty serious click n' grind problem. As far as Im concerned if you've put an experiment on your vessel and your vessel enters and area with new science the part should automatically log and store it. I don't need to be distracted from landing so I can micromanage science collection and I don't need a dozen pop-ups to store or transmit every piece of data that comes in. Maybe it makes sense to chose when to "transmit all" and to tell kerbals where to collect surface samples but thats it. I also think all experiments should transmit at 100% and samples should be recovered for 100% so there's no incentive to do repeat missions to the same biome. There's probably some clever way to make data processing and science-over-time work, but again I think it should be heavily simplified. If a mobile lab is in a given biome it pays out X for some number of days and then halts. Maybe bigger and fancier labs for colonies pay out over several years but need more crew to operate. I wouldn't personally make it more complicated than that. 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Pthigrivi

[shdwlrd]

@Pthigrivi Since there are threads already dedicated to science, I'm not going to go too deep into the subject. Science would be needed for colonies. You would need to know where to start building bases, place resource collectors, and later in the game, to figure out how to land on a planet. The only way to do all that is science.

So science won't be leaving KSP, but it's roll in the game will change. Since Nate and the devs haven't really say anything of meaning on the subject, there have been some quips around the subject. One I do remember is that science won't be the only thing you need to unlock new tech. That indicates there will be other metrics needed to unlock tech and progress through the game. What does that mean for science, nothing it will still need to be done. But with the inclusion of colonies, there can be more depth to it. You can only research some topics in zero-g, some topics require the super dense atmosphere of Eve, or the waters of Laythe.

The roll of science in KSP will change, but how and to what purpose, only the devs know and they aren't talking... yet.

[mcwaffles2003]

10 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

@Pthigrivi Since there are threads already dedicated to science, I'm not going to go too deep into the subject. Science would be needed for colonies. You would need to know where to start building bases, place resource collectors, and later in the game, to figure out how to land on a planet. The only way to do all that is science.

So science won't be leaving KSP, but it's roll in the game will change. Since Nate and the devs haven't really say anything of meaning on the subject, there have been some quips around the subject. One I do remember is that science won't be the only thing you need to unlock new tech. That indicates there will be other metrics needed to unlock tech and progress through the game. What does that mean for science, nothing it will still need to be done. But with the inclusion of colonies, there can be more depth to it. You can only research some topics in zero-g, some topics require the super dense atmosphere of Eve, or the waters of Laythe.

The roll of science in KSP will change, but how and to what purpose, only the devs know and they aren't talking... yet.

Sorry, just bringing this up again as the topic fits what you are talking about and I'm always wanting to discuss the role science plays in kerbal

 

Edited October 31, 2020 by mcwaffles2003

[Pthigrivi]

17 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

 

But with the inclusion of colonies, there can be more depth to it. You can only research some topics in zero-g, some topics require the super dense atmosphere of Eve, or the waters of Laythe.

This is a crazy good idea—unlock the tech tree in-situ rather than at KSC. There would probably want to be some flexibility by having multiple locations at which each node could be unlocked. Grouping parts also might be hard given how many there are. But you could let players speed up research by allocating bigger labs with more crew that needed more LS solving the time-warp problem, you’re encouraging players to set up research stations all over the place,... its a genius concept. 

Edited October 31, 2020 by Pthigrivi

[shdwlrd]

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

This is a crazy good idea—unlock the tech tree in-situ rather than at KSC. There would probably want to be some flexibility by having multiple locations at which each node could be unlocked. Grouping parts also might be hard given how many there are. But you could let players speed up research by allocating bigger labs with more crew that needed more LS solving the time-warp problem, you’re encouraging players to set up research stations all over the place,... its a genius concept. 

Exactly 

[shdwlrd]

To go back to the colony construction phases, so we know that phase one colony parts we be shipped in from off site. Phase 2 colony parts will be constructed from local resources. Would there be any more phases for parts? How would the different phase parts affect orbital colonies? Will there be a completely different parts palette for ground based and space based colonies? Could there be a parts overlap between ground and space colonies?