How Flexible Will Game Progression Be?

[Multivac]

One of the joys of KSP is that there are a myriad ways of attaining any particular goal, and that it's up to the player to decide how they want to get into orbit, land on a planet, or complete a contract; which nodes on the tech tree they unlock first, what tech they'll use to get to their destination, and so on. This is also well illustrated by the self-imposed challenges you can read about on these forums — players might try to see if they can accomplish a certain goal without a particular technology that would normally make it easier, for example. For my part, when starting a new save I often try and see how far I can get without upgrading the VAB for the first time, seeing what I can do with craft under the 30 part limit. (And you can do a lot! Not to mention that once you unlock the first clamp-o-tron docking port, you can dock ships in orbit to get past the limit... :P)

This is all in contrast to many other games out there that tend to hold the player's hand, and offer only one or a handful of ways to advance — unlock ability A, then unlock ability B, then C, and so on. Even seemingly sandbox-ey titles, like No Man's Sky, often irk me by forcing me to complete objectives in a certain order, or to do certain tasks before I can advance in the game, when I feel like I should really be able to work around the linear requirements.

So my question is... To what extent will the flexibility of progression that we see in KSP 1, be preserved in KSP 2? Will I still be able to skip over tech tree nodes that I feel I can get by without? Would a planes-before-rockets playthrough still be possible? Will I have to build colonies before I can unlock interstellar travel?  Etc. Have there been any hints from the dev. team on this?

Edited December 3, 2020 by Multivac

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Multivac said:

So my question is... To what extent will the flexibility of progression that we see in KSP 1, be preserved in KSP 2? Will I still be able to skip over tech tree nodes that I feel I can get by without? Would a planes-before-rockets playthrough still be possible? Will I have to build colonies before I can unlock interstellar travel? 

For me the best case would be having a complete freedom inside each "tier" of technology while having some overall constraints to keep every gameplay loop relevant, so you shout be able to start with rockets, probes, planes in whatever order but then the gameplay required to advance is not limited to things you can do from the KSC. 

It would be fantastic to have some science/engineering that has to be studied off-Kerbin, while leaving an ample margin for the player to decide exactly where.

Example:

You have to do a long term research on space habitats to unlock colonies but you can do it wherever you like: you can build it directly in LKO with a ISS derived station, on a surface outpost that you build to mine fuel on Mun/Minmus that you slowly turn into a research base and then into a fully fledged colony, or just playing "KSP1 style" all the way to Duna and research it there.

 

10 hours ago, Multivac said:

Have there been any hints from the dev. team on this?

We know colonies will have their independent progression, leading up to being able to build their own VAB and launch from there, that those launches will require resource collection and we have strong hints towards interstellar ship being only available in VAB equipped orbital colonies.

That, with the confirmation that came a couple of days ago that you'll need to discover exoplanets with telescopes makes me think that the gameplay will be way deeper than just collecting a generic "science currency" to unlock bigger parts, and that deeper gameplay obviously comes with more "intrusive" constraints.

[Guest]

I hope it'll be highly flexible, with objectives mostly set emergently, and rewards following. I would not want a jump-through-hoops type progression. That's one reason Making History missions just don't appeal to me.

I am cautiously optimistic about this as Nate and the gang are KSP veterans are have been banging their drum about the many-splendoured ways people play the game, and how they want to keep that only even more so.

[Multivac]

10 hours ago, Master39 said:

We know colonies will have their independent progression, leading up to being able to build their own VAB and launch from there, that those launches will require resource collection and we have strong hints towards interstellar ship being only available in VAB equipped orbital colonies.

Colonies having to grow up a bit before they can support their own VAB, and needing resource collection to provide resources for said VAB, makes a lot of sense to me... But only being able to build starships in colonies seems arbitrary to me, and pretty much like the exact kind of game-imposed inflexible progression I meant.  If I can manage to strap enough boosters to my starship to launch it straight from Kerbin (maybe in several parts that can then be docked together, or maybe just using one reeeally big dumb rocket)... why shouldn't I be able to? I mean, there have even been ideas on how to build interstellar probes in real life (Orion drive, laser-assisted solar sails, etc.) that don't demand colonies beyond Earth at all...

I agree that some limits on progression make sense, like working in "tiers" as you mentioned, but I don't really understand why deeper gameplay must necessarily imply more restrictions on how the player can advance... Or, to put it another way, some restrictions make sense; like having to study an exoplanet through a telescope before you can fly a ship there. Sure, that's intuitive enough. But there's a difference between sensible limits on progression that make logical sense, vs. arbitrary restrictions that are just there because the game itself wants you to move forward in a certain way...

[shdwlrd]

2 hours ago, Multivac said:

But only being able to build starships in colonies seems arbitrary to me, and pretty much like the exact kind of game-imposed inflexible progression I meant.  If I can manage to strap enough boosters to my starship to launch it straight from Kerbin (maybe in several parts that can then be docked together, or maybe just using one reeeally big dumb rocket)... why shouldn't I be able to?

But let me ask you, would it make sense to allow a craft that has the height and mass of the Burj Khalifa to be able to lift off from a planet without using cheats? The that is the intention of limiting the size of crafts you can launch from the surface of Kerbin.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Multivac said:

If I can manage to strap enough boosters to my starship to launch it straight from Kerbin (maybe in several parts that can then be docked together, or maybe just using one reeeally big dumb rocket)... why shouldn't I be able to?

What makes you think you wouldn't be able to? 

I've always assumed that the spacedock thing is a practical, emergent limitation rather than a "hard" one.  Meaning, it's much more difficult, borderline impossible to launch something as big and as fragile as a starship from Kerbin, therefore the natural way to do it is to build a spacedock. A starship might even collapse under its own weight under Kerbin gravity, if it's designed for, say, 0.1g acceleration. 

I agree that it would be silly if this is an arbitrary "just because" limitation, but I have seen no indications that this is the case.

Edited December 4, 2020 by Guest

[The Aziz]

People have been worried about these "hard limits" but they just simply make sense. We've all seen that enormous interstellar ship in trailers and other videos. And the prime example is right there. The engine alone is most likely wider than the VAB itself. (just wait for Hangar Extension mod ) And the weight would turn the launchpad into dust (you want realistic physics or not? I hope indestructible launch clamps are no more a thing). You would need BAE. But it's probably up to you how, when and where you build it.

Unless you somehow figure out a way to build a smaller ship that fits inside the surface assembly building and has similar capabilities.

That does sound to me like a sensible limitation.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, Multivac said:

But only being able to build starships in colonies seems arbitrary to me, and pretty much like the exact kind of game-imposed inflexible progression I meant.  If I can manage to strap enough boosters to my starship to launch it straight from Kerbin (maybe in several parts that can then be docked together, or maybe just using one reeeally big dumb rocket)... why shouldn't I be able to? I mean, there have even been ideas on how to build interstellar probes in real life (Orion drive, laser-assisted solar sails, etc.) that don't demand colonies beyond Earth at all...

Others have already brought the "the engine is bigger than the VAB" argument, so I'll reply with another view: Interstellar ships are already borderline impossible as it is when theorizing to build them in orbit, it's absolutely ridiculous to think about launching them already assembled from the ground, you need some sort of orbital construction.

Other than that I can totally see the reason behind having the orbital shipyard not being a full colony but a slave of one on the surface. In that way you can build a orbital dock around Kerbin slave of the KSC or around any other body while being slave of a colony on the surface (as an alternative of it being a colony on its own).

[The Aziz]

Even this looks like it's literally just a shipyard, and given the fact that it looked like it was in Jool orbit, actual colonies are probably on surfaces of the moons. So the post above is correct.

[Multivac]

23 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

... a craft that has the height and mass of the Burj Khalifa...

 

18 hours ago, The Aziz said:

... The engine alone is most likely wider than the VAB itself....

 

17 hours ago, Master39 said:

... it's absolutely ridiculous to think about launching them already assembled from the ground...

Many of you are assuming big giant starships launched in one go, but why jump to that assumption? In KSP (as in real life) comparatively small automated probes often precede more ambitious piloted missions. IIRC, one of the more-or-less realistic ideas on how interstellar travel could be done in real life involves attaching a tiny probe (think a few small instruments plus the bare minimum of electronics needed to run them) to a solar sail, and sending it to a nearby star with a laser assist; because of the tiny mass of the probe, it could potentially get there — for a brief fly-by — within mere decades. (Granted, this also sharply limits what kind of science the probe could do — but that, to me, does seem like a totally organic and logical limitation). No engines bigger than the VAB required for such a mission! (Well, actually, the solar sail could end up being bigger than the VAB once unfolded... But no-one is proposing launching solar sails into orbit in unfolded configuration.)

And, of course, as I've already mentioned before, even if you did want a truly gigantic starship, you could always just launch it in segments from the KSC, and then dock these together in orbit. This is something I'm sure many of us have already done for more-ambitious interplanetary missions in KSP1. No colonies required there, either, even if you do want a flying Burj Khalifa in space.

17 hours ago, Master39 said:

Interstellar ships are already borderline impossible

But serious, realistic concepts on how interstellar ships could be built have been around for decades. None have been built so far, obviously, but there is nothing physically impossible about many of the concepts that have been proposed; in many cases it's more a matter of great costs and remote, purely scientific payoffs. Orion drives and solar sails are very expensive, but there's nothing really impossible about them; simple physics tells us they should work (small-scale solar sails have already been tested in space and confirmed to work, even) and should be capable of reaching nearby stars within comparatively reasonable time-frames (i.e. decades rather than centuries, millennia, or longer, which, once you adjust it for the smaller scales of the KSP universe...) And, well, most of the already-proposed interstellar concepts do not require colonies in orbit or on other worlds, so why would they be a requirement for trying these things out in KSP2?

19 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

What makes you think you wouldn't be able to? 

I've always assumed that the spacedock thing is a practical, emergent limitation rather than a "hard" one.  Meaning, it's much more difficult, borderline impossible to launch something as big and as fragile as a starship from Kerbin, therefore the natural way to do it is to build a spacedock. A starship might even collapse under its own weight under Kerbin gravity, if it's designed for, say, 0.1g acceleration. 

I agree that it would be silly if this is an arbitrary "just because" limitation, but I have seen no indications that this is the case.

Well, I've seen it mentioned more than once on this forum, including right in this thread, that starships might only be unlocked as an option once you have colonies; that's why I think that's a possibility. I would be very happy to be proven wrong on this one! Mind you, if it was a "practical, emergent limitation" as you describe, I'd be happy with that! Sure, building an interstellar ship might be easier or more sensible to do once you have orbital facilities to assemble it. It just shouldn't be mandatory; that's what I was saying in my earlier post — I am expressing the hope that KSP2 will be flexible, and will let players progress along whatever path they choose, in the same sense as KSP1 does so now. Reading these forums shows that quite a few players get fun and enjoyment from doing things in ways that are not the easiest, most sensible, or most practical! And that should be an option in KSP2, as well. I.e. what I'm really concerned about, is what kind of game KSP2 will be in this regard — to what extent it will allow us to choose our own path, and to what extent it will hold our hand and say "no, you haven't met arbitrary requirement X yet, so therefore you can't do activity Y, regardless of whether you might have found some other way to do it."

Edited December 5, 2020 by Multivac
typos

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Multivac said:

Many of you are assuming big giant starships launched in one go, but why jump to that assumption? In KSP (as in real life) comparatively small automated probes often precede more ambitious piloted missions. IIRC, one of the more-or-less realistic ideas on how interstellar travel could be done in real life involves attaching a tiny probe (think a few small instruments plus the bare minimum of electronics needed to run them) to a solar sail, and sending it to a nearby star with a laser assist; because of the tiny mass of the probe, it could potentially get there — for a brief fly-by — within mere decades. (Granted, this also sharply limits what kind of science the probe could do — but that, to me, does seem like a totally organic and logical limitation). No engines bigger than the VAB required for such a mission! (Well, actually, the solar sail could end up being bigger than the VAB once unfolded... But no-one is proposing launching solar sails into orbit in unfolded configuration.)

Because when talking about "unlocking interstellar travel" everyone automatically thought of "manned interstellar travel" while giving for granted that Interstellar travel is not something that is hard-locked until you perform some magic ritual at a colony. I totally expect to be able to bruteforce my way to the nearest star with just a Terrier, a seat and a infinite fuel cheat.

Limits to that that I can see are the absence of beamed propulsion and solar sails (source:the magical podcast of all answers) and the gameplay mechanic of having to discover  planets through telescopes (source: Nate Simpson dropping bombs in random threads).

 

6 hours ago, Multivac said:

Well, I've seen it mentioned more than once on this forum, including right in this thread, that starships might only be unlocked as an option once you have colonies; that's why I think that's a possibility. I would be very happy to be proven wrong on this one!

Because when talking about starships people think about that skyscraper sized monster parked in Jool's orbit in the trailer. It's absolutely a "practical and sensible limitation" to only be able to build such ships when you have experience with large scale space-based projects and the necessary infrastructure to build them, but I'd go even further, I'd like an "early tech" version of the orbital shipyard to build "The Martian style" motherships even for the firsts steps of interplanetary exploration.

 

6 hours ago, Multivac said:

I am expressing the hope that KSP2 will be flexible, and will let players progress along whatever path they choose, in the same sense as KSP1 does so now.

KSP1 is not more flexible, it just doesn't have any kind of off-Kerbin construction, everything is made equal in the VAB or in the Hangar and that's why it doesn't have different kind of buildings or ships only buildable in specific conditions. It make sense for the whole tech tree of KSP1 to be available in every VAB, colonial, orbital or Kerbin, but it also does make sense that some parts are only available when you build them in place ("tier 2" colonial buildings for example) because those will be a different type of craft altogether, with different constraints and different gameplay loops attached to them.

[shdwlrd]

9 hours ago, Multivac said:

Many of you are assuming big giant starships launched in one go, but why jump to that assumption?

No, you don't seem to understand the scale of the interstellar parts. Download Roverdude's FTT mod and pop the largest spherical tank into the VAB. The tanks shown on the ship in Jool's orbit are larger than that. The engine bell is at least 120 meters/393 feet in diameter when compared to the space planes on the nose of it. The truss running down the ship is by my best guesstimate is at least 5 meters/16 feet across. Those parts are huge.

Also, what would be the point of sending a probe? Even with the reduced scale in KSP, it will take a very large rocket to even get it on an escape trajectory, yet alone have any hope of being able to have it captured by the other star. 

[The Aziz]

That is a good point as well. While probe exploration within the system makes sense, doing the same on interstellar scale is just a waste of time, with the assumed duration of such missions (I say lasting decades). Sure, send probes to explore new system, but only once you get there with full blown mothership. 

[Multivac]

8 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

Also, what would be the point of sending a probe? 

 

5 hours ago, The Aziz said:

While probe exploration within the system makes sense, doing the same on interstellar scale is just a waste of time

Well, my whole point is that this should be up to the player, and not a limitation imposed by the game. You guys may think that interstellar probes are "pointless" or don't "make sense," but someone else (i.e. me, for example) might want to start interstellar exploration with probes. I mean, for one thing, because that's the way it's most likely to ever happen in real life, and KSP has always been about finding a good balance between fun and realism, but also, just because... why not?

8 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

No, you don't seem to understand the scale of the interstellar parts. Download Roverdude's FTT mod and pop the largest spherical tank into the VAB. The tanks shown on the ship in Jool's orbit are larger than that. The engine bell is at least 120 meters/393 feet in diameter when compared to the space planes on the nose of it. The truss running down the ship is by my best guesstimate is at least 5 meters/16 feet across. Those parts are huge.

I mean... I'm assuming that the parts we've seen in the clip aren't the only interstellar parts that we'll ever have, and also that one particular mod isn't necessarily *the* blueprint for interstellar travel in KSP2 either?.. Sure, something like a truly enormous engine bell would make sense for construction in orbit, rather than launch from KSC or docking together from smaller parts. It just doesn't make sense for parts like that to be a sort of hard-coded requirement for unlocking interstellar travel.  

11 hours ago, Master39 said:

giving for granted that Interstellar travel is not something that is hard-locked until you perform some magic ritual at a colony. I totally expect to be able to bruteforce my way to the nearest star with just a Terrier, a seat and a infinite fuel cheat.

Now that sounds good to me!

Edited December 5, 2020 by Multivac

[Multivac]

12 hours ago, Master39 said:

Limits to that that I can see are the absence of beamed propulsion and solar sails (source:the magical podcast of all answers) and the gameplay mechanic of having to discover  planets through telescopes (source: Nate Simpson dropping bombs in random threads).

I haven't listened to that podcast yet! But apparently persistent thrust even when a ship is out of focus has been confirmed, which suggests solar / laser-assisted sails should be quite possible in KSP2? (Discovering planets with telescopes before you can go there makes sense to me; but telescopes capable of doing that are probably gonna be much lower in the tech tree than the technology for actual interstellar flight; after all, such telescopes have already existed in real life! I'd like to imagine they'd be one notch above KSP2's equivalent of the Sentinel, or something like that, perhaps)

Edited December 5, 2020 by Multivac

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, Multivac said:

I haven't listened to that podcast yet! But apparently persistent thrust even when a ship is out of focus has been confirmed, which suggests solar / laser-assisted sails should be quite possible in KSP2?

You totally should listent to it, but yes, while possible they say that it won't be there at least at launch.

Nate also spent some time talking about those "big ships" built in orbit and on how the main design gameplay loop will be about balancing heat, thrust and power.

[Bej Kerman]

6 hours ago, The Aziz said:

That is a good point as well. While probe exploration within the system makes sense, doing the same on interstellar scale is just a waste of time, with the assumed duration of such missions (I say lasting decades). Sure, send probes to explore new system, but only once you get there with full blown mothership. 

That makes about as much sense as inventing solid rocket boosters before liquid propulsion, and inventing rockets in general before wheels and propellers.

[shdwlrd]

3 hours ago, Multivac said:

Well, my whole point is that this should be up to the player, and not a limitation imposed by the game. You guys may think that interstellar probes are "pointless" or don't "make sense," but someone else (i.e. me, for example) might want to start interstellar exploration with probes. I mean, for one thing, because that's the way it's most likely to ever happen in real life, and KSP has always been about finding a good balance between fun and realism, but also, just because... why not?

I'm not saying it isn't possible to send a probe first. I'm saying that it's impractical, but it's your time to waste if you want to do it. 

3 hours ago, Multivac said:

I mean... I'm assuming that the parts we've seen in the clip aren't the only interstellar parts that we'll ever have, and also that one particular mod isn't necessarily *the* blueprint for interstellar travel in KSP2 either?.. Sure, something like a truly enormous engine bell would make sense for construction in orbit, rather than launch from KSC or docking together from smaller parts. It just doesn't make sense for parts like that to be a sort of hard-coded requirement for unlocking interstellar travel.  

As I said above, it's your time to waste. You can spend all the time you want to send a ship to another star system using the lowest tier parts. I'd rather use that time to progress to the point where I can do something there, not just get a glimpse of the system.

So this is one of the mods that Kottabos previewed that adds a new star system into KSP.  You can try out your idea. (Pay attention to the distances in the map view.)

Spoiler

 

 

[Multivac]

[starcaptain]

Game progression in my mind is almost certainly going to be bound to just tech limits, just like how Civilization games are.

And as for "flexible" gameplay in that regard, I think of two things KSP and Civ" have in common: you choosing where you build, and tech bottlenecks.

Seeing as players can put operating bases literally anywhere except floating in the sky^{[citation needed]} the ease and operability of your colonies and launch sites is entirely up to you. This is just like how you can make things harder or easier or strategic for yourself where you put your settlers to start new cities. Near resources? Near a practical landmass? Stuck between mountains? Two doors down? It's your choice.

Tech Bottlenecks refers to how the technology tree works. In Civ 5, you MUST research a handful of techs at certain junctures or else you cannot progress further scientifically.

If you open up this tree, you'll see that:

• In the first half of the Ancient Era, you MUST research Pottery, Animal Husbandry, Archery, and Mining. Or else you cannot research past the Industrial era.
• In the first half of the Medieval Era, you MUST research Theology, Civil Service, Guilds, and Metal Casting. Or else you cannot research past the Modern era.

Bottlenecks ensure players conform certain aspects of their design to certain ideas in order to make sure they don't spend too long trying to optimize older gameplay methods. Only opening new innovations when players are hoping for them.