Gameplay: Participation

[Guest]

On 7/19/2022 at 6:34 PM, SciMan said:

, so maybe make the Delta-V different or re-balance the engines so that using advanced propulsion like the ion engine or Nerv is worth the many hassles that they have (low TWR and special needs of electricity and non-minable Xenon, or low TWR and proclivity to become far too hot)

I will never get tired of repeating that KSP2 already solves those problems:

• Propulsion under warp and in background solved the low TWR problem
• Xenon will be mineable, one of the early show and tells was a xenon factory
• the thermals are going to see a lot of focus being one of the big design constraints of big motherships.
• The multiple fuels and resources for different engines will force the devs solve the KSP1 Nerv problem of not having many LF only tanks.

You won't need to make the engines OP or rebalancing them, if anything they totally should remove the buff they gave to the Dawn and bring it back is old stats.

[kfsone]

On 7/19/2022 at 3:50 PM, Pthigrivi said:

So, technically KSP does do this, which is one of the reasons having a single science currency vs several makes sense. In theory it offers players more flexibility in the way they develop without pidgeonholing their program. Thats not to say splitting science into aerodynamics, probe tech, structural science, etc. couldn't work, just that it has drawbacks. KSP is also a difficult game in which to manage tech because there are so many parts, supposedly over 600 in KSP2. You do probably want to bundle them, I just think KSP1's tech tree is kind of a mess. 
 

This is kind of what I mean. Whether science comes in several flavors or 1 it does make sense to organize some categories of parts into somewhat linear lanes, so for instance you unlock small starter plane parts, then bigger planes and more powerful engines, then up to spaceplane tech. Those lanes could/should fork as well. Its just that KSP1's tech tree doesn't do such a great job at that, leaving some very basic essentials locked way later than they need to be or in the wrong category entirely. 

and

On 7/19/2022 at 3:50 PM, Pthigrivi said:

This is kind of what I mean. Whether science comes in several flavors or 1 it does make sense to organize some categories of parts into somewhat linear lanes, so for instance you unlock small starter plane parts, then bigger planes and more powerful engines, then up to spaceplane tech. Those lanes could/should fork as well. Its just that KSP1's tech tree doesn't do such a great job at that, leaving some very basic essentials locked way later than they need to be or in the wrong category entirely. 

 

I'm not suggesting this doesn't need more than a split second of thought - and let me also carefully reiterate that I'm not trying to suggest a one-size-fits-all force mode of gameplay. I can understand why KSP1 was a free-for-all, but most gamers don't actually like it when they get unfettered freedom or when grind is reduced to a single easy to move progress bar

My point wasn't to design a constrictive system, tho, simply one with reasonable feedback. Trying different engines defaults to driving engine research. A lot of folks ended up running out of money when they played KSP1 the way you'd think it's supposed to be played, and if they stuck with the game they became risk-averse, and that turns part selection into a crude min-max with extreme penalties, so they'd end with a very limited vocabulary of parts they would use for specific functions (cf various youtubers saying "I made this video because people commented I only ever use the ...").

Unlock nodes would be a first step in making it possible to move the currency around, but there should multi-science should probably both be an option and some solid ways to move your points or incoming to other branches.

On 7/19/2022 at 3:50 PM, Pthigrivi said:

This is mostly due to a more fundamental problem with reward scaling. Whats nice about the biome system is you get rewarded pretty much any time you go somewhere new, even on a body you've already visited. The problem is that biomes are all worth the same which means no place is particularly special or worth directing your attention to, and there are so many biomes players can very easily farm away and complete the tech tree without ever leaving the Kerbin system making for a very repetitive, short-lived game. The solution to the first problem is relatively easy--give less reward for landing any old place and more reward for visiting specific scientific anomalies so players have to work a bit and learn to land and scout with rovers to get the best payouts. The second problem is a little harder, but to me comes down to making experiments more specific in their use, and potentially reducing the number of biomes or creating a system where science mines-out more quickly as you explore a given planet or moon. For instance Minmus could have 3 total biomes--Flats, Highlands, Poles--plus 3 unique anomaly mini-biomes not more than a km across--a Crystal Cave, a Meteor Core, and an outcrop of Glass Spires. If you were clever you could gather everything you needed from Minmus in just 3 or 4 missions, but within 6 and after finding all 3 anomalies you'd need to move on. This would save both on endless repetitive biome-hopping gameplay and make the game much easier to balance, because you could very easily add up all the possible rewards from Kerbin, Minmus, and the Mun and scale that to ensure players would have to move on to Duna, Moho, Eve, and Dres to progress to the next tier. Having big beautiful anomalies an integral part of the game would also encourage players to learn new landing and navigation skills and give a nice visual reward in addition to science for finding something unique. 

Very interesting. Especially if they're wanting us to put time into building bases, I think a healthy long-tail of science needs to be there. I think players who are playing ksp2 will get gratification from seeing continued value from being able to keep earlier bases relevant. But in the spirit of sandbox, these nuances need to be opt-in: "Let them eat cake"

 

[Pthigrivi]

15 hours ago, kfsone said:

I'm not suggesting this doesn't need more than a split second of thought - and let me also carefully reiterate that I'm not trying to suggest a one-size-fits-all force mode of gameplay. I can understand why KSP1 was a free-for-all, but most gamers don't actually like it when they get unfettered freedom or when grind is reduced to a single easy to move progress bar

My point wasn't to design a constrictive system, tho, simply one with reasonable feedback. Trying different engines defaults to driving engine research. A lot of folks ended up running out of money when they played KSP1 the way you'd think it's supposed to be played, and if they stuck with the game they became risk-averse, and that turns part selection into a crude min-max with extreme penalties, so they'd end with a very limited vocabulary of parts they would use for specific functions (cf various youtubers saying "I made this video because people commented I only ever use the ...").

Oh I completely agree its kind of a fine balance between being flexible enough that players aren't locked into one linear path of tasks to complete and having clear constraints so the game has structure. I couldn't say if having multiple science types is better or worse... hard to know without understanding more about what they have planned. I know they've said they'd like to avoid failure states which is trickier than it sounds. Clearly KSP1 isn't very well balanced when it comes to the money side. I find it plays best when I turn the "funds penalties" down which reduces the exorbitant cost of building upgrades and new crew recruits. As mentioned it's also been suggested you could ditch money, contracts, and reputation entirely and just use resources to build rockets from the very beginning. We also don't know if time will be a factor for things like research or construction. We'll just have to see. 
 

15 hours ago, kfsone said:

Very interesting. Especially if they're wanting us to put time into building bases, I think a healthy long-tail of science needs to be there. I think players who are playing ksp2 will get gratification from seeing continued value from being able to keep earlier bases relevant. But in the spirit of sandbox, these nuances need to be opt-in: "Let them eat cake"

My feeling on this is that one should design the game-version (Adventure mode) to be a good game with clear constraints and progression and let sandbox be sandbox. We already know you're not going to be able to launch an interstellar vessel from KSC and you'll have to build an orbital construction platform first. When you're playing the game you may need to build a colony that produces He3 in order to run fusion engines. Or maybe you can produce He3 on Kerbin but its much less efficient, and as a player you're weighing the pros and cons of upgrading your KSC facility or investing off-world. There would be no opt-out from having to make those decisions because those decisions are the essence of the game. If you don't want to collect resources and unlock the tech tree and you just want to start right off the bat with all the parts unlocked and everything free then sandbox is the place to mess around. 

Edited July 25, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[K33N]

Stations and bases are totally viable in career mode in KSP1, and in fact are the optimal way to beat the tech tree.

[SciMan]

That's not quite right. Science labs are totally viable in career mode in KSP 1, and in fact are the optimal way to beat the tech tree.

The problem is the same as ever. You don't even need the science lab to beat the KSP 1 tech tree, and that's without ever leaving Kerbin's sphere of influence.

There's more than enough science on Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus to fully unlock everything, and a large part of why that is is that there's so many biomes all over the place (mostly right at KSC tho, which is kinda stupid).

And with a science lab (or many) with it's meager needs of 5 ec/second continuous while doing research, setting up an orbiting base is far too easy of a design challenge compared to the massive reward in science output you get out of it. Solar panels are so easy to spam that you have absolutely no problem coming up with enough electricity to run a science lab, when in fact that requirement for power should be probably 10x more than it is (50ec/s, which is in the range of what a large ISRU converter takes at full speed with any 2 converters running).

It should probably also output some low-temperature (aka hard to get rid of) heat, because you know it probably has powerful computers and scientific equipment that needs waste heat removal.

But yes, the benefit should be that you get more out of the experiment than just transmitting the data back to KSC.
More of what, I'm not sure, but the idea is that it should be a good idea to set up a science lab.

Another thing: The ISRU converter.
Despite the propensity for people to do so (likely caused by the "bad idea contracts" that require you to ship a container of ore somewhere far from where it was mined), shipping ore to an orbiting station to be converted to fuel "up there", is in fact not the ideal way to run things. The conversion should happen on the ground, and you don't even need an orbital fuel depot station.

Instead, what you need are two or three things. 1. A craft to mine ore and convert it into LFO and monoprop. 2. If not part of the 1st craft, a vessel to store large quantities of LFO and monoprop. 3. A lander that transports fuel from the surface to orbit, at which point it will rendezvous with orbiting craft that are in need of propellants.
If you don't combine the 1st and 2nd crafts into one before you launch them, you should do it before you land them, because it's so hard to get docking ports to line up on the surface and the act of docking to also not throw your craft spectacularly high into the air and then exploding on impact (yes they "fixed" it, yes it still happens).
As for how to dock the fuel tanker to the mining and fuel depot vessel, the best thing for the job is a claw on a robotic arm, with the fuel tanker also having some rover wheels to move about on the surface a little bit (to get the claw in range, so you don't have to land it "almost right on top of the mining vessel").
However, even with those steps, you can still have a case of mysteriously leaping vessels. KSP's physics are not completely stable. Landing gear are often the culprit, but I've had craft launched into the air with no engines that had no landing gear or wheels on them at all, so why it happens I'm not sure. Just to hopefully prevent it from happening, I always install WorldStabilizer, which so far has seemed to fix the problem.

 

[shdwlrd]

6 minutes ago, SciMan said:

That's not quite right. Science labs are totally viable in career mode in KSP 1, and in fact are the optimal way to beat the tech tree.

The problem is the same as ever. You don't even need the science lab to beat the KSP 1 tech tree, and that's without ever leaving Kerbin's sphere of influence.

There's more than enough science on Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus to fully unlock everything, and a large part of why that is is that there's so many biomes all over the place (mostly right at KSC tho, which is kinda stupid).

And with a science lab (or many) with it's meager needs of 5 ec/second continuous while doing research, setting up an orbiting base is far too easy of a design challenge compared to the massive reward in science output you get out of it. Solar panels are so easy to spam that you have absolutely no problem coming up with enough electricity to run a science lab, when in fact that requirement for power should be probably 10x more than it is (50ec/s, which is in the range of what a large ISRU converter takes at full speed with any 2 converters running).

It should probably also output some low-temperature (aka hard to get rid of) heat, because you know it probably has powerful computers and scientific equipment that needs waste heat removal.

But yes, the benefit should be that you get more out of the experiment than just transmitting the data back to KSC.
More of what, I'm not sure, but the idea is that it should be a good idea to set up a science lab.

I know you're talking about KSP1, but @Vl3d brought up an older interview about resources and how they will play into your progression.

5 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I think I found something in an old interview that we might have missed.

We take for granted that we need science to unlock nodes / parts in the tech tree. There's a lot of evidence which indicates that we will also need the specific construction resources to unlock a part.

"As far as adding a new engine type to the game, adding the Orion drive style nuclear pulse propulsion...

As far as when it unlocks the progression, I wouldn't get too detailed about that right now, because we're playing a lot with the balance of the game. And if I tell you when it comes in the progression, it will actually give away a little bit about the resources that are needed to unlock that technology. So, I realize now I can tell you nothing on that count, and I apologize. I just don't want to give away anything. If I tell you where you're going to dig up uranium, then that's gonna ruin things entirely. (...)

So, there are many more resources in KSP 2 than there were in KSP 1, and some of them are very far flung or involve the conquering of a new physics challenge or a new kind of mission in order to access that resource. We think it really enriches the gameplay, and once you've achieved that mission, you're rewarded with a new capability. You're rewarded with a new kind of part that you can build or a new kind of vehicle architecture.

In my mind, it's a pretty compelling player goal. You get new capabilities when you find these things."

So it's logical to be able to build a party only after you research it and have the resources for it. Or maybe you don't even need the science points, you just have to explore and do the experiments to get "new capabilities". It is not clear.

But the more interesting thing is getting "rewarded with a new kind of vehicle architecture". Why would Nate use that term? What exactly is an unlockable vehicle architecture?

Will there be an actual template difference between vehicle types, alongside parts? Will we be able to select what kind of vehicle we want to build? Is this like the difference between the SPH and VAB?

It makes sense to not be able to build interstellar vehicles in the Kerbin VAB. Will having a OAB or a low gravity colony VAB unlock new vehicle architectures (like ones that allow using nuclear pulse engines)? But what if I want to make an Orion drive in the regular VAB?

Will we be able to unlock rover vehicle templates or have sea based vehicles?

 

[kfsone]

On 7/25/2022 at 11:14 AM, Pthigrivi said:

Oh I completely agree its kind of a fine balance between being flexible enough that players aren't locked into one linear path of tasks to complete and having clear constraints so the game has structure. 

I guess my thinking is that KSP1 proved - to a degree - that you can make significant segments of that structure optional to cater to multiple "play" goals. Here for the physics and making SpaceX-mockup youtube videos? -> Sandbox. Here for interstellar base-building and couldn't give a rats about re-playing the KSP1-portion of the game? Select-a-Science(*) mode; and ...

(* Select-a-Science: Show you the science tree and literally let you uncheck what nodes are available/not, with an "all" toggle to one side; I'm not sure if this is just spit-ball padding for the larger point or an actual idea)

[kfsone]

On 7/25/2022 at 12:37 PM, K33N said:

Stations and bases are totally viable in career mode in KSP1, and in fact are the optimal way to beat the tech tree.

We may have different values for "optimal" and "viable". KSP1 has a pretty hefty cognitive burden on maintaining a non-trivial base or station that has nothing to do with astrophysics and everything to do with how ksp implements its physics and the recursive sunk-cost fallacies that are built into vehicle packing/unpacking (tl;dr: because unpacking a vehicle is slow, they're sloppy about restoring its physics and you end up with impulses instead of moments which jump into the sack with some very silly rounding errors to rip vehicles/stations/bases apart. The KSP1 sfs loader seems to be about 450x slower than it needs to be and well over 2000 times slower than a naive binary approach using something like protocol buffers to handle the format)

Maybe it's a mods thing, but I've also never had access to a sufficiently staffed science lab operating before reaching a point where I'm down to the completionist stage  So not only the optimal way but - for me - also the only  

[K33N]

On 7/30/2022 at 5:25 PM, kfsone said:

We may have different values for "optimal" and "viable". KSP1 has a pretty hefty cognitive burden on maintaining a non-trivial base or station that has nothing to do with astrophysics and everything to do with how ksp implements its physics and the recursive sunk-cost fallacies that are built into vehicle packing/unpacking (tl;dr: because unpacking a vehicle is slow, they're sloppy about restoring its physics and you end up with impulses instead of moments which jump into the sack with some very silly rounding errors to rip vehicles/stations/bases apart. The KSP1 sfs loader seems to be about 450x slower than it needs to be and well over 2000 times slower than a naive binary approach using something like protocol buffers to handle the format)

Maybe it's a mods thing, but I've also never had access to a sufficiently staffed science lab operating before reaching a point where I'm down to the completionist stage  So not only the optimal way but - for me - also the only  

Optimal / viable as in the least launches to max the tech tree outside of gross minmus biome hoppers.