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Besides talking about the core of KSP that will be available in the Early Access version of the game and also the Roadmap chapters that will slowly turn KSP2 into an improved version of KSP1 Interstellar (extended mod pack), we should really also talk about the other major branches the game has aquired over the years. So we have the following spin-off ideas:

A: KSP2 (Interstellar, Near Future Tech)

B: Realism (RO / RSS / RP)

C: Warfare (BD Armory, multiplayer focused, FPS or RTS)

D: Roleplay (a type of Kerbal RPG game, controlling a single character on missions,  with IVA focus)

E: Grand strategy / city builder (like a simulator game with focus on city building and resource / transport logistics overview)

So basically Intercept could successfully create at least another 4 games in the Kerbal family tree, based on work done for KSP2. And I believe they would have great success for each particular niche.

What do you guys think? Should it really only be left up to the modders or should these be actual spinoff games, nicely packaged, with their own identity?

PS: There's also the trackmania / circuit racing / competitive flying focused idea but that I think can be done in regular KSP2.

Nate during a podcast also talked about an "engine designer" extension to the game.

PS2: I was thinking about D: Roleplay more along the lines of an RPG: controlling a kerbal avatar (third person), experiencing the game IVA/EVA and VR (first person), having diverse roles (actual pilot, scientist, engineer, medic, remote probe pilot, flight controller), interacting with other characters, having a campaign with missions, living in the Kerbal world, with a focus on lore.

Edited by Vl3d
reshuffled ideas
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All of that should stay solely in modding territory. KSP is about space, not warfare or city building or even racing.

No doubt, mods will make all that possible in the main game, so there's no need for spin-offs. 

Realism: Most players don't really want realism. They want a challenge yes, hence why the most popular resize is 2.5/2.7.

Warfare: Kerbal SPACE program. 'Nuff said.

Roleplay: Can be done in main game, with mods adding first person kerbal mode.

Colony / city building: That's the whole point of KSP 2, well one of. If you want something more like city skylines/sim city, then maybe I can see a spin-off game being needed for that, but KSP 2 is basically adding city building into the game with colonies. 

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23 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

KSP is about space, not warfare or city building or even racing.

No doubt, mods will make all that possible in the main game, so there's no need for spin-offs. 

And KSP can continue to be about space (that's why I think the Realism branch will probably stay in mods pack territory as a flavor / extension of the base game) but we can also think about separate, stand-alone games that focus on other aspects. I would be very interested in the warfare game (kerballed stock and realistic flavors) and the Paradox type grand strategy / city builder spin-off.

And of course the RP game with specialization based campaigns and stories would be amazing (there are some clues they're already working on this, based on hiring announcements).

It's a way for Intercept Games to grow as a company and create a very successful extended kerbal franchise.

Edited by Vl3d
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2 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

And KSP can continue to be about space (that's why I think the Realism branch will probably stay in mods pack territory as a flavor / extension of the base game) but we can also think about separate, stand-alone games that focus on other aspects. I would be very interested in the warfare game (kerballed stock and realistic flavors) and the Paradox type grand strategy / city builder spin-off.

I doubt we will ever see Kerbal Warfare Program. The devs are not about warfare, they are about peaceful space exploration. And I honestly do not want to see a KWP outside of mods. And tbh, Kerbals are too stupid to wage war imo. It just doesn't make sense. That's like saying you want to add FPS styled gameplay to the Sims. It just doesn't work.

As for a City Skylines/Sim City/ Civilization style KSP colony building game, I can see that going well, if done right, and I do mean done just right. Taking a game and turning into a different genre is very hard, because now you have to redesign the core aspects of the game, while trying to stay true to the nature of the game. I can't think of any particular game off the top of my head, but generally it doesn't go well. The one game I can think of that went well enough was Halo Wars, taking an FPS and turning into an RTS. With KSP, turning into a civilization game MIGHT work, and that's a BIG 'might'. Anything else, you're asking for disaster.

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1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

B: Realism (RO / RSS / RP)

C: Warfare (BD Armory, multiplayer focused, FPS or RTS)

Both of those currently exist as mods, and they should not be added to the base game. KSP makes for a poor warfare game unless you basically go for a reskin of CoDE, which means its implementation as a war game is very likely just going to flop. To be clear: I have nothing against people going for the experiences they want, sub-par or not. But when official content is released, it should fit the core vision of the game. This means no warfare, and no going for the most realism possible. 

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55 minutes ago, t_v said:

those currently exist as mods, and they should not be added to the base game.

I'm not talking about DLC or extensions, I'm talking about independent spinoff games, based mainly on the technical foundations of KSP2.

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1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

I'm not talking about DLC or extensions, I'm talking about independent spinoff games, based mainly on the technical foundations of KSP2.

Even as spin off games, they don't work. None of the ideas you mentioned, safe for maybe a city builder, is in thr spirit of KSP.

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E seems rather similar to the yet to be released game 'Extrapolation'.  (Its more like B & E merged together but w/e)
https://www.anisopteragames.com/announcing-extrapolation/

I think whether they will make more spinoff games really hinges off the sales of KSP2, whether it attracted enough new players to sustain itself, and whether the brand is viable long term. I'm curious to what minecraft-style spinoffs PD may make in the future (if any). But I dont think it would be as heavily based off KSP1 as KSP2 is  (as its literally a sequel), they may keep the kerbals, the hard scifi theme (aka the brand) and that's probably it. 

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16 hours ago, Vl3d said:

we should really also talk about

Maybe it's just me but [it's] like nobody is entitled to us sitting here talking about (as MechBFP put it) polluting a niche franchise with spin offs so why say we should talk about this?

Edited by Vanamonde
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One of the big reasons the RO/RP community is still going, and focused, is that they're all pretty passionate about making it work. They're trying to create an actual "space program" experience that has as many realistic elements as possible. A game company isn't going to do that, they're going to cut corners and look for the most "fun" for the game which is ultimately going to be unsatisfactory to the community that wants that experience.

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Why would they do this? If you want a space RPG, city builder, or grand strategy game, plenty already exist. If you want to try out those genres, you could just buy Stellaris, Surviving Mars, or Starfield (when it comes out).  Kerbals don't really match the tone that most players of those genres really want, except for maybe city builders.

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14 hours ago, GoldForest said:

I doubt we will ever see Kerbal Warfare Program. The devs are not about warfare, they are about peaceful space exploration. And I honestly do not want to see a KWP outside of mods. And tbh, Kerbals are too stupid to wage war imo. It just doesn't make sense. That's like saying you want to add FPS styled gameplay to the Sims. It just doesn't work.

Field Marshal Jebediah Kerman will not have read Sun Kzu.

Edited by Wheehaw Kerman
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19 hours ago, Vl3d said:

A: KSP2 (Interstellar, Near Future Tech)
B: Realism (RO / RSS / RP)
C: Warfare (BD Armory, multiplayer focused, FPS or RTS)
D: Roleplay (a type of Kerbal RPG game, controlling a single character on missions,  with IVA focus)
E: Grand strategy / city builder (like a simulator game with focus on city building and resource / transport logistics overview)

A: Exactly what KSP should be.
B: Leave this to modders.
C: You want a warfare game? Go play War Thunder or Hearts of Iron instead.
D: You want KSP RP? Wait for the multiplayer update and just RP there.
E: You want a city management game? Play Sim City instead, maybe put a mod on that so it's more KSP related.

I don't mind spin-off ideas, but ensure that they actually stay true to what KSP does instead of throwing in game elements from completely different genres.

18 hours ago, Vl3d said:

It's a way for Intercept Games to grow as a company and create a very successful extended kerbal franchise.

Firstly, Intercept Games is a Take Two subsidiary. It will never grow much past where it already is.

Secondly, if they were to do this, KSP is no longer KSP. It's just Kerbal 'something'. I dread the day that a non-space-related Kerbal-branded thing becomes more popular than KSP itself.

Examples of this phenomena include:

  • Gundam: Once depicted the horror of war- became an advertisement for plastic model kits. (*cough* Gundam Build Fighters *cough*)
  • Godzilla: Once depicted the horror of environmental damage- became known for big monster fights.
  • Star Wars: Once had an amazing world and story- it got taken over by Disney and became riddled with nostalgia bait.

I don't want Kerbal Battle Royale. I want Kerbal Space Program.

Edited by intelliCom
KSP RPG --> KSP RP
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4 hours ago, intelliCom said:

Gundam: Once depicted the horror of war- became an advertisement for plastic model kits.

I get what you're trying to say but you're getting things wrong here.

Gundam started with the explicit objective of selling plastic model kits to young adults that grew up with the super robot shows of the previous decade. That's why it tackled mature themes such as the horror of war.

Same goes for Macross (the other big "Real Robot" show of the time).

That mecha-first approach (to sell toys) is what makes the mecha design of those shows so interesting. 

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G: If multiplayer works out then Air Racing courses and stunt courses to compete against each other.

Games where you can build and race your own designs are rare, I think. I don't know enough to know what is already available.

For space you could race to be the first docked to an orbiting station etc.

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1 hour ago, Master39 said:

I get what you're trying to say but you're getting things wrong here.

Gundam started with the explicit objective of selling plastic model kits to young adults that grew up with the super robot shows of the previous decade. That's why it tackled mature themes such as the horror of war.

Same goes for Macross (the other big "Real Robot" show of the time).

That mecha-first approach (to sell toys) is what makes the mecha design of those shows so interesting. 

Fairenuff, but they dropped the mature war themes though and went all in on plastic model kits. Why else would Build Fighters exist?
Best example of Gundam balancing cool mecha designs with an actually decent handling of war is 0080: War in the Pocket.

Anyway, off-topic. Point is that KSP should be KSP and not KBR. Don't lean into the "Hey! We're just the funny rocket game, LOL! Uh oh, kraken attack!" kind of stuff. Nor should it push into any niche which is beyond aerospace engineering and space exploration.

Edited by intelliCom
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KSP is a game.
Not a flavor of game, not a spice to add to a game, not even a genre of game.

It's one individual specific game. And I love it for what it is.

KSP 2 is basically taking KSP 1, and making it a bigger game without going out of scope of what KSP is about.

The other things you've proposed (virtually all of them except the RSS/RO type thing), take KSP and turn it into something it's not, and calling that something else "kerbal" anything or putting the kerbals in it would be a disgrace to what KSP is and what KSP is about.

You want KSP but warfare? Go play VTOL VR. It's even made by someone who used to be a modder for KSP (the one responsible for the primary warfare mod, which they realized doesn't really fit in KSP and so took it to their own game, which I haven't played but it almost certainly has at least one KSP reference in it as an homage to its roots). You don't need a VR headset to play VTOL VR. It probably helps, but it's not 100% needed.

You want KSP but roleplay? Nothing's stopping you from doing that on the forum right now, IIRC there's a whole section for it. Just like they didn't make an RP-specific game for Minecraft RP's or GTA 5 RP's or RDR2 RP's, they all have dedicated servers for that that aren't playing the "normal" multiplayer game the "normal" way.

Same goes for the rest, there's probably a way to get what you want with what you have, well except for that MMO one (even then, you can challenge yourself to accept "literally any contract that comes in the door" and get a pretty similar experience to an MMO quest board from that IMO).

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4 hours ago, SciMan said:

You want KSP but warfare? Go play VTOL VR. It's even made by someone who used to be a modder for KSP (the one responsible for the primary warfare mod, which they realized doesn't really fit in KSP and so took it to their own game, which I haven't played but it almost certainly has at least one KSP reference in it as an homage to its roots). You don't need a VR headset to play VTOL VR. It probably helps, but it's not 100% needed.

Didn't know this.   Very cool.

4 hours ago, SciMan said:

You want KSP but roleplay? Nothing's stopping you from doing that on the forum right now, IIRC there's a whole section for it.

Acccshuully.... we have a rule against no roleplaying on the forums.  It led to enough problems in the past that it was outlawed. 

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Wait...so we are more than 3 months out from an EA release and you want the devs to start work on FIVE spinoffs? Like do you want KSP2 to not come out at all?

Edited by Meecrob
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4 hours ago, Meecrob said:

Wait...so we are more than 3 months out from an EA release and you want the devs to start work on FIVE spinoffs? Like do you want KSP2 to not come out at all?

Calm down friend, we're just talking  between ourselves about where the franchise could be headed.

In general, I see that there's still a vocal conservative point of view that rejects any evolution or change to the KSP1 way of doing things. That's great, I see it as my role on the forum to challenge you with (mostly preexisting) ideas about what the Kerbal Universe could become in the future. The franchise has immense potential, I hope Take Two takes the initiative and expands it with other quality games. Intercept Games can take care of KSP2 for years to come and also create DLCs and good quality spin-offs.

My main point is that the "mod packages" way of doing things is ad-hoc, difficult and buggy because of how hard it is to sync compatible versions of mods. I want to be able to play Kerbalism/RSS/RO/RP-1 by just installing a stand-alone project with a unified focus and identity, without needing so much knowledge about specific mods. This also applies to the multiplayer warfare game and the role-playing KSP first-person / VR game with cool cockpits and IVA environments - I don't like trying to find the right mods to install by spending hours researching the forum and Reddit, just to have a buggy game in the end. At least we're getting the Interstellar version of the game in KSP2.. but there are a few more games hidden in KSP1+mods that should be (at least) correctly packaged or stand-alone spin-offs.

There are multiple games inside KSP at the moment, each one deserves to live!

Edited by Vl3d
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10 hours ago, SciMan said:

You want KSP but warfare? Go play VTOL VR. It's even made by someone who used to be a modder for KSP (the one responsible for the primary warfare mod, which they realized doesn't really fit in KSP and so took it to their own game, which I haven't played but it almost certainly has at least one KSP reference in it as an homage to its roots). You don't need a VR headset to play VTOL VR. It probably helps, but it's not 100% needed.

VTOL VR player here, you can't play without VR, the game is entirely built around VR interactions with your hands, for that reason you can't even play with an HOTAS (and it's good that way, it's basically the only true VR flight sim).

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2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Calm down friend, we're just talking  between ourselves about where the franchise could be headed.

In general, I see that there's still a vocal conservative point of view that rejects any evolution or change to the KSP1 way of doing things. That's great, I see it as my role on the forum to challenge you with (mostly preexisting) ideas about what the Kerbal Universe could become in the future. The franchise has immense potential, I hope Take Two takes the initiative and expands it with other quality games. Intercept Games can take care of KSP2 for years to come and also create DLCs and good quality spin-offs.

The franchise does not have immense potential with what you're suggesting though. Kerbal SPACE Program. The game is about space and space exploration. Anything outside that is just a gimic. Warfare, is not peaceful, and does NOT represent the nature of the game. The only reason mods like BDA exist, in my opinion, are because airplane mods started adding military style parts into the game and one dude wanted to see missiles on the wings, so someone created them and made them work. Racing cars around the Kerbin is not in the nature of the game. You want to suggest ideas? That's great and I encourage you to do so BUT keep it within the nature and scope of the franchise. Don't suggest silly things like taking a friendly peaceful space game and turning into a From The Depths rip off. There are other games that fit the suggestions you've given better than KSP could ever do.

Realism: Mods, or look into games like Mars Horizons or Orbiter. KSP is not about realism, it's about fun, and for most people, realism is not fun. Most people don't want to have to study delta V charts just to get to the Mun. Most people don't want their rocket engines to fail twenty seconds into flight. 

Warfare: War Thunder, CoD, MoH, From The Depths, hell, Lego Star Wars.

Roleplay: You can do that in KSP 1 and KSP 2, you don't even need mods. Look at any Youtube series on KSP. N9 Gaming and Beardy Penguin are literally doing a RP series right now.

Grand Strategy / City Builder: KSP 2 will have colony building, so you kind of have that, but just to list of a handful games that do it better: Mars Horizons, Civilization, Anno, Frostpunk, Simcity, Cities Skilines, Timberborn, Surviving Mars and much much more. Now, this is one of the only ideas you suggested that might work well. I can see KSP working out like an RTS styled colony management game, if done well. Keyword, well.

Instead of suggesting stuff you can do with mods, suggest stuff you can't do with mods. Stuff like:

KSP Rocket Mechanic (Engineer) - A game about fixing the silly rockets that Jeb, Bob, Bill, Val and any other Kerbal comes up with. Connect fuel pipes, fix electrical wiring, make sure the solar panels can deploy right, and so on. Get inside rockets and see how they tick, just make sure to put the panel back on before launch!

2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

My main point is that the "mod packages" way of doing things is ad-hoc, difficult and buggy because of how hard it is to sync compatible versions of mods. I want to be able to play Kerbalism/RSS/RO/RP-1 by just installing a stand-alone project with a unified focus and identity, without needing so much knowledge about specific mods. This also applies to the multiplayer warfare game and the role-playing KSP first-person / VR game with cool cockpits and IVA environments - I don't like trying to find the right mods to install by spending hours researching the forum and Reddit, just to have a buggy game in the end. 

Mod packages is not difficult or buggy. CKAN is basically a mod packager. It tells you, "Hey, these mods work together" or "Hey, these mods are incompatible right now." As for knowing what mods are compatible, most mods tell you right in the description "Works with" or "Doesn't work with." Most of the time you just have to worry about the game version number. It's not that hard to take a few seconds to read through a mod page and see the "Compatibility" section. And if mods are incompatible with each other, it usually doesn't take long before the developers correct the issues. I have around 259 mods installed. KSP runs just fine for me. There's a few glitches, mostly visual, but it doesn't stop me from playing the game. 

2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

At least we're getting the Interstellar version of the game in KSP2.. but there are a few more games hidden in KSP1+mods that should be (at least) correctly packaged or stand-alone spin-offs.

There are multiple games inside KSP at the moment, each one deserves to live!

There are no games hidden in KSP 1 or the mods. The mods are KSP 1, they are not separate games stitched into KSP 1 so people can play them. They add to KSP 1. They can't work separately from it. Stand alone versions of these mods will be literally just taking them and creating CoD, Mars Horizons or any other number of games that already exist. Why put stress and strain on a development team for a game that will bomb because it doesn't fit the nature of the franchise? 

There are not multiple games in KSP 1. There is one game. Kerbal Space Program. There may be multiple ways on how the game could play out gameplay wise, but at the end of the day, why bother trying them? KSP 1 does what it does almost perfectly. It surviving for 10+ years shows that. If they took KSP and turned it into something else, I guarantee you there's a high likelihood that it will fail. 

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