Simple Modular Difficulty

[Ryu Gemini]

I recall seeing in another thread someone mention that difficulty is not likely to be implimented.

If we are talking about difficulty options a typical game has, then I agree with this. KSP does not need a vague, blanket and hard-wired "easy," "medium," and "hard" somewhere. I'd just as soon prefer to remain with "one difficulty" like we have now, and mod the game, then deal with a "blanket difficulty option."

However, the idea of "modular difficulty" appeals to me. This would essentially be a small list of toggles and selections you can make before starting a new game. The mechanics in question would not alter core parts of the game much, but rather would apply a simple multiplier to how that saved game reads certain information before treating it the same it always does. I'll give some potential examples.

Edit: Subsequent posts have convinced me that one of the ideas is probably best NOT to have. Specifically, the fuel related one. It is likely best if all aspects of "modular difficulty" have no effect on the general stats of parts with regards to flight, thrust, delta-v, range, etc.

Lets say the first of that short list was "fuel difficulty" (putting aside that it is still called "difficulty" for lack of creativity in naming on my part).

Setting it to easy would make it such that all fuel-containing parts contain 1.2 times as much fuel as usual (this is a good bit more then it sounds actually considering the exponential nature of rocket mass vs delta-V). Setting it to hard would perhaps make them contain 0.85 times as much as normal. It would be a simple multiplier applied to the maximum fuel levels of all parts in that game, no more and no less. Perhaps there could be a "custom" setting in which you input the multiplier yourself in sandbox mode.

Lets say the next item on the list is "research difficulty"

It would be the same sort of things. A simple base multiplier applied to research generated. Easier means you get a bit more research. Harder means you get a bit less. You can set this one independantly of fuel. So perhaps you want harder fuel economy, but to make research easier (or maybe you want the reverse)? Just select a different option for each modular part of the difficulty settings. This applies to any given thing that has a little "difficulty" option for it.

Now lets say that Life Support gets added at some point. And that EVAs have a life support timer, and the kerbal dies when it runs out. But it recharges itself when inside any ship or station with its life support turned on (or on any planet with breathable atmosphere), and continues draining in ships without powered life support. And that said life support systems for ships and stations requires a small power draw to function.

For this, there could just be "normal," "easy," and "off." Or even just "on" and "off." If the former, normal would be normal, easy could perhaps double EVA life support time and halve power requirements for life support systems, and "off" would simply allow the kerbals to live forever like they do currently (putting aside whether they can fly or turn unpowered ships or not).

That is the gist of my suggestion. A difficulty option like most games is a bad idea because of the nature of this game. And because it would be a pain to try and "balance" different preset difficulties for different parts of the game's player base. Doing so may also require a good deal of work and effort to adjust parts of the deeper game mechanics to satisfy people as well, which is a pain in the laval nozzle.

However, make it a simplistic modular system like the one I outlined, and you don't have to balance it in any way. Any given "normal" will simply be setting a simple multiplier to 1, so that it uses the default statistics for parts and such. And said multipliers are simple and can probably be added without needing to interfere with core game system mechanics much. The multiplier could simply be applied to the stats in question when it loads part fuel capacity/be applied to the part stats already saved in RAM when a new game is started or a saved game is loaded.

Best of all, if a particular player happens to have a somewhat skewed sense of how hard or easy they want some aspect of the game, they can just adjust that piece of the modular options, rather then having to mod their parts manually or come here and complain about it being too easy or hard to acquire "science points" or something (despite other people perhaps feeling its just fine as-is, and not wanting it to be changed; modular difficulty allows both groups of people to enjoy the game equally).

It may also improve replay value for those who might like to play the game easier at first, then start a new game that is "more strict."

Before implementing a starting-a-new-game menu for these options, they could also be added one at a time to the debug/cheats menu to allow for testing before making them a proper feature as well. So they needn't all be added at once.

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Edited October 18, 2013 by Ryu Gemini

[sumghai]

I very much like this modular approach - you have my support.

[thereaverofdarkness]

and mine, too

[Specialist290]

Thirded. I've seen it done in flight simulators in general for as long as I can remember.

[AngelLestat]

i dont share this idea.

There will be some craft design that only would serve for certain level of difficulty.

If that happens then we cant share ship any more.

People need to learn how to do it right from the first time. If is hard for them they can always get a little help from the debug menu to get more fuel. But if they wanna do it right, they need to learn sooner or later.

And KSP is not about difficulty, is about what kind of desings we do.

Someone with experience can send a really big ship to duna with full equip, and somebody noob will send only a pod with a kerbal.

That is the difference, but also the first step. That would encourage him/she to do it better next time.

[KvickFlygarn87]

I think it is a great idea, adds a bunch of flexibility to the difficulty. However, people would brag and say "I'm way better than you, I made it to the Mun on the 164874th attempt with all difficulty options to hard!"

[Captain Sierra]

Tailoring the game to a personal preference of difficulty. I like. The only problem I forsee has already been said once. craft files and designs built on hard, would be insane overkill on easy and easy would be nowhere close on hard therefore, the shipbuilding community may not see this as such a great idea. That aside, I think this is one of the better approaches to difficulty out there.

[Ryu Gemini]

That is a definite concern. One way the community could deal with it would be to have an unofficial rule to only use a "standard" set of settings when designing ships. Presumeably the setting with the multiplier of 1. Or they could make it a point to specify which fuel difficulty they were using, and nag people who forget to mention it until they do.

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[Djsnowboy267]

Personally, I would like to see the option do disable certain features like life support. However, I don't like the idea of difficulty levels like you described for the fuel. I feel it might throw of the balance of certain parts, and would just mess with the shipbuilding community, as others state.

[team.leit]

Or something that could be done is have it only for the career mode and have the sandbox remain unaffected by it, that way people could still share ships, they would just have to say if they made it in sandbox or if they made it in career then they would have to say the settings they used.

Sorry for rambling on

Kaos

[dlrk]

Personally, I would like to see the option do disable certain features like life support. However, I don't like the idea of difficulty levels like you described for the fuel. I feel it might throw of the balance of certain parts, and would just mess with the shipbuilding community, as others state.

Agreed. Personally, I wouldn't disable those features, but if the option to disable them will keep people from complaining about it, OK

[Ryu Gemini]

How about this then:

The same idea. But nothing that modifies things that would actually affect ship capabilities (i.e. fuel).

Its probably safe to assume that a ship built by someone with life support turned off for instance will still be capable of functioning well enough due to the likelihood of the system being built into a crew chamber part. And if its not, then you can slap on a couple uranium generators so it doesn't run out of power.

And making it such that you don't have to build quite as well to unlock the next set of ship parts (i.e. something that modifies how quickly you gain "science points" for the upcoming features) also doesn't affect a ship's characteristics. It merely determines when you can build the ship in question.

You guys have convinced me that a fuel multiplier option would be annoying to deal with, community-and-ship-sharing-wise. The rest of the ideas still stand however. Which really makes it all the less like a difficulty option now, actually, but more of a way to modify your personal game experience a bit without altering the core aspects of what makes a particular ship capable of doing what that particular ship does.

[Ryu Gemini]

Any more comments?