I don't understand the fuss behind ARM

[Red Iron Crown]

I don't think anyone is looking for balance for realism reasons, it's about the gameplay.

The "self-control" argument is not really relevant, we're discussing how we'd prefer the parts to be.

[SSSPutnik]

If it was realism I'd be playing orbiter or not at all.

KSPs real strength is making a game that is fun to play, assembly of a craft doesn't need an aeronautical engineering degree, you can do goofy stuff, all whilst giving a strong nod to the mathematics of flight. The goofy aliens probably make or break it.

The game needs to be self consistent.

I

[magnemoe]

Please, someone, tell me what I am missing. All of the 3M engines I try to use overheat horribly. I just tried to launch a 103T vehicle with the LFB KR-1X2 and I had to run it at 58% thrust in order to avoid overheat. Same with the other ARM engines.

has not have any overheating even then putting multiple close to each other or putting landing legs on the engines.

Yes they heat up but nowhere like the dangerous levels, you might want to put the flat 3.75 meter tank in bottom.

[78stonewobble]

If it was realism I'd be playing orbiter or not at all.

KSPs real strength is making a game that is fun to play, assembly of a craft doesn't need an aeronautical engineering degree, you can do goofy stuff, all whilst giving a strong nod to the mathematics of flight. The goofy aliens probably make or break it.

The game needs to be self consistent.

I

No, the game does not "need" to be consistent.

Some people subjectively want the game to be consistent or balanced or something else.

Some people subjectively want the game to be inconsistent or unbalanced or something else.

Some people subjectively want the game to be any combination of it or something else.

The game itself doesn't technically need anything...

[magnemoe]

I sincerely hope the "balanced" people do not end up getting the wonderful new parts nerfed.

"Balance" is one of those things I think people expect that they should want from a game, that actually detracts from most games.

At least in this type of context.

People clamoring for "balance" because of "realism",: in the real world we no longer use the same technological items we did even just a decade ago, realism actually requires what many of you perceive as an "imbalance".

Otherwise, in a game where you pretty much regulate your own behavior, if you are afraid you'll stop using the older parts, well then, that's more an issue of having some self control rather than having things watered down to a lukewarm, middling experience for everyone else because you'd rather not exert said self control.

Think the main issue is that the new part and more the new joints make launching 100-200 ton payloads into orbit trivial.

This is partial on purpose as the asteroid redirect missions require larger ships, the only missions who required large ships previously was Eve return, Jool system grand tour and that sort of veteran stuff.

For me it was an practical cap before 0.235 on 120 ton to LKO, it could be extended some for interplanetary ships by using the ships nuclear engines and perhaps an mainsail booster for the last 700 m/s and you could always refuel in orbit so 120 ton was dry mass. In 0.235 I can easy lift 200 ton however has not yet had an need for something with 250 ton dry mass.

[SSSPutnik]

You've not seen the 35 ton on launchpad Jool Grand Tour entry then?

[SofusRud]

Can I still choose not to do that, if I don't want to? Yes...

Then the answer is no...

You can also choose not to use any engines and faff about with rovers and sculptures made from structural pieces. What you, the player, chooses to do is completely irrelevant with regards to game design/game balance. Its what you can do that matters.

[78stonewobble]

You've not seen the 35 ton on launchpad Jool Grand Tour entry then?

Which, if that's what you want and the way you want to do it... Is great...

[78stonewobble]

You can also choose not to use any engines and faff about with rovers and sculptures made from structural pieces. What you, the player, chooses to do is completely irrelevant with regards to game design/game balance. Its what you can do that matters.

Except if the parts get nerfed or balanced a person that want's to play with an op part or unbalanced part (dependent on point of view), cannot do it without modding.

Whereas people who wants to play with non-op parts or balanced parts, can do so, no matter how the new parts are balanced, since the old ones are still there.

Design/game balance can be completely irrelevant itself, somewhat irrelevant or highly relevant or only partially applicable to certain things.

[Joonatan1998]

The reason why unbalanced parts are bad is that it breaks the baseline for challenges.

The game should be balanced by default and then you could change it to have your OP engines.

The amount of work it takes to change the engines to be OP is far less than to create new baseline for challenges.

Edited April 12, 2014 by Joonatan1998

[SSSPutnik]

Agree with above, that's why so many Challenges state "stock only".

I can see new Challenges stating:

"Stock only but you can't use this that, or this, oh and these too unless you do this that and the other"...

Or worse still, "Must use stock balancer mod" which will exclude all those who don't mod. (I use mods but a lot don't).

Prior to 0.23.5 modifying engine parts to get the same stats as the new engines would be considered cheating on a lot of Challenges.

Edited April 12, 2014 by SSSPutnik

[78stonewobble]

The reason why unbalanced parts are bad is that it breaks the baseline for challenges.

The game should be balanced by default and then you could change it to have your OP engines.

The amount of work it takes to change the engines to be OP is far less than to create new baseline for challenges.

Which is a valid point only if a majority of players care for challenges and futhermore that they are balanced between engines.

However it takes even less work to create challenges that doesn't involve the new engines or are specific to certain parts.

So by the workload argument they shouldn't be changed.

- - - Updated - - -

Agree with above, that's why so many Challenges state "stock only".

I can see new Challenges stating:

"Stock only but you can't use this that, or this, oh and these too unless you do this that and the other"...

Or worse still, "Must use stock balancer mod" which will exclude all those who don't mod.

Which takes what? 10 to 15 seconds to type down? Oh the horror.

[Pecan]

[i have just re-read what I've written below. Treat it as pondering-aloud, I don't think there's anything of material interest in it. Comments are welcome though].

The tutorial I am still re-writing progresses in 5 chapters: 1) first rover, plane, rocket, 2) Kerbin oribital satellites, 3) Manned orbital (rocket & spaceplane) and lunar/low-deltaV-interplanetary satellites, 4) Manned lunar landings and high-deltaV-interplanetary satellites, 5) 'permanent' infrastructure, stations, tankers, crew shuttles, tractors and landers.

I've redesigned the heavier vehicles in chapter 5 to use the ARM parts because there doesn't seem to be any reason to use anything else (yes, I've abandoned asparagus for parallel or even stack staging) and am unsure whether to do the same in chapter 4, where appropriate; chapter 1 stuff is too simple to be affected. That leaves me stuck a bit in the middle (writer's thing, not a technical issue) because over the course of the chapter 2/3 missions I want to illustrate and explain the differences in staging strategies. Apart from getting plausible designs in the right places I've then more or less got to say "but forget all that, using a few ARM parts and simple stack staging you can go anywhere with just about anything".

While it's possible to stick a mainsail under an orange tube everyone who has tried it knows that actually flying the thing as a beginner is trickier than (say) 1.5m parts with a 48-7s. That at least meant there were different reasons for different designs across missions as payloads become heavier and destinations required higher deltaV. KSP and, I like to think, the tutorial were more interesting because of that. Now it's no harder to single-stage a lander to mun than to orbit. [Although we all have to remember how hard it was to get to orbit when we started!]

Bah! What's really got me stuck is only that where I want to do radial-staging for the first time the mission doesn't need it ^^. For the 'story' progession to make sense the mission has to happen at that point so I'll probably just have to think of somewhere else to use radial (if anywhere).

[chrisb2e9]

Why do people even care? I mod the stock game. Make changes to the engines, batteries, etc. I modded the science lab to store 4000 electric charge. And I gave it has torque values of 60.

Is someone going to sit at home and rage about that? good for them. but understand that I don't care at all what you think about how I play my game. Just play how you want to. It's a single player game after all...

All these people getting upset over the larger engines and stronger parts... Grow up...

[magnemoe]

You've not seen the 35 ton on launchpad Jool Grand Tour entry then?

No, I did an 666 ton from pad, 100 ton from LKO grand tour who included all the planets and moons.

http://i.imgur.com/BN6RHwd.jpg

However not sure how to do an 35 ton with all Jool moons mainly as I don't know how to build an good enough launcher.

You have an link to it?

[comham]

Notionally the stock game should be a feature-complete, internally consistent experience with mods as a nice bonus. Unbalanced stock parts screw this up.

[John FX]

Notionally the stock game should be a feature-complete, internally consistent experience with mods as a nice bonus. Unbalanced stock parts screw this up.

One solution would be to raise the power of the original engines. They ARE the underpowered engines compared to RL after all...

Also, to have this conversation without making a separation between sandbox balance and career balance is meaningless.

In total annihilation for example (build economy and fight with hordes of robots) for example there was a tech tree and the later robots were *much* more powerful than the earlier ones. In a skirmish (sandbox) game, they were all you would use as they could kill anything else.

In skirmish (sandbox) they were horribly overpowered.

In the ACTUAL game though there was an economy which made it harder to get the overpowered parts and so this balanced them due to their cost.

It would have been idiotic to `balance` the game for sandbox as that would paradoxically unbalance it for the actual game and would have made the game as a whole MUCH less fun to play. There would be no point in developing tech, everything would be so `balanced` that the benefit of expending the resources to get the higher powered parts would be eliminated.

Balancing the game for sandbox play would have ruined it.

We are in a similar position in KSP. We are moving from `sandbox balancing` to `gameplay and career balancing` and there are different ways to do both.

An attitude shift in the forum is now needed to allow SQUAD to make this a much better game. Stop thinking of balancing as something that can only be done in sandbox and realise the new economy will provide new ways to balance an engine that seems OP currently without nerfing it.

I know OP wanted to restrict the thread to exclude money and career but that would make the thread dissolve into an argument for which there is no solution unless you consider career and money.

Edited April 12, 2014 by John FX

[Pecan]

No, I did an 666 ton from pad, 100 ton from LKO grand tour who included all the planets and moons.

http://i.imgur.com/BN6RHwd.jpg

However not sure how to do an 35 ton with all Jool moons mainly as I don't know how to build an good enough launcher.

You have an link to it?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57197-The-ultimate-Jool-5-challenge-land-Kerbals-on-all-moons-and-return-in-one-big-misson

[Pecan]

... Grow up...

Thanks for the LOLs.

[SSSPutnik]

No, I did an 666 ton from pad, 100 ton from LKO grand tour who included all the planets and moons.

http://i.imgur.com/BN6RHwd.jpg

However not sure how to do an 35 ton with all Jool moons mainly as I don't know how to build an good enough launcher.

You have an link to it?

Its not my creation, I'm jealous.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57197-The-ultimate-Jool-5-challenge-land-Kerbals-on-all-moons-and-return-in-one-big-misson?p=1021230&viewfull=1#post1021230

[Red Iron Crown]

Its not my creation, I'm jealous.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/57197-The-ultimate-Jool-5-challenge-land-Kerbals-on-all-moons-and-return-in-one-big-misson?p=1021230&viewfull=1#post1021230

Ye gods! I wouldn't have thought such a thing was possible!

[oggylt]

I don't understand it either. The game is delivered as is and devs are making it the way they like it. You may either play it how it was meant to be played by devs, or make a mod that will change things to suit your liking.

The whole rest of the debate is about "I don't like that other people may be playing differently than I want them to play".

words of truth

[cantab]

I feel like I'm repeating myself here.

Does it not worry you that the new engines have made Rocket Singe Stage To Laythe craft not just possible, but really easy to throw together, using only one engine (x7)? Could you do that in the demo?

In terms of the power of the new engines, sure, but I know they're superior to many older ones anyway.

In terms of how easy or hard it makes the mission, no. You don't specify all the steps (which is fair enough), but I assume you had to wait for a launch window, set up the right ejection burn, do an aerocapture without either flying past or if you use Jool crashing, ensure an encounter with Laythe at some point, ensure none of Jool's other moons mess things up or compensate if they try to, and probably other things I've missed. Staging or not staging the launcher doesn't really matter in comparison.

In short, I don't regard being able to use a single stage to get to any given place beyond LKO as making things too easy, because you've always got the greater challenges of interplanetary transfers and/or of making a powered landing.

[SDIR]

I personally think that allowing for such large rocket parts has allowed the game to be much more fun to play, for me at least. Before the only way to get to Dres for me was to use a large interplanetary ship which would take hours to dock and assemble, then refuel and finally launch the crew. Now with the larger rocket parts, I can either make the same ship with larger sections and less docking, or just launch a direct mission to Dres or Jool.

[Holo]

I don't understand it either. The game is delivered as is and devs are making it the way they like it. You may either play it how it was meant to be played by devs, or make a mod that will change things to suit your liking.

The whole rest of the debate is about "I don't like that other people may be playing differently than I want them to play".

Let's get rid of the whole suggestions subforum then. Who's with me?