Going to the Mun and going to Duna in career mode, lack of difficulty increase

[Javster]

Maybe for you, but in the time I played, I couldn't pull off a Duna return.

[cantab]

In my opinion, technology progress should be quest-based. If you want this part, you need to fly to this place and do that research there. After a few steps in technology, you can already reach most of the system. That's a good thing as it allows for the technology graph to be wide - if you're not brave enough to fly to Dres yet, you give up for a while on technology you don't desperately need. But you can fly somewhere else and get something else. Better solar panels in low Sun orbit and on Eeloo. More powerful space engines for research on Tylo. Better jet engines for visiting Laythe. Better parachutes after sending probe on Eve surface and on Duna. You can reach wide variety of places and that gives you freedom in which way will you enhance your technology further.

I fear that would structure career mode a bit too much though, even with wide branching. The current career mode gives you lots of options. Fed up of science farming Minmus and the Mun every single game? Ignore them completely and make your first landing on Gilly. Hate the whole clicky clicky science system? Get all your science from contracts.

Also, your idea would easily lead to the issue, not uncommon in games, of earning stuff after you most want it. So you somehow manage a mission to Eeloo with rubbish solar panels, get better panels for it, well you've just in a sense proven you don't need those better panels and unless you go to Eeloo again your next mission probably won't be so demanding on the power front.

[Kasuha]

Also, your idea would easily lead to the issue, not uncommon in games, of earning stuff after you most want it. So you somehow manage a mission to Eeloo with rubbish solar panels, get better panels for it, well you've just in a sense proven you don't need those better panels and unless you go to Eeloo again your next mission probably won't be so demanding on the power front.

That's definitely a valid point. My argument is, though, that after you get some 20 most basic parts, all the rest is not to get you further but to allow you to make your ships prettier. So it doesn't matter that you've already been to Eeloo to get the large panel, because you're going to use it most on your Kerbin orbital station.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Kasuha

[tater]

^^^ cantab is right. Frankly the current tree already does this. You can land on the Mun, but can't manage to get ladder rungs to get out until the 4th level of tech.

Maybe you "solicit" new tech by grabbing tech items from the next tiers in the tree (the father away the more difficulty the goal must have) for a given mission need. Any such use is provisional. Have a new mechanic where you actually set a goal, and have the goals somehow rated by difficulty. You need a sufficiently difficult goal to unlock those next-tier items. You do the mission with the "X tech," and if you succeed in the goal, you get to keep it.

I start a new career, and want my first Mun mission. I plan the mission goal, Mun landing and sample return, and grab a ladder, a seismic sensor, etc. I do the mission, and based on the success, I get to keep some or all of the tech I had the guys design for me.

Note that ideally, any new tech might have an improved version at some point that is visually identical, but has better specs that you evolve through use.

[NecroBones]

When I was new to the game, Duna seemed about right as the next challenge after Mun. It's not that much harder, true, but it's also a confidence booster, and a more complex mission in the sense that you have to figure out how to do interplanetary transfers, and take into account an atmosphere at the other end. To me that makes it a good stepping stone-- learning interplanetary travel with a relatively "safe" destination.

[r4pt0r]

I was worried about being able to return from Duna after I finally sent a few unmanned rovers there, so my first manned interplanetary mission was to Ike instead. I only had 2 units of fuel left when I got my Kerbin return intercept. Had my hands sweating, watching that burn was intense.

[r_rolo1]

The point OP does is true, but that is simply a consequence of the game physics: once you are in low kerbal orbit, you can go anywhere in the Sol system with relative ease in terms of spent dV. In RL things are a little more complicated though, even if we disregard the diference if dV needed to leave Earth compared with the one needed for Kerbin ( you can go anywhere and back in KSP with the dV needed to reach Earth escape velocity ) that makes return trips from Mars quite painful compared with Duna ( you can easily make a Duna and back trip taking all of your fuel from Kerbin. It is much harder to do that in a Mars trip ) ... mainly because of the biological and psicological needs of humans compared with with the ones of kerbals ( that are, ATM, none ), that, besides adding serious mass requirements to the mission ( coumpounding the fuel consumption ), requires a whole new layer of technology and testing ( one step that is being critically delayed since the 80's regarding the viability of a Mars mission is actually know if humans can function sanely outside of a "easy" low earth orbit for long periods ... the USSR was planning a couple of missions to some nearby asteroids to test all of that , but then it was no more ... ).

How that could transmit in game ? Well, it would need two things that the devs are quite resistant to do: rebalance the fuel energy densities to make it harder to get anywhere and life support. Barring that, if you want Duna being a big step above the Mun, you actually have to make the dificulty yourself ...

[SunChaser]

I'm a fairly new player but I've more or less got the hang of the game by now. That said, it was pretty tough getting anywhere outside of Kerbin's SOI and returning in one piece for a while. If you think 'X' is too easy, there are a lot of mods (that I'm not ready for) that would make the game a lot harder--and more realistic. As other posters have mentioned, FAR, Deadly Re-Entry, etc.

As far as the science tree goes, career mode probably won't stay like this forever, but you can get a ton of science just by doing missions on and in orbit around Kerbin. With some good contracts and a few missions to Minmus/Mun you can finish it easily--but this isn't the most exciting way to play the game. Part of the fun is challenging yourself, like trying to put a big station in orbit without orange tanks, doing interplanetary transfer without ion engines (hard for me at least).

[KerikBalm]

The point OP does is true, but that is simply a consequence of the game physics: once you are in low kerbal orbit, you can go anywhere in the Sol system with relative ease in terms of spent dV.

Umm, its KerbIN orbit, and the KERBol system.

even if we disregard the diference if dV needed to leave Earth compared with the one needed for Kerbin

If we don't then you can't disregard the difference in full/empty ratios of fuel tanks, and the low TWRs of engines, etc. KSP ships are HEAVY when empty, relatively speaking - to balance out the reduced scale and thus reduced dV - although this solution is far from perfect.

(you can go anywhere and back in KSP with the dV needed to reach Earth escape velocity ) that makes return trips from Mars quite painful compared with Duna ( you can easily make a Duna and back trip taking all of your fuel from Kerbin. It is much harder to do that in a Mars trip ) ... mainly because of the biological and psicological needs of humans compared with with the ones of kerbals ( that are, ATM, none ), that, besides adding serious mass requirements to the mission ( coumpounding the fuel consumption ), requires a whole new layer of technology and testing ( one step that is being critically delayed since the 80's regarding the viability of a Mars mission is actually know if humans can function sanely outside of a "easy" low earth orbit for long periods ... the USSR was planning a couple of missions to some nearby asteroids to test all of that , but then it was no more ... ).

Well, we don't even need to do a manned mission.. a robotic sample return would be amazing. All of our missions there have been 1 way

*on to the OP's topic*

Duna has the following challenges:

* Requires using a good transfer window (or a whole lot of dV!)

* More gravity than the Mun making the final stages of a landing harder (somewhat offset by parachutes though)

* Aerobraking required to get it done in similar dV, or a higher dV budget needed

* Ascent stage of a craft requires much more dV than the Mun

* Ike has a strong tendancy to muck up your approach

* parachutes don't semi deploy until you are very low. For standard chutes, this can be as low as 800 meters- coupled with a fixed deployment altitude, this can mean you are still going very fast when they deploy, and you may just rip your craft apart with them.

* because of the issues with the atmosphere, landing site selection and maneuvering becomes even more important

IMO, it doesn't even have to be harder challenges, just as long as its a different set of challenges.

Its likely to be the first body with an atmosphere that you will visit (or at least return from).

Its likely to be the first body you need to have knowledge of transfer windows to get to.

Dealing with Ike may prepare you for a visit to the jool system.

From a gameplay perspective, I think it is in a good place.

[Moar Boosters]

The last update which strengthened joints made Duna much easier IMO.

Before that update Duna landers had a nasty habit of tearing themselves apart if you activated your chutes when you were travelling too fast. That's not really a problem since the last patch.

[juanml82]

^^^ cantab is right. Frankly the current tree already does this. You can land on the Mun, but can't manage to get ladder rungs to get out until the 4th level of tech.

Maybe you "solicit" new tech by grabbing tech items from the next tiers in the tree (the father away the more difficulty the goal must have) for a given mission need. Any such use is provisional. Have a new mechanic where you actually set a goal, and have the goals somehow rated by difficulty. You need a sufficiently difficult goal to unlock those next-tier items. You do the mission with the "X tech," and if you succeed in the goal, you get to keep it.

I start a new career, and want my first Mun mission. I plan the mission goal, Mun landing and sample return, and grab a ladder, a seismic sensor, etc. I do the mission, and based on the success, I get to keep some or all of the tech I had the guys design for me.

Note that ideally, any new tech might have an improved version at some point that is visually identical, but has better specs that you evolve through use.

That's what sort of happens with contracts, only the other way around. Example: you want Rapiers or Aerospikes for your spaceplanes, which are at the end of the tech tree. As you play, you get a contract to test them. As long as you don't complete the contract, you can continue to use them until you research them.

[r_rolo1]

Umm, its KerbIN orbit, and the KERBol system.

Actually the star present in the planetary system where Kerbin is is named Sol ( thus, as by RL convention, it is the Sol system ). If you don't believe me check in game The "Kerbol" is just a residue from when Squad had not named the star yet ... And I used Kerbin correctly where appliable :/

Well, we don't even need to do a manned mission.. a robotic sample return would be amazing. All of our missions there have been 1 way

Well, a robotic return mission from Mars would probably be in the outer skirts of what we know is possible with current tech ( if you have a launcher somewhat comparable with Saturn V ... that is clearly the main issue, since most of the current launchers would fall short ). But then we beat the point of the OP again: in terms of rocket technology proper, it is not exactly a big step to go from a Apollo mission to a robotic return mission from Mars ( in fact, if there was a Saturn V in working conditions in the NASA backyard, they could do it today ) ... the human factor is that what makes a huge diference.

But back in point, Duna presents a diferent challenge from the Mun: you can aerobrake and use chutes ( within very narrow bands, true ) and you need to have real knowledge of orbital mechanics just to get there ( unlike the Mun where you can do all of the mission by eye ). But in terms of rocket construction ( especially in dV at launch ) it is indeed not much diferent from a Munar trip ...

Edited August 22, 2014 by r_rolo1

[r4pt0r]

Actually the star present in the planetary system where Kerbin is is named Sol ( thus, as by RL convention, it is the Sol system ). If you don't believe me check in game The "Kerbol" is just a residue from when Squad had not named the star yet ... And I used Kerbin correctly where appliable :/

yeah "k-syndrome" is a forum thing mainly. In-game it is most certainly not called kerbol.

[Renegrade]

In my opinion, technology progress should be quest-based. If you want this part, you need to fly to this place and do that research there. After a few steps in technology, you can already reach most of the system. That's a good thing as it allows for the technology graph to be wide - if you're not brave enough to fly to Dres yet, you give up for a while on technology you don't desperately need. But you can fly somewhere else and get something else. Better solar panels in low Sun orbit and on Eeloo. More powerful space engines for research on Tylo. Better jet engines for visiting Laythe. Better parachutes after sending probe on Eve surface and on Duna. You can reach wide variety of places and that gives you freedom in which way will you enhance your technology further.

Actually, I like the sound of that.

I tend to focus on tweaks to the existing structures as I've noted that Squad is kinda loathe to rewrite entire systems or revisit old code.. but if we could get them out of 'meh' mode, I wouldn't mind this. Especially tied in with that other fellow's idea about surface exploration.

I'm cool with any sort of progress-related science tree that means that you have to do something OTHER than one mun landing and a bunch of contracts in LKO.

Also, your idea would easily lead to the issue, not uncommon in games, of earning stuff after you most want it. So you somehow manage a mission to Eeloo with rubbish solar panels, get better panels for it, well you've just in a sense proven you don't need those better panels and unless you go to Eeloo again your next mission probably won't be so demanding on the power front.

Leaving aside #lolsolar* for a moment, I agree that the "after you need it" thing is a serious disease in game design these days. The solution is to simply ensure that you get the parts just prior to needing them. For instance, to get the jet engines from Eve, you just have to send a non-return probe to the surface (or such). Then you get the engines and can do more exploration...until you realize that jet engines are useless on Eve (barring the introduction of a thermal nuclear jet like in Interstellar).

* - There are no rubbish panels in stock, as a few ox-stats with a few batteries can perform everything but ion drive. And given that ox-stats are #lolmassless #lolnophyics parts, you can just abuse that until you DO have enough to run your ions. I'd like to see this addressed in some manner.

[Pecan]

...You can land on the Mun, but can't manage to get ladder rungs to get out until the 4th level of tech...

It was the ladder thing that convinced me the tech-tree was not flawed, but insane ^^.

Hmmm, in-game the star is just called 'Sun'. Well, yes, it's A sun just as Luna is A moon. The sun in KSP does not appear to have any name though, and it definitely shouldn't be called Sol. As it happens - neither should our sun! (http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-the-suns-name) So we're all back to square one.

[Superfluous J]

Complaining that Duna isn't sufficiently more difficult than Mun is like complaining that Portal didn't get significantly harder when when you got your first portal gun.

Mun and Minmus are baby steps. Duna is the first time you tried to ride a bike. Looks insanely difficult but once you've got it it's easy. And you can use what you learned to ride to the store and eventually you'll be able to drive across the country.

Duna does not need to be any harder to get to. You need to find harder things to do than ferry ships back and forth.

[tater]

The contract mechanic is broken, as it incentivizes you to not complete it to use the tech at will.

I actually like the idea of having "experimental" tech that contains chances of random failures (testing them makes the "researched" version more reliable.

SRBs that leak through O-rings and blow up. Engines that leak fuel/oxidizer when you are halfway to the middle of nowhere, or gimbals that lock, or lack the claimed range in all directions, etc, etc. In order to "test" these flaws,you'd need to rescue the craft...

[Levelord]

Complaining that Duna isn't sufficiently more difficult than Mun is like complaining that Portal didn't get significantly harder when when you got your first portal gun.

Mun and Minmus are baby steps. Duna is the first time you tried to ride a bike. Looks insanely difficult but once you've got it it's easy. And you can use what you learned to ride to the store and eventually you'll be able to drive across the country.

Duna does not need to be any harder to get to. You need to find harder things to do than ferry ships back and forth.

This exactly. The game's difficulty is dependent on the player's existing knowledge of basic physics and not on the game itself.

I doubt the OP found going to Duna particularly easy the first time he played KSP, and the truth is that he simply got good enough by practice. Adding more tedious stuff like life support and whatnot is just dangling another carrot on a stick for him to practice, master, and then come back complaining that the game still isn't hard enough. All it serves to do is widen the learning gap for newcomers and discourage them from exploring.

Why is it that every once in a while when someone posted that they finally landed on the Mun, it's usually a congratulatory celebration by the community and not people going "It's nothing special because it's stupidly easy" to him? It's because we all share the memories of how hard it was for us to get to orbit/travel to the mun/land/etc for the first time. It's not exciting to us anymore because we've done it so many times that we can do it with our eyes closed, but we can still appreciate the experiences of newcomers getting into the game. I don't see the point of bumping up the stock difficulty just to provide a barrier against exploration and most people's eyes will just glaze over with the overflow of the extra stats and numbers. I feel this sort of difficulty increase with life support, random failures, deadly re-entry, etc... should be relegated to modding where people voluntarily decide if they want to go a step higher from stock.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Levelord

[Malaugrym]

Once you're in orbit, you're halfway to anywhere. Going anywhere is a question of dV.

[Franklin]

The problem with further and further planets is, in reality, the difficulty rises on multiple sliders. Fuel, price, time, crew resources, hell, psychology. But none of these are factors in KSP yet. So the difficulty from planet to planet is really basic right now. It essentially just amounts to fuel, with maybe a minor slider for planet approachability.

So going to Mars is vastly more difficult than going to the Moon because in reality we have more challenges than just dV and TWR, which is why it seems like the jump from Mun to Duna seems so easy, because it is.

Should it be? I'd argue no. I'd like to see the KSP equivalent of going from the Moon landing to the Mars landing to be comparatively difficult, but I don't think we will unless/until Squad decides to add more mission factors than Price/Fuel/Thrust.

Even just adding a basic life support system/requirement would make the gap between Mun and Duna missions far, far tougher.

[SorryDave]

Shortly after planting a flag on Minmus and then the Mun, I sent two Kerbals to heaven on my first Duna attempt. The parachute deployed when traveling about 1000 m/s.

I got around the difficulty "issue" by sending three Kerbals, two to land. This required more tech.

[juanml82]

The problem with further and further planets is, in reality, the difficulty rises on multiple sliders. Fuel, price, time, crew resources, hell, psychology. But none of these are factors in KSP yet. So the difficulty from planet to planet is really basic right now. It essentially just amounts to fuel, with maybe a minor slider for planet approachability.

So going to Mars is vastly more difficult than going to the Moon because in reality we have more challenges than just dV and TWR, which is why it seems like the jump from Mun to Duna seems so easy, because it is.

Should it be? I'd argue no. I'd like to see the KSP equivalent of going from the Moon landing to the Mars landing to be comparatively difficult, but I don't think we will unless/until Squad decides to add more mission factors than Price/Fuel/Thrust.

Even just adding a basic life support system/requirement would make the gap between Mun and Duna missions far, far tougher.

And that will be good because of what? Make every interplanetary mission far, far tougher and you discourage people from playing the game.

I'll also argue that the difficulty in interplanetary exploration (in the game, that is) only amounts to fuel. Try to make a cost efficient manned mission to the Jool system and back: you need docking, refueling, transfer windows, you have a construction challenge in designing cost effective landers and transfer stages (do you send the landers to Pol, Bop and Vall each on their separate interplanetary injector, which is a lot more expensive? Do you try to cram them in a single ship? If so, how do you recover them so they can be sent back?). The landers for Laythe and Tylo require their own different design. Landing at Laythe requires precision as you'll otherwise find yourself in the ocean. Do you also send a plane to Laythe, to roam its skies? How? A SSTL (Single Stage to Laythe)? Is it attached to some of the ships you're sending? How much skill a Tylo lander requires, compared to a Mun lander? Are you stationing your return vehicles in Jool's orbit? Laythe? Tylo? Do you use your almost expended booster stages to give you a kick into a Kerbin escape trajectory? Or do you use their remaining fuel to return them to the KSC for a refund, settling for longer burn times with nukes?

[Franklin]

And that will be good because of what? Make every interplanetary mission far, far tougher and you discourage people from playing the game.

There needs to be a constant consideration of fun vs. challenge, of course, but the reverse arguement could be made that having it too easy discourages people from playing the game. Boredom is far more often a long-term barrier for players than difficulty.

I'll also argue that the difficulty in interplanetary exploration (in the game, that is) only amounts to fuel. Try to make a cost efficient manned mission to the Jool system and back: you need docking, refueling, transfer windows, you have a construction challenge in designing cost effective landers and transfer stages (do you send the landers to Pol, Bop and Vall each on their separate interplanetary injector, which is a lot more expensive? Do you try to cram them in a single ship? If so, how do you recover them so they can be sent back?). The landers for Laythe and Tylo require their own different design. Landing at Laythe requires precision as you'll otherwise find yourself in the ocean. Do you also send a plane to Laythe, to roam its skies? How? A SSTL (Single Stage to Laythe)? Is it attached to some of the ships you're sending? How much skill a Tylo lander requires, compared to a Mun lander? Are you stationing your return vehicles in Jool's orbit? Laythe? Tylo? Do you use your almost expended booster stages to give you a kick into a Kerbin escape trajectory? Or do you use their remaining fuel to return them to the KSC for a refund, settling for longer burn times with nukes?

You're using many multiple missions with many multiple options with completing them as a show of overall game difficulty, which isn't fair, nor accurate. Comparing basically end-game challenges to what we're proposing with ramping challenge overall.

And I'm not saying hard = good, I'm just pointing out why the jump from Mun to Duna seems so much easier than the jump from Moon to Mars. And I happen to agree with luinux in that perhaps there's some ramp-up imbalances, and it's due to there being 3 total sliders to focus on when completing a mission, when in reality there are many more.

Plus I mean it's a space sim, technically. It's not ultra-real, but crew maintenance and survivability is a pretty basic part of simulating space. I hope Squad considers the element at some point.

[BlackAdder128]

The problem with further and further planets is, in reality, the difficulty rises on multiple sliders. Fuel, price, time, crew resources, hell, psychology. But none of these are factors in KSP yet. So the difficulty from planet to planet is really basic right now. It essentially just amounts to fuel, with maybe a minor slider for planet approachability.

So going to Mars is vastly more difficult than going to the Moon because in reality we have more challenges than just dV and TWR, which is why it seems like the jump from Mun to Duna seems so easy, because it is.

Should it be? I'd argue no. I'd like to see the KSP equivalent of going from the Moon landing to the Mars landing to be comparatively difficult, but I don't think we will unless/until Squad decides to add more mission factors than Price/Fuel/Thrust.

Even just adding a basic life support system/requirement would make the gap between Mun and Duna missions far, far tougher.

I just dowloaded the set of mods for "Realism mode". Considering the relatively high number of hours it took me to get to the point where I wanted a more challenging experience, it seems fully appropriate to rely on mods for that.

[jonr]

I only started playing KSP a few days before .24 came out and for me I think Duna posses about the right amount of challenge after Mun/Minmus. I haven't actually made the trip yet but I've been planning a kerbaled flight out there for a bit. I try to only use warp when traveling between places so I think I started planning for Duna about 114 days prior to the transfer window and now it's ~74 days away which is pretty exciting for me and the kerbals. Since landing on the Mun and Minmus I've had time to work out the maths behind the transfer to Duna, design a new interplanetary ship that I feel would be acceptable for a few kerbels (4-5) to use during what will be around a 200-300 day mission to allow for transfer windows and test the heck out of ship designs by repeated Mum/Minmus missions which have allowed me to become a better pilot (no mechjeb, FAR enabled). Thanks to the time and testing I feel pretty confident that I can embark on a trip to Duna and Ike, visit each and return to Kerbin hopefully with all kerbals intact. I'm sure after I make the trip it'll seem easy but at least in my mind it's still a pretty exciting trip and a good step up from Minmus/Mun.