Opinions on "Kerbal Experience"

[Feldynn]

I like the general concept of "Kerbal Experience", having tasks and functions that can be influenced by a Kerbal's "skill" or "area of expertise" (I always wondered if Squad would add a rudimentary form of autopilot based on the Kerbals themselves carrying out flight manoeuvres) and so on. I also really like having options that can be disabled and customized to each player's liking, that way if I don't like exactly how something is implemented in a preset I can change or disable it (see the recent Difficulty options).

Even the idea of Kerbals with high engineering skills being able to "squeeze a little more" out of an engine doesn't bother me that much (if implemented correctly), I'm sure anyone that has watched Star Trek (and similar shows) may remember episodes where Montgomery Scott or Geordi La Forge (or other engineers) managed to reconfigure various systems on the fly to provide a slight boost of one form or another.

[cantab]

On Broax's idea given at the top of the page, my reservation is that it might just feel like having to jump through hoops. It doesn't really add new capabilities, rather puts finicky requirements on old ones. Things like not being able to fix a flat tyre because you haven't brought an "engineer" along could get annoying.

I still think the best use of Kerbal Experience would be flight assistance. That's something the stock game currently lacks and one of the most popular mods (Mechjeb) provides, and connecting it to the kerbals themselves would be a different spin on it compared to Mechjeb. It might even extend to probes by the game requiring you to assign a Kerbal to "Mission Control" for your probe cores.

As for Kerbal stats, I think it would be good if different things benefited from different stats, rather than it ending up that one stat combo is the best at everything.

[PDCWolf]

Any new feature is going to require players to conform to specific mindset to some extent, unless you play sandbox, in which case this entire discussion is irrelevant.

Not really, since most things are presented upfront (like the game being tycoon type with semi realistic orbital mechanics, which is written pretty much everywhere), but for this now you need to have in mind that it is a tycoon game in which you are no longer god influencing everything directly or indirectly (like in any tycoon game) but rather someone giving commands to little green men in a capsule (which doesn't fit with probes either, as I pointed out previously). Not only that, but this idea also forces a lot of lore on a game where nothing is cannon and everything is debatable because kerbals have no backstory at all other than being a very intelligent race with a disregard for security measures.

However, addressing your first point: it's hard to argue that you aren't "giving orders to the kerbals" or else you would be able to fly command pods without kerbals in them, which of course you can't. Requiring kerbals to be in the pods to operate them implies that the kerbals are the ones actually pushing the buttons. If one takes the stand that giving kerbals attributes doesn't make sense because Kerbals aren't doing anything to begin with, then the logical extension to that is Kerbals shouldn't be required to fly at all. But of course they are (unless you use a probe anyway).

I reference-quote myself on the multiple times I explained this and how tycoon games actually work. What you are mentioning would fit an RPG. To explain those "variations in piloting skills" you post on every single post, you would probably need to tell something like this to most of the players:

"It doesn't matter how good or bad a pilot you are, we are simulating piloting on a secondary logical layer of the game and applying penalties or buffs to parts according to said simulation, which is an abstraction of the idea that it is Kerbals piloting the ship and said piloting being manipulated by their skills, and your keypresses sending orders to the Kerbals instead of having a direct effect."

As of now, we have the freedom of roleplay what we want, either being god, sending orders to the kerbals, or being mission control and even the kerbals themselves. With this abstraction of piloting skill you kill every single mindset except the second one and you also create a BIG difference between what's perceived by the player and what is actually happening, imagine someone going "I executed that maneuver perfectly, why did it cost more dV? oh wait, I forgot my Kerbal is a rookie"

so the idea is both, simultaneously, an egregious violation of physics and your ability to role play and an irrelevant improvement that doesn't actually do anything. I get it. As for suggestions, I haven't been through the posts from overnight so I can't speak to those, But I would say that maybe 2-3% of the first 400 posts in this thread had some semblance of suggestions, and most of them either suffered from the same problems (in that they would violate physics based on people's arugments) or would have problems violating people's right to role play as they wished, which appears to be one of your major concerns. And yes, the vast, vast, vast majority of messages were not just opposition but near "I will quit playing this game" opposition.

First, you are implying that Kerbals controlling the ship is indeed roleplay and not the actual case at hand, you just invalidated most of your previous posts. Second, not only do you ignore suggestions both by constantly saying that there are none and now also by saying people called them illogical or violations of physics (please, quote some of those posts), but also say most people are putting a gun on squad's head by saying they'll quit playing the game (again, I request some of those posts too). Wow, it's like we are looking at very different threads.

I don't think Squad is blindly following the community. I also don't think Squad believes their original idea was a mistake either. But they do recognize that including a feature that incites such widespread criticism is a mistake. Squad hasn't been afraid to include features that many in the community disliked before, but the discussion was often more split on those features.

Little to no features have been disliked by the community, biggest uproars actually came from things like mentioning DLCs on the official stream and cancelling resources but none that I can remember from a feature, unless you included "features that were included into the game being when being less than half finished" into that list.

[Red Iron Crown]

Batteries have a clear purpose for being necessary in running a remote (providing power). What purpose does a Kerbal have in a pod if he's not pushing buttons that requires it's presence?

The kerbal is a required part for functioning, just as the batteries in my remote are. I am still the one pressing the buttons in both cases.

I'm not against kerbal experience at all, or greater differentiation among kerbals, or creating reasons to make keeping kerbals alive desirable; but I don't think improving ship performance through kerbal stats is a good way to do it.

The realism reasons for that have been discussed to death in this thread already, so I won't rehash them. Instead I'll explain why I think it's a bad idea from a gameplay perspective:

- It changes the relationship between sandbox and career modes. If kerbal experience buffs craft performance, then it becomes easier to build craft suitable to a mission and fly those missions in career mode. This is backwards, sandbox should be the easier of the modes as it is supposed to be free of career mode restraints, of which kerbal experience is one. If instead kerbal inexperience nerfs craft performance, then sandbox loses its viability as a test simulator for career mode (a scenario that many players use). Their craft that performs adequately in the sandbox may not be up to the task when inexperience penalties are applied. So either career mode features "easy mode" spaceflight or sandbox becomes less useful as a proving ground for designs.

- It diminishes the core gameplay of KSP. At its heart, KSP's play is about designing and flying spacecraft. Kerbal experience affecting craft performance makes the player's skill at those things less important; to some degree deficiencies in design or piloting skill can be offset by levelling up the kerbals.

- It makes the game harder for new players. New players generally kill more kerbals, so it will be harder for them to have experienced kerbals at the controls. This means that new players have to struggle with the performance handicap of unskilled pilots for longer.

- It makes the game more tedious for experienced players. Veterans often want to maximize performance, with a kerbal experience mechanic that increases craft performance they have to grind out the levels for their kerbals if they want to achieve that.

- KSP is about rocket science, it's right in the tagline "It's only rocket science". Experience improving part performance goes against that ideal, it's rocket magic. Maybe some players find that desirable, but it would seem to go against the vision of the game.

All that sort of begs the question: How would I make experience relevant?

I'll ignore the idea of buffs to science, reputation and funds as you seem to feel that the only appropriate buffs for those are already in the game (I disagree with that, but I know such arguments won't convince you). So here's a few other ways experience could be made relevant (some of which have been mentioned by others already):

- Qualifications. A level 1 pilot might be able to pilot a craft with up to 250 thrust. A level 2 might be able to pilot one with 650. Exceed the amount of thrust that a pilot is qualified to control and control is lost. The numbers are arbitrary and for example purposes, but it could create interesting scenarios where the main pilot is killed or lost and the less skilled copilot has to "limp home" with reduced thrust.

- Specialization. Require trained kerbals to operate certain pieces of equipment. A payload specialist might be able to operate docking ports and RCS. A scientist might be required to operate certain pieces of science equipment or take surface samples. A systems specialist might be required to operate an electrical system consisting of more than a certain number of parts. All these specializations might be graduated into levels, too. This could make multiple-kerbal crews relevant and desirable; as it is now there is almost no purpose in sending more than one to a destination.

- Leadership. A veteran kerbal might be placed in a command role, where his or her experience can make the other kerbals in the crew more effective at their roles.

So there are lots of ways Squad could make kerbal experience relevant and interesting and make which kerbals are in which seats an important consideration, which I think is the end goal of the experience system.

[Broax]

On Broax's idea given at the top of the page, my reservation is that it might just feel like having to jump through hoops. It doesn't really add new capabilities, rather puts finicky requirements on old ones. Things like not being able to fix a flat tyre because you haven't brought an "engineer" along could get annoying.

I still think the best use of Kerbal Experience would be flight assistance. That's something the stock game currently lacks and one of the most popular mods (Mechjeb) provides, and connecting it to the kerbals themselves would be a different spin on it compared to Mechjeb. It might even extend to probes by the game requiring you to assign a Kerbal to "Mission Control" for your probe cores.

As for Kerbal stats, I think it would be good if different things benefited from different stats, rather than it ending up that one stat combo is the best at everything.

You make a valid point but in my opinion the introduction of experience system is always going to have an effect on system that are currently deployed but a simple way to implement this in a non-intrusive way was to have it optional on the difficulty settings.

The ideas I wrote are my general preferences (although some of them were previously suggested on previous posts) but I'm not saying that they're the best or only ones. I gave these ideas because most negative comments I've seen on this thread (which is growing too fast to monitor properly) seem to focus on not wanting Kerbals to passively affect the ship performance, so I gave a couple of ideas how a system like this could work without affecting the ship directly. Having only the "Bravery" and "Intelligence" stats affect kerbals was suggested because those are currently the only two stats in the game.

I completely understand this might not be appealing to you (and a lot of other players) but if you have an option for "Kerbal classes" and "Kerbal stats" on the difficulty settings everyone would be happy... People who (like myself) prefer to have these systems in the game could just toggle them on. Everyone else could just keep them off.

I'm personally very excited with kerbal experience (not as was first suggested though) so I hope Squad is able to find a solution that makes everyone happy..

[herbal space program]

Looks like that idea got a serious beat-down from most of the experienced Kerbals around here! I don't particularly like it either, and I'm glad they decided against it. The whole concept of a given ship performing differently depending on how hard you've ridden Jebediah without killing him seems like no fun. I wouldn't mind a system though where Kerbals with low courage/stupidity can decline particularly dangerous (and lucrative) contract missions, and more experience can boost those attributes. That would not affect the performance of any particular craft, but would still provide a rationale for the existing Kerbal characteristics.

[DoToH]

As sandbox player who never unlocked the whole tech tree (I tried twice, but became boring and went back to sandbox) I know my opinion about a career feature is not very important, but is tied to the reason I play sandbox, so there it goes...

First, to clarify some of the people who posted here, including Maxmaps, SIMULATORS ARE GAMES too. The sentence SIMULATOR vs GAME only makes sense when talking about proffessional simulators. KSP used to be a simulator game.

IMO, career mode gives RPG features to the game, and I dont like it.

Farming science/funds in KSP = farming cash and materials to unlock, buy or craft equipment in any RPG.

No need to explain this one.

Missions in KSP = quests in any RPG.

Maybe there are some of them funny, but in my sandbox game I had to rescue Jeb, who was in a Moho highly eliptical orbit, because I wanted to. I dont need a mission system for that. Like in quests in RPGs, missions are there to make the farming process less boring and less time-consuming.

Kerbal XP and skills = RPG XP and skills

It had to come. Is the RPG feature missing in KSP career mode. While I would like to keep a file on my kerebals (what he did and where he has been), I dont like the propossed experience boosts, none of them.

The problem with kerbal XP is that kerbals DONT DO ANYTHING but add weight and take samples. They dont auto-pilot (and while I dont use mechjeb, auto pilot is a good reason to SIMULATE XP and skills). They dont auto-do science, you have to click-report, click-take sample, .... why not give them the option to do this tasks automatically and modify the result (amount of science points or time to complete task) taking into account the experience of the kerbal?. This is, IMO, the correct way to SIMULATE experience. You cant take experience into account for any task the subject is NOT DOING HIMSELF.

Let me give an example:

With current system:

Land - (click) crew report - (click) EVA - (click) EVA report - (click) take sample - (click) plant flag - (click) Goo observation - (click) Materials observation - (click) temperature observation - get in pod - take off.

Total time: 2 minutes.

Results: allways the same (with the XP system propossed by squad this one would change).

Simulation with XP:

Land (maybe AUTOLAND if desired with precision and fuel consumed modified by pilot's XP, including possible crash/damage) - (clik) Make experiments (time to finish and science obtained modified by XP) - While kerbal is making science, go and launch another mission or simply timewarp - When experiments are finished show a report (including info about science obtained from every experiment available) - take off.

Total time: depends on kerbal XP.

Results: depends on kerbal XP.

Thats why I play sandbox. And thats why the only interesting update for me since more than a year ago was 0.23.5. Development was focused from October 2013 (release of 0.22 and career mode) in a effort to convert a SIMULATOR GAME into a RPG GAME. I would play career when the kerbals really can do stuff, when I can give control to them to make the tedious tasks (not only the piloting ones, because i find science more tedius than refueling missions). Meanwhile, to play RPG, Skyrim is the option.

[Parkaboy]

By the end of the week this thread may have convinced the devs to remove the kerbals from Kerbal Space Program. After all, if the player is the one flying the spaceships, anything that implies otherwise is unwelcome, right?

[nholzric]

Classes and class-specific traits:

Scientists:

- The only ones able to retrieve science data from experiments;

...

Non-class specific:

- Kerbals with low courage would be prone to random panic attacks...

No random failures.

But, your other ideas got me thinking - what if spacecraft comm resources could make up for lack of crew skill. So you don't have a scientist on-board but if you have a good uplink with Kerbin and enough batteries the ground crew can walk you through cleaning and resetting this experiment. The problem with this idea is that time is generally looked down upon as a resource since the nature of the game makes timewarp necessary - so it's either no big deal or just a grind to wait an extra X minutes while the experiment gets cleaned.

In the end, I love the idea of differentiating Kerbals. Since we have a hiring building and can add and subtract crew from our craft, it doesn't make sense to leave them interchangeable. Boosts to science seem like a slam dunk - maybe boosts to reputation too. But KSP is about flying rockets so boosts to rocket performance also make sense to me.

Yeah, magic is abhorrent and I understand comments on the thread about cloaking bad features in lore. Here's my preferred lore - all those buttons and switches in the command capsule have to do something and the player can't touch any of them; it makes sense that experienced Kerbals could run a ship more efficiently and how that manifests itself is an important question, maybe it's ISP boosts, better reaction wheel management, etc. But that won't make up for a bad feature.

It's cool to see the devs being responsive to the community - go team.

[Ignath]

By the end of the week this thread may have convinced the devs to remove the kerbals from Kerbal Space Program. After all, if the player is the one flying the spaceships, anything that implies otherwise is unwelcome, right?

There really is no need for the hyperbole and drama that pour from your posts Parkaboy. The majority of the KSP community disagreed with the ability to increase ISP via Kerbal Experience and the Devs listened...no need for the woe is me drama. Kerbal Experience will still exist, it just won't be in the form of some magical improvement to engine efficiency (but maybe something more logical or realistic) which I think would be better for the game than introducing some magical ISP boost because a little green dude is sitting in a pilot seat.

[JumpsterG]

In order for Kerbals to provide meaningful buffs, there needs to be something to buff...

-Engine statistics are off the table, which I'm very happy about for reasons that have been beaten to death in this thread.

-Currency buffs are very likely to happen. Most likely, specialists will give currency boosts. Scientists will return more science points (being more thorough), engineers will return more funds (better at maintaining the reusable equipment), pilots will return more reputation (everyone wants to be that guy). These buffs are a little boring; 5% more funds/science/rep on a mission are nice gimmies, but don't radically change much. They are still a good reason to keep experienced Kerbals alive.

-Efficiency of systems (like energy generation/drain, science transmission, speed of resource extraction) remains a possible buff, though redundant. If you can just add another panel and 2 batteries, why require an electric specialist?! And you start running into the problem of different Kerbals causing different mission results despite flying the same profile (running out of battery unless you have an electrician aboard). There might be a realism issue here too (how can you make your calculator not run out of battery as fast?), but definitely not as bad as with engine stats.

-Control surface reaction speed (mentioned by Maxmaps on twitter) is possible. Would only affect flying in atmosphere, follows physics well enough (assuming the changing deflection of control surfaces is accurate in the sim), and is something a pilot could be better at (pulling on the flightstick confidently). I could buy that, though I could see being annoyed at have the controls be artificially more/less responsive based on the Kerbal pilot.

-Certification-Requirements could limit things already available to Kerbals (repairing parts, EVA thrusters, ability to use certain engines or ship systems), but I'd be careful about removing access to features and then calling it a feature. I'm not sold just yet on Kerbals being unable to press "Launch" because they haven't trained on a certain engine. It could be a fun mechanic, but I'd have to see some examples to know it would not cause gridlock or grinding. Further, Flag planting skill isn't a thing, all Kerbals need their jetpack since tethers don't exist, repairing wheels can either be done or it can't (which could be annoying), and I doubt sitting in a chair requires any knowledge.

Goofy traits could be fun to have... Bill's a Good Jumper. Bobgas is Flatulent. Lemmy wears sunglasses at night. I definitely wouldn't mind some little details to give character to Kerbals that have no direct impact on gameplay.

Autopilot has been suggested as a stock mechanic, whereby Kerbals would be better or worse at flying maneuvers based on experience (with probes perhaps using this mechanic at a baseline level). This would be cool and unobtrusive (since players can use it for convenience, to role play mission control, or manually control vessels at their leisure). This is basically a whole different feature from Kerbal Experience so it's implementation is not guaranteed.

Plenty of good suggestions going around. I'm glad I followed this discussion from the beginning.

[Parkaboy]

There really is no need for the hyperbole and drama that pour from your posts Parkaboy. The majority of the KSP community disagreed with the ability to increase ISP via Kerbal Experience and the Devs listened...no need for the woe is me drama. Kerbal Experience will still exist, it just won't be in the form of some magical improvement to engine efficiency (but maybe something more logical or realistic) which I think would be better for the game than introducing some magical ISP boost because a little green dude is sitting in a pilot seat.

It's not drama. The hyperbole is merely ment to show how the prevailing rationale here argues against a basic tenet of videogames, which is character stats. Should all Street Fighter characters have the same moves because we want only the player's skills to matter? Should all the athletes in a FIFA game have the exact same stats (and this could even be said to be a simulation game) for the same reason? I hear many people claiming it breaks the laws of physics, some implying it breaks immersion - though I'm not convinced of either. Far more importantly: it would add to the gameplay. It would give us a reason to care about the characters - an in-game reason, not something that's only in our heads. It would make us invest in our kerbals.

Instead we're probably getting bonuses to funds and reputations. So instead of becoming ace pilots, our astronauts will be cash and attention grabbers. Thanks, but no, thanks.

[tater]

Presumably players in a FIFA game have different stats like, mass, rate of turn, speed running, etc. That's the KSP equivalent of different rocket engines or SAS systems, not the pilot. Do any of those characters have the ability to break the game physics? Say, no players can FLY, except that one guy, he's really buff, so he can fly.

[sal_vager]

since the kerbal experience plan has been taken back to the lab, i think the http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97769-Opinions-on-Kerbal-Experience?p=1498270#post1498270 thread can be shut down, i dont want the temp to get too hot. plus redundancy and such. views have been put out there, and untill squad posts the plan b, theres no need to discuss plan a since plan a isnt happening

While members do not have the ability to close their own threads (thanks vBulletin /s) we do honour the requests of the original posters when they ask that a thread is closed on their behalf.

r4pt0r has asked that this thread be closed, it has more than served its purpose and the developers have listened to the community, we all do still have a voice and we can be heard, congratulations everyone, but it's now time to move on to other things.

Thank you all for your contributions